Ephesians 2:4 (KJV)
[4] But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, [5] Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) [6] And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: [7] That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. [8] For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: [9] Not of works, lest any man should boast. [10] For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
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Lately, I have been reminded again how often we as Apostolics
can become a little too much like the Pharisees and Sadducees of Jesus day. We
look at how we look and act and don’t consider the reason for us doing the
things we do. Then when someone
questions us as to why we do what we do, we consider them a heretic and look
our noses down at them. Jesus gives the Pharisees warnings and even condemns them for their lack of understanding. We would be wise to listen to these warnings. See the following:
Matthew 23:13 (KJV)
[13] But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. [14] Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation. [15] Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves. [16] Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor! [17] Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold? [18] And, Whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever sweareth by the gift that is upon it, he is guilty. [19] Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift? [20] Whoso therefore shall swear by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things thereon. [21] And whoso shall swear by the temple, sweareth by it, and by him that dwelleth therein. [22] And he that shall swear by heaven, sweareth by the throne of God, and by him that sitteth thereon. [23] Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. [24] Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. [25] Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. [26] Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. [27] Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. [28] Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. [29] Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, [30] And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. [31] Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. [32] Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. [33] Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?
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These are known as the seven woes of Jesus Christ. I will attempt to go through each woe and
provide a commentary on them
Matthew 23:13 (KJV)
[13] But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.
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1.
The scribes and the Pharisees made it too
difficult for people to be saved. They laid
heavy burdens on people and said it was a salvation issue when there was no
scripture for what they were saying the person had to do. It virtually became impossible for any man to
be saved.
The sad part is that we as Pentecostals have done much the
same thing. We say that unless we dress
a certain way or do our hair a certain way, we can’t make it to heaven. The problem is that we base this on one
Scripture and call it a salvation issue.
Those who do this, I truly believe will stand in judgment before God
one day for the heavy burdens they placed on people. Be careful what you say is a heaven or hell
issue. It better be based on the Word of
God, not your own personal conviction or preference.
It is my opinion that the United Pentecostal Church International has not seen the revival it did prior to 1960 because we made it more difficult for people to be saved without doing things that were unbiblical. These things were put in place out of fear due to the hippie movement and the advent of television. These are weights that are too heavy for people, and we put these weights on people when we should have taught people to be careful how or what they do and to do all things in moderation.
It is my opinion that the United Pentecostal Church International has not seen the revival it did prior to 1960 because we made it more difficult for people to be saved without doing things that were unbiblical. These things were put in place out of fear due to the hippie movement and the advent of television. These are weights that are too heavy for people, and we put these weights on people when we should have taught people to be careful how or what they do and to do all things in moderation.
Matthew 23:14 (KJV)
[14] Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.
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2.
The next woe Jesus mentions here is that of how
the Pharisees and Sadducees took advantage of other people, especially those
who had already lost everything, for financial gain. Here Jesus mentions that the Pharisees went
in and gained the trust and affection of those they should be helping and basically
stole from them. Here Jesus condemns the
Pharisees for their actions. The saddest
part here is that after doing this evil act of stealing from the widows, the Pharisees
try to act all spiritual by being great prayer warriors.
Instead of taking advantage of God’s children, we need to
bless and help those who are left behind after they have lost someone they have
loved. We need to be people of compassion. We need to be helping the widows and those
who have little. It is the
responsibility of the church to take care of those who cannot take care of
themselves or who are in need. We need
to be people of compassion. When we gain
an understanding of who we are and who our fellow man is in God’s sight than we
understand our responsibilities to our fellow man. Jesus instructed us to first of all love him
with all our hearts, souls and minds.
Then we are to love our neighbor as ourselves.
Matthew 23:15 (KJV)
[15] Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.
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3.
Here Jesus gives it to the Pharisees for going
out of their way to get converts, not a bad idea, but then they teach their converts to look
down at other people who are not doing what the Pharisees think they should be
doing.
We best be careful not to teach new converts things that are
not Biblical. In other words, we better
be sure that we are not teaching new converts to boast and become arrogant in
works that are not Bible based.
We need
to teach new converts on how to study the Word of God and have a relationship
with Him instead of just listening to the rhetoric that comes from an evangelist
trying to get a shout or a pastor who is so domineering that they have become
lord over God’s heritage instead of shepherd of the sheep God has given them to
protect.
Matthew 23:16 (KJV)
[16] Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor!
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4.
Jesus here warns the Pharisees of not taking an
oath based on the gold of the temple. In
other words, the Pharisees had forgotten about the Temple and the God of the
temple and began to focus on the gold of the temple and how they could get gain
based on it.
It is understandable that our churches need money to pay the
bills. The problem lies in catering to
the givers instead of ministering to everyone equally. It becomes a sad day when pastors will spend
more time with those who have given the most and less time either in prayer or
ministering to people who are struggling.
Keep in mind of something, the riches of this world pale in comparison
to the richest our heavenly father has.
Too many times we are so worried about the gift or the money that we
lose sight of the face that the giver who gives the most is Jesus and we lose out on financial
blessings because we focus on temporal and financial gain from this earth. This is why Jesus said, lay up for yourselves
treasures in heaven where moth and rust can’t corrupt.
[23] Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.
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5.
Here Jesus states that the Pharisees pick and
choose which laws to obey and which laws not to obey. They boast in that they pay their tithes to
the Lord, but refuse to show judgement, mercy and faith. It is easy to see someone put a tithing
envelope in the basket on Sunday, but harder to see how they act on
Monday.
Too often we want to talk about certain things as “holiness”
and not mention other things. A good
example of this is moderation. We always
want to talk about our “outward holiness” but we don’t like talking about
gluttony. We want to say that drinking
and doing drugs is a sin, but we fail to mention over eating. We want to talk about the importance of
tithing, but we don’t mention the importance of paying our bills on time as
well. Be careful, our actions and our
words will be judged by those outside of the church. They see us not just on Sunday but all
through the week.
Matthew 23:25 (KJV)
[25] Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.
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6.
Jesus
here instructs the Pharisees not to try
to get the outward appearance cleaned up before the inside is cleaned.
There are a couple of considerations here. First, get your heart right with God. We focus so much on our
appearance that we forget that if we are not doing it for the right reasons, we
might as well quit wasting our time. God wants us to do what He asks out of love for Him, not out of our own pride.
The
second thing to notice here is that Jesus never says not to get the outside
cleaned up. He just says get the inside
clean first.
So often we get a new
convert in the door and pray them through and then start trying to get the
outward fixed up to look like everyone else. The problem with this is that
their heart needs to have an understanding of it first. When a baby is born you don’t put a pair of
big boy underwear on them and expect them to go to the bathroom like an
adult. You have to put a diaper on them
and then change the diaper periodically.
It is a process and a maturing. There must be
understanding before a change is made.
[29] Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous,
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7.
Jesus here says that you build up the tombs of
the prophets and make statements such as, if we had been there, we would not
have done this. Yet, they will turn
around shortly and do the exact same thing to Jesus. They would not have killed the prophets of
old, but will kill Jesus.
We shouldn’t judge anyone.
It is not our place. These Pharisees
judged their forefathers for killing the prophets. When we start judging, we are placing
ourselves in a much higher place and we will be judged based on how we have
judged others Romans 1:32-2:1 explains
how we better be sure not to judge others because what we could end up doing the
same thing. It is easier not to judge
others, therefore you have not set a baseline by which we ourselves will be
judged.
We must be different from the world. It is instructed to us in God’s Word:
[14] Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? [15] And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? [16] And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. [17] Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, [18] And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.
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But the warning still remains, do it because of our
relationship with God, not out of arrogance.
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