“Woe, Woe, Woe - Part 2 – Luke 11:37-55”
Gladstone Baptist Church – 12/11/06 am
S1 - We love to condemn the Pharisees. OOPS
I lived in Tasmania for 3 years before coming to Gladstone and I loved our time there. I’d go back any time. But you know what I’ve noticed … we love to pick on Tasmanians. Now I did too when I was living there. I’ve got a Tasmanian Joke for you …
A Tasmanian walks into a hardware store and asks for a chain saw that will cut 6 trees in one hour. The salesman recommends the top of the line model. The Tasmanian is suitably impressed, and buys it.
The next day he brings it back and says, "This chainsaw is defective. It would only cut down 1 tree and it took ALL DAY!"
The salesman takes the chain saw, starts it up to see what’s wrong, and the Tasmanian says, "What’s that noise?"
We love to pick on Tasmanians don’t we. Actually, there are many different groups we love to pick on. Blondes … Irishmen … Politicians … Footballers … Boilermakers. The list could go on and on. In Christian circles, though, the group we love to pick on are the Pharisees. They were the group that Jesus seemed to always be giving a hard time.
But the truth is, that there is a bit of a Pharisee in all of us. This is what we saw last week anyway when we read about how Jesus expressed some deep regrets about how the Pharisees were living and responding to Him.
Jesus was there – a light shining for all to see. His miracles were proof that he was God’s Son. His ultimate miracle – the resurrection could leave no doubt. His words were also proof that he was God’s anointed one. His light, His witness, was greater than Jonah and greater than Solomon, But still people somehow were blind to it. They couldn’t or they wouldn’t see who he was. They couldn’t or wouldn’t hear his teaching. Some people basically point blank refused to obey Him.
And last week, we saw that the Pharisees were in the firing line of Jesus. They were blind to it and He dressed them down over 3 areas of behaviour. “Woe, Woe, Woe” he said as he noted 3 areas of their lives that he was disappointed in. What were their three failings …
1) They majored on the minor things. Tithing was the example given by Jesus. They were so consumed about not cheating God, that they neglected to care for others around them. They didn’t have love, they didn’t show justice. Some of us are like that. We have hobby horse issues that we are consumed by. They are important, but often they distract us from what is the major thing for us – to care for those around us.
2) They sought fame and public applause. They were proud people – just like many of us here. Jesus would have preferred they sought his glory, than their own and he challenged them to live lives of humility.
3) They hindered people from approaching God. People looked at them and were turned off God. People in our church today, I fear are doing more to hinder non-believers coming to Christ than they are to bring people to Christ.
I said last week that there is a little bit of Pharisee in each of us. I can relate to a lot of this and I’m sure most of you can too. So when we pick on the Pharisees, we are really picking on ourselves.
S2 – The Scribes claimed they weren’t Pharisees, but Jesus still said Woe, Woe, Woe. (vs 45) UGH
“Hang on a minute. Speak for yourself.” Some of you are saying. “I am not a Pharisee – I don’t major on the minor things, I don’t have an issue with pride and I don’t believe I hinder people from coming to God. I resent the implication that you are making about me.” I hear some of you whisper that under your breath.
Some of you are thinking this way right now – I know. You have been quick to label some of your brothers & sisters sitting beside you today as Pharisees. But you are not willing to take that label on for yourself.
You know, this is exactly what the Scribes said who were gathered around. Open up your bibles to Luke 11:37-55. We have two groups of people in this passage. First there are the Pharisees who we talked about last week. The Pharisees were a religious sect. They were a subset of the Jewish religion. Not dominant in terms of number, but definitely very vocal and sometimes quite powerful in the Jewish leadership. They were very vocal about what how things should be done. They were sticklers for the rules.
If I had to compare the Pharisees to anyone, I’d compare them to some who are ultra conservative and legalistic in our churches today. They don’t necessarily have their own denomination or church – they are in the mainstream church, but are very vocal and see things only as black and white.
The scribes, however, were slightly different. They were more like paid professionals. Their job was to study the law (Torah and Talmud) and to interpret it so that everyone could understand. It. They were much like the teachers or preachers in our churches today.
So with this distinction in mind, let’s read Luke 11:37-55
37 When Jesus had finished speaking, a Pharisee invited him to eat with him; so he went in and reclined at the table. 38 But the Pharisee, noticing that Jesus did not first wash before the meal, was surprised.
39 Then the Lord said to him, “Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. 40 You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? 41 But give what is inside the dish to the poor, and everything will be clean for you.
42 “Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.
43 “Woe to you Pharisees, because you love the most important seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces.
44 “Woe to you, because you are like unmarked graves, which men walk over without knowing it.”
45 One of the experts in the law answered him, “Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us also.”
After Jesus had been dressing down the Pharisees, a scribe addressed Him and said – “Surely you mean them and not us. I know the Pharisees have faults and these are definitely three of the big ones. But surely Jesus, you don’t mean to include us scribes with them. Because I feel offended.” And Jesus turned to them and we read this …
46 Jesus replied, “And you experts in the law, woe to you, [Jesus turns and expresses 3 more woes peculiar to the Scribes – they are disappointments to Him also. He says woe to you …] because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them.
47 “Woe to you, because you build tombs for the prophets, and it was your forefathers who killed them. 48 So you testify that you approve of what your forefathers did; they killed the prophets, and you build their tombs. 49 Because of this, God in his wisdom said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and others they will persecute.’ 50 Therefore this generation will be held responsible for the blood of all the prophets that has been shed since the beginning of the world, 51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, this generation will be held responsible for it all.
52 “Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering.”
53 When Jesus left there, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law began to oppose him fiercely and to besiege him with questions, 54 waiting to catch him in something he might say.
Some of you are sitting here today thinking “I’m not a Pharisee” And you may not be, but in thinking this, I will bet my bottom dollar that you are either a Pharisee in denial or a self righteous Scribe. Because I think there is a bit of these guys in pretty well all of us. These are the 3 things Jesus said were disappointing about the Scribes …
S3 - The Scribes disappointed Jesus in 3 ways which are also common pitfalls for us today …
WOE 1 - They burdened people with unrealistic demands (vs 46) AHA / WHEE
Firstly, they were placing heavy burdens on people. It wasn’t just the Pharisees that were sticklers for the rules, The scribes were too – they were experts in the law – the Torah or what we’d call the Old Testament. Their whole job was to interpret the law and over the centuries, they had accumulated so much material that helped them interpret the law. This was typically handed down orally from generation to generation. There was a vast amount of information.
Actually, around 70 AD, when the temple of Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, the Jews decided they ought to write down all of these interpretations and traditions and so they did and this became what they now call the Talmud. Now we all know the size of the Bible – a fairly decent book. But the Talmud, which was the scribe’s interpretation and understanding of how it was to be applied takes up 24 volumes. This is it here - volumes and volumes of additional commentaries and writings which tried to explain what the Bible meant for every day life. The extra-biblical demands laid down by the scribes were a burden.
Last week we talked about the practice of tithing and the incredibly pedantic levels the Pharisees went to in order to give 10% back to God. But you have to realise that many of these requirements were put in place by the Scribes. The scribes expected that all Jews obey the rules written down in
- the Bible – This was just the Old Testament as we know it and was called the Torah.,
- and the oral traditions which later became the Talmud.
Actually, they believed that the Oral Tradition was actually even more important than the Bible because the Oral tradition was supposed to be clearer and easier to understand – even if it was in 24 volumes!!! Yeah right!!! The scribes had lots of regulations, but as we read here, they weren’t willing to help out others. More often they would seek to find loop holes for themselves to escape the demands of the laws and as experts in the law – the scribes knew them all. vs 46 … woe to you,because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them.
I had a friend who when he was younger was always getting speeding tickets, but knew all the loop holes and would always go to court and get off. He thought it was a big joke really. Others would feel burdened by such fines and struggle to pay them, but because he knew the loop holes in the laws, he didn’t have a care in the world. While others endeavoured to avoid speeding and not get caught, he couldn’t care less if he got caught because he knew he could get out of it. That is a little bit like what the Scribes were like.
Here is just one example of what was happening. On the Sabbath you were not allowed to carry a burden in your ‘right hand or in your left hand, in your bosom or on your shoulder’. But for the scribes and others in the know, there were some loop holes. You could carry it ’on the back of your hands, or with your feet or with your mouth or elbows, or in your ear or your hair, or in your wallet if it was upside down, or between his wallet and his shirt, or in the hem of his shirt, or in his shoe or in his sandal’ (Shabbath 10:3). If you knew all these loop holes, you could basically do whatever you wanted to.
Jesus was bemoaning the fact that the Scribes were burdening the people with unrealistic demands. The people were frustrated, despondent, crushed, without joy, because they were constantly being criticised. The scribes constantly were saying – don’t do this; don’t do that; don’t stand that way; don’t carry this;… But worse, the scribes themselves were escaping the burdens they were placing on others through the loop holes.
How do you feel when you are constantly criticised? Deflated, undervalued … you feel like just giving up don’t you.
In our church, there are people like these scribes – you may be one of them. You know God’s requirements – very well indeed and you want to impose these demands on every other believer. The problem is this … imagine you are a new Christian – a spiritual babe? Can you realistically take in, understand and live out in obedience all the demands of scripture. No of course not. We who have been Christians for years and years and years aren’t even close to doing everything that God demands of us.
A baby Christian brings with them a whole heap of baggage that needs to be shed bit by bit. They have habits that can’t easily be broken. They have a worldview that can’t easily be changed. We are not called to be God’s policemen running around and fining people everytime they break God’s law. We are called to be brothers and sisters who walk the journey with them and help them make changes as God illuminates areas for change. He will, because he has this bright light that is shining in on their lives. The light of his witness and his call to obedience will be far more effective in bringing change than anything you or I could do.
We are all at different levels of maturity and all struggle with different issues. Allow God to dictate the rate of change in a person’s life – don’t be like the scribes with all their great list of rules. Give each other grace and recognise that God is at work. We all should be walking around with signs on “Please be patient with me, God is still working on my.”
WOE 2 - They rejected the messenger because they didn’t like the message. (vs 47-51) AHA / WHEE
The second concern Jesus had was the scribes were hypocrites. They pretended to mourn the deaths of God’s prophets, but by their actions they were actually just like their forefathers who led the campaign to kill the prophets. They were building great big tombs and memorials for them, but weren’t listening and obeying their teachings. If they were, they would have been walking with God, they would have been loving, kind, merciful and just. They would have been caring for the poor and fatherless.
47 “Woe to you, because you build tombs for the prophets, and it was your forefathers who killed them. 48 So you testify that you approve of what your forefathers did; they killed the prophets, and you build their tombs.
Sometimes when I see big memorials in grave yards, I admit, I wonder whether the people who erected the tomb stone really loved the person who died, or whether they felt guilty for something and were trying to appease their guilty conscience. Often at funerals, the people who are most distraught or upset are those who didn’t have a good relationship with the person who died. They try to make up for it at the funeral.
The scribes were like this. They didn’t love the prophets and their teaching. In fact, they didn’t love the prophets that God was sending to them in their day and age. They didn’t like John the Baptist. They ended up killing Jesus. They didn’t like their message and so they rejected the messenger.
What are you like when you hear one of God’s prophets speaking. Oh yes, we still have prophets now. A prophet is first and foremost a person who speaks forth God’s word. He speaks for God. You thought I was going to say that a prophet was a person who told the future didn’t you. Many people make that mistake. Some prophets did foretell the future, but their primary role was always to speak God’s word to the generation they were sent to. Preachers and Teachers in many respects take on that role today, though maybe its your small group leader – speaking God’s word. Are you hearing it? Are you obeying it? Or are you like scribes, seeking to undermine their ministry, critical of the message and secretly wishing that somehow you could get rid of them. God’s true prophets are speaking for God himself and we need to listen to them and learn because often God uses his people to help shine the light on areas of our lives that need changing. So don’t become defensive or aggressive. Listen to God’s word as spoken through his prophets and obey them.
WOE 3 – They Turned simple things into complex mysteries. (vs 52) AHA / WHEE
The last concern that Jesus had about the Scribes was that they turned simple things into complex mysteries.
52 “Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering.”
You see, to the average Joe Jew, the Bible was confusing. Let’s face it, many of them would not be able to read any way and their level of education was no where near the level that you and I would have today so it was difficult for many of them to get a clear grasp on the Bible’s teachings. So they relied upon the Scribes – the so called experts to help them understand it. But in doing this, the Scribes had actually made it more complex. The Talmud – while it’s goal was to simplify, often it’s effect was to complicate.
The Gospel is simple. It is all about love. God loved us – he created us to have a relationship with us. But we rebelled and walked away from God. Our choices meant that we could never be accepted by God because He is perfect and we weren’t. God loved us still though – despite our sin. He didn’t want us to be punished for our sin and to face an eternal death. So he sent his Son to die for us – to die in our place – to pay the penalty for our sin, so that we could be forgiven and be restored in fellowship with God.
It is so simple isn’t it, yet why do we complicate it. With laws. With standards. With dos and don’ts. With issues such as predestination or free choice; pre-tribulation or post-tribulation theories; charismatic or pentacostal beliefs; once saved always saved or the chance to fall away; so many secondary issues that often the gospel gets shoved to the side.
For a new Christian, it becomes confusing – so many denominations, so many different things to get your head around. How many of us are guilty of making the gospel more complex than it needs to be. It is simple and understandable by the youngest of children, yet we make it more complex than it has to be.
The Scribes wouldn’t let Joe Jew read and interpret the Bible for themselves. The key to salvation was hidden and kept out of their reach. It was believed that it could only be understood properly by the educated but unfortunately the educated tried to analyse it so much that they became confused.
The Gospel is simple – God loved the world so much that he sent his Son Jesus Christ to die for us so that who ever believes in Him wouldn’t perish, but have eternal life.
If you can’t explain how a person becomes a Christian in 1 or 2 sentences, then you are likely to be like the scribe – making it more complex than it is. Allow God to show you his truth. Work to recapture the gospel’s simplicity. Listen to his teachings and share the wonderful truths of his gospel with everyone – young and old, the smart and those not so smart.
S4 - In our lives we have a choice of whether to obey or to rebel. The Scribes & Pharisees chose to reject and rebel. They saw and heard, but had closed their eyes and ears to the truth and they refused to obey. Instead they sought to oppose and destroy. Let us not be like the Pharisees & Scribes here who disappointed God. Lets be people who God can bless. - YEAH
As we stand in the light of Jesus’ witness, we have to be struck by the testimony of his words and his works. He is God’s Son and he wants to come and transform our lives. But we can choose whether we open our eyes up to his light or not. The Pharisees & Scribes chose to close their eyes to God’s revelation. They rejected God’s way and ultimately rejected His Son. They saw and heard, but chose not to obey.
And the upshot was that they openly sought to oppose God’s work.
53 When Jesus left there, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law began to oppose him fiercely and to besiege him with questions, 54 waiting to catch him in something he might say.
The fact of the matter is that if you are not seeing, hearing and obeying, then you are opposing and hindering God’s work. You are either for Him or against Him. The Pharisees chose to be against Him.
Many here this morning will be able to relate to either the Pharisees or the scribes. There is a little bit of Pharisee and Scribe in all of us.
Some of us are prone to major on the minors.
Some of us are prone to seek fame and applause for ourselves.
Some of us are prone to be more of a hindrance than a help for people seeking God.
Some of us expect others to live up to unrealistic standards.
Some of us reject the messengers God sends because we’re convicted by the message
Some of us have complicated the gospel message or made it secondary to a hobby horse issue.
We also have a choice today what we do with the reality of Jesus’ words and works. We can reject them and oppose Him as the Pharisees and Scribes did. Or we could see his brilliant witness and hear it and allow it to transform our lives. God wants us to obey him for to do this is to become like Him. Let’s not be a disappointment to God, but let us be people who are committed to be obeyers and thus blessed by God.
