Matt. 23.
THE scribes and Pharisees were very particular about paying tithes “of mint and anise and cummin,” but they “omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith.” Now, it was all right for them to pay a tenth of these small things, according to the law. But “judgment, mercy and faith” were far more important, and they were inculcated in the law, as well as paying tithes of the little things; and Jesus tells them they ought to have heeded the great things, and not omit the smaller things either. When they devoured widows’ houses they were not observing judgment and mercy. They strained at a gnat and swallowed a camel. It was fearful inconsistency.
In paying tithes of the little things, they were making clean “the outside of the cup and platter,” but within they were “full of extortion and excess.” And Jesus tells them to cleanse the inside that the outside might be clean also. If the heart was cleansed, the life would be clean also.
Then Jesus also tells them that they were “like whited sepulchers,” “beautiful” on the outside, but “within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.” The hypocritical scribes and Pharisees outwardly appeared to men to be righteous, but Jesus knew their hearts, if men did not; and He declared that within they were “full of hypocrisy and iniquity.” Oh, what an awful condition! Like a sepulcher full of loathsome corruption and uncleanness! This is what hypocrisy is in the sight of God.
But Jesus pursues these wretched hypocrites further still with woes. He tells them they built the tombs of the prophets, and garnished the sepulchers of the righteous, and said, if they had been in the days of their fathers, they would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. In this they were witnesses that they were the children of those who killed the prophets; and Jesus knew they were ready to do just what their fathers had done, and worse too, for they were already seeking to destroy the Son of God. All their pretension was only wicked hypocrisy, and He calls on them to fill up the measure of their fathers. He declares them “serpents, a generation of vipers,” and asks them how they can escape “the damnation of hell.”
Moreover, He tells them they would do just what they had said they would not have done had they lived in the days of their fathers. After being Himself crucified and slain, He was going to send them prophets, and wise men, and scribes, and some they would kill and crucify; and some they would scourge in their synagogues, and persecute from city to city. Thus they would crown the wickedness of their fathers, and as the moral inheritors of their fathers’ sins, all the righteous blood that ever had been shed on earth would come upon them, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom they had slain between the temple and the altar.
Upon this wicked generation, or race, of Jews, all this fearful judgment would come. It did come upon the nation soon after, and will still come upon the nation until repentance is wrought at the end.
And a far more terrible punishment still awaits the hypocrite and every impenitent sinner—the judgment of the great White Throne. That will be eternal judgment in the lake of fire. Oh! how terrible,
Dear young reader, perhaps you would not like to be classed with these hypocrites Jesus denounced. But let me ask, Have you accepted Jesus? You are either for Him or against Him. If you have not accepted Him, you are against Him. Oh! if you would escape the hypocrite’s hell, do not pretend to be, good and yet reject Jesus; but own your need of Him and accept Him as your Saviour.
ML 09/27/1903