Exposing Religious Phonies, Part 1

Today, from Chuck Swindoll on Insight for Living. You see, all of those that Jesus is condemning looked so religious. They dressed so impressively. They sounded so righteous. They came across like pious saints. But in reality, they were savages.

Because they were deceivers. Jesus showed tremendous compassion to anyone who was suffering. He was known for stepping into places that some deemed dangerous. And He was willing to help the outcasts.

He would step over cultural boundaries that many regarded controversial and risky. Yes, Jesus was kind, sympathetic and generous. That is, until He came face to face with hypocrisy. Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll is teaching from Matthew 23. In this passage, we're invited to witness Jesus responding to cunning religious counterfeits. Chuck titled today's message, Exposing Religious Phonies. In the book of the New Testament, locate chapter 23. I'll be reading for us the first 12 verses of Matthew 23. These are words of warning.

They are not easy for us to hear. Not only were they relevant in the days of Jesus, of course, but equally relevant in our day where there is so much religious fraud and so many religious phonies. Not just in pulpits, but among Christian ranks that messages like this need to be delivered on occasion just to jar us awake. Yes, they are not just meant for someone else living way back in the first century, but they're meant for people just like us who can be caught up in the very same things. You have your Bible open to Matthew 23.

I'll be reading from the New Living Translation. So practice and obey whatever they tell you, but don't follow their example, for they don't practice what they teach. They crush people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden.

Everything they do is for show. On their arms, they wear extra-wide prayer boxes with scripture verses inside, and they wear robes with extra-long tassels. And they love to sit at the head table at banquets and in the seats of honor in the synagogues. They love to receive respectful greetings as they walk in the marketplaces and to be called rabbi. Don't let anyone call you rabbi, for you have only one teacher and all of you are equal as brothers and sisters. And don't address anyone here on earth as father, for only God in heaven is your spiritual father. And don't let anyone call you teacher, for you have only one teacher, the Messiah. The greatest among you must be a servant, but those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. The message today is not something you will hear in any other place outside of church.

It isn't popular, it isn't really wanted, but it needs to be declared. You're listening to Insight for Living. To study the book of Matthew with Chuck Swindoll, be sure to download his Searching the Scripture studies by going to insightworld.org slash studies. And now the message from Chuck titled, Exposing Religious Phonies. Today I'm delivering a warning to all of us.

Please do more than hear it. Please pay attention to it and remember it. A warning is a statement of impending danger or evil. It is advice to beware. It is counsel to cease an undesirable or dangerous course of action. A warning does no good if it's ignored, shrugged off, or forgotten. Warnings are meant to be taken seriously.

This is no time for a Sunday morning snooze. This warning is ultra important because Jesus is the one who first delivered it. I'm simply a messenger.

Without him, I have nothing to say. He first gave these words regarding those who were religious phonies. If they had all ended in the first century, I would have no reason to declare the warning today. But they have proliferated over time so that now they fill pulpits. They occupy places among those called elders.

They are in Christian circles, Christian schools, Christian seminaries, Christian gatherings all around the world. Religious leaders of that day, as of this day, were deceived. Therefore, they were dangerous leaders. Leaders who deceive are dangerous because they gain a following and those who follow often realize too late the deception. What I'm saying will not be politically correct.

It will not be pleasant to your ears or easy to sit through. It may help you to know that these words represent Jesus' final sermon before the public. Following this, his public deliveries were over.

This was it. This is his last sermon and it's a scorcher. Here's how one trustworthy expositor describes this sermon, referring to the whole of Matthew 23. Jesus' words fly from his lips like claps of thunder and spears of lightning.

Out of his mouth on this occasion came the most fearful and dreadful statements that Jesus uttered on earth, close quote. In proof of that, in the latter part of his penetrating delivery, Jesus repeats the condemning vocative to all of his listeners, Woe to you! Woe to you! Woe to you! Woe to you!

Seven consecutive times you count them beginning at verse 13. When you read it in the message, it's you're hopeless. You're hopeless.

You're hopeless. Strong, strong words, I repeat. He calls those he is exposing, and I quote, hypocrites, sons of hell, blind guides, fools, robbers, filthy vessels full of greed, self-indulgence, and all sorts of impurity, whitewashed tombs, snakes, vipers, persecutors, and murderers. Still quoting, outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness.

As I said at the beginning, these warnings are serious. Perhaps it will help you to listen a little better if you'll think of these people as religious terrorists. You never know they're terrorists till the explosion, till there's suddenly a death or a series of deaths, and then you realize he was a terrorist. You see, religious phonies don't walk around telling you that that's what they are.

As a matter of fact, most often you're very impressed by the externals. They make sure of that. They're good at that. You see, all of those Jesus is condemning looked so religious. They dressed so impressively. They sounded so righteous. They came across like pious saints, but in reality they were savages because they were deceivers. Admittedly, some were absolutely sincere, but down deep inside when the lights went out and the crowds left, and their heads dropped into their pillows, and they searched their souls if they were ever able to do that, they realized they were hypocrites. They told you one thing and they lived another way.

They were deceivers. Now with your Bible open to Matthew 23, please observe that before Jesus begins his message, we read that he was in front of crowds and his disciples. See it in verse 1? Always check the context when you turn to a chapter of the Bible.

This, like every other chapter, has a context. Jesus is standing among a crowd of unnamed people, as well as among those who were his disciples. His faithful followers. The crowds would be the general public, the followers, you know. Those who cared enough to have set aside their plans in order to walk in his steps. So there's a little different agenda for the two groups. Verses 1 through 7, literally verses 2 through 7, are for the crowds, and I suggest verses 8 through 12 would be for the disciples.

Let's look at them a little more carefully. First, to the surprise of many who have heard my warnings to begin with, there were some things they were to practice and obey that came from the Pharisees. Look, verse 2, the scribes and the Pharisees, that is the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees, who by the way don't miss it, really knew their scriptures. They really knew the Old Testament. They'd spent their lives studying the scriptures, the law of Moses, the Psalms, the prophets. So he says the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees are the official interpreters of the law of Moses.

Everything right about that? God drilled his law with his finger into stone, and Moses took that law and gave it to the people. The people gave it then to the prophets. The prophets passed it along ultimately to people like scribes and Pharisees, the official religious leaders who were to take the scriptures and declare them.

Everything right about that? I do that every Sunday of my life. Every time I get a chance, I open the scriptures and I interpret the scriptures. Everything good about it, and certainly the scriptures are good. So he says of them, it's worth your time to hear what they are telling you, to understand and obey the teachings of Moses. That's what verse three, as it begins, is all about. Practice, he says, practice and obey whatever they tell you.

But that's a big contrast. You can hear the brake screech verbally, but don't follow their example. They may deliver the truth from their lips, as Moses has stated, but they live a lie. They say one thing, but they live another way. In fact, if I were to divide their, the reason for not following them, I would find three, three of them.

Look closely. Verse three says, they don't practice what they teach, so there was a lack of integrity. If I teach one thing and then I go out and live another way, I'm a hypocrite.

I'm a phony. I may speak it well, but I don't live it well. And he says, because they do that, don't follow them. They don't practice what they teach.

Teaching is good. Their living is poor. Don't follow their example. So they lack integrity. They're consummate hypocrites.

There's a second. Look at verse four. And you who have lived under legalistic teaching won't have any problem understanding this. They crush people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden. Look at those words. Their words are crushing in that they add to what Moses has written, and they make the words a burden so they lack sympathy. They don't help you live the life that God tells us where to live.

The responsibility of a faithful teacher is not only to declare what God has said, but practically speaking to help people put it in the shoe leather, to help people carry it out, to identify with the pains and the groans of life, and to assist people as they struggle to do what God has written, and to identify with the struggle. They didn't do that. They laid the heavies on you, and you had to produce. And if you didn't, they judged you. So there's a lack of sympathy. Third, and don't miss this, verse five. Everything they do is for show.

The way the New Living Translation reads, I like. They're show-offs. They're show-offs. What they do, they do to be seen. So there's a lack of humility.

Did you get the three? A lack of integrity. They don't carry out what they teach. A lack of sympathy.

They burden you with the requirements, the dos and don'ts. And third, there's a lack of humility. Whatever they do, they do to be seen. They're dripping with self-importance and conceit. We would say they paraded their piety. They glorified themselves, appearing to be holy men of God, looking like they were glorifying God, when in fact they were glorifying themselves. If you read further into the verses five, six, and seven, you will see that everything they wore, every place they sat, every word they prayed, every act they did, every title they were called, was designed to glorify themselves. And, oh my, they love titles. They love to be called rabbi, reverend, doctor.

They love those titles. By the way, before I go any further, it may not have yet dawned on you, Jesus had a lot of courage to say this because some of those people were standing right in front of him. You know, we're pretty good at saying these things behind people's backs. Jesus is good at saying them to their fronts, to their faces. Think of what that must have been like. No one criticized scribes and Pharisees until Jesus came along.

Nobody. And my, when he did it, he made up for loss of time. He certainly did. In fact, I mentioned the word doctor a moment ago.

You'll find this interesting as I did. The Latin equivalent of rabbi comes from docere, d-o-c-e-r-e, long e. The word doctor is derived from docere. In Jesus' day, the title rabbi carried the exalted idea, and I quote, Supreme One, Excellency, Most Knowledgeable One, Great One. They loved that title, rabbi. Nothing wrong with being called rabbi if that was your responsibility, but they loved it because of what that represented.

I read one case in my research. One rabbi insisted that he should be buried in white garments when he died because he wanted the world to know how worthy he was to appear before the presence of God. Well, isn't that nice? Dress me in white because the world needs to know how worthy I am to appear before God. No shame.

No. Their religion, let me put it in a sentence, their religion was an outrageous display of over-the-top ostentation, just over-the-top ostentation. It's an apt description of the Pharisee's lifestyle.

Everything called attention to themselves and how they love the limelight. You see, when you think through this enough, you realize this isn't a message for someone else. This is to you and me, which is why he speaks to his disciples very carefully, his followers. That's what we are.

Hopefully, we're followers of Jesus. And he says to us, don't let anyone call you rabbi. That's the idea. In other words, let me put it this way, shun pretentious titles. Shun pretentious titles.

Don't let anyone do that. For you have only one teacher and you're all equal as brothers and sisters. Would all of us remember that?

There is no status. There is no rank in the Christian life. I find it quite refreshing to see how Jesus dealt with religious phonies.

He had very little space for pretentious behavior. You're listening to the Bible teaching of Chuck Swindoll and he titled this message, Exposing Religious Phonies. There's much more to cover on this topic, so please keep listening when Insight for Living continues to feature this brand new study through Matthew's Gospel. And to learn more about Chuck and this ministry, please visit us online at insightworld.org. In recent days, you've heard us describe a compelling book from pastor and author Vody Bockham called Fault Lines.

Well, today is my last occasion to mention how to receive a copy. Fault Lines comes highly recommended by Chuck. It's written for anyone who truly wants to understand how to engage in compassionate conversations about justice from a biblical perspective. God is the author of unity and Christ is the ultimate human expression of justice.

Addressing this topic in light of God's changeless character will help you embrace justice as the Bible defines it. Again, this book is called Fault Lines and you'll find all the details for purchasing a copy at insight.org slash offer or call us. If you're listening in the United States, call 800-772-8888. Let me close our week together by sending a big thank you to all those who financially support Insight for Living. Your generosity is truly making a difference in our pursuit of an audacious God-sized dream and that is to bring Chuck's Bible teaching to all 195 countries of the world.

We refer to this mission as Vision 195. To join the team and give a donation right now, call us. If you're listening in the United States, call 800-772-8888 or give online at insight.org. And then as we enter into the weekend, remember that you're invited to join us online for the Sunday morning worship service at Stonebriar Community Church. In addition to hearing Chuck Swindoll's sermon, you'll also participate in the congregational singing.

You'll find all the instructions for streaming the live worship service at insight.org slash sundays. In March 2022, Insight for Living Ministries is hosting an unforgettable journey to Israel. Carefully plan to deepen your understanding of the Bible and draw you closer to God.

Chuck Swindoll. For thousands of years, no place has been more meaningful to God's children than the land of Israel. The rugged landscape reminds us to find refuge in God alone. The fertile valleys invite us to follow our shepherd. Jerusalem's position at the very center of the world announces the good news of Christ to every nation. And now you can see Israel with Chuck Swindoll and Insight for Living Ministries March 6 through 17, 2022. Every time I visited the Holy Land, I've returned home with a refreshed heart for God and a renewed vision for the world.

Really, I mean it every time. And so I want you to have the same life-changing experience. To learn more, go to insight.org slash events or call this number 1-888-447-0444. Insight for Living Ministries Tour to Israel is paid for and made possible by only those who choose to attend. Now for Dave Spiker, I'm Wayne Shepherd inviting you to join us again Monday when Chuck Swindoll continues his message about exposing religious phonies on Insight for Living. The preceding message, Exposing Religious Phonies, was copyrighted in 2017 and 2021. And the sound recording was copyrighted in 2021 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.