Scribes & Pharisees—Love to be Seen of Men

He is pronouncing a very serious judgment. He’s in effect saying, your day is coming, stand by. That’s in effect what he’s saying. It’s very, very serious. And so the Lord spends most of the chapter pointing at the scribes and the Pharisees. And he really doesn’t, you know, as we’ve looked in chapter 22, we saw his conversation with the Pharisees and the scribes. We saw it also with the Herodians about the tax, remember? And then we saw it with the Sadducees. There was a conversation in chapter 22 with the Sadducees.

But the most brutal message that the Lord has was not for the Herodians, not for those that supported Herod, the corrupt officials. The most brutal message that the Lord had was not for the Sadducees, those who held false doctrine. That was not the group that he reserved his most pointed invective. It wasn’t toward those. The Lord reserved his most pointed message for those that believed right. Think about that.

He reserved his most strict and hard-nosed message for those who held the right doctrine, who believed the Bible. Now that should just give us, that should just cause us to have a little bit of a pause. Because we like to think, as a church, now I’m speaking to our church, as a church we like to think that we are people who believe the Bible. We’re unashamed of that fact. We’re unashamed of that. We like to believe that we believe the Bible and I think we do believe the Bible.

And we want not only to believe the Bible but we want to live by the text of God’s Word. And we’re serious about that. I mean, I’m serious about it and I know you’re serious about that. It’s not just fun and games for us. This is our Savior, our Lord. We’re gonna meet him. We’re serious about that. But in that same vein, really, this message is for us. Now we might have a tendency, and we could read this passage in Matthew 23, and we could see scribes and Pharisees, and we know the word Pharisee, what that implies in our society. Someone’s a Pharisee, you know, it’s self-righteous person. One who looks down on others, one who is hypocrite.

And we could look at these Pharisees and we could say, oh well, let’s talk about them. But we can’t do that. We cannot fall into that trap. We cannot fall into the trap of being the Pharisee by looking down on the Pharisee. That’s not how the Scripture is supposed to be used. Now when we read this, we should read this with taking the warning to ourselves. Because we like the Pharisees and the scribes.

That was a group, those were people who did take the Bible seriously. They believed it, unlike the Sadducees. And they lived lives that were, you know, morally at least on the surface, the form, you know, in a way that was upright. But that’s who the Lord is talking to. So we would do well not to look at the Pharisees and talk about what they were doing, how they were, but to look at them that we see in this chapter, and then to look at ourselves.

Because here’s the thing, one of the big dangers, among the biggest of dangers, for people and Christians and churches that do take God’s Word seriously and do want to live by it, and do believe it, one of the biggest dangers is to slip into the way of thinking of the Pharisees. That’s how they got here. You know, the Pharisees were the group that descended from the likes of Ezra, who was a man who loved God with all of his heart in the Old Testament, after the captivity of Israel.

And so, I just want to encourage you to, when we read these things, and we read about the Pharisees, I don’t want us to think about, well that’s talking about them. It’s talking about us and the tendency that every one of us can have. And so, let’s pray, and then we will start back in verse number one. Father, as we come to you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we pray for your grace and your help. We pray for the power of the Spirit of God as we look in your Word, that Lord, you are the one who knows the hearts and the motives of every man and every woman. Lord, you know what are the intentions.

And Lord, you’re able to speak to each person through your Word. And Lord, we pray that you would help us to have a humble heart towards your Word as we look at these things. That we would see the Scriptures plainly and take the words of our Savior very seriously, Lord. And Lord, we would grow from it. We would profit. We would draw closer to you through these things.

So Lord, guide me as I try to teach your Word and preach it, and I pray you would help each person that’s listening, Lord, to listen with tenderness as well, in Jesus’ name. Amen. Now in this chapter, the Lord gives, just kind of as an outline of a little bit of a predictor here, the Lord gives eight woes throughout this chapter. We’re not even going to get to the first one, which starts in chapter verse 13, but there’s eight woes in this chapter that the Lord pronounces on the scribes and the Pharisees. But we’re going to start in verse number one. The Bible says, then Jesus, then spake Jesus to the multitude and to his disciples, saying, the scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. Now who was Moses?

Now Moses was back, way back, you go way back in history, Moses was the spiritual and civil leader of the children of Israel. Now we know in the civil sense, Israel is at this moment under the thumb of Rome, so they don’t really have a lot of civil power, but they do still retain spiritual power. So Rome has allowed them, as we’ve already seen the last few weeks, Rome has allowed them a measure of independence within the Roman Empire.

And so the nation of Israel is allowed to conduct their religious service and all that, you know, with a measure of independence. And so when the Bible says in verse two that the scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat, it’s referring to the fact that they are occupying the place of spiritual leadership in Israel that Moses had. Just like throughout Israel’s history, you had Moses and then you had Joshua, and then there are various judges that came through, and then you had Dave, supposed to be Saul, Samuel, David, and then it went down through with the spiritual leaders. And then once they went to the captivity, then it was, they returned with Ezra and Nehemiah and Zerubbabel and these guys, and now that line of spiritual leaders is now resting upon, for good or for ill, upon the scribes and Pharisees. They sit in Moses’ seat.

They hold his spiritual authority. Now notice what verse three says though, all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe that observe and do but do not ye after their works for they say and do not. Now this reminds us of an important principle. If we are, listen, if you’re a believer, if you’re a believer, you are a person who to some degree or another lives under spiritual leadership. Okay? You live under spiritual leadership, and there’s multiple layers of spiritual leadership.

Now often we think of spiritual leadership as just like the pastor, but that’s not all the spiritual leadership is. If you’re a husband and you have a spouse, you’re married, for the wife, the spiritual, the primary and most important spiritual leader that the wife has is her husband. If you have children, the most important and primary spiritual leaders of your children are the parents, mom and dad, both of them.

In a church setting, you have spiritual leaders in the church, whether they occupy an office or not, there are people who are set forth as examples in our church, people we look to and people who we trust in as far as being that example and being that spiritual leader. And it goes from there. If you have a class of some kind, you’re a spiritual leader over that class. Well that’s what the scribes and Pharisees were, but there’s a dynamic with spiritual leadership that you have to recognize. We have to recognize which is this. Jesus says to them, yes, the scribes and the Pharisees for all of their bad, they sit in the place and occupy the office of a spiritual leader in your life. Here’s what he says. Now listen, do what they say, not what they do. Isn’t it odd that the Lord said, do what they say at all, given the fact that they were extremely poor examples of spiritual leaders?

Yet the Lord did not say, oh well they’re a bad example, just ignore what they say. No, no, no, he didn’t say that. He says, do what they say, not what they do. You see, the scribes and the Pharisees did not provide a good example. They did not exercise spiritual leadership that was good. It was bad because spiritual leadership, it’s most, listen now, I’m talking to everyone who occupies some level of spiritual leadership.

The first and most important principle for you in your place of spiritual leadership, whatever that place is, is you are the example of your, for those under your care. It’s not what you say that matters, but what you do. You’re supposed to set the pattern that people under your care will emulate. So it’s not about whether you preach good, whether you preach well, it’s whether you live well.

And that is the very thing that the scribes and Pharisees were missing. They were bad spiritual leaders. But the Lord said, what they say you still need to do. Do you know why? Because the Lord did not want people who were under their spiritual leadership to think, look at these people, because of them I’m not going to do what the Lord tells me to do. Now listen, every one of us that’s in some capacity of spiritual leadership, whether your leader lives up to the standard or not, each one of us still has an obligation to obey the Lord and his word. Whether the leader does it or not, that’s what the Lord is saying here. He’s not giving them the, he’s not giving them an out to just cast off what the Lord says. No, he says, no, you do the things because they were teaching some, they were teaching things that were right. They just weren’t living the things that, the things they were teaching. They were, they were not obeying their own rules. They were not keeping the word of God that they proclaimed.

So though a leader does not do what he tells you to do, you should still do what the Lord says to do. It’s that simple. If you’re a wife, your husband might not be a good example, but you still must obey the Lord, even if he doesn’t obey the Lord. You know, if you’re a child and you have parents in your life, you still must follow the Lord and obey the Lord, whether your parents provide that spiritual leadership example or not. That’s what we see here. You can’t use other people’s failure as an excuse for our own.

The Bible says, so then every one of us will give account to himself, to God. No excuses, no excuses, but I’ll speak to the leaders, to those who are in places of spiritual leadership. It’s easy for me, it’s easy for me to say to those who are the followers, if you will, and say, you still got to do the right, do right, right? You still got to obey the Lord, and I give the leaders a pass. Oh no, actually to the contrary.

The Bible says those in spiritual leadership will have greater condemnation. So I speak to those who have spiritual leadership as a husband, or as a teacher, or as a parent, or whatever the case might be, or as a in a church setting, as a deacon, as a pastor. I say this, you had better do as you say, because if you don’t, you are casting a stumbling block.

I am casting a stumbling block before those who I am supposed to be leading, and that is my fault. Right? This is what it means to be a spiritual leader. It’s right here. Verse three, all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do, but do not ye after their works. And this is the key, this is, if you if you memorize one part of this verse is this, for they say and do not, don’t be that guy, don’t be that girl, don’t be the one who says and preaches a loud message but doesn’t do it yourself.

The most important part of your leadership is your example. It is your example. Verse four, look what it says, for they bind heavy burdens, this is speaking of the scribes and pharisees, and grieve us to be born, and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. See what the scribes and pharisees, they did believe the Bible, they did believe the law of God, and they accepted it is true, but what they did in addition to that is in their traditions is they added lots and lots of rules and regulations about what they could do and what they couldn’t do.

And for instance, you know all concerning the Sabbath as an example, in the Sabbath laws the Jews were only allowed only forbidden from working on this the seventh day, that was it. And they added something where you could not travel. Well that the Bible didn’t say that, the text of scripture never says that, but they actually had a limit like a certain a certain measurement you were allowed to travel outside of your home.

It was called a Sabbath day’s journey, that is nowhere found in the Bible. And this was one of literally hundreds of rules, hundreds of rules, and all of those rules and regulations, now hear me now, that were not in the Bible, they were not in the text of scripture, created a great burden upon the people. And I want to say something, the Lord Jesus had, he felt compassionate on those people because they were bearing a heavy burden of man’s commandments. Listen, the Lord never laid on them, and yet they were carrying it.

It says in verse number four, they bind heavy burdens and grieve us to be born and lay them on men’s shoulders. First John five verse three says this, you know this, I’m sure you’ve heard this verse, for this is the love of God that we keep his commandments. Listen to this, and his commandments are not grievous. Here in verse four, all of these commandments of the scribes and Pharisees that they piled on top of people and required them to do were grievous, they were heavy, and they were not what God told them to do.

They were commandments of men, and many and repeatedly, I’m going to show you some examples in just a minute, repeatedly in the Bible, in scripture, the Lord warns us and tells us to beware of the commandments of men. Let me show you a few examples. Look first at Deuteronomy chapter 12, Deuteronomy chapter 12.

This goes way back to when God gave the commandments to begin with. Deuteronomy 12 verse number 32. Deuteronomy 12 verse 32, what things soever I command you, God speaking, what things soever I command you, observe to do it, Thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it. You see this? Adding commandments that do not originate with God, commandments of men, the Lord expressly forbids it. Do not add to it. And so what we’ve done, what we, that is the broadest way speaking, what we have done is we’ve taken the commandments of men and we’ve kind of implied their commandments of God, but that actually violates this verse. The Lord says, I’ve said everything I want to say, you don’t need to add to it. Look if you would, into the New Testament in Matthew chapter 15.

Matthew 15, Matthew 15, verse number 9. Matthew 15 verse 9 says this, but in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines, what does it say? The commandments of men. You know the Lord is actually talking about the scribes and Pharisees right here. All right, look forward a little bit further in the New Testament at Colossians chapter 2. Colossians chapter 2.

Colossians 2 verse number 22. Colossians 2 verse 21. Starting verse 21 says this, touch not. Now the apostle Paul here is kind of like quoting what others would say. He says touch not, taste not, handle not, which all are to perish with the using after the commandments and doctrines of men. Commandments and doctrines of men. The last one I want you to see is in Titus chapter 1.

Titus chapter 1. Titus chapter 1 verse number 14. Says this, not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men that turn from the truth. Here we have, and there’s others we could cite as well, here we have four very clear examples when the Lord warns us against, or tells us to beware of the commandments of men. That tells us one thing, it tells us that first we got to beware of the commandments of men, but we can’t do that unless we know what the commandments of God actually are.

Right? How do you know what the commandments of men and the commandments of God are? How do you differentiate them unless you know what the commandments of God are? But the Lord is warning us and there is a very negative, there’s a bad effect upon teaching and enforcing man’s commandments as equal to God’s commandments. I want to shoot straight with you. Religion is full of this. Religion of all sorts, whatever the denomination, and I’m speaking primarily of the Christian religion in the broad sense, it is absolutely full to the brim with people adding things to scripture. The commandments of men.

And it has detrimental and negative effects upon the common person who’s just trying to listen and just wants to follow the Lord. It really does. Because what it does is the commandments of men blurs the line between what is a duty before the Lord and what is not. You know what that is? That’s a mechanism of control and that is exactly what the Pharisees were doing. By adding these commandments to the commandments of God, what they were doing and then kind of implying or blurring the line between the two.

And by the way, you don’t see the Apostle Paul doing that, right? You see him when he goes, like in 1st Corinthians, you see an example where he actually stops and says, this is a commandment of God, this is my judgment. You’ve seen that in scripture? You know what he’s doing? He’s not blurring the line. That’s exactly what he’s doing. And that’s important to do. Because when you blur that line and you make people think, well this is basically kind of like a commandment of God when it’s actually not.

Is you lay duties and burdens upon them that God has not laid upon them. And sometimes that can actually turn people away from God and from his commandments. Because it’s not even God’s commandment at all. And they respond to that thinking it’s God’s and it’s not.

This has happened so, so many times in people’s lives. And it provides an opportunity to control people by implying that what you’re telling them is what God said when God didn’t really say it. And listen, there are skeptics of Christ, skeptics of the Bible, skeptics of Christianity who claim that very thing. That listen, all the churches and all the clergy, that all they’re out to do is control people.

That is exactly what they say. And they use the Bible to do it. And a lot of that, there’s an element of truth. Using the Bible, blurring the lines between the commandment of men and the commandments of God. You see, here’s the thing. The Lord says here, beware of the commandments of men because the Lord wants, listen, he doesn’t want anything. Listen, as a child of God, this is so important.

The Lord doesn’t want anything, nothing at all, between you and his word. No, nothing inserted between. And that is exactly what the scribes and Pharisees were doing. They took all of their tradition, the commandments of men, and inserted them between the people and God’s word. Right? Well, you have to have them to understand God’s word. You have to have them to know what laws to obey. They inserted themselves between God’s word and God’s people. And God, listen, God does not want that in your life. He wants you as an individual to know what he says in the Bible. Not through the filter of the preacher, but with your own two eyeballs so that you know whether it’s a commandment of men or it is a commandment of God, whether it is truly what God said or not. Listen, there are so many people that are risking their very soul, heaven and hell, their eternity is hanging on the words of men. Do you know that?

They’re very soul. They have no idea what God says in Scripture. When you die and you go to heaven, you don’t go to the heaven of such and such church. You go to the heaven that belongs to God. And if you, listen, if you do not go by the way that he prescribes in his word, you aren’t going. He is the Lord of heaven and earth. He is the one that determines who goes and who doesn’t.

You and I had better know from him how to get there, not what a bunch of guys said. Because if you’re trusting in what men or religions have said and you do not, you’ve never researched from the Bible how you can be forgiven, how you can have eternal life, how you can go to heaven. Listen, you are risking your very soul on the words of a bunch of guys like you.

That’s dangerous. And the Lord says, listen, beware of the commandments of men. You think, do you really think people in the, in religions, do you really think that they would manipulate people in that way? Yes. They’ve been doing it for hundreds and hundreds of years. My point is this, if you have never seen from the text of scripture what the Bible says about how you have eternal life, what the Bible says about what you must do to be saved, what the Bible says about how that you can be forgiven of your sin, if you’ve never seen it with your own eyes and know yourself that the Bible says it, I would encourage you don’t take that risk anymore.

Because you’ll find that not every, not every religion that’s peddling the gospel is going to tell you exactly what the text of scripture says. See, the text of scripture, God’s word, the Bible, it usurps, it overrules, it vetoes everybody else.

But the Pharisees were peddling their traditions. Let me say to you as a believer, if men require something of you and say you got to do this or you’re, you’re sinning, if they’re going to say that to you, you should be able to ask, where does God say I must do this? Where does the Bible say that the Lord wants me to do this or not do that?

And if it can’t be found in God’s word, you’re not obligated to it. It’s that simple. That means we must know the Bible ourselves. There should be no, I put in my notes, an ecclesiastical buffer, right? This go between, no, no, you find out yourself. Now I know there are people that say, you know, where does the Bible say I can’t smoke meth? Yeah, I get it. And the Bible must be taken and honestly handled and then honestly applied, right?

And you can do that. And you’ll come to some great conclusions and God will lead you and God will show you what his will is. And so there is dishonest use of the Bible in that way. But you can’t do that. You can’t do that. You can’t do that. You can’t do that. And so there is dishonest use of the Bible in that way. But you should, listen, as a believer, you should be able to ask the question, where does the Bible say I have to do that?

You say I can’t do this? You say I got to do that? Where does the Bible say that? You find it in scripture. This is what it means to be a Bible Christian.

And then there’s the other extreme. The other extreme is if a person doesn’t agree with me, then it must be because they’re just following a commandment of men, right? It’s just a way to, oh, they’re just a Pharisee. Again, it goes back to the Bible. It goes back to God’s Word. Now, if you would look at Matthew 23 and verse number five, but all their works, speaking of the scribes and Pharisees now, but all their works they do for to be seen of men. That’s another phrase that you should note, maybe underline if you underline in your Bible. All their works they do for to be seen of men. Now, look at all the things they do that are listed, that the reason that they did the things I’m going to read here is so that men would notice them. They make broad their phylacteries and enlarge the borders of their garments and love the uppermost rooms at the feast at feasts and love the chief seats in the synagogue and love the greetings in the markets and love to be called of men, rabbi, rabbi.

All those things they did, they did to be seen of men. Now we talk about, you read that, you read about phylacteries. This is the only instance of the word phylactery in the Bible. It talks about verse number five, enlarging the borders of their garments. I’m going to summarize this for you. A phylactery that orthodox Jews still use to this day, what it is, is a little leather box that’s tied to, that’s attached to straps and what they do is they tie the straps in a certain way around their head with the box right here and then they tie another one around their left arm with the box right here. You say why? Inside the box are four portions of Exodus and Deuteronomy written in a particular way and put inside the little box. The little boxes are like that big and they wear these and it’s supposed to be an answer. It’s supposed to be they’re doing it, they’re wearing the phylacteries. Again, this is a thing that they do this today. They’re supposed to be doing it because of a text in Deuteronomy that says that you’re supposed to wear God’s word as a sign, as frontlets between your eyes and upon your hands. That’s what it says and what they’ve done is they’ve taken that literally instead of in the figurative sense because it says as, it’s a comparison but they’ve taken it literally, says no you actually have to literally wear these things.

So what the Pharisees would do is they would make and the other thing was the fringes and they still do this too, the fringes and on the clothing of the Jews the Lord said he wanted them to have fringes or borders on their clothing and that idea was, the idea was both for the phylactery and for the border was to remind them of God’s word that they should keep it. So they wouldn’t forget and you know that’s good because I know I forget to obey the Lord sometimes. How many times do we see in scripture where the Lord says I’m putting you in remembrance? It’s because we forget and so the Lord said do these things and help you remember but they lost all that.

The Pharisees and the scribes would wear the phylacteries bigger and bigger and the fringes bigger and bigger because it no longer was about remembering the Lord. What they did is they gutted the whole thing. They gutted the whole core and essence to what God was saying so that it could be a visual cue to others that they were really spiritual to be seen of men because they saw those big phylacteries and they saw those big borders on their garments and they thought now that guy he is really the real deal. He is the right look how big that fringe is. I’ve never seen a phylactery that big. That’s exactly what he wanted but what is he missing? He’s missing the substance. He’s got the look but he’s missing the substance because he’s trying to be seen of men.

What has happened is his focus has shifted from God which is to remember God’s word. He’s not doing it for the commandments. That was the whole purpose and now he’s doing it for men’s eyes.

You see these things were supposed to be done to help the wearer remember the words of the Lord so that they would keep them before them always but the scribes and Pharisees had taken a good thing that was intended for the wearer and turned it into a way to visually boast.

Originally it was just supposed to be something between them and God. What I want you to see about this and we’ll move on is this. This focus is one characteristic of the scribes and Pharisees that was completely wrong. Their focus was not on God and his word. Their focus was on men. I’ll tell you something the Lord wants our focus as those that follow him. He wants our attention to be upon him as we live, as we serve. He wants our attention to be focused on him. Not on what people see but on him. And again there’s an extreme here. Does that mean we should be reckless? We should have a reckless disregard for how others perceive us or how our actions affect others? Well no and if again if we stick to the scripture we’ll be okay.

Right? But our primary focus, our first thought not ought to be well I hope they think I’m spiritual when I come to church or I put my money in the offering box or I serve God or whatever I do or when I pray. No, our first thought ought to be toward God and God alone.

Notice verse number seven. I’m almost finished. They love the greetings in the markets. The scribes and Pharisees and to be called of men rabbi rabbi. This is the attention they when they walk somewhere into a market into a public place they wanted people to notice them and see them and and sing their praises and they wanted people to use titles for them. In other words they wanted others to think think of them more highly than everyone else around them. These are just these are just aspects of the of the scribes and Pharisees. Now in verse number eight through verse 12 the Lord takes that opportunity that rabbi rabbi thing and he pivots and now he’s talking directly to his disciples and we’ve heard these things before but verse eight says this, but be not ye disciples called rabbi for one is your master even Christ and all ye are brethren and call no man your father upon the earth for one is your father which is in heaven neither be ye called masters for one is your master even Christ.

It says in verse number nine call no man your father upon the earth that’s that’s very clear. Well we’re talking about a spiritual father. I know we have one of those God the father.

You see what the Lord is talking about here. He’s addressing church hierarchy. That’s what he’s talking about church hierarchy. He is expressly telling us not to use high titles with one another among the disciples. Remember all the disciples they were all of the apostles right and has that not become a title itself but all of them he was saying listen don’t call any man rabbi rabbi don’t call any man don’t call any man master don’t call any man father you know in this day the Jews would call the religious leaders father they would they would use the word Abba which means father.

That sounds familiar does it not? They still do that to this day and Jesus says what are you doing? You see the Lord did not want his disciples to develop this kind of hierarchy you see by these titles they would get a claim from men and it created this hierarchy. Those who had the titles were revered and expected reverence from others and then you had all the people and so you had a situation we had we had all the regular people and this is exactly what we have today you have all the regular people and then you have the then you have the clergy. Listen that is foreign to the New Testament that is not that is not the way a church is supposed to be run because when you when you have that situation it is we have this idea that the preacher is somehow in this special place and he he is has a special connection with God and the laity think well I need him no you don’t. What you need is you need the spirit of God in you and he is your teacher.

You see the Lord condemns this kind of hierarchy in his church in his church. He says plainly, he says plainly Christ is the only rabbi he’s the only master and he’s the only Lord and therefore if he is the only one then what are all of we even people that are in offices of spiritual leadership which are biblical even those people are just brothers that’s it and in fact the fact that we use those terms is really a term of the office it’s not just the church it’s the church the fact that we use those terms is really a term of the office it’s not even of the man that is all if you call it listen I know some some of you don’t feel comfortable calling me calling me brother but if you call me brother you wouldn’t offend me once if you call me by my first name you don’t offend me that’s what I am literally nothing more I am your brother in Christ that’s all this is what Christ says we are all on equal footing and this is not only for me and for every spiritual leader to keep us attached to the ground to make sure that we understand that we are under the same rules and guidelines as everyone else and we are accountable to everyone else but it’s also for everyone every one of you so that you know who your leaders are and what the expectations are and that you are also a servant of God and that you are also someone who lives for God and glorifies God there is no division church clergy but this is exactly what the scribes and Pharisees wanted to do they expected it you better call them by the right name now as we go through there’s a lot more we’re going to get to not today but we’re going to get to a lot more as we go through these things listen we got to pay close attention to these characteristics of the Pharisees lest some of those creep in to our lives because we’re all we’re all in danger of that let’s pray