Turn with me to Matthew 23. Matthew 23. We're going to continue
on in our study through Matthew, but I'm going to go out of order
on these verses. I feel led to say something on
the first four verses for our message in just a moment. But
I feel led to say something on the verses following for this
Bible study right now. So we're going to go out of order
today. I want us to see something. I
want us to learn something if we've never seen this before.
As we get into this, we will realize that our Lord is exposing
false religion in this chapter, in Matthew 23. That's what he's
doing. He is exposing false religion. And let's begin reading in verse
one and read down through the text here, okay? Matthew 23,
verse one, it says, Then spake Jesus to the multitude and to
his disciples, saying, the scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses'
seat, the law. All therein whatsoever they bid
you observe, that observe and do. But do not ye after their
works, for they say and do not. For they bind heavy burdens and
grievous to be born and lay them on men's shoulders, but they
themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. But
all their works they do for to be seen of men. They make broad
their phylacteries and enlarge the borders of their garments.
and love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats
in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets, and to be called
of men Rabbi, Rabbi. But be not ye 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. But he that is greatest
among you shall be your servant, and whosoever shall exalt himself
shall be abased, and he that shall humble himself shall be
exalted. Now we're going to see in a moment
what our Lord has to say about obeying the law. What I'd like
for us to see in this Bible study is how much law-breaking goes
on in religion. That's what I'd like for us to
see. How much law-breaking goes on in religion, false religion. False religion, the way that
you can tell that a religion is a false religion is the religion
will be based on works, man's works. If the Lord will give
us an ear to really hear what someone is saying, people all
the time sit in pews and listen to a man standing behind a pulpit,
but they don't really hear what he's saying. They assume if the
man's in the pulpit, everything's probably fine. And they're not
really listening to what he's saying. But if the Lord will
give us ears to hear what a man is saying, we will discern whether
the man is speaking of the works of Christ or the works of men. You will hear it come out of
his mouth. He will either be preaching and teaching the works
of Christ or the works of men. He'll either be talking about
what Christ has done or what man needs to do. It's going to
be one or the other. If a man is going to preach truth,
he has to preach Christ, what Christ has done. Anything other
than Christ, what Christ has done is a lie. Anything other
than Christ, anything other than the work of Christ and the word
of Christ and the glory of Christ and the righteousness of Christ
and the salvation of Christ is a lie. It is a false religion. A false religion consists of,
think about this. A false religion consists of
the Word of Man, not the Word of God. The Word of Man, the
work of man, the glory of man, the righteousness of man, the
salvation of man. That's a false religion. That's
a false religion. Anything that promotes man or
exalts man or glorifies man in any way, shape or form, that
is a false religion. Anything that attempts to make
the flesh of man look good and appealing before God, that is
a false religion. False religion, it spends all
of its time trying to make men and women look good. Our Lord
plainly said that in verse 5. Look right here at Matthew 23
verse 5. He said, but all their works
they do for to be seen of men. Our Lord said in false religion,
everything that men and women are doing in false religion,
they are doing it to be seen of men and women. Now, they will
try to convince themselves that they're doing it to be seen of
God. But God says they are not. Whatever
God says is so. The Lord said they're doing it
to be seen of men. And because of that, all through
this chapter here in Matthew 23, our Lord referred to them
as hypocrites. That's what he called them. They
were portraying one thing to people on the outside, but he
could look on the inside. He could see that they were totally
different on the inside. What they were on the inside,
that was their truth, but they're portraying a lot of people. And
our Lord called them out on it right here. Look at verse 25,
Matthew 23, verse 25. Our Lord said, woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites. For you make clean the outside
of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion
and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse
first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside
of them may be clean also. Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites, for you are like unto whited sepulchers, whitewashed
graves, graves painted white, Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites, you're like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed
appear beautiful outward, but are within, those graves on the
inside are full of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness. Even so, you also outwardly appear
righteous unto men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and
iniquity. That is false religion. Unfortunately,
that is everywhere still to this day. There is much false religion
in this world. There is much false religion
in this city. Much. We can see that by what
our Lord said right here. Look back at verse five. He said, but all their works
they do for to be seen of men They make broad their phylacteries
and enlarge the borders of their garments. In the law of Moses,
the Jews were told to keep the word of God in the front of their
minds and in their hearts. Keep the word of God in the front
of your mind and in your heart. So they had these little leather
boxes that they would strap to their head. And they would strap them to
their left arm, which they believed was closest to the heart. And
they were called phylacteries. These little boxes were called
phylacteries. And they would put scriptures
in these boxes for them to memorize. Being right here was a reminder.
I need to pull it out, read it, and memorize it again. And when
they had these on, it said to everybody, I'm religious. I'm doing the work." They were
also told in the law to sew a blue ribbon on the fringe of their
garments as a reminder of all the commandments of God. To remember
the commandments, to do them, they had this little blue ribbon
you'd sew to the fringe, the bottom of your garment. So as
it is with man, In his self-righteousness, in his pride, they all started
trying to outdo each other. That's what man does. Men will
come down to the front and pray and it becomes a competition
of who can stay there the longest. This is what man does. And they
started trying to outdo each other, you know, competing with
each other on who's the holiest and who's the most devout and
who's the most godly. And they did that by making their
boxes bigger and bigger. They started wearing these boxes,
huge boxes. Man, look at how many scriptures
he's working on. The fringe on their garments,
it just started getting longer and longer and longer. Man, he
really remembers the commandments of God. You see how big that
fringe is? Now, what I'm about to say is
offensive to the natural flesh, but this is so. Anything that
we wear that says to people, I'm religious. I remember the commandments of
God. I'm wearing a verse of scripture in order to memorize it and to
promote it. When we wear things that make
that statement to people, number one, we are exhibiting a false
religion. I know this is so foreign. I
know it's so foreign. But when we do that, we are exhibiting
a false religion. And number two, according to
the word of our Lord, we are only doing it to be seen of men. We are not doing it for the glory
of God. Somebody says, well, yes, I am
not according to God. And whatever God says, that's
the way it is. We are doing it for the glory
of ourselves, religious T-shirts. I cannot tell you how many flyers
we get in our mailbox for me to order for the congregation
personalized religious T-shirts, religious bumper stickers, crosses, fish. If you see a man at Walmart wearing
a black shirt with a big white collar, you are seeing a man
who is making broad his phylacteries. According to our Lord, that is
a false religion hypocrite." Is this too hard? Is our Lord being too hard? The
answer is no. No, the glory of God is at stake. Turn with me to Matthew 6. Matthew 6, verse 1, it says,
that you do not your alms before men to be seen of them, your
giving. Otherwise you have no reward
of your father, which is in heaven. Therefore, when thou doest thine
alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites
do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory
of men. Verily I say unto you, they have
their reward." You know, passing the plate is not a biblical thing. At some point, somebody decided,
I want people to see how much money I'm putting in that plate.
Pass it down in front of everybody. Verse 3, but when thou doest
alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth, that
thine alms may be in secret, and thy father which seeth in
secret himself shall reward thee openly. He said, don't do these
things to be seen of men. So much so, he said, don't even
let yourself see you do it. Verse 5, and when thou prayest,
thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are, for they love to pray standing
in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets that they
may be seen of men. They love to sit down in restaurants
and gather around flagpoles and things of that nature. A brother
told me one time that he was sitting in a restaurant eating,
and a man came in and sat down at his own table with his food,
and he started praying in regular volume, as loud as his regular
volume would let him go. Out loud, just praying, and he
gave everybody the long version. And when it was over, different
people started getting up from the tables, going over and patting
him on the back, saying, thank you for doing that. Verse five, when thou prayest,
thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are. They love to pray standing
in the synagogues and the corners of the streets that they may
be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, they have
their reward. But when thou prayest, enter
into thy closet. And when thou hast shut the door,
don't just get in the closet, shut the door. Pray to thy father
which is in secret, and thy father which seeth in secret shall reward
thee openly. False religion is all about the
praise of man. That's what it is. The true gospel
is all about the praise of Jesus Christ. Bear with me back to
Matthew 23. Verse five says, but all their
works they do for to be seen of men. They make broad their
phylacteries and enlarge the borders of their garments and
love the uppermost rooms at feasts and the chief seats in the synagogues
and greetings in the markets and to be called of men, rabbi,
rabbi. That word means my master. My
great one, honorable one, that's what it means. Verse eight, our
Lord said, but be not ye called rabbi, for one is your master,
even Christ, and all ye are brethren. One is your great one, one is
your honorable one, Jesus Christ. All honor, glory, and praise
goes to him. And he said, you're all brethren.
Verse nine, and call no man your father upon the earth. He's not
talking about dad. He's talking about Catholic priests
or any other false religion that takes that term and steals it
from God in his glory and tries to give it to a sinful man. Verse nine, call no man your
father upon the earth for one is your father, which is in heaven.
Psalm 111 verse 9 tells us that the only man who deserves to
be called reverend is Jesus Christ. Only one man deserves that title.
Holy and reverend is his name, the name of God, the name of
Jesus Christ. We don't call any sinful man
reverend. Verse 10, neither be ye called masters For one is
your master, even Christ." People go back to college so they can
get a degree that says they are now a master of divinity or a
doctor of divinity. No. People want to be called by these
big, long titles. You know, we're so glad to have
the reverend doctor, you know, whatever, whatever. Verse 11, but he that is greatest
among you shall be your servant. The only title that our Lord
said was acceptable right here, nobody wants it. The only title
that the Lord said, this is acceptable right here, nobody wants it.
Everybody here is welcome to call me Gabe. You can just call
me Gabe. A lot of times people will ask
me, I don't know what to call you, what should I call you?
Gabe. Like the Apostle Paul said, Paul, just call me Gabe. Sometimes
in your terms of endearment, you call me brother. Sometimes you call me pastor. I wasn't going to tell this,
but we have a brother who's not here today, so I'm going to tell
it. I told him years ago, I said, you can call me Gabe because
he always called me pastor. And so he tried it a little while.
And he came to me and he said, I've tried it. I've tried to
call you Gabe, but he said, I just love you too much. And I respect
the position you've been called to. He said, would it be okay
if I just called you pastor? And I said, absolutely. That's
fine. You know, it's heartwarming,
but you can just call me Gabe. You're welcome to call me Gabe. The one thing I don't get much
is servant. I don't think I've ever passed
any of you in the hallway and heard, how you doing today, servant? Well, I'm fine, Prince with God,
how are you? People don't like that term, you know, that's too
demeaning, that's too low, too degrading. I tell you who did
like it, our brother Paul. Paul, a servant, called to be
an apostle. I'm a servant. James and Jude
were the earthly speaking brothers of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jude opened his epistle by saying,
I am the brother of James, I am the servant of Jesus Christ. God the Father said, behold,
my servant. We're going to hear about him
in just a minute because of him, because of who he is and what
he did. That term servant is very endearing
to all of God's people. As he is for his sake, all of
God's people want to be just like him as he humbled himself
for his obedient work of the cross. All of God's people have
a desire to humble themselves. We humble ourselves. for whatever service we may do
for our Lord, not that we can do anything for Him, but we have
a desire too, don't we? Verse 12, it says, and whosoever
shall exalt himself shall be abased, and he that shall humble
himself shall be exalted. I pray that God will teach us
to, in everything that we do, See to it that the glory for
it goes to Jesus Christ. Whatever it is we're doing, may
all the glory go to Jesus Christ. May it be clear that the glory
belongs to Jesus Christ. Lord, let me not do these things
to be seen of men. Nobody needs to take this to
heart as much as I do, as I stand right here and do what I'm doing.
Let me not do these things to be seen of men. May it be your
way, your glory, your honor. Amen. All right, you're dismissed.