Matthew, chapter 23. There's
actually three sections I will probably try to cover in this
chapter. The first part is where we're going to focus our attention
today, the first twelve verses. And in those verses, what we
see is the exposure of false religion, especially those who
practice, who preach and teach it. And then the second part
is the condemnation of those who teach and practice false
religion. That's the second part of Matthew
23. And the third part, at the end,
we see the lament of the Lord Jesus Christ over Jerusalem. So those are the three sections
in this chapter, and I don't think it's of any coincidence
at all that this chapter follows what we went over last week,
which was the question Jesus asked the Pharisees and the scribes
and all the men who were there, he asked them, what do you think
of Christ? Whose son is he? The question
itself begs our own honest answer. And here what we find is these
men wouldn't answer, they couldn't answer, they didn't understand,
but their lack of understanding wasn't just because they hadn't
heard the truth, it was because they refused the truth they heard.
And so, in Matthew 23, what we find is that the Lord Jesus exposes
their hypocrisy. He exposes the hypocrisy and
how much he hates false religion. And that is because, and it follows
naturally from those who, when they were asked, what think ye
of Christ, they couldn't give an answer. If you recall, in
that chapter, what we went through there, everything in that chapter
pointed us to the Lord Jesus Christ. And so it was very fitting
that at the very end of that chapter, the question should
be raised to us, what do you think of the Lord Jesus Christ?
Whose son is he? And now we face chapter 23, and
as I first read this chapter, it's a very negative chapter. It's constantly, the Lord Jesus
here does something that I don't think he does nearly to this
extent anywhere else in the New Testament, except perhaps in
the book of Revelation. He heaps up condemnation after
condemnation on false religion. If you think about how the Lord
Jesus taught and preached throughout his ministry, I think that you
would find that he himself was sent to seek and to save the
lost sheep of the house of Israel. Remember? Those were his own
words. I came to seek and to save that which was lost. But
in the process of teaching and preaching to those who were his
sheep, there were a lot of people who heard him, perhaps most who
heard him, who were not his people. And yet he taught and preached
to them also. And they rejected his word and
rejected him. They hated him. They looked for
ways to try to destroy him. And so it became apparent over
time that they were the enemies of Christ. And so that's what
we see here in this chapter. And so we're going to look at
that. The Lord in this chapter shows
us why the judgment that will shortly come on the Jews actually
came. If you go on to read in Matthew,
you'll come to Matthew 24 where Jesus predicts the end of the
Jewish religion. He predicts the end of the temple. He predicts the end of the city
of Jerusalem. And he predicts the end of that
nation by which they were entrusted as a people. The Israelites were
entrusted with the scriptures. In Romans chapter 3, the Apostle
Paul says, what advantage then hath a Jew, or what profit is
there of circumcision? And he answers it this way, much
every way, because unto them were committed the oracles of
God. But even though the oracles of
God were committed to them, like it says in Hebrews chapter 4,
the gospel was preached to them, but it was not mixed with faith
in them that heard. And so, over time, after God's
long suffering with that nation, long suffering with that nation,
finally in Revelation 11.8, it's revealed that God viewed that
nation as Egypt and Sodom. Religiously, spiritually, they
were as Egypt and Sodom. And you know what happened to
Egypt. God destroyed them in those ten plagues. He destroyed
them in order to bring his people out. And you know what happened
to Sodom and Gomorrah. And yet, God compares Jerusalem,
the very city which was the center of all worship, outward worship,
in the kingdom of the nation of Israel. And yet, at that time,
because at this time, the Lord Jesus is predicting the end of
that, the end of their city. Their city would be destroyed.
The gospel would be taken from them as we read in Matthew 22. It would be given to a nation
that would bring forth the fruits. And that nation to whom the gospel
would be given is the spiritual nation. The nation that Peter
spoke of in 1 Peter 2. He says, you are a holy nation.
A chosen generation, a holy nation, and that's the church of Jesus
Christ. There's never been a time in history when the gospel was
not given to the church. But there was a time in history
when the church was associated externally with the nation of
Israel. And now at this time in history and until the end
of time, it will always be associated with God's people throughout
the world. And so that's something we see
here. We see why this judgment came
so severely on this nation because of what we're going to read here
in Matthew 23. But even though the Lord is going
to, He predicts and will eventually destroy these people, He leaves
there a remnant. Even though the nation is going
to be destroyed, at least from the standpoint of carrying on
the external religion, there is still a remnant in that nation.
And so Paul says in Romans 11 that God has always had a remnant not only in that nation, but
throughout the world. What does it say in Revelation
chapter 5? Thou hast redeemed us by thy
blood out of every kindred, tongue, people, and nation. And that's
the truth of the gospel. That's the mystery that was revealed
in the time of the apostles, that God's church was not comprised
of the people in one nation only, but in every nation throughout
the world. So there's always been a remnant,
and thank God for that remnant. Because when you read this chapter,
and the next chapter, and when you read all of the warnings
of scripture against false religion, it should have a couple of reactions
on us. like all of God's Word does.
The first reaction it should have on us is the same reaction
that the disciples experienced when Jesus told the twelve while
they were gathered there at the Last Supper. He says, one of
you is going to betray me. And remember what they said the
reaction was? It's not going to be me. Not me. No, that wasn't
their reaction. It was actually the opposite.
They said, Lord, is it I? Is it me?" And so you find that
same reaction from the disciples. The Pharisees had a different
reaction. Remember when the blind man was healed in John chapter
9? The Pharisees came to Jesus and they said, are we blind also? sarcastically, they asked the
question. They were like Judas. When Judas said, Lord is it I?
He didn't really mean it. And so did the Pharisees. They
said, are we blind also? And Jesus told them something
very profound. He said, if you were blind, you
should have no sin. But because you say, we see,
Therefore, your sin remains. So when we look at these chapters,
especially in Matthew 23, the first reaction we should not
have is, it's not me. Our reaction is to fall on our
face and say, Lord, is it I? Because that's what God's law
does to us. It drives us to our knees looking
for a refuge and finding that refuge in Christ. Just like we
saw in Matthew 22 and every other chapter we've gone over in the
book of Matthew. So those are the things I would
say at the outset. And the second thing is that
not only should we be thankful, but we should be especially thankful.
Because Jesus said later in Matthew 24, if those days were not shortened
for the elect's sake, they shall be shortened. But if they were
not shortened, no flesh should be saved, but they will be shortened
for their sake. And even if it were possible, he says, I can't remember exactly the
words. Let me look it up in Mark chapter 13. I wasn't going to
refer to this scripture, but the important point here is that
we should be thankful, should fall on our knees, that the Lord
would preserve His people, even in this time of judgment upon
the false religions of this world and upon our own sake. But look
here in Mark chapter 13 verse 21. It says, "...except the Lord
had shortened those days, no flesh should be saved, but for
the elect's sake, whom He hath chosen, He hath shortened the
days." So God is going to save His people. And that's the mercy.
Think about that when we go through this. Think about the horror
of being under the judgment of God for our sin and unbelief. And then think about the wonder
that even now we look to Christ in our heart. We find that faith
that is that precious faith that only God can give us to look
to Christ and find in Him our all. And so we see these things
in this chapter at the outset. We should not seek to justify
ourselves. When we see the warnings against
hypocrisy, the first thing we want to think is, I want to find
myself not being a hypocrite, so we deny that we're hypocrites.
But the fact of the matter is that the first thing God teaches
us is He convinces us of our guilt before Him. And then He
convinces us that we have no way in ourselves to undo our
problem. We have no way out. God has to
save us entirely by the Lord Jesus Christ. So let's read this
chapter together a little at a time. Look at verse 1 of Matthew
23. Then spake Jesus to the multitude
and to his disciples, saying, The scribes and the Pharisees
sit in Moses' seat." To sit in Moses' seat means to make yourself
a lawgiver and a judge. That's what they liked. They
liked that position. They liked lording it over others. He says
in verse three, all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe,
that observe and do, but do not ye after their works, for they
say and do not. Paul said in Romans chapter 7,
the law is holy, just, and good. I find in me this propensity
that whenever I would do good, evil is present with me. Constant
warfare. And so he says, by that very
thing, I'm admitting that the law is good. The law is good.
There's nothing wrong with the requirements of God. God's law
is holy. That's not the problem. The problem
is that the law by itself can't make me righteous. It can't give
me life. It can't conform me to Christ's
image. The law can't do any of those
things that are required of me and that I want to have done.
Only the Spirit of God can do that. And He does that through
the preaching of His gospel, through the faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ. And that's the way He works.
He gives us that faith. But Jesus says, whatever they
say from God's Word, do that, but don't practice what they
do. Because they say, but they do not. That's the very definition
of a hypocrite. To say and do not. So, verse
4. He says, "...for they bind heavy
burdens, grievous to be born, and then lay them on men's shoulders. But they themselves will not
move them with one of their fingers." The first thing we see here in
this chapter is that the Lord Jesus Christ is teaching and
warning against false teachers. If you look at all of the the books of the Bible. All of
God's preachers do this. Paul did it. John the Apostle
did it. Peter did it. Jude did it. James
did it. They all did it. They all warned
against false teachers. And I could take you to lots
of verses on that, but I won't take time to do that. I'll leave
that to you. But the second thing is that not only does He warn
against false teachers and preachers, but He expects us to try the
spirits. Every man, every woman, we're
all responsible to discern and judge whether a teacher or a
preacher or a church is actually teaching the gospel from the
Word of God. That's what we're given to do.
And how do we do that? We take what Christ has said,
we take what he said and we use that as our guide. Remember what
he told the Pharisees? You search the scriptures, for
in them you think you have eternal life, but they are they which
testify of me. And so, every child of God knows
this as the very anchor of their soul. What we have, what we know
is true about the Word of God has to ultimately come down to
the Lord Jesus Christ. Has to come down to what God
thinks of Him. How, what He's done for His people. How He has saved them and how
He is God and how He reigns and how He's going to fulfill His
will in every area of our lives and ultimately at the end bring
us to Himself. All those things. So we must
try the spirits. That's the second thing. And
then, the other thing you see here in this chapter is perhaps
dominant throughout, is this notion of what God hates. It
seems that the Lord Jesus Christ hates this more than anything,
and that is self-righteous hypocrisy. self-righteous hypocrisy. And
nothing seems to be worse, but we see it here in the very outset
here when he says, this is what they do. They say, but they do
not. They bind, they love to, there's
this thing that we do naturally. We all do it. When God's word
comes to us, we react to it just like Adam and Eve did. Remember
they hid when God's Word came to them? How can we not hide?
Without a covering, we have to hide. But men, they hide behind
a lot of different things. They sear their conscience. One
of the things they do to hide is they take the very Word of
God. Because these men had the Scriptures. In that day, they
had the Scriptures. They had the true Bible. And
they had the names of God. They were saying a lot of things
right. But what they did is they used
those things as a mechanism to hide behind them. Because they
made themselves judges of the law and givers of the law. They made up rules and they judged
people like them. They would like to hold other
people accountable to their rules and claim that they were good
by God. That they were okay with God.
And so that made themselves have an edge on the people. natural
man is full of himself, and he's full of himself and without Christ,
and he's empty in himself. And so no natural man will own
his own condition. That's the way we are by nature. We turn away from the witness
of God against ourselves. We can't face it. And so fig
leaves of self-righteousness is what we try to cover ourselves
in, just like Adam and Eve. When our conscience is uncovered
by God's Word, we go for everything to cover it up. Denial. We look
for things. Remember what they said in Matthew
chapter 7 when Jesus said, many will say unto me in that day,
Lord, Lord. And I'll say to them, I never
knew you. He says, they'll say, Lord, Lord. They'll say, haven't
we preached in your name? Haven't we cast out devils in
your name? Haven't we done many wonderful works in your name?
And Jesus said, I never knew you. He says, it's not Him that
says, it's Him that does the will of my Father, which is in
heaven. And to do the will of the Father in heaven is to believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. Is to hold Him as the one who
fulfilled God's word in my heart. And honor Him in my heart and
with my lips. When I confess to God, He is
my only hope. And when I confess that before
men, and when I live in my life, in love to Him and in love to
His people. Those are the things that true
religion have to do with. But God's law comes to us and
we actually seek refuge in it when we don't see Christ in it.
When God's law makes demands on us, naturally we only think
the only way to meet those demands is by keeping the law. And it's
true. The only way God can accept us
is if we have a perfect righteousness. But the thing that's not true
is that that righteousness will be found in us. And so these
men, they suffered. It's all summarized in Romans
chapter 10. Let me take you there. At the
end of Romans chapter 9, he says this. He says, in verse 30, I'll pick it up. Actually,
in Romans 9, verse 29, Isaiah said before, "...except the Lord
of hosts, the Lord of Sabaoth, had left us a seed, the nation
of Israel. We had been as Sodom and been
made like to Gomorrah, completely destroyed." That's where we would
have been unless God Himself saved a people out of that nation. And verse 30 says, "...shall
we say then, this is what we say, that the Gentiles, which
followed not after righteousness, to not follow after righteousness
meant that the Gentiles did not use the law They didn't use the
law as a rule of their life as the Jews did. They didn't follow
after the law of righteousness. The Gentiles, they were sinners.
In fact, the name Gentiles, that title, meant every non-Jew, and
really it was another synonym for sinners, barbarians, ignorant,
ignorant of spiritual things. He says, what shall we say then?
Paul says, ask the question. What are we going to say? This
is what we say, that the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness,
This is surprising. Have attained to righteousness.
How? Even the righteousness which
is of faith. But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness,
have not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore?
Because they sought it not by faith. To seek it by faith means
to seek it in Christ and find it there. Find it in Him. But
as it were, This is how they sought it, but as it were by
the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling
stone, as it is written, Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone,
and a rock of offense, and whosoever believeth on him shall not be
ashamed. But they did not believe, so they were ashamed. And verse
1 of chapter 10 goes on, it says, Brethren, Paul says, My heart's
desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be
saved. For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God,
but not according to knowledge. Ironically, the scribes and the
lawyers, when I say lawyers in the New Testament, I mean people
who were experts in the Law of Moses. They were experts, and
they trusted in their knowledge. But here, the Apostle Paul says,
they have a zeal, but not according to knowledge. They boasted in
their knowledge, but they actually were without understanding. And
so it says here in verse 3, For they, being ignorant of God's
righteousness, And going about to establish their own righteousness,
have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God."
They were ignorant of God's righteousness. They were ignorant of what God
really required. They thought it was simply a
superficial, outward, occasional keeping of His law. Because they
thought they had done that. They thought it was the rules
that they had come by their traditions to practice, however they did
that. And they trusted in it, but they
were totally ignorant of God's righteousness, meaning the very
righteousness that God provided, which is the Lord Jesus Christ
and His obedience unto death. That is the righteousness of
God. When we see Christ and Him crucified, we are seeing the
very glory of God and the righteousness of God. And so it says in verse
4, "...for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believeth." The end means He's the consummation,
He's the fulfillment, He's the perfection of it. the Lord Jesus
Christ. And so when we see the requirements
of God's law, even though by nature we think, well there's
a requirement and I don't keep it, what do I have to do? I have
to get myself by the bootstraps and pull real hard and make myself
practice those things that I'm not doing, even though I don't
want to admit it. I won't tell other people that,
but I'll try to align myself to the law and then I'll get
amongst those people who seem to be righteous, who have a lot
of rules that they follow, outward things like going to church,
things that are right in themselves. But using those things as measures
of my own performance before God in order to make myself conform
to what God requires. That's trusting our own righteousness.
And it can come in so many forms. And we see that's the first thing
here, is that we have a natural propensity. to only think that
what God requires, to think only of ourselves when we think of
what God requires, to only think that we ourselves can provide
that and must provide it. We have to provide it, but we
can't provide it in our own person. It has to come from our surety.
And so here we find that first thing is that these men were
hypocrites, they denied their sin, and that's the exact opposite
of the effect God's law is meant to have. I remember when my kids
were younger, and I would tell them, now when you go out, don't
break the law. Don't drive too fast. Don't run
through stop signs. Don't drink and drive. Don't
take drugs. Don't do all these things. And
you can go down the list. I mean, you can just keep listing
things. Don't do this. Don't do that. Don't do that.
And I tried to emphasize to them, now when you find yourself actually
failing to do what I've taught you to do all your life, what's
your reaction going to be? To get worse? That usually is
what happens. Or to try to improve? The message
of the law is this. You're guilty. You are described
by having failed to keep God's requirements one time. Just like
we saw last week, the lawyer asked Jesus, what's the great
commandment? He says to love God with all your heart, all
your soul, all your mind, all your strength. and love your
neighbor as yourself. Well, then we immediately begin
to think, well, okay, I'm actually not too far from that. I'll just
get a little better at that. Pretty soon I'll get there. You
see, that notion of thinking somehow, someday I'm going to
get there. In my own performance, if everything
is just right, if all the bad influences of my life were removed,
I'd actually be a pretty good person. That's actually trusting
in our own righteousness. That is what the Jews did. They
were ignorant of God's righteousness. God's law is meant to teach us
something about the righteousness of God. His perfection is required
all the time, in our heart, to God and to others. And we haven't
done it one time. Not one time have we ever loved
God from our heart with all of our soul, mind, and strength.
Nor have we even one time loved our neighbor as ourselves. But
to deny this is hypocrisy. to deny it is apocryphal. Let
me take you to Galatians, because this is the common theme of false
religion. We think false religion is, well,
you create an idol and people look at it idly. Oh, that's clearly,
he's out there worshipping some Buddha or something like that.
That's not the way false religion, that's not why it's so dangerous.
You know why false religion is so dangerous? It's because it
comes from within the church. It's in the church. It's preached
from the pulpit in the church. It's believed by people in the
church. People have rules and things that they keep at home
thinking that that's the Christian life. It's not. It's a matter
of heart worship. But in Galatians, this was dealt
with. In Galatians chapter 1, look at what Paul says. I'll
just take you through a few verses here. He says that after he gives
his introduction, he says, Paul, an apostle, not of men, neither
by men, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him
from the dead, And he speaks for all the brethren with him.
He says, and all the brethren which are with me to the churches
of Galatia, grace be to you and peace from God the Father and
from our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins, that
he might deliver us from this present evil world according
to the will of God our Father." This present evil world means
not only, we think of, well, there's murder, there's sexual
perversion, there's all these things in the world that are
evil. Those things are included. But primarily, the evil, the
present evil world is the world of false religion. And that's
the thing that we don't naturally see. We don't think of it that
way. But what Christ condemned more than anything was what the
scribes, and the Pharisees, and the Sadducees, and the chief
priests, and the rulers of the people were doing. It wasn't...
He did condemn the others, but you found him... You found harlots
and publicans flocking to him. While these other men hated him.
And so that was the present evil world. But look what he says
here. He says, I marvel, in verse 6, that you are so soon removed
from Him that called you to the grace of Christ. Into the grace
of Christ. Unto another gospel. Anything
other than the grace of Christ is what? It's another gospel.
Which is not another true gospel. But there be some that trouble
you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. And here's the strong
condemnation. But though we, or an angel from
heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have
preached unto you, let him be accursed. That's really, really
strong language, isn't it? Though we, or an angel from heaven,
we apostles, We preachers and teachers, and the angels themselves,
if any teach you another gospel than the gospel of Christ, then
let him be accursed. And, as we said before, so say
I now again, if any preach any other gospel unto you than that
you have received, let him be accursed. Do I now persuade or
please men, or do I glorify Christ? Do I seek to honor men by doing things, or even reducing
the gospel to something else. One of the most common errors
today, and for hundreds of years, is to say, well, in the name
of Christian unity, we're going to set aside the things that
are divisive between us, and we're going to only stick to
the things that are really commonly understood. But the most divisive
thing among us is the truth of the gospel. And so what are you
going to do? Throw out the gospel? In order
to keep Christian unity and love? That is not unity and that is
not love. Because it takes God's glory
and tramples the blood of Christ underfoot. And so that was a
strong warning. that Paul gave them. But look
over here in verse 15 of chapter 1. And all this time, verse 14,
he says, Paul says, I profited. There is a profit in false religion. There is a profit in false religion.
But it's a profit only in this world. But it's a huge profit
in this world. Men applaud you. Money comes
in. You look good. You can find things
and point to them. See? I've got a long list of
things here that I can point to and show you. What a good
Christian I am, and my children are, and all these things. There's
profit in false religion. But look at verse 15. The truth
comes out. But when it pleased God. You
see, salvation is not because we decide to flip over and make
a change. That's Alcoholics Anonymous.
That's reform in an outward sense. That's not what salvation is. That's not the truth of the Gospel. The truth of the Gospel is that
no man can please God. But when it pleased God, He saves
those who don't please Him by His grace. But when it pleased
God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by
His grace, to reveal His Son in me." That's the truth of the
Gospel. Now look at chapter 2 on down. He talks about where he
went after the Lord revealed Himself to him. And then he says
in verse 3, but when he says in verse 2, Now that's such a
significant thing. In those days, if you were not
circumcised, you were a total heathen. Titus
was a Greek and he wasn't circumcised and he did not feel compelled
to be circumcised. He believed Christ was his all
and that his circumcision was in the crucifixion of the Lord
Jesus Christ. So when he stood before men uncircumcised,
he actually boasted in Christ and refused to be circumcised. Because that would be denying
the work of Christ for him. And so he says, and that because
of false brethren. unawares brought in. In other
words, these men who wanted him to be circumcised. False brethren. You see that? False brethren.
Wolves in sheep's clothing. That's what a false brother is.
They look like a sheep on the outside. They say words, but
inwardly they're wolves. These false brethren were unawares
brought in who came in privily to spy out our liberty which
we have in Christ Jesus and that they might bring us into bondage.
That's what the Pharisees did. They bind heavy burdens and they
lay them on men, but they're not willing even with one finger
to lift them themselves. And Paul says that's what these
false brothers do. They came in to spy out our liberty
in order to bring us into bondage, find out where they're not keeping
the law, and point it out to them and say, if you really want
to be a Christian, if you really want to walk according to the
truth of Scripture, you've got to do these things. And so, one
of those things was, in that time, not so much now, but the
Jews had a thing that the Gentiles were heathen dogs. And to associate
with Gentiles was to actually associate with sinners. And that
was forbidden. And so the law required them
to separate, at least the tradition did, to separate from these Gentiles.
So Peter, who we know was a believer, who believed the grace of God,
he was fine until these false brethren came down from Jerusalem
who were circumcised. And when they came, Peter gets
up from the table of the Gentiles and he walks over to the table
of the Jews. Seemed like a simple thing. No one would even have
suspected it. But Paul was very perceptive. And that's where
we're going to pick it up here in verse 12. He says, "...for
before that certain came from James, Peter did eat with the
Gentiles, but when they were come, he withdrew and separated
himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision, and the
other Jews dissembled likewise. They tried also to please men,
insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation."
These actions that showed that there was a compromise. He was
compromising the truth. But when I saw, when Paul said,
I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the
gospel. Now, what was it to walk uprightly
according to the truth of the gospel in this case? It was not
to act like sitting with the Gentiles made any difference,
or circumcision made any difference. In fact, like Titus, it was to
actually deny, abandon all hope outwardly and inwardly on the
law in order to bring a righteousness or acceptance to God. Find acceptance
with God. So he says, when I saw that they
walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, that
is, holding to the law as something that would either give them righteousness
or make them more righteous, I said to Peter before them all,
If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles,
and not as do the Jews, why compelst thou the Gentiles to live as
do the Jews? You see, you're a Jew, Peter,
but you were living with the Gentiles and happy to be there
with them. So if you, being a Jew, live after the manner of Gentiles
because you trust Christ, and you don't live as the Jews because
you don't trust in the law, then why do you now compel the Gentiles
to live as the Jews do? To try to keep the law for their
rights? Why are you encouraging the Gentiles to trust the law
and their law keeping? Verse 15, we who are Jews by
nature and not sinners of the Gentiles. You see how he associates
those two words, sinners and Gentiles? Synonyms. Knowing that
a man is not justified by the works of the law. It's not by
our personal obedience to what God requires that we're found
righteous in God's eyes. Now God does require righteousness
from us. We must be righteous or we can't
enter heaven. But it's not by our personal
obedience that we become righteous. And that God then can justify
us, he says. But, not by the works of the
law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ. The faith of Jesus Christ. Now it's very carefully worded
there. Because the faith of Jesus Christ... is the correct translation. It's only given in a couple of
translations that are faithful to this. It doesn't say the faith
in Jesus Christ, although that could be understood of that,
but it says the faith of Jesus Christ. But what is the faith
of Jesus Christ? Well, it's the faith that belongs
to Christ. Because that's what the grammar
construction here is. It means the faith is belonging
to the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, when we believe the
Lord Jesus Christ as all of our salvation, I mean all of our
salvation, when God's requirements come to us in our conscience,
or when we're sitting under the preaching and we hear those requirements
come to us, what do we do? Do we do like Augustus Toplady
did and said, Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in
thee. Do we do that? Or do we run to
something like the men in Matthew 7? Lord, Lord, don't you know
that we preached in your name? Cast out devils in your name?
We did many wonderful works. They were trusting in their own
personal obedience. But that's not what the faith
of Jesus Christ does. We're not justified by the works
of the law, not by what we do, but by the faith of Jesus Christ. We're not made righteous because
we have an action of believing. We're made righteous because
of the one we believe. Because the one we believe actually
satisfied God's justice, fulfilled God's law. And that's all of
our confidence before. He is all of our confidence before
God. He's our advocate. He's our surety
who owned our debt and paid it too. And fulfilled all of our
righteousness. That's what the faith of Jesus
Christ says. And that faith is God-given faith. So it's the faith in the sense
that it's the gospel sometimes in the scriptures. In Philippians
1.27, for example, it says the faith of the gospel means the
doctrine, the truth of who Christ is and what He's done. And then
also it could include, in fact it does mean the very righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ, because in His obedient life, He trusted
in God. He did what He did because He
believed God's word and loved God's law. And He did it from
the heart. So in that sense, it's out of His own faith. But
I think it mostly means, or probably most clearly means, that it's
the faith that God gives us when His Spirit dwells in us that
causes us to only look to the Lord Jesus Christ as everything
in our salvation. You see, that's the contrast
between the works of the law and the faith of Jesus Christ.
The works of the law says there's something about me, something
in me. I do, I experience something
from me. Maybe something even that God
works in me. But those are not the things
that justify. No matter what God does to us,
God never looks at us in order to justify us. He only looks. to his son, when I see the blood,
I will pass over you." It says in Romans 5, verse 9, that we're
justified by his blood. Having been justified by his
blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. We're justified
by his blood. Hebrews 10, 14 says, by one offering
he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. We're justified
by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Offered
once. That's all of our hope. And we
say, in that God-given faith, we say, if the Lord Jesus Christ,
in His offering, in His obedience to God, standing as my substitute,
answering God's justice, fulfilling His law, if He didn't do everything
God requires of me, I have no hope. Because in everything I
do, there's so much sin. And so the faith of Jesus Christ
says that. But then, it says here in verse
17 of Galatians chapter 2, he says, but if while we, speaking
again to Peter and this crowd, he says, but if while we seek
to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners,
is therefore Christ the minister of sin? Now, when we seek to
be justified by Christ, what do we do? Well, what did Peter
do before the Jews came? He associated with the Gentiles,
because he fully believed that he would be saved just like God
saved the Gentiles. He had a full conversion in his
conscience. He knew that he was a sinner,
and that unless God received him for what he thought of his
son, just like he would receive the Gentiles on the same ground
of Christ and him crucified, unless God received him just
like them, he couldn't be saved. He believed that, so he associated
with the Gentiles. And he was perfectly comfortable
doing that. And Titus refused to be circumcised. So while we
seek to be justified by Christ, if we ourselves also are found
to be sinners, what he's saying is that men look at us and they
say, you're a lawbreaker. You associate with the Gentiles,
you're not circumcised, you don't keep the traditions of the fathers,
you don't do all these things the law requires. You're a sinner.
You're a Gentile. He says, if while we seek to
be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, Is Christ
the minister of sin? Is believing the gospel going
to make me a sinner? Does it mean that believing the
gospel makes me a lawbreaker? Absolutely not. In fact, it's
only in Christ that I actually keep the law. I can only be righteous in His
obedience. So he says in verse 18, for if
I build again the things which I destroyed, I destroyed, I abandoned,
I made obsolete all of my dependence upon the law, in trusting Christ. When the gospel was revealed
to me, here I was, guilty, I was hiding behind the fig leaves
of my own righteousness, and trusting in all that too. But
when the gospel came to me, I was fully persuaded, not only that
I was a sinner, and that I had no hope in myself, but that all
that Christ did was all that God looked to and found for me. And I was completely satisfied,
as God is satisfied with Christ. He's everything. And I embraced
Him. And I was glad for it too. So I set aside all dependence
on everything else but Christ. Those things which I destroyed.
If I build them again, I make myself a transgressor. For I,
through the law, am dead to the law. The law requires sinners
to be cursed. The soul that sinneth, it shall
die. The law demands my curse from God. And therefore, because
the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world, was made under the
law, and God made him to be sin, he bore the sins of his people
in his own body on the tree. God cursed him. The law cursed
Christ. Christ. And because I was in
Him, the Law cursed me. I, through the Law, am dead to
the Law, that I might live to God. I am crucified with Christ. That's how I was cursed. That's
how I died to the Law. Nevertheless, I live. How do
I live? The Lord Jesus Christ gave full
answer to God. He met every requirement. Death,
therefore, had no claim on Him. Death is the result of sin. Sin was removed. God's wrath
was appeased and satisfied. God forgave us. He raised Him
from the dead and justified Him and all who were in Him. I am
crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet, not
I, I in myself am still a sinful man, but the Lord Jesus Christ
lives in me. That's my life. And the life
which I now live in the flesh, how do I live it? By keeping
the law? No! I live by the faith of the Son
of God who loved me and gave himself for me. You see the difference
here? I take you to all that to show
you the contrast between true and false religion. Because we
sometimes think, well, the true religion is somebody who does
everything right. False religion is people who
say they don't do everything right, or who say they do everything
right, but don't. That's not the difference. The
difference is that all men, by nature, claim to be able to keep
what God requires of them, either in their conscience or outwardly.
live total abandonment to that because they know they can't
and they just give up. And they say, well, God's too hard, He's
too austere, and I can't keep His requirements, so I'm just
going to give up. He's too sovereign, and if He's going to save who
He wills, I'm just going to give up. But that's not what faith does.
God's Spirit in us teaches us to look to Christ. Yes, God requires
more of me than I can give Him. So what? God is holy. He's righteous. His righteousness is greater
than I can ever meet, but He has provided a Savior He who
has made these demands himself fulfilled his demands in Christ. And so, when we look at these
things, to not be a hypocrite is to confess my sin. You see,
the truth of the gospel teaches us first and foremost that we're
sinners and helpless and guilty and can do nothing about it.
Not before our conversion and not after our conversion. Both
before and after and even into eternity. Christ alone is going
to be all my righteousness. Although I will be made like
Him, although I'm given a righteous and a holy nature, when the Spirit
of God comes to live in me, that's not my justification. My justification
is what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for me. And so to be
a hypocrite is to deny these things. It's to look for other
things other than Christ. It's false religion. And that's
what the false teachers in Galatia did. That's what they did in
the book of 1 John. When John says there's many anti-Christ
even now in the world. Anti-Christ is to oppose Christ. The word anti-Christ means to
substitute another Christ. And that other Christ we substitute
is what man can do. The gospel is only about the
Lord Jesus Christ. So, back to Matthew 23. They
bind men with heavy burdens, grievous to be born. You have
to do all these things that God has said and do everything we
said too. And oh by the way, we do them so you're a loser
and you're outside. That's a heavy burden, isn't
it? A heavy burden is to give men a hope that if they do everything
right, they'll live. But they can never do everything
right. They're constantly failing. It's a burden that weighs so
heavily on us. When the gospel comes to us,
we feel such relief that God has redeemed us by what he found
in his son. That we are like the man who
was possessed by thousands of devils. He said, sitting in his
right mind, clothed and happy. He says, Lord, I just want to
be with you. So he says in verse 5, But all
their works they do for to be seen of men. They make broad
their phylacteries, those things they would paste on their foreheads
with all parts of the law written in them to ward off evil things. They make them broad, big, so
you can see them. And enlarge the borders of their
garments. And love the uppermost rooms at feasts and the chief
seats in the synagogues. They like it when people say
good things about them. They actually seek that. It always
feels good when someone says good things about you, doesn't
it? I know it does, because I'm a man too. But it's wrong to
seek to do what we do in order to have the praise of men. When
that becomes the motive for our living, we are hypocrites. We're just like these men. And
how much mixture of that do we even find in ourselves? And how
much we hate ourselves for it? The thing I hate most about myself
is the hypocrisy that I find in myself. Don't you? And so
we see these things here. They love to call them reverend.
Never call a man a title by a title which only belongs to Christ.
Master, reverend, rabbi. I hate it when people say, well,
Joe goes to Bob's church. It's not Bob's church. It's Christ's
church. Pastor Bob's church. Pastor Bob
doesn't have a church. He belongs to a church. He's
one of the saints, but he's no more than a saint. But all their
works they do to be seen of men. They make broad their phylacteries,
they enlarge the border of their garments, and they love the uppermost
rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, and
greetings in the markets, and to be called by men, Rabbi, Rabbi,
but ye be not ye called Rabbi, for one is your master, even
Christ, and all you are brethren, either male nor female, bond
nor free, Jew or Gentile, you're all one in Christ. And call no
man your father upon earth, for one is your father which is in
heaven. Neither be ye called masters, for one is your master,
even Christ. Here's the rule of the kingdom
of God. He that is greatest among you shall be your servant, and
whoever shall exalt himself shall be abased. He'll be ashamed. He exalts himself by who he is,
by what he does, by his intellect, by his abilities, all these things.
That man is going to be brought down. or woman or boy or girl. It's a humbling thing, isn't
it? It's harder to fall from that elevated place than it is
to fall from a humble place. And he that shall humble himself
shall be exalted. That's the rule. The Lord Jesus
Christ is the one who fulfilled it, didn't he? You see in him
such a lowliness, such a meekness, such a humility. He who is God,
equal with God, made himself of no reputation. He took upon
the form of a man. He became a servant. He bore
our sins as his own sins before God, and he answered for them
too. And he gave himself for his people, and then he gives
himself to his people. I will not leave you comfortless.
I will come to you." Remember that? He gave himself. His people are his inheritance
and he is our inheritance. He's everything to us. And so
we praise him for that. But let us never think that we
can make ourselves better than others either in the eyes of
God or in our own eyes. I like what it says in Philippians
2.4. It says, Let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus.
Always think of others better than yourselves. It's true, isn't
it? It's true. You want to be happy? I wrote a little article in the
bulletin. You want to be happy? You want to know how to live?
Live for Christ's glory. Live for the salvation of His
people. Live to build up and help the faith of others. Make
yourself a servant to God's people. And you'll be happy. Because
you will make yourself low in your own eyes. Because that's
what you truly are. And you will be showing others
that Christ is your only hope. Let's pray.