Matthew-089

 

 

The seven symptoms of spiritual disease

We continue today, in the teaching of our Lord Jesus in Matthew Chapter 23. We began to study the symptoms of spiritual disease last week and I pointed out that we must approach Matthew Chapter 23 with the right attitude. We saw that the right attitude is not to imagine that this chapter applies perhaps to others but not to us. If this chapter is to be any blessing to us, we must approach it with the understanding that each one of these “woes” could well apply to us. In fact, when we think that they don’t apply to us, that is precisely when they do.

Let us continue again in Matthew 23:13, beginning again at the first of these “woes” as we aim to study these “seven woes,” or we can say, the “seven symptoms of spiritual cancer.” If any of these symp­toms are found in your life, then you know that you have been struck with spiritual cancer and it is necessary to have it operated upon.

 

1. Shut God’s kingdom against those who wish to enter

Matthew 23:13,

We saw that “woe” is an expression of pain, distress and warning, as these things are all related to one another.

The first of the “seven woes” against the Pharisees is that they shut the kingdom of God against those who wish to enter it. This particu­lar charge seems unlikely on the surface until we understand its spiritual content. In the last message, we saw that we could shut the kingdom of God in the face of others by the way we behave. We may regard ourselves as extremely religious, extremely pious, but the way we behave in college, the way we behave in the office may be very off-putting to others. Many times, people are simply turned off not because you deliberately try to shut the door on others but because of something we do, maybe because we conduct ourselves with a certain arrogance, which the Pharisees were too often guilty of, and so are Christians. We behave in a way that is so superior to others. We think ourselves to be so superior because we think we are chosen people, we are elect. And because we are so chosen and so elect, we behave with a certain arrogance almost unconsciously. This puts other people off and causes them to be shut out from the kingdom. Now this is one of the ways.

Another thing we may do, even among brothers and sisters in the church is that because we don’t achieve a particular standard, we criticize those who reach or aim to reach that standard. This is also very dangerous. For example, I have heard people criticize others for fasting. They say, “These people in the Training Team think they are so superior they even fast. They’re really too fanatical!” So what we ourselves don’t achieve, or don’t want to achieve, we put hindrance in the path of others by criticizing them for setting too high a standard. We can criticize in a number of ways. We can say, “Well, this is really unnecessary.” Or we might say, “This is tending to stress good works as the means to salvation. After all, salvation is by faith, why do we need to fast?” It very much pained my heart one day, when a sister who I really thought was coming on spiritually, actual­ly criticized the Training Team for fasting in my presence, saying that it’s as though they are somehow holier than others.

Strange! What we ourselves don’t achieve or maybe don’t even seek to achieve, we don’t want others to achieve. Either we find fasting is intolerable and have never fasted for one day in our lives, or we don’t want others to fast because we don’t like to be left behind. We like to feel that we are on the same level with each other. So when others are ahead of us, we begin to feel distressed and try to pull them back; and the way to pull them back is to criticize them for going ahead. That’s strange! I was very saddened by this incident because I’d rather that we had been rebuked for sin, but it’s very strange to accuse anyone who wishes to press on to spiritual excellence. So, we neither want to do it ourselves nor do we want to let others do it. Somehow, we are thinking of our own selves. We don’t feel happy that others are better than us. We feel distressed that they are over­taking us. This is a very usual mentality in people.

Someone asked me once, “How would you feel if those in the Training Team preach better than you one day? My answer to that was, “I would be so delighted if they would be better than me. Why should I be distressed by that?” Apparently, they feel that I train all these people and then one day, they are going to be better than me; they might even become more famous than me, and be higher up in the church leadership than me. Then I would be left behind! Well, if that happens, I can assure you I would be so happy. That’s no problem to me. Why should I want to pull someone back from going ahead of me? Isn’t that what we should rejoice in?

These are ways how we can shut the kingdom so that others cannot enter. We can trip them up when they seem to be passing us. As in a basketball game, when others are going by, you “happen to” stick your foot out, and just before he can get the ball in the net, he lands on his face, and hopefully, the referee didn’t see that. I find this kind of attitude very despicable!

When someone wants to serve God full-time, you say, “Come on, don’t be so fanatical. It’s really quite unnecessary. We are all serving the LORD full-time anyway.” Of course, you are just trying to pour cold water over him. So we find all these kinds of ways to hinder people, and we may not even be conscious of it at the time. We might even justify our actions by saying, “Maybe he doesn’t know what he’s doing so I have to slow him down.” Leave that to more experienced persons who know better how to deal with that kind of situation.

I do confess that many times when someone wants to serve God, I probe his motives to see whether they are correct, and in that sense, I do slow him down. What are your real reasons for serving God? Are you just being carried away by the enthusiasm of others? Or is this something deep in your own heart? These are the ways in which I probe in order to find whether the motives are right. We must do this, but not just pour cold water over them and discourage them along the way.

 

Remedy to spiritual disease: Be truly open to God’s Holy Spirit

Even though the Pharisees did not think themselves to be shutting the kingdom of God upon others, yet that was precisely what they were doing. We also notice that they thought they were guaranteed to enter the kingdom. However, the important thing in spiritual life is not what we think we are doing, the question is, am I actually entering the kingdom of God in God’s eyes? What is the situation as seen from outside of myself? It’s very important to learn not to evaluate ourselves. As Paul says, “It’s a very small thing to be judged by you because I don’t even judge myself” (1 Cor. 4:3).

In this sense, we must learn how not to always judge ourselves so favorably. We must learn to see things like this: I think, and so might others think that I am entering the kingdom of God, but am I really entering the kingdom of God as evaluated by God in particular? To stand back from our own subjective point of view and to learn to look at ourselves more critically is something difficult to do. This is what the Lord Jesus means. Don’t be so busy seeing the splinter sticking out in someone else’s eye because there is a beam in your own eye. It’s very dangerous to be so confident that “I am going to be saved.” This is not assurance; this is dangerous self-deception. Those who are most certain of entering the kingdom of God, most certain that they are the ones who will be saved, are very often the least likely to be saved.

I must also constantly evaluate myself. If I think to myself, “I’m a pastor, and surely pastors will be saved if nobody else will be saved.” That is self-deception. We must never imagine that “my status in the church guarantees my salvation.” This is foolishness. I must con­stantly evaluate my position before God. I must let his Holy Spirit show me. And this is what I mean by standing back from judging myself because I tend to judge myself too favorably. I must let God show me whether or not I am saved.

Sometimes, the most fortunate people are those who are under discipline, precisely because those who are judged and who judge themselves will not be judged by God in the long term. We think that the most unfortunate are those under discipline. It could well be that they are the most fortunate. And those of us not apparently under discipline might be better off had we been under discipline. There is a working in reverse in this. Therefore it is better if I constantly put myself under discipline, if I constantly examine myself in this sense.

Here you see the two aspects. On the one hand, we don’t want to judge ourselves too favorably; on the other hand, we must judge ourselves so that we will not be judged, as Paul says (cf. Rom. 2:1). Those are the two aspects of judgment, apparently contradictory but are actually highly supplementary to each other, because one deals with the attitude, the other deals with the action that you take against yourself.

It’s very important to learn to let God judge us. Learn to let God speak to our hearts constantly because the moment we stop the Spirit of God speaking to us, we are in trouble. I wonder if I have made this point sufficiently clear. True assurance is not that I assure myself that I am saved. Paul tells us in Romans Chapter 8 that true assu­rance comes only from God. If you say that you are saved and I ask you why you are so sure that you are saved, and you say, “Because I was baptized,” or “Because the Word of God says that if I believe then I am saved,” that is deception.

Do you know the definition of “believe”? Scholarly works have been written on the definition of faith. We are saved by faith but what does “believe” mean? What is the Scriptural definition of “believe”? I have repeatedly sought to expound this. Even if we think we have fulfilled the requirement of the Scriptural definition of faith, we are still on dangerous ground because our standards may be simply too low. We think we have fulfilled that requirement. Does God think so? That is the question. Jesus Christ, in whom lives the fullness of Yahweh God, is going to judge us on that Day; we don’t judge ourselves. If we could grade our own papers, we would all give ourselves very high marks. What the teacher grades would be another matter. Then what matters is what God grades, not what I grade. So the first point I want to stress again is that true assurance is built on the fact that the Spirit of the living God is giving you that assurance. Are you sure that God is giving you that assurance right now? If you can say yes, then praise God!

The person who is open to receive assurance from to the Spirit of God is also the person who is open to him when he convicts you of sin. You will have a certain sensitivity to sin that you don’t normally have. You must let the Spirit of God convict you all the time. If he is constantly convicting you of sin, then he will also assure you that you are his child as you walk with him.

This makes many people uncomfortable because they don’t really know how to be open to the Spirit of God, so they would rather have an assurance that is built on something they think is much more concrete than a living relationship with God. They find that too meta­physical to define, but that is the only kind of assurance in Scripture. If you want to build your assurance on something else, you are building on very dangerous ground. This is a foundational point, so I am spending time on it. The Pharisees were absolutely assured of entering the kingdom of heaven in themselves! But the Lord Jesus is telling them that according to God’s standard, they are not going to enter it. There is the difference, and what the Lord Jesus says matters, not what they say.

So let us grasp this first point: Build a living relationship with God if you don’t want to fall into spiritual disease. Be sensitive to his voice, to his convicting.

Again, in the matters of sin, we may say to ourselves, “That’s not very sinful, because on my definition that is not sinful. I may cheat a little in income tax, but everyone does it. We don’t have to be over-sensitive about that. Anyway, what I don’t give to the taxman I give to God.” Perhaps that is one way to get around it, but don’t make excuses of this kind. God doesn’t want this kind of money.

We are much less sensitive to sin than we ought to be. We must become open to the Spirit of God that he may speak to us even if we don’t think that matter is wrong. Let God tell us whether it is. Some­times, it happens the other way around. We may think something to be wrong, but God doesn’t convict us, and we are surprised. How come he did not convict us? Is it because we are spiritually dull? Maybe we are. But if we are truly open to God, he will convict us if it is sinful.

The answer to the “first woe” then, is to become truly open to God, sensitive to his voice, and you will find he doesn’t spend all his time rebuking you. If you think that when you are open to God, he will be scolding you from morning to night wearing you out—“Now why did you do that? And why didn’t you do the other thing?”—then you haven’t been walking with him. God is not like that. He is our Shepherd and our Father. Does a father spend the whole day scolding his child? No, he only rebukes you when you do something wrong. He might ask you, “Would you like an ice cream?” Oh! That’s nice! He does say some nice things to me too sometimes. God is so good, so kind to us. But if we want to enjoy his kindness, we must also be open to him. Let us grasp this point: Overcome spiritual disease in us through openness to God. We must learn that openness, then you will find that walking with God is so joyful!

 

2. Zealous in external activities

Let us move on to the second “woe” in verse 15:

Why does the Lord Jesus say, “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees”? It’s because they are so zealous in external activities. Why are we so zealous in external activities? We must always remember that we can make up in religion what we lack in spirituality. We think that being religious is the same as being spiritual, while these are worlds apart. In fact, these are two opposites. This is the very thing that the Lord Jesus is telling the Pharisees: “You don’t know the difference between being spiritual and being religious, and you think that because you are religious, you are spiritual. That is not the same at all!”

 

Being religious means being influenced by the external things

Being religious can take all kinds of dangerous forms. It can take the form of behaving in a certain fashion. It can take on the form of even external things. If I put on a clerical collar, I would certainly look more religious. Here I am, a pastor wearing a tie instead of a collar. The moment I wear a collar, I suddenly look like a religious man. Be honest. That’s the way you feel, isn’t it? A priest dressed in black with a cross hanging around his neck looks far more religious than I do. You are right! He obviously looks far more religious than I do. Here I stand in civilian clothing, not wearing the proper uniform that pastors or ministers should be wearing. I don’t even wear a black gown. Martin Lloyd Jones used to beat me on this one too. He wore civilian clothes but when he entered the pulpit, he wore a black gown. It does give the impression that the moment you put on a black gown, you are certainly more religious, doesn’t it? I don’t wish to criticize Martin Lloyd Jones. He is a much better man than me.

Look at this building. There is nothing religious about it. There are some pillars placed in the wrong places, and if you happen to be be­hind the pillar, you can’t even see the pastor. You just sit behind the pillar if you don’t particularly want to see him. So this place doesn’t even look religious. This is not the right setting. When you go into an Anglican or a Catholic church, the first thing that hits you is the incense. That is religion. You can get the feeling of being religious. The stained glass windows give the right setting. It looks even more like a church when you see the great pipe organ. But where we are now doesn’t look like a church. We are very influenced by external things. Be honest! We, human beings are very superficial and these things tend to affect us, and we confuse the religious with the spiritual.

 

Remedy: Spend time with God

To be spiritual means you walk with God quite regardless of the external things, which mean nothing to you. In fact, you feel closer to God when you are walking in the forest amidst the trees, the mountains, or maybe in the meadows where the flowers are and where the birds sing. That is to be close to God. However, some people never feel close to God unless they are sitting in a cathedral. Somehow, the stained glass windows give them the desired effect. It’s strange isn’t it? Here you can judge whether you have any problem distinguishing between what is religious from what is spiritual. Do you have this problem? I’m sure you do. So before you become too hard on the Pharisees, realize that we have the same problem. We are influenced by external things. But if these external, religious things mean nothing to you, if you can honestly say that you feel closer to God in a meadow or a forest rather than in a temple or cathedral, then you can chalk up a point in your favor.

But don’t start getting too confident because others still cannot distinguish between being very busy in God’s work from organizing this and administering that. They think that because they are so involved in church activities; they are responsible for this, that and the other thing, that they are very spiritual. That is not the case at all. Often, it is those people who are so busy with these activities who are not spiritual. It is often a true fact of the matter that a pastor can be so busy with the administration of the church that he is the least spiritual man in the whole church! Believe me, I know that it’s abso­lutely true that in many churches, the pastor is the most unspiritual man. He spends the least time in prayer, the least time in Bible study. He is so busy organizing this and administering that, he simply hasn’t got time for prayer! That is the absolute truth.

If you could sometimes speak to a pastor of a busy church and pin him down and say, “Be very honest to me. Don’t try to pull any wool over my eyes. How much time did you spend in prayer today? How much quiet time did you have with God?” The answer could be very embarrassing indeed. The very need to be engaged in religious activity actually detracts from the spiritual life. These Pharisees are so busy being missionaries going around everywhere busy making proselytes for God, so they think they are working for God. Yes, they work for God but not with God. They are simply not in fellowship with God. They are out of touch with God. This is something that particularly Christian workers have to watch out for. For me, I just want to slow down. I just want to find some time to be with God, perhaps just walking out on the street to commune with God. I just dislike being too busy. It’s too dangerous for the spiritual life.

Watch out for spending time with God. It’s very important to note that these seven symptoms are all related to each other; they are not seven unrelated symptoms. If you are so busy with church activity, how can you be open to God? You haven’t got time to listen to God, to be sensitive to him. You haven’t got time to fellowship with him.

 

3. Lack commitment to the truth, not being entirely truthful

Let us move on to the third point in verse 16 (-22), which we touched on in the last message, but not in sufficient detail:

The woe here is the lack of commitment to the truth. We saw that the Pharisees had a strange way of defining “oaths.” In the Mishnah, the book of Jewish law, you will find a whole section dealing with oaths. Read that whole section on oaths which will show you what the Lord Jesus means. Certain oaths were not binding, and only certain oaths were. What is the point of making an oath if some of them are not even binding? They regarded those oaths binding which were given in a certain format and by the kind of things that you swear. If you swear by the altar, it is not binding. If you swear by the gift, the sacrifice on the altar, then the oath is binding. This kind of thing is pure casuistry. It is utterly nonsensical to function in this way. One has to watch out for this danger of not being entirely truthful. The Lord Jesus said, “Let your yes be yes, your no be no.”

 

Hypocrisy is: Masquerading selfishness in spiritual form

We must go one step further. Why is there this lack of truthfulness? Why this readiness to wriggle out whenever necessary, by making certain excuses? This is the basic meaning of hypocrisy. Why do we do a thing in this way? Why do we say a thing in this way? Why do the Pharisees say that if you swear by the altar it is not binding, but if you swear by the gift on the altar, it is binding? Why is the gift more important than the altar? Why is the gold more important than the temple? In a moment’s reflection, you can see that love of money, that carnal reasoning is masquerading as something spiritual. It is one of the fundamental definitions of hypocrisy. Hypocrisy in Scriptural definition is that you masquerade something that is purely selfish and put it in a spiritual form. That is very dangerous! And we often do this in many ways. It’s a very frightening thing!

 

Remedy: Search your heart absolutely honestly for your true motive

This means that in order to be saved from spiritual disaster, it’s very important that we examine our motives. Search your heart. Some­times, when you do something and you say, “I’m doing this for this and that reason.” Please, is that the real reason? If I went to a Bible college and asked every person at the Bible college, “Be absolutely honest, and I mean absolutely, why are you in this Bible college?” I don’t want the answer, ‘I want to serve God.’ I want to check all your motives. Is there some other reason you are here? Are you actually running away from something or some other responsibility, and you find that the best place to run to is a Bible college?” You will be surprised how many will admit that they were running away from something.

Or maybe they like administration. Maybe they aspire to the positions of leadership and the only way to a position of leadership is to be in this kind of training. Is your motive absolutely pure, or are you looking for something else but you have dressed it up in spiritual language? You would be amazed how many will be eliminated from the Bible college if the college were prepared to act upon these true statements. Our motives are often extremely deceptive. Jeremiah 17:9a tells us that “the heart of man is deceitful above all things.”

“Did you apply to the University of Hong Kong?” “Yes.” “Were you accepted?” “No.” “Did you apply to the Chinese University?” “Yes.” “Were you accepted?” “No.” Is that the reason for being in a Bible college? The answer should be no. But they have a way to explain it. “God closed the door there, and he closed the door elsewhere, so God opened the way here.” We can dress everything up in spiritual language! Do you see how subtle the mind is? We take that to be guidance. Maybe the guidance should have been try Hong Kong University again next year to see if they will accept you. If you are accepted and you turn it down, that is a different story altogether, isn’t it? But if you say, “They didn’t accept me, so God’s only option was to come to Bible college” is not an acceptable explanation. That means you are simply looking for another way out, another prospective job. That is not acceptable.

Is the motive necessarily pure even if that person were accepted into Hong Kong University, but he still chose to go to Bible college? Not necessarily. There could be other reasons yet. It may be his girlfriend was going to the Bible college. He may not want to go somewhere else if his girlfriend goes there. Or if her boyfriend has gone to Bible college, and she doesn’t want to lose sight of him for too many hours a day, she decides to go to Bible college too! This is so dangerous in spiritual life. There are so many carnal reasons why we do things, and then we dress this up to sound spiritual. Would he say, “I’m in Bible college because my girlfriend is here?” No, he would say, “The Lord has led me here.” How? Obviously he means he was led to the Bible college through his girlfriend! That is a very good reason for him, but would that be a good reason in God’s eyes? I doubt it.

So I am particularly concerned about this third point. It’s not just a lack of commitment to the truth but what is behind that lack of commitment to the truth? It’s the way we can deceive ourselves into doing something in a carnal way and then finding a spiritual reason to explain it. It’s a very dangerous thing to do! As the Lord Jesus says, the spiritual life is a narrow way. It is marked by many, many pitfalls along the road, and we can stumble into one or the other ever so often, and sometimes to ruinous effect to be very honest. That is why I have spent much time speaking about loving the truth.

 

4. Concentrate on the unimportant, leaving out the essential

Now let us come to the “fourth woe.” Verses 23-24:

The Greek word is “righteousness” and I am not sure why the RSV took the liberty to translate the word as “justice.” Justice is simply the expression of righteousness, but more importantly, righteous­ness itself should be mentioned.

What is the danger facing us here? It’s easy to summarize: We concern ourselves with small, easy things and overlook the weigh­tier matters. This is that principle of substitution, that we think because we did some small thing we have done all that is required. And if we attend to some less important matter with sufficient concentration and diligence, we can overlook the more important matters. We are concerned with details and overlook the whole view of the matter.

 

We have built a whole denomination on adult baptism!

In what ways are Christians guilty of this? Let us not blame the Pharisees. It’s a sad fact of history that Christians are doing this kind of thing all the time. You’ll say, “We don’t tithe dill, mint and cumin.” We are not talking about dill, mint and cumin; we are talking about the principle that is involved. As Christians, we sometimes concen­trate on very unimportant things, and cut off others in important matters. Take for example, the denominations of the Christian church. Where did they arise from? Here is one way in which they arose. I speak as one who belongs to the Baptist Fellowship of Canada. Why are we called “Baptists” in this Fellowship? Because the Baptists have one characteristic feature: it is to emphasize adult baptism. It is a reaction against infant baptism and emphasizes on adult baptism. In other words, you must not be baptized as a baby; you must be baptized as an adult so that you know what you are doing. There is nothing wrong with tithing mint, dill and cumin, and there is nothing wrong with baptizing people as adults.

When we use this detail to exclude the rest of the church as being inferior to us, we have violated this very principle. We have empha­sized the detail and overlooked our commitment to righteousness and mercy, that is, to love and faith. So we take a less merciful, a less righteous attitude to others. We think, “You don’t baptize as an adult, you baptize infants,” so all Anglicans are such spiritually inferior people that we don’t bother to fellowship with the likes of them! Haven’t they read the Bible? The Anglicans also read their Bibles. It’s true that their case is not so strong. Even though we have this difference on a detail, shouldn’t we love one another all the same? Should we overlook these matters of love, faith, righteousness? What are the more important things? Should we build a denomina­tion on the difference of a baptism? It’s somewhat shameful that we have to confess that we have built a whole denomination on the matter of baptism.

I for one regard baptism as important, but I don’t regard it important enough to exclude brothers and sisters of other denominations from fellowship. We are hypocrites! We do these very things and think that only Pharisees are hypocrites. We blow up one little issue so as to exclude the other factors. It’s disgraceful! It’s sad! We do these things all the time. We, human beings, are so petty by nature!

 

We make a mountain out of a mole hill

Have you realized for example, that when you shared an apartment, you built up so much tension over a very tiny issue? And afterwards when you thought about it, you felt ridiculous: “I was fussing about this very little thing, and blew its importance out of all proportion.”

You know that this happens so often between husband and wife. Sometimes you get so irritated with your husband or your wife over some very trivial thing. It’s so trivial that if you only had a little bit of time to reflect on it, you would know it’s ridiculous that you are blowing up and making a scene because the cup was in the wrong place. You said, “This cup must always be here! And you put it there. Don’t you know it should be here? How many years have we been married and you don’t know that cup belongs here?”

“Why did you use that towel to dry your hands? Don’t you know that is the towel to dry your hands with? This is the dish towel and that is the hand towel. And we’ve been married for twenty years and you still don’t know which towel to use?” Suddenly, the towels become so important that love and justice have all disappeared. Let’s be honest. Don’t we do that? Of course we do! We are hypocrites!

How many times did you get annoyed with your apartment-mate because your apartment-mate dropped a few drops of water on the floor? “Look at this water on the floor! Untidy, messy person! I have to bear with this person who drops water on the floor all the time!” When we put it like that it sounds funny, but when you were there, you were really annoyed, isn’t it? “I’ve got to mop the floor dry! What does this person think? Am I your servant? What do you ever do for me?” And so a little thing becomes so big! When you think about it later, you say to yourself, “Just how ridiculous I am!”

Sometimes, a parent scolds a child for having ruined the whole world because the child dropped a little mud on the floor. When you think about it again, the child got over-scolded for something trivial. The accusation is, “You have ruined the whole world for just doing a thing like this! When you grow up, the whole world will go down in disaster because of you! How can you be in this world? It’s my fault that I brought somebody like you into the world!” You are so upset, and it all started with something trivial.

It’s really amazing how we have the knack to make a mountain out of a mole hill. What happens to the things which are really impor­tant? We simply miss the really important things. In other words, we see the mosquito but we don’t see the camel. It’s strange what happens to us! It seems that the microscope is our only instrument to look at the whole world.

 

Emphasize outward appearance over character

That brother or sister may have one fault, and as far as we are concerned, that guy is absolutely finished because he has one fault. “He tends to tie his tie in the wrong way. And why does he always walk around with those ugly shoes? He would have been quite acceptable to me if only he didn’t wear that kind of shoes.” How often we evaluate the entire person by some really trivial thing. We are so superficial in our evaluations.

Be honest. When you meet a person for the first time, what do you see in that person? You almost base your entire future relationship with that person on what his hairstyle is like. You think, “What kind of hairstyle is this! I don’t want to talk with this fellow!” Now you may think it’s ridiculous but it’s true, isn’t it? Let’s be very honest. You do evaluate a person like this: “I don’t like his hairstyle so I don’t want to talk to him.” Or, “His shirt is not very clean. I don’t like this kind of person. I don’t want to talk to him.” Maybe someone else spilled the gravy on his shirt at lunch-time; it wasn’t his fault. But you don’t know about the details. This kind of detail is not important to you.

So like these Pharisees, we pay so much attention to these little details and we lose sight of the big things. How do you know that he is no good because of his hairstyle? He might just become a John Sung, a mighty man of God. You don’t know. Are you going to evaluate him because of his hairstyle? When you look at a picture of John Sung, what is your first impression? When I first looked at a picture of John Sung, I had a shock! I said, “This is John Sung?” He looked more like the neighborhood cleaner to me. His hair was hanging down his forehead. Isn’t that the reaction you had? You pictured John Sung as a magnificent man but one look at his picture and you say, “That’s him? What a let down! If I had never seen his picture, I would have a higher opinion of him.”

On the other hand, we might see another person who is so nice in outward appearance and we think he might be really something! But he might be absolutely nothing! We evaluate like that, and do you say you don’t do that? Let’s ask any boy for his honest answer. The first time he looks at a girl, what does he look for? Such nice eyes! She’s going to be my wife! That’s the way we evaluate people. We marry a girl simply because her eyes are nice. Let’s be honest, isn’t that true? Certainly! We didn’t ask what is the really “weighty” thing, namely her character. Who cares about character? It’s her eyes that really matters! That is what people would go by. They make big decisions in life based on the most irrelevant things. I don’t deny it’s nice to have nice eyes, but that is not going to be the deciding factor, is it? Unfortunately, so often it is. We laugh at the Pharisees, but that’s the way we make decisions. That’s the way we relate to other people. That’s the way we do things.

 

Remedy: Put the stress on the spiritual

How can we overcome this? Clearly, the only way is that we put the stress in the right places. We must make up our minds that “I don’t care what this fellow’s hairstyle is like, but what I’m concerned about is what’s inside him. What is his commitment to God? What is his love for God and for other people? What is his stand for right­eousness, for truth, for justice? Those are the things I must look for.” But too easily, we don’t look at these. Let’s be honest. Did you ask about that when you chose your girlfriend? I doubt it. If you did, you are well on the right track. Did you say, “No, I don’t care what this girl looks like, I want to know, does she love righteousness? Is she committed to serving God and following Christ? Is she a woman of faith? Or when you look for your boyfriend, is that the question you ask? Maybe to a small extent. And it is precisely that extent which will determine how healthy is your spiritual life.

 

5. Concern for the external, neglecting the important internal things

Let us move on to the “fifth woe.” Verses 25 and 26:

The previous one stressed the fact that we don’t have the spiritual sense of proportion. We stress the things which are unimportant and leave out the things which are important. This one deals with the external and the internal. We need to internalize spiritual things. Here the concern would be external. The picture here is of a cartoon of someone who spends a lot of time washing the outside of a cup when the inside is still dirty. He is not worried that the inside is dirty; he is very concerned with the outside.

We are too easily guilty of this other situation: Our concern is with the external and temporary things, and neglect the important things which are inside. So when you look at a Pharisee from the outside, he looks so presentable, so spiritual. Remember, he is adorned in a splendid gown and has enlarged his phylacteries—small boxes containing scripture, one fastened to his forehead and the other to his arm. The corners of his garment are embellished with long, flow­ing tassels, and he drapes a prayer shawl over his head, completing his reverent attire. He looks very impressive – almost as good as any cardinal would look in all his crimson garments. But what is inside? It’s very striking how we react differently because a person dresses differently. If a cardinal walks in, in all his gowns and regalia, every­one becomes very respectful. Why? It’s because of the clothing. We treat people like this too, don’t we? We always do.

James warns us that is not the way to evaluate people. If someone comes to church dressed very beautifully, we say, “Here is a nice seat for you. You can see the pastor better.” Then another person comes along and he is poorly dressed, and we say, “How about sitting further back? Or sit on my footstool here?” We evaluate people this way. If you walk into a church in Hong Kong shabbily dressed, the chances are that no one even looks at you. But if you strut in with a few gold buttons, a few bracelets, and more gold shining around, you will be surprised how the ushers will give you very special attention. Yes, it’s very important to be rightly dressed in the right places, especially if you want to command some respect. We are all inclined to evaluate people from the outside.

 

Inside us is greed: You justify taking what doesn’t belong to you

What is inside? “You are full of extortion and rapacity.” I must say it’s not a good translation at all. What is extortion? “Extortion” trans­lates the Greek word which means greediness. I don’t know what the translators have in mind by using this strange word, “extortion.” “Extortion” means something like blackmail, to try to get money out of people by putting pressure on them. Now the word “greediness” also means plunder, or what has been stolen. Maybe that is what the translators had in mind when translating the Greek word “greediness” by “extortion.” Put in a very simple way without these grandiose words, it is simply that you want to take or keep some­thing that doesn’t belong to you. And you will find some way to justify it.

 

Ahab coveted Naboth’s vineyard

A case in mind in the Old Testament for example, is Ahab. You will remember that King Ahab saw that Naboth had a nice vineyard and he wanted it, so he said, “I’ll buy it from you.” But Naboth said, “I’m not selling it, not even to the king. This is against the law of Israel because this is my inheritance from my ancestors. I cannot sell this vineyard.” But Ahab wanted to have this vineyard so much, so what does he do? He allowed his wife to contrive to have Naboth killed, and then he could take Naboth’s vineyard. This word, “greediness” means to take something through doing something that is very serious, like plunder and robbery. But we think that because we don’t do a thing as serious as that, it’s not sin. It is sin whether it’s very big or very small. A black spot is a black spot whether it is a speck or whether it is as big as a room! It’s still the same thing.

 

Young people want sexual enjoyment at the wrong time

Is there a time when you want something and you want what you should not have, or it’s not the right time to have it? You want it for yourself, you covet it, and so you get it by hook or by crook. We must be very watchful in this area because you might say, “I don’t do that.” Maybe you don’t do that with money, but you could do that with a lot of other things.

For young people particularly, there is temptation when it comes to sex. Let me be very straightforward and honest with you. You want to have this sexual experience or enjoyment with another person which you are not entitled to at that particular time. So you might say, “I’ll go so far and no further.” You cannot stop by the time you’ve gone that far! That is what it means to take something that is not yours at this time. You want to plunder. You want to have what is stolen. It’s not right. So you notice that we are doing these kinds of things too. We take what is not ours to have. And in this way, we are guilty of this very thing here translated as “extortion.” It is greediness. In Scripture, the consequences of this is very serious. To fall in any of these “woes” is spiritually fatal.

 

Lack of self-control

The next word is translated as “rapacity.” What is rapacity? The word in the Greek basically is lack of self-control. It is self-indul­gence and it is used particularly in relation to sexual desire. That is why I gave the previous illustration. This is the same Greek word that is used in 1 Corinthians 7:5, which is translated as “lack of self-control.” So I don’t know why the word is translated as “rapacity” here. The whole of 1 Corinthians 7 is concerned with sexual relationships, and in verse 5 it is concerning the relationship of husband and wife:

The problem with the Pharisees as with so many Christians is the lack of self-control which proves fatal. It is because of this lack of self-control that one wants to get what one may not have at that particular time. We are greedy; we covet something for ourselves. We can do this in many, many ways. I have mentioned one example, a sexual one, which in fact properly fits into this context in particular, because of the word “lack of self-control.”

 

We want to have a reputation that is more than what we deserve

But we can do this in many other ways. For example, we want to have a reputation for ourselves more than what we deserve. That is also hypocrisy. We want people to think better of us than we really are. We want them to admire us and so we tell stories about what we did in our great exploits, how many girlfriends we conquered in our time and then added a comment, “None of them were good enough for me.” We try to tell little stories, drop little hints so that people think that we are really something. In England, this is the accepted art for what is called “the gentleman.”

Recently, I read a book which is meant to be humorous, written by an English gentleman, a genuine gentleman, descended from a gentleman. The title of the book is The English Gentleman. In it is so revealing of human nature that he derides the hypocrisy of a gentleman although he himself is a gentleman. In fact, he says in a satirical way, “If you want to become a gentleman, you’ve got to learn the art of bluffing.” For example, if you got invited to the Queen’s garden party, the royal tea party, you must display the invitation in a very prominent place. And when people say, “Oh! You got invited to the royal garden party!” Then you say, “Yes! It’s such a bore! I’ve been there very often and it’s very boring,” although you have never been there before. But the important thing is to keep saying, “Oh, this kind of thing is nothing! I’m not even sure that I can go because I’m so busy.” So people think: “Oh! You’re really something! The Queen invites you to a garden party so often!

I am sure those of you who are from Hong Kong know this particular behavior very well. You don’t have to take any lessons from this Englishman’s book. In Hong Kong, it is the art of life to know how to bluff your way through life. I’m sure you know that very well. You give hints on how busy you are trying to keep up with your lucrative business that you have no time even to attend a royal invitation. So people think, “Wow! He’s really something!” And so you bluff your way through life.

Christians do this kind of thing too. We do it in subtler ways. We like people to think better of us, so we hint at what things we do, how we helped someone who was in such a difficult position and we say, “It was such a privilege for me to help that person.” We put it very beautifully. We are hypocritical! We want to take what is not our own. We want people to think better of us than we really deserve. You can see how many ways you can get around the truth of God’s Word.

 

Remedy: Stress the internal, seek glory from God

So far, we have studied five principles on how we can overcome hypocrisy. We must again learn to stress what is internal rather than what is external; to seek no glory from men. This is the key point here. The problem with the Pharisees is they wanted glory from man. Be honest. Does glory from man mean nothing to you? You can check that very easily. How do you feel when people praise you? Oh! You immediately feel so good! It’s good to be praised! I really deserve that! Or even if I didn’t deserve it, I needed it. Check your reaction when you are being praised. How do you feel about it?

That is why people use flattery as a weapon on others because they know flattery is so effective. Just say some nice things about the other person even if it’s not true, and soon, you will do anything he likes for him. This is a very easy means to go around controlling other people.

Learn therefore, to seek glory from God and not glory from men, if you want to avoid many spiritual disasters. The Lord Jesus teaches this in John 5:41. Although this is true for brothers, I say that parti­cularly to sisters. It seems to me that often, sisters have simply fallen for smooth, slick, oily-tongued fellows who pile flattery on them. It’s instant surrender! All you have to do is just keep on flattering the ladies. “Oh, you really have such good taste in the way you dress! I haven’t seen many people with such good taste! I mean it!” And, “Oh, your hairstyle is so beautiful. Which hairdresser do you go to? You did it yourself? Oh! You are so talented! Oh, it’s really marvelous!” This is how some gullible women are simply swept off their feet by clever talkers. They talk you away, and you are completely carried off. It’s just dreadful!

Christians do that sometimes, again in subtler ways. You can get al­most anyone to do anything if you play on their weaknesses. Who is not weak when it comes to flattery? I say this because Satan can hit us and really hit us hard.

I know a very intelligent man, a very highly educated person with two doctorates, who left the church of God and joined the Mormon sect. What happened? It’s because the person who was supposed to be a “soul-winner” simply piled on the compliments, and this person simply got carried away. These people are not unwilling to use this technique to just “oil their way” into your life and then just prosely­tize you. That is not the way we are going to win souls, because you have simply deceived them by playing on their weakness, to give them the pleasure of receiving compliments, and to just make them do what you want them to do. It’s deceitful in the extreme!

This is the way Satan will get us into sin. Many a sister or brother will willingly succumb to sin when you simply butter them up. Just say nice things to them and you can soon have what you should not have. Many a girl will soon give way to a boy who talks to her in this fashion. Be well aware of these things. You are fighting for your spiritual survival. Be on the alert. Don’t seek praises of men if you want to survive.

Let us be quiet before God in prayer.