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Well, please turn with me in 
your Bibles to Matthew chapter 23. Matthew 23, I'll begin reading 
in verse 13. Jesus says, But woe to you, scribes 
and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of 
heaven against men. For you neither go in yourselves, 
nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. Woe to you, 
scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows' houses, 
and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore you will receive 
greater condemnation. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, 
hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to 
win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as 
much a son of hell as yourselves. Woe to you, blind guides, who 
say, whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing, but whoever swears 
by the gold of the temple, he is obliged to perform it. Fools 
and blind! For which is greater, the gold 
or the temple that sanctifies the gold? And whoever swears 
by the altar, it is nothing, but whoever swears by the gift 
that is on it, he is obliged to perform it. fools and blind, 
for which is greater, the gift or the altar that sanctifies 
the gift? Therefore, he who swears by the 
altar swears by it and by all things on it. He who swears by 
the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it. And he 
who swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him 
who sits on it. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, 
hypocrites, for you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin and 
have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice, 
mercy, and faith. These you ought to have done 
without leaving the others undone. Blind guides who strain out a 
gnat and swallow a camel. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, 
hypocrites, for you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, 
but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, 
first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside 
of them may be clean also. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, 
hypocrites, for you are like whitewashed tombs, which indeed 
appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's 
bones and all uncleanness. Even so, you also outwardly appear 
righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and 
lawlessness. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, 
hypocrites, because you build the tombs of the prophets and 
adorn the monuments of the righteous and say, if we had lived in the 
days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with 
them in the blood of the prophets. Therefore, you are witnesses 
against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the 
prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of 
your father's guilt. Serpents, brood of vipers, how 
can you escape the condemnation of hell? Therefore, indeed, I 
send you prophets, wise men, and scribes. Some of them you 
will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your 
synagogues and persecute from city to city. that on you may 
come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood 
of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, 
whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Assuredly, 
I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. 
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones 
those who are sent to her, How often I wanted to gather your 
children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but 
you were not willing. See, your house is left to you 
desolate. For I say to you, you shall see 
me no more till you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of 
the Lord. Amen. Well, let us pray. Our Father 
in Heaven, we come again to You now and we call upon You and 
ask that You would be glorified in this time that we spend together. 
We ask that You would bless and encourage our hearts as we look 
to Scripture. We ask that the Holy Spirit would guide us and 
lead us and illumine our minds and our hearts. We pray, Father, 
for any and all who have come here this morning that do not 
know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, that you would bring 
conviction for sin and show them the sufficiency and the ability 
and the absolute excellency of our Lord Jesus Christ in saving 
to the uttermost all who draw near to God through him. We pray 
as well, Our Father, that You would forgive each and every 
one of us of all of our sins. We know, God, that sin casts 
a darkening influence over our minds and our hearts, so we pray 
that even now You would plunge us in that fountain that is open 
for sin and uncleanness, that You would wash us and purify 
us and cause us to receive with grateful hearts the Word of the 
Living God. We thank you as well, Lord, for 
blessing and preserving Anna in this past week. We praise 
you for the arrival of Dominic, and we just commit both of them 
to the word of your grace, and to your mercy, to your kindness, 
and to your care. As well be with Ron Porter, and 
just uphold this man, and bless him, and may this day truly end 
with him in good physical health and strength. And we pray these 
things through Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. Well, as we continue 
in our study in Matthew's Gospel, we remain in Tuesday, or on Tuesday, 
of the Passion Week. Our Lord Jesus has been disputing 
with the religious leaders, it begins in chapter 21, when they 
question Him concerning by what authority He does the things 
that He does. And that sets off not only that 
confrontation, but then Jesus, through three parables, condemns 
specifically the religious leaders, but in turn the nation as a whole, 
for their unfaithfulness to God. And then there is a series of 
direct confrontation between Christ and the religious leaders, 
Four interchanges. Three, they come to Jesus and 
ask a specific question. And then in the last one, Jesus 
asks concerning the identity of the Messiah. And then that 
brings us to chapter 23. And in verses 1-12, Christ warns 
His disciples and He warns the multitudes against the Pharisees 
and the scribes, or against the religious leaders. He tells them, 
the scribes and the Pharisees, verse 2, sit in Moses' seat. 
What they tell you that is consistent and right and accurate, you need 
to do that. But do not do as they do, because 
they are hypocrites. They are defectors from the truth, 
as it is in Jesus. And then from verses 13 on, Jesus 
addresses them specifically, the scribes and the Pharisees, 
and He pronounces a series of eight woes upon them. If you 
use a different version, you have seven woes, but the eighth 
is still in the margin somewhere. So there is a series of eight 
woes, and the ones that we have looked at, number one, they close 
the doors of the kingdom. Number two, they exploit widows 
and engage in pretentious praying. Number three, they are missionaries 
for hell itself. And number four, they pervert 
oaths, or they abuse the oath. This morning we're going to take 
up the fifth one, wherein they neglect weighty matters. It's a very central one. In fact, D.A. Carson structures 
it all such that this particular woe is the center in terms of 
the literary structure. Whether that's actually the case 
or not, there is certainly an argument to be made that it's 
the theological center. In other words, how they view 
God's law affects how they relate to others. How they treat the 
Word of the Living God affects those things that have gone before 
and affect the things that follow after. So this fifth woe is most 
important for us to get our minds and our hearts wrapped around. 
Of course, after Jesus finishes with the woes, He then tells 
them that judgment is coming to bear upon them. We notice 
that what Jesus is doing here is not unique to Jesus. Remember, 
Jesus is a prophet. He comes into the city in the 
triumphal entry, and the people of Galilee identify Him as the 
prophet. Jesus Christ everywhere is affirmed 
as a prophet. Well, we saw that Jesus functioning 
as a prophet is not unique. He's like Isaiah. Isaiah tells 
the parable of the vineyard, Isaiah pronounces woes upon Israel, 
and then Isaiah promises judgment to come. And that is precisely 
what Christ does here, and I think we'll see some more links in 
verses 23 and 24 with the prophets of old and our Lord Jesus. But 
three things to observe as we look at verses 23 and 24. In 
the first place, the condemnation. Secondly, the qualification. 
And thirdly, the illustration. But note in the first place, 
the condemnation. He says, Woe to you, scribes 
and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you pay tithe of mint and anise 
and cumin. Now, this is their emphasis. 
They pathe, tithe of mint and anise and cumin. You all know 
what anise and cumin are. They're tiny little seeds. And 
you know what mint is. It grows out in the garden. It's an herb of the field. Well, 
these men were fastidious when it came to tithing. It was a 
good thing for them, as far as they were concerned, to give 
of all that they possessed. In fact, the man in Luke 18 boasts 
as much. He says, I tithe of all that 
I possess. Now, realize that what these 
scribes and Pharisees were doing was indeed sanctioned in the 
law. Their emphasis was consistent 
with what we find in the Old Testament. Leviticus 27, Numbers 
18, Deuteronomy 14, Deuteronomy 26, 2 Chronicles 31, several 
places in Nehemiah, and then as well that famous passage in 
Malachi 3 where God says, test me in this, with reference to 
bringing the tithes and the offerings. and with specific reference to 
these minuscule seeds that they were offering up. I always have 
it in my mind's eye that on the Sabbath morning, they've got 
their little weigh scales out, and they're making sure they 
don't get one extra anise seed in there. They're making sure 
they don't get one more bit of mint in there, because they are 
fastidious, and they are committed to detail, and if God the Lord 
demands a tenth, then a tenth He shall get. Well, in this particular 
section, they are consistent. And Jesus does not condemn. In 
fact, in the qualification, we'll see that Jesus says they ought 
to tithe. But in this, in Leviticus 27.30, 
it says, In all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed 
of the land or of the fruit of the tree, it is the Lord's. It 
is holy to the Lord. So basically, what Israel was 
tasked to do was to tithe. And that word simply means attend. 
They were to take a tenth of everything that they produced, 
everything that their fields yielded, and everything that 
the Lord had blessed them with, and they were to bring it to 
the tabernacle or to the temple. They were to give sacrificially 
of their earnings. Now, when we do the math and 
when we compare the situation, it wasn't just a straight 10%. It was higher than that, because 
each of the crops and each of the pieces of agriculture were 
offered upon or offered from. And so these men were fastidious 
in the payment of these particular tithes. And Jesus, again, does 
not condemn them necessarily for that. They had a biblical 
warrant for tithing seeds. They believed, at least at this 
particular juncture, that only food that had been tithed from 
was ritually pure and therefore could we eat it. So they were 
really fastidious when it came to these particular things. They 
boasted, as I've already said, in Luke 18.12 concerning their 
tithing. Calvin says, he comments just 
on the seeds. Notice Jesus doesn't say, you 
tithe your land, or you tithe your cars, or you tithe your 
business. Now, again, when he says, I tithe 
all that I possess, we don't need to disbelieve every single 
scribe and Pharisee. But Calvin picks up on the fact 
that seeds and herbs are mentioned. He says, they do this so as to 
make a display of extraordinary zeal for piety at the least possible 
expense. that mint, anise, and cumin really 
isn't setting you back. I mean, there's no shortage of 
mint, anise, and cumin. For you to bring 10% of that, 
you're really not impressing anyone as you may think that 
you possibly are. But it's their emphasis that 
Jesus highlights in order to bring out their neglect. This 
is the rub. This is the issue. You pay tithe 
the mint and anise and gum and have neglected the weightier 
matters of the law. This is in the crosshairs of 
our Lord Jesus Christ. This is what he's targeting. 
This is what he's going after. And again, this is a condemnation 
of scribes and Pharisees in the first century, but it's a warning 
to us. It's an encouragement for us. 
Are we so fastidious in our tithing of mint and anise and cumin that 
we neglect justice, mercy, and faith? Are we fastidious in our 
obligations, religiously speaking, but we treat people like garbage? Or we treat them like dirt? Or 
we express no faith in the living God who has saved us and called 
us to walk in union with Him? You see, this is not simply a 
sin that's confined to these first century deviants. But it's 
a sin that unfortunately has found its way into every generation 
of Christ's church. We can major on the minors to 
the neglect of the majors. Again, Jesus doesn't say, don't 
tithe. In fact, when we pick up the 
qualification, we'll see that He says, do tithe, but don't 
tithe to the neglect of justice, mercy, and faith. They neglected 
the weightier matters of the law. I hear some saying, but 
isn't all of God's law important? Yes, all of God's law is important, 
just like all of God's Word is important. But with reference 
to God's Word, for instance, if you evangelize a sinner, perhaps 
the best place to point them is not to how many cubits the 
south wall of the tabernacle was supposed to be. But you point 
then to those clear and open passages concerning salvation 
by grace through faith in Jesus. Well, the same thing was true 
in the Old Testament. In fact, we've seen it here in 
Matthew's Gospel. Turn to Matthew 7, just to see 
sort of this emphasis or see that Jesus himself upheld this 
rabbinic distinction that there was or were weightier matters 
of the law. Notice in 7.12, Therefore, whatever 
you want men to do to you, what we call the golden rule, what 
we ought to pray ought to be operative in our hearts, what 
we ought to pray would be operative in the church today. Therefore, 
whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them. For this 
is the law and the prophets. You see, Jesus is able to summarize 
the law and the prophets by indicating that we treat people the way 
we want them to treat us. And then closer to our context, 
Matthew chapter 22. You can turn there. Just to show, 
just to highlight, just to illustrate that there were weightier matters 
of the law. In all of their fastidiousness 
with tithing their mint and anise and cumin, they forgot to be 
nice to people. They forgot to walk in faith 
toward God. They forgot or neglected, rather, 
to do those things which were absolutely crucial and essential. Notice in 22, verse 34, when 
the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they 
gathered together. Then one of them, a lawyer, asked 
Him a question, testing Him and saying, Teacher, which is the 
great commandment in the law? Notice what Jesus doesn't say. 
He doesn't say, well, they're all great. They're all wonderful. Though Jesus, I think, would 
say that. But he highlights the reality that the two primary 
elements, the weightier matters of the law, are love to God and 
love to man. This ought to be obvious, I think, 
to everybody. Give me a little nod of the head, 
unless you think I fell from Venus today and just baffling 
the minds with, oh, what does he mean? Brethren, do you get 
what he's doing? You see how it's applicable to 
our hearts and our lives. We may not wake up on Sunday 
morning and weigh out mint and anise and cumin to be fastidious 
in the depositing of our 10% in that wooden box out there, 
but it may be something else that we're zealously committed 
to, and all the while, we're not exercising justice and mercy 
and faith. Notice, specifically. They neglected 
the second table of the law, justice and mercy. I think that 
encapsulates our duty to men. They neglected justice and mercy. You can see their neglect of 
justice in this very passage. Notice, excuse me, in 2314. For woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, 
hypocrites! For you devour widows' houses, 
and for a pretense make long prayers." Remember, they devour 
widows' houses. They exploit old ladies who lost 
their husbands. They abuse their positions of 
authority. So you can see why Jesus would 
say, you neglected justice. These widows need justice. God 
the Lord is the defender of the widow, and yet you have not represented 
Him, but rather you have exploited them, and thereby you have neglected 
this weightier matter of justice. Notice in verse 25, you cleanse 
the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they're full of what? 
Extortion and self-indulgence. You see, Jesus isn't making stuff 
up. He's not saying you tie the mitten 
in and send it to Cuman, but you neglect justice, mercy, and 
faith without a foundation. What about mercy? Wherein do 
they deny? Wherein do they display a rejection 
of mercy? Go back to 9.13. 913, it's when Matthew records Matthew's 
conversion. Matthew tells us about what happened 
when he was saved by Christ. Matthew's sitting in the tax 
office, he's looking over the money that he had been tasked 
to collect, and Jesus says, come, follow me. Luke tells us he left 
all immediately and he followed him. And then notice, after this, 
Matthew throws a feast. And Matthew threw this feast 
because he was happy. See, that's what salvation does. 
It makes you happy. Salvation calls for celebration. You can see this in the Psalter 
and in the Prophets. People that got saved did what? 
They praised God. They got saved and they celebrated 
the grace of God. They got saved and they rejoiced. 
They got saved and they had a spring in their step. They got saved, 
and you could tell something had happened to them. So Matthew 
calls this feast. As well, this feast would honor 
the Savior. I mean, if Christ comes and saves 
you, and He happens to be in town, it would be a good thing 
to invite Him over for a meal, right? The Son of Man had nowhere 
to lay His head. At least give Him a nice, hot 
meal for having brought you out of darkness into marvelous light. 
So it would honor the Savior. As well, it would be a means 
by which Matthew could evangelize his fellow tax collectors and 
sinners. And of course, when these tax 
collectors and sinners are gathered together with the Lord Jesus, 
what do the Pharisees do? The Pharisees have their snooty, 
whiny, pouty attitude, and they say things like, well, why does 
your teacher eat with sinners? And what does Jesus do? What 
does Jesus highlight? 913, those who are well have 
no need of a physician. This is verse 12, but those who 
are sick. But go and learn what this means. 
I desire mercy and not sacrifice. This was a dig at the scribes 
and the Pharisees. When he says, go and learn what 
this means, Jesus is talking to a rabbinic class who knew 
what Hosea 6-6 said, but they didn't know what it meant. See, 
we can be like that. We can know that a text of Scripture 
is in the Bible. We can know what it says, but 
we may not know what it means. And this is evidenced in the 
way that they've responded to these particular sinners and 
tax collectors. Notice as well in 12.7. 12.7, same text employed. They get upset. They whine. They 
grumble. They cry because the Lord Jesus 
Christ or His disciples ate grain on the Sabbath day. Notice in 
verse 7, but if you had known what this means, I desire mercy 
and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless. 
So back in 23, in this fifth woe, when Jesus says you neglect 
justice, mercy, and faith, He's not kidding. They really did. So they neglect the second table 
of the law, justice and mercy, but they also neglect the first 
table of the law. When He says you neglect justice, 
mercy, and faith, Some translate this as faithfulness, meaning 
man's responsibility to live consistently with God's law. 
Now, I don't believe man should be faithless. I certainly think 
man should be faithful. But in this particular passage, 
as we compare a couple of texts, faith is accurate. And I'm not 
saying Jesus was right there. I'm saying the translation, faith 
versus faithfulness, is the better translation. When you compare 
the parallel and Luke, Luke says, and love God. When we compare 
the background, which we will in just a moment, we will see 
that the prophets oftentimes sued the covenant people for 
their failure to respect the entirety of God's law. And Jesus 
is acting in prophetic manner here and condemning these people 
for the very same thing. Now, the background or the immediate 
background for 2323 is Micah chapter 6. You can turn there. 
Micah chapter 6. I'm sure you know this verse. I'm sure you've had it as a memory 
verse. I hope you've had it as a memory 
verse. It's one of those glorious passages that we should commit 
to memory. So remember what Jesus says, 
you've tithed the mint and the anise and the cumin, but you've 
neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice, mercy, and 
faith. Notice in Micah 6.8, He has shown 
you, O man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of 
you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with 
your God. You see all elements in terms 
of the law. You've got this, do justly, love 
mercy, our response to men. And this, walk humbly with your 
God. This is our obligation to God, 
to walk in faith. In the particular context in 
Matthew 23, 23, when they neglect justice, mercy, and faith, they 
do it with a vengeance. Because the Messiah is present 
among them, they reject Him, they despise Him, they're going 
to deliver Him up to be crucified. So not only are they not exercising 
faith in God's appointed means for their salvation, but they 
actually execute Him via crucifixion. So for Jesus to condemn them 
in this manner is absolutely consistent. They've neglected 
justice, they've neglected mercy, they've neglected faith. But 
you need to understand something about Matthew 23, 23 and Micah 
6, 8. These are not isolated passages. Go back to the book of Genesis. 
Go back to the book of Genesis. We're going to take a few moments 
here because I think this is crucial for us to see what Jesus 
is doing in Matthew 23. Notice in Genesis 18, we covered 
this text a few weeks ago when I preached on family worship. 
Remember what God says in Genesis 18, 18. Notice in verse 19, God's 
purpose for Abraham. They keep the way of the Lord, 
to do righteousness and justice, that the Lord may bring to Abraham 
what He has spoken to him." So you see, the wording may be a 
little bit different as we survey a few of these texts, but conceptually 
you need to appreciate that when these scribes and Pharisees are 
indicted by the prophet Christ, they stand in a long stream of 
persons who have been indicted by the living God of Israel through 
His faithful prophets. Notice in Deuteronomy 10, Deuteronomy 
chapter 10, specifically in verses 12 and 13. And now, Israel. What does Yahweh your God require 
of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, 
and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart 
and with all your soul? Dropping down, it specifies being 
kind or loving to the stranger in the land. So the Lord God 
calls for an entire commitment. The Lord God calls for that blessed 
man to walk according to the law. Both tables. The first table, 
our duty toward God. The second table, our duty toward 
men. Notice in the prophet Hosea. 
Hosea chapter 12. Again, just to illustrate for 
you that what Jesus does, and even what Micah did, was not 
unique to those prophets. Hosea the prophet, specifically 
chapter 12. Now, what Hosea is doing here, 
and it's going to help us appreciate what Micah does, because I think 
it's even a little more clearer in Micah, is that the prophets 
engaged in what's called a covenant lawsuit. Now, before you all 
say, you know, we didn't sign up for an Old Testament biblical 
theology today. What's Jesus doing in Matthew 
23? It's a covenant lawsuit. He's 
indicting the nation. You say, well, why is that important 
for me to understand? It will certainly help us when 
we get to chapter 24. When we start talking about the destruction 
of the temple, we start talking about the destruction of Jerusalem, 
we start talking about God's judgment visited upon His people, 
how we understand the preceding chapters will help us understand 
who the target audience is in Matthew 24 as well. But notice 
here in Hosea 12.2, the Lord also brings a charge, a legal 
complaint, a covenant lawsuit against Judah. Notice, in verse 
6, so you, by the help of your God, return, observe mercy and 
justice, and wait on your God continually. The prophet Zechariah, 
in a post-exilic setting, the prophet here is rehearsing why 
God brought judgment to bear upon the previous generation. In Zechariah 7, 8, then the word 
of the Lord came to Zechariah. This is the application of the 
command of the people based on that, that they need to get right. 
Thus says the Lord of hosts, execute true justice, show mercy 
and compassion, everyone to his brother. Do not oppress the widow 
or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. Let none of you 
plan evil in his heart against his brother. So going back to 
Micah, you can go back to Micah. just to see the strict parallel 
that exists between what Jesus is doing and what Micah did before 
him. So it helps us, as I said, when 
we get to Matthew 24, to understand what's going on. Matthew 24 is 
a very disputed and debated text. Matthew 24 causes a lot of confusion 
for the people of God. And I think that if we take into 
account the context, and we take into account the prophetic function 
of our Lord in this passage or in these passages, it will help 
us. We may not have everything figured out in Matthew 24, but 
it will certainly help us to see that what Jesus is doing 
is nothing new in Israel's history. Notice, Micah 6, as I said, it's 
a covenant lawsuit. Verse 1, hear now what Yahweh 
says. Arise, plead your case before 
the mountains and let the hills hear your voice. Verses 1 and 
2, the created order itself is called as witness. The created 
order, God does this when it comes to covenantal dealings, 
at times He swears or rather He refers to the creation to 
pay attention to what is happening. Notice, the opening argument 
is leveled by God Himself through the prophet in verses 3 to 5. And essentially what God says 
is, why do you function this way? I've only blessed you. It's 
like you parents, when your kid goes astray at 16 or 17, isn't 
it in you to say, why would you do this? We've only ever given 
you the best. We gave you a roof, we gave you 
three squares, we gave you a bed, we gave you air conditioning 
on those miserably hot Chilliwackian days. We were everything to you, 
and this is the way you treat us? Now that sounds petulant, 
but God here is righteous in the way that he brings it about. 
Why would Israel, who had been benefactors to every good thing 
God had done for them, and they sit against Him? O My people, 
what have I done to you? Verse 3. How have I wearied you? Testify against Me. For I brought 
you up from the land of Egypt, I redeemed you from the house 
of bondage, and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. 
Oh, my people, remember now what Balak, king of Moab, counseled, 
and what Balaam, the son of Baal, answered him, from Acacia Grove 
to Gilgal, that you may know the righteousness of the Lord." 
Now, note the response of these people. Verse 6, they ask this 
insincere question. "'With what shall I come before 
the Lord and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before 
Him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?' You see what 
they're saying? Why are you so upset? What will 
it take to get you off our back? What will it take to pacify God? And then they up that in verse 
7. And they sound pagan. They sound Baalistic, or Molokian, 
or Assyrian. Notice in verse 7, will the Lord 
be pleased with thousands of rams? Brethren, do not think 
these people are sincere, actually saying, well, can we bring this 
and God will be satisfied? No. They're not saying that whatsoever. Will the Lord be pleased with 
thousands of rams, ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my 
firstborn for my transgression? This sounds like they serve Moloch 
or Baal and not Yahweh of Israel. Shall I give the fruit of my 
body for the sin of my soul? This is not sincere, it's not 
legit, it's not right. And in this context, what's the 
prophet say? He has shown you. This ain't 
new. This isn't a brand new revelatory 
word out of the mouth of Micah. This is what has been since the 
purpose for Abraham, the pattern for Israel, the same sort of 
thing other prophets have denounced Israel for, for their sin. He 
has shown you, oh man, what is good and what does the Lord require 
of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with 
your God. You see, what he's not saying 
is, oh, you're really asking the question and you really want 
the answer? Well, here's the answer. No. This underscores 
how guilty they are. He has shown you, oh man. When 
you say things like, well, I don't know what God would have me to 
do. He has shown you, oh man. I don't know what the Lord wants. He has shown you, oh man. People 
do this when they're trying to figure out God's will for my 
life. You know what God's will is for your life? Open your Bible 
and read it, and do what God says. That ought to keep you 
busy for years and years and years and years. We want to find 
the secret meaning of God's mind for us. Just do the revealed 
things He has given to you, and that will occupy you until Jesus 
returns, I guarantee it. The will of God is specified 
in several places in the Bible. It's not a mystery, it's not 
hard. Young people, you know what the will of God for you 
is? 1 Thessalonians 4. Your sanctification that you 
abstain from sexual immorality. Now, that's for old people too, 
not just young people. It doesn't mean old people can 
go out and engage in sexual immorality. You know what God's will is for 
you in 1 Thessalonians 5? You're to pray, you're to rejoice, 
and you're to be thankful. Brethren, instead of trying to 
figure out what secret things God has for us, let's busy ourselves 
with those things that are revealed. Let's not fall prey to what Israel's 
doing. How can I please God? What does He want for me to have 
this good relationship with Him? I've got a wacky idea. Why don't 
you join a church and be faithful? Well, you know, that just doesn't 
square with what I think God has for me. I'm convinced that's 
what God has for you. If he has more for you later 
on down the road, then praise God, from whom all blessings 
flow. But do not live based in this ethereal world of what you 
think God may be doing. Read scripture and do what God 
actually has said to you. It's a beautiful thing. So Micah 
says, He has shown you, O man, what is good. And then interestingly 
enough, in verses 9 to the end of the chapter, you know what 
Micah says? Judgment's coming. Judgment's coming. Judgment's 
coming. Now go back to Matthew 23. What's 
Jesus doing? The same thing. In fact, at the 
very end of the woes, he says, therefore, you are witnesses 
against yourselves, that you are sons of those who have murdered 
the prophets. He says, therefore, serpents, brood of vipers, how 
can you escape the condemnation of hell? Therefore, I send you 
these people, and you're going to persecute them. Notice in 
verse 35, "...that on you may come all the righteous blood 
shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood 
of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the 
temple and the altar." And in case we've missed that, notice 
verse 36, "...assuredly, I say to you, all these things will 
come upon this generation." Why the problem when we get to Matthew 
24? Why do we scratch our melons and say, is he talking about 
the great tribulation in our future? No, he's talking about 
the same generation that he just condemned the way the prophets 
before him did it. It ought not to be so difficult, 
brethren, when we come to these passages if we spend time understanding 
the context and the prophetic function of our blessed Lord. So that's what Jesus does. He 
condemns them. Notice the qualification. The 
qualification, back in 2323, you pay tithe of mint and anise 
in common and have neglected the weightier matters of the 
law, justice and mercy and faith. No, these you ought to have done. 
These, the tithing of the mint and the anise and the common. 
These you ought to have done. What's Jesus saying? We're to do everything God says. This is tempting because sometimes 
people, there are people that major on minors to the exclusion 
of majors. You know, they get a bee in their 
bonnet over some idiosyncrasy or over some shibboleth and that 
becomes everything to them! And they forget justice, mercy 
and faith. But there are people that major on majors and forget 
the minors. It's a good thing for man to 
commit his life to freeing sex slaves or freeing the downtrodden 
and the poor, but he should be a member of a church. He should 
tithe. He should read his Bible. He 
should lead his family in worship. Well, I'm just out there doing 
kingdom stuff. I can't be bothered with those 
little things. Well, Jesus says you better be bothered with those 
little things. You see, it's not up to us to 
pick and choose what law we're going to obey. I like these tithing 
things because I can just write a check, and I'm done. I like 
these justice, mercy, and faith because that means I have to 
be nice to people, and that's just not my disposition, you see. That's 
just not my gift. The Lord hasn't made me that 
way. You can't do that. Look at what 
Jesus says. Look at what Jesus emphasized. 
Look at how Jesus qualifies. He condemns them like the prophets 
before Him. He condemns them in the context 
of the covenant lawsuit. He condemns them with a view 
to pronouncing judgment upon their heads. He condemns them 
and nevertheless, He says, these you ought to have done without 
leaving the others undone. You know, there was a time I 
never wanted to preach on tithing or giving because it always feels 
self-serving as a pastor. You know, there's no great mystery. 
How does the pastor make, you know, how does the pastor eat? 
Well, the church pays him. Okay, so you're saying people 
put money in the box and that directly affects you? Yeah. My 
brother says, I'd like to live on love and fresh air, but I 
can't. I couldn't make my kids get satisfied 
on love and fresh air. They needed shoes, they needed 
a roof over their heads, they needed umbrellas to not get wet 
and sick and whatnot. So I've always been reluctant 
on this. I'm past that now. Because God says, you need to 
give. I don't want to hinder anybody's 
growth in grace or their life of sanctification because I'm 
too afraid to say. You need to cough up. And I'm 
not saying you need to cough up because I need a bigger hut. 
No. What you do between God and you is between God and you. Here's 
what Matthew Henry said in his comment on this passage. He says, 
They that are taught in the Word and do not communicate to them 
that teach them that love a cheap gospel come short of the Pharisees. It's pretty strong, isn't it? 
As Gary North has said somewhere, Americans like their religion, 
and they like it cheap. So the Lord does not condemn 
tithing. The Lord condemns imbalance. Davies and Allison say, tithing 
is not undone by the weightier matters of the law, but subordinated 
to them. Frantz says, what he objects 
to is the unbalanced piety which sets great store by these relatively 
insignificant rules, but misses the things that really matter. 
Did you really need me to stand here for 35 minutes so far and 
tell you that's what the text means? You tithe the mint and 
the anise and the cumin, but you neglect the weightier matters 
of the law, justice, mercy, and faith. These, the first, you 
ought to have done without leaving the others undone. Now notice, 
thirdly, the illustration. Blind guides who strain out a 
gnat and swallow a camel. Now, the straining refers to 
keeping gnats out of the wine. It's a good thing. Or out of 
your water. Remember, this is the days when they didn't have, 
you know, the lids that we have, and, you know, the corks that 
we have, and the vacuum seal method that we have, or, you 
know, butcher paper, freezers, and all that stuff that helps 
us to preserve and not ingest gnats. You see, their concern 
was legit. The gnat, according to Leviticus 
11.41, was unclean. They shouldn't have ingested 
gnats. Just like they shouldn't have not left undone, tithing. In order to fulfill God's requirement 
in that regard, according to Leviticus 11.41, the gnat was 
unclean, so the practice was right. The camel, however, was 
unclean also, Leviticus 11.4. And so the practice was wrong 
for them to strain out the gnat. The King James, for some reason, 
has strain at the gnat. It's strain out the gnat. It's 
keep the gnat out of your wine. Keep the gnat out of your water. 
That's the point of the passage. That's the point of what Jesus' 
illustration is. You see, they swallow camels, 
and that's bad. Just like neglecting the weightier 
matters of the law, justice, mercy, and faith. So you see 
what Jesus does here. He uses an illustration to highlight 
the absurdity of their practice. The lesser things, Davies and 
Allison, however useful or needful, must never eclipse the greater. 
In other words, don't spend all your time straining out a gnat 
and then ingest a camel. Makes sense, doesn't it? If you've 
got a problem with the unclean gnat, you should have a problem 
with the unclean camel. Get it? This is his point. Calvin 
said it this way. It is evident that these hypocrites 
amuse themselves with such distinctions. For while they pass by just judgment, 
mercy, and faith, and even tear in pieces the whole law, they 
are excessively rigid and severe in matters that are of no great 
importance. He says, and while in this way they pretend to kiss 
the feet of God, they proudly spit in His face. Now, permit 
me one brief moment to make a sideline application here before we apply 
the substance of the teaching. Jesus' statement here in verse 
24, the illustration was hyperbolic and even humorous. It was hyperbolic 
and even humorous. He does this elsewhere. Matthew 
7, verses 3 to 5. Don't go after the speck in your 
brother's eye when you've got a log hanging out of your own 
eye. Can I just tell you, brethren, 
that that's funny? Or when Jesus talks about how 
difficult it is for a rich man to enter into heaven, what's 
the illustration he gives? He must have liked camels, because 
he uses them there, too. It's like a camel trying to go 
through the eye of a needle. Again, that's funny. It's just 
like when Elijah is on Mount Carmel challenging those prophets 
of Baal. And he says, maybe your God's 
on holiday. Maybe your God's meditating. The real knee slapper came to 
the remnant when he said, maybe he's in the bathroom. The point, 
brethren, that I want to just observe from a sideline is that 
preaching and teaching of the Bible ought to be interesting. The transmission of biblical 
data ought to be something that thrills the redeemed soul and, 
to some degree, captures the attention of everybody that listens. There's nothing preeminently 
holy about a man who mutters behind a manuscript and just 
rolls out the data without seeking, by the grace of God, to bring 
the people to the text so they appreciate the written Word. 
What Christ says here is humorous, it's hyperbolic. In the Aramaic, 
the two words that are used even sound similar. If you were sitting 
there or standing there, you would have got a little chuckle 
out of this. I've been with pastors, and the question has come up, 
is it ever right to use humor in preaching? Now, I advocate 
that it is, but I don't mean, you know, there were, how many, 
you know, Protestants does it take to change a light bulb? 
Or how many, you know, a pope and a pastor and a rabbi walked 
into a... No, no, I'm not talking those 
kinds of things. Brethren, pastors, preachers 
of God's Word are dealing with the most exciting book ever written. 
We don't want to bore people out of their minds. When we go 
to the Valley of Elah, we ought to appreciate what's happening 
there when David downs Goliath. When we run through the various 
books of the Bible, we ought to take time to ponder the beauty, 
the literary craft employed, the excellency and the majesty 
of the style. And along the way, brethren, 
we ought to appreciate that Jesus uses an outlandish illustration 
to illustrate something that was so obviously an absurdity. You tell this to your kids, they're 
going to laugh. Jesus said this. He says that 
people busy themselves trying to strain out gnats and they 
swallow camels. They get a picture in their head 
of a man trying to swallow a camel and they laugh. Thou shalt never 
laugh. I love this statement by William 
Williams. He was a contemporary and a companion 
of Charles Haddon Spurgeon. He said, what a bubbling fountain 
of humor Mr. Spurgeon had. I laughed more, 
I verily believe, when in his company than during all the rest 
of my life besides. He had the most fascinating gift 
of laughter, and he had also the greatest ability for making 
all who heard him laugh with him. When someone blamed him 
for saying humorous things in his sermons, he said, he would 
not blame me if he only knew how many of them I keep back. Spurgeon himself said, Sometimes 
when I have said a humorous thing in preaching, I have not asked 
you to excuse me." I'm not saying, I'm just saying, do not have 
a problem with the proper use or a sanctified use of something 
that God has given to men. I really believe that when Jesus 
does this, He uses these outlandish illustrations. I mean, think 
about it. He even prefaces it with blind guides. The whole 
prospect of a blind man trying to strain out a gnat suggests 
itself as somewhat humorous to me. I mean, you don't typically 
task blind people, and I'm not trying to diss anybody who has 
that malady with straining out the gnats so that your meal isn't 
affected with the unclean little varmints. He says, Sometimes, 
when I have said a humorous thing in preaching, I have not asked 
you to excuse me. For if God has given me humor, 
I mean to use it in His cause. Many a man has been caught, and 
his ear arrested, and his attention won by a plain remark. If anyone 
can prove it is a wickedness and not a natural faculty, I 
will abandon it. But it is a faculty of nature, 
and it ought to be consecrated and used for the cause of Christ." 
Again, a joke-telling session has no place. But brethren, a 
use of humor, like our Lord does, helps the mind connect to truth. I like steak. but a slab of meat 
on the plate. Yeah, I'll eat it, it's good, 
but throw some salt and pepper and all that good stuff on there. 
Preaching ought to exhilarate people. Preaching ought to inform, 
to be sure, and instruct concerning the scriptures, and hopefully 
exhort people to change their ways. But when the book of God 
is in the hands of a man who doesn't preach it as it ought 
to be, that's a terrible thing. So that's the sideline observation. 
Let's apply the passage. In the first place, we would 
all say, and I'm sure we've heard this terminology, the majoring 
on the minors. He majors on the minors. It's 
always somebody else, not us. Right? It's always them. They 
major on the minors. We never look in the mirror and 
say, you know, maybe I major on the... Oh, no, couldn't be. 
You would never do that, you holy, pure, righteous specimen 
of a human being. We need to realize in the first 
place, with reference to the persons who major on the minors, 
I'm preaching to all of us this morning. I'm going to violate 
a rule set forth by J. Adams. It's not a rule, but a 
recommendation. J. Adams says preachers always 
ought to preach in the second plural. It ought to always be 
a you. Not because the preacher himself is not under the Word 
of God, but the preaching event, the whole idea is that God the 
Lord, by the Spirit of God, through His Word, singles out you. I 
got to throw me in there today, brethren, because I have seen 
the enemy and it is me. We need to realize in the first 
place the minors are not important and must be tended to. Wow, I've 
really neglected justice and mercy and faith. I'm going to 
go camp on justice and mercy and faith. I'm going to leave 
my church. I'm going to leave my family. I'm going to stop 
tithing. I'm going to stop. No, no, no. Don't do that. We 
need to understand the minors are not important and must be 
tended to. Secondly, minors are minors and should not be obsessed 
over to the neglect of majors. Minors are minors and should 
not be obsessed over to the neglect of majors. If that one thing 
that isn't justification by faith or the triune nature of God or 
the deity of our Lord Jesus, if that one thing that isn't 
those occupies every waking moment of your day, you may have a problem. We're not to obsess on minors 
and neglect majors. Calvin said, Christ charges the 
scribes of the fault which is found in all hypocrites, that 
they are exceedingly diligent and careful in small matters, 
but disregard the principal points of the law. A third observation 
is the majors and the minors must not be neglected, but both 
should be practiced by the believer. I think I've already referred 
to it. People major on minors to the neglect of justice and 
mercy and faith, but there's a class of people today that 
camp on justice and mercy and faith, but can't be bothered 
with things like church membership. They can't be bothered with, 
you know, actually showing up and singing with a congregation. They've got crime to fight. No, 
you're not supposed to neglect the minors either. I think Matthew 
Henry captures this sentiment. He says, sincere obedience is 
universal. And he that from a right principle 
obeys any of God's precepts will have respect to them all. Universal! The one that from right principle 
obeys any of God's precepts will have respect to them all. And 
then the minors may be obsessed over in order to mask the neglect 
of the majors. In other words, if I'm out here 
tithing my mint and anise and cumin, and I'm over here looking 
at Internet porn until my brain is falling out, everybody sees 
all the good that I'm doing, and I manage to mask this. You 
know, I see these debates on Facebook or online, and sometimes 
you see men that are very rude to other people. Sometimes you 
see them rude to pastors, men that, you know, have been in 
the ministry for 20, 30 years. They're being treated like, you 
know, they're little kids on a playground. I just wonder, 
do all these guys who know so much, are they members of churches? Are they plugged in, as the common 
parlance would suggest? Are they tithers? Are they doers 
of those minor things? Or have they found a way to pontificate 
and make people captive to all of their brilliancy without actually 
engaging in true and biblical religion? Brethren, the warning 
for the church, our church, us, each and every one of us, C.H. 
Spurgeon said, there are gnat strainers among us still who 
apparently have no difficulty in swallowing a camel, hump and 
all. I would suggest there are several 
things we ought to be on guard for. I'm not going to elaborate 
a lot. I think the propositions tell what I mean. In the first 
place, we miss the storyline of the Bible in an attempt to 
marshal texts to support our idiosyncrasies. You say, well, 
that was a confusing statement. We miss the point of the Bible 
to try and figure out how we're supposed to do this, that, or 
the other. Now, we should seek every answer from God's Word, 
but we should understand what God's Word's point is. Is it 
to make you the best businessman in the Lower Mainland? Is it? Is that why we have these 
66 wonderful books called the Old and the New Testaments? So 
that you can achieve your goal of being the best businessman 
or the best cake baker in the Lower Mainland? No. storyline 
of the Bible. It's about God in Christ, reconciling 
the world to Himself, to bring glory and praise and honor to 
God. The current book I'm reading 
is consistent and is accurate. The whole point of the entirety 
of the Bible is to answer the question, who shall ascend the 
mount of the Lord? The whole reason the Pentateuch 
is structured the way it is is so that sinners can ascend and 
be in the presence of God. It's the whole reason the Bible 
takes on the contours that it does. Christ is the one who shall 
ascend that mount, and Christ brings His elect with Him so 
that we may dwell in the presence of God. You know what an underlying 
theme and current throughout Scripture is? It is the covenant 
promise of God that I will be your God and you shall be my 
people. Now, I don't doubt that the principles 
in the Bible will help you to be a better businessman in this 
world, but that's not its point. Its point is, how shall we sinful 
men dwell in the presence of a holy God? We boast of our supposed 
acts of piety, but we don't treat people with justice and mercy. 
That's, you know, goody for you, you fasted three days last week, 
but you're mean to people. You're just not pleasant. You're 
unkind, you're unhappy, you're sour. That's got to be a neglect 
of mercy, doesn't it? We are obsessed with our shibboleths. If you don't know what that word 
means, you have two options. You can either A, look in the 
book of Judges from whence it comes, or Google it. We are obsessed with our shibboleths, 
but we can't define justification by faith alone. We, like the 
hypocrites in chapter 23, are imbalanced in our approach to 
the Christian life. We major on the minors to the 
neglect of the majors. We attempt to get persons to 
jump on our particular bandwagons while neglecting the weightier 
matters of the law. We make our preferences of thus 
saith the Lord, and we somehow interpret that as everybody else's 
mandate. I've got a good suggestion for 
all of us. Let's busy ourselves with Solomon's 
admonition to keep our heart with all diligence. You have 
a full-time job keeping your heart all day. You aren't skilled 
enough to govern the hearts of everybody else. You're just not. That may shatter your illusions 
this morning. Sorry, I don't mean to offend 
your safe space or hurt your feelings, but you don't have 
the wherewithal to govern the hearts of everybody you know. 
We are not to take our particular theological oddity, or it may 
even be inaccuracy, and make it everybody else's. Again, we're 
not talking about denying justification by faith. We criticize persons 
for failing to devote the same attention to the particular minor 
things that we have chosen to devote ourselves to. I mean, 
in my history as a Christian and in my history as a pastor, 
I've heard on a few occasions, if the church just got this one 
thing right, oh, there'd be glorious revival. If the church just stopped 
doing this, then heaven would come down and glory would fill 
our souls. I hope that you understand that's 
probably not going to happen. If we could institute that every 
single believer started having shoehorns in their homes, I don't 
think that would bring such a remedial benefit to the church. Or if 
we took our shibboleth, or our preference, or our conviction, 
and it may even be a lawful, accurate thing, but it may be 
an area of liberty, and we say, if the church just fixed that, 
then everything would be hunky-dory. It's a failure to recognize the 
systemic problem of churchdom. We got a whole host of issues. 
It's not just, well, I'll stop doing this and everything will 
be great. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. We got a lot to deal with 
and a lot to work on. But this is the attitude. We 
criticize other persons for failing to capitalize on the minors that 
we ourselves have capitalized on. In sum, my dear brothers 
and sisters, Christ condemns the scribes and the Pharisees, 
but Christ warns the church today. May it not be the case that we, 
like hypocrites, are straining out gnats and swallowing the 
camel, hump and all, for things that are not weighty matters. Die for weighty matters. Fight 
for weighty matters. Contend earnestly for weighty 
matters. Do not neglect justice and mercy 
and faith. Do not neglect the minor matters, 
but be very careful and be very cautious before casting aspersion 
upon somebody's reputation, because they view the minor matters a 
little differently than you may, and their practice doesn't exactly 
line up with what you think is approved. We will reap the condemnation 
of our Lord. We will hear Him say, woe to 
you, church member. You tithe mint and anise and 
cumin, but you neglected justice, mercy, and faith. Blind guides 
straining out the gnat and gulping down a camel. Please, brothers, 
sisters, My experience, it's the minor things that split churches. It's the minor things that make 
people unhappy with one another. It's the minor things that people 
no longer want to hang out with others. They have a different 
view of schooling than we do, so we're never going to have 
fellowship with them. They have a different view of 
eating meat, and I can't have that. They have a different view 
of whatever it is. That's the stuff that typically 
rips people apart. We strain at the nets, but we 
ingest the camel, hump, and all. Well, praise God for the glorious 
gospel of Jesus Christ, because it's Christ's cross that delivers 
us from sin. It is Christ's gospel, His blood, 
His righteousness. That's what we desperately need. 
Not just tithing, it's not just doing justice, mercy, and faith. 
No, no, no, no. We're not saved by those acts 
of law-keeping. We are saved by grace alone, 
through faith alone in Christ Jesus alone. If you're an unbeliever 
here this morning, you're not a Christian, you haven't come 
to the Savior, do not leave here and say, Butler said I need to 
tithe, and I need to be a social justice warrior, and I'll go 
to heaven. Butler didn't say that. Butler 
never would say that. The way of salvation, the way 
of entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven is by grace, through 
faith in Jesus. Butler's admonition and encouragement 
to you today is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you 
shall be saved. Believe on Him who came into 
this world, who lived in obedience to the law of God, who died as 
a sacrifice for sinners at Calvary, and who rose again the third 
day. He now sits enthroned at the right hand of the Father 
on high, and all those who by grace look to Him will live. Beautiful. That's the gospel. 
That's the good news. See, if I told you this morning, 
go tithe, go do justice, mercy and faith, that would be a burden 
you could not fulfill, because you're supposed to do it perpetually, 
you're supposed to do it exactly and entirely and personally. 
We can't do that. So I'm telling you to believe, 
to look to the Lord Jesus, to trust in Him and in Him alone. And when by grace you are saved, 
then take these instructions to heart and live the way the 
Lord would call us to. Well, let us pray. Father, we 
thank You for Your Word. We thank You for our Lord's teaching 
and the clarity of it. God, I thank you for all of these 
things and the consistency of the parts, the unity of the parts, 
and the consent of the whole. We just pray that you'd help 
us to get our minds wrapped around such texts and help us, God, 
to guard our hearts when it comes to such sins. And may it not 
be the case that we would have this woe pronounced upon us. 
May it not be the case that we busy ourselves with gnats all 
the while swallowing camels. Grant us grace to be charitable, 
to be loving, to be kind, to be those who do the minor things 
and those who do the major things, and that by grace and for the 
glory of God Almighty. Go with us now, we pray, and 
we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.