Well, you can turn in your Bibles to Matthew's gospel, Matthew chapter 23. God willing, in September, we'll start a book in our evening services. The last several months have been a bit of a challenge, so I thought this summer we'd just take a poke at a few different passages as we look to God's Word. So tonight, I want to focus primarily on verses 23 and 24 in Matthew 23, but I'll read beginning in verse 1.

Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to his disciples, saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. Therefore, whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do according to their works, for they say and do not do. For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men's shoulders. But they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.

But all their works they do to be seen by men. They make their phylacteries broad, and enlarge the borders of their garments. They love the best places at feasts, the best seats in the synagogues, greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called by men, Rabbi, Rabbi. But you, do not be called rabbi, for one is your teacher, the Christ, and you are all brethren.

Do not call anyone on earth your father, for one is your father, he who is in heaven. And do not be called teachers, for one is your teacher, the Christ. But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant, and whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. 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 goal of the temple, he is obliged to perform it. Fools and blind, for which is greater, the goal or the temple that sanctifies the goal?

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

The Pharisees' Tithing Practice

you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and 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 are 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, we thank You for Your Word. We pray now for the ministry of the Spirit to help us as we look at these condemnations, and the one in particular. We ask God in heaven that we would take heed to the various things that Jesus condemns in passages like these.

We know these were Pharisees. We know these were scribes. We know that they were men who denied the Messiahship of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. But nevertheless, these are tendencies that plague the religious.

And we pray that You would guard our hearts Grant us the Holy Spirit and help us to exercise that fruit of the Spirit, which is self-control, so that we don't engage in the kinds of wickedness that is denounced here. And we ask this in the name and for the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Introduction and Context

Well, as we look at this particular section, as I said, we're going to look at verses 23 and 24, but it's always good to understand a passage in its context. So Jesus comes into Jerusalem in Matthew chapter 21. We call that the triumphal entry, that is the passion week. And in the midst of that, he engages in a series of confrontations with the religious leaders.

That starts in chapter 21, and it continues all the way through chapter 22. there's a series of disputes, there's a series of back-and-forth exchanges where they're trying to show that Jesus is a fake, that Jesus is a sham, and Jesus alternatively is showing that they are the fakes. They are the shams. They are the ones that are wrong. Well, here in chapter 23, he moves from this sort of back-and-forth confrontation with the religious leaders to first announce or rather warn his disciples and the multitudes concerning the conduct of the religious leadership in Israel at that time.

We see, for instance, how they say, or he says, whatever they tell you to observe, verse three, that observe and do, but do not do according to their works for they say and do not do. So insofar as they are accurately teaching the truth, you need to obey that, but don't follow their conduct because they are wretched. And then beginning in verse 13, he engages in a series of eight woes. There is a textual variant.

If you're using the ESV or the NAS or the NIV, you have seven woes. So the New King James and the King James tradition has eight woes. I think it balances out with the eight beatitudes in Matthew chapter five. And basically a woe is the opposite of a beatitude or a blessing.

In Matthew chapter five, Jesus says, blessed are the meat, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed is the poor in spirit, for they shall see God. Blessed is a wonderful pronouncement of goodness upon the people of God. Well, woe is just the opposite.

So when Jesus comes to deal with these religious leaders, he pronounces a series of woe. It is an interjection of pain, distress, and warning. Again, it's just the opposite of blessing. Now, I should tell you that some commentators stumble at Matthew 23.

They don't like gentle Jesus, meek and mild, actually raising his voice and condemning people, calling them vipers, calling them hypocrites, calling them things that we perhaps in our generation wouldn't say to those enemies of the gospel. One man says it is the most un-Christian chapter in Matthew. And another said it is the unloveliest chapter in the gospel. Now that is a complete misreading of this particular section.

Look, for instance, at how Jesus ends this. prior to all of that discourse where he's gonna prophesy concerning the destruction of the temple in chapter 24, this section ends in verses 37 to 39 with lamentation. He is the weeping prophet at that particular time. Jesus, however, doesn't shrink back from pronouncing woes and condemning those who are enemies of the cross of Christ. While you're thinking along this line, I want to remind you of another weeping prophet.

His name was Jeremiah, and he definitely expressed grief over the nation of Israel when they sinned and rejected Yahweh. But nevertheless, the prophet Jeremiah was able to pray thus. Give heed to me, O Lord, and listen to the voice of those who contend with me. Shall evil be repaid for good?

For they have dug a pit for my life. Remember that I stood before you to speak good for them, to turn away your wrath from them. Therefore, deliver up their children to the famine. and pour out their blood by the force of the sword. Let their wives become widows and bereaved of their children.

Let their men be put to death, their young men be slain by the sword in battle. Let a cry be heard from their houses when you bring a troop suddenly upon them, for they have dug a pit to take me and hidden snares for my feet. Yet, Lord, you know all their counsel which is against me to slay me. Provide no atonement for their iniquity, nor blot out their sin from your sight, but let them be overthrown before you.

Deal thus with them in the time of your anger. So the weeping prophet is not averse to praying an imprecatory prayer concerning the enemies of Christ. The imprecatory Psalms of David are not unique to David, but rather we see the prophet as well expressing that. The Christian life is complex at times.

On the one hand, we weep with those, or we rather mourn over those who persecute us. And we pray to God to show mercy to that. But obviously from the written revelation of God most high, there are those seasons where the church must give place to wrath. And that is done by praying the imprecatory Psalms of David.

So back to Matthew chapter 23. This idea that it's uncharacteristic or it's unchristian for Jesus to engage in this seems to me to be a sacrifice of justice and of righteousness and of a righteous emphasis on God's law. Jesus upbraids the enemies of the gospel. And as I say, we're not supposed to go out and be obnoxious and do that to everybody we meet, but there is a time in our prayers where we give vent or place rather to the wrath of God by praying the Psalms of David.

Now let's get to this particular passage. I just kind of had to get that off my chest. So first of all, look at the particular woes. You have them there in verses 13, 14, 15, 16, 23, 25, 27, and 28.

Up to this point, woe number one, they close the doors of the kingdom, verse 13. Woe number two, they exploit widows and engage in pretentious praying, verse 14. Woe number three, they are missionaries for hell, verse 15. Woe number four, they pervert oaths, verses 16 to 22.

And here, woe number five, they neglect weighty matters. Look at what Jesus says, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, Hypocrites! It is to engage in hypocrisy to do what these scribes and Pharisees did with reference to God's law.

The Condemnation Pronounced

In the first place, let us look at the condemnation pronounced by the Lord. Note the emphasis of the scribes and the Pharisees. You pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin. Now, with reference to this, they had biblical warrant.

Obviously, God commanded tithing. God commanded the people of God to bring cheerfully out of their property, out of the things that God had entrusted to them, to bring it back to God. Not that God needs our stuff, not that God needs our money, not that God needs our finances, but it is an expression of that third aspect in terms of guilt, Grace, gratitude. We express gratitude by the things we return to God in terms of sacrifice.

And so they had obviously biblical commandment to engage in this type of activity. You pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin. And with reference to tithing seeds, you see that even in Leviticus 2730. And all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree is the Lord's.

It is holy to the Lord. Now, these particular persons thought that materials that had been tithed were therefore pure, and thus met the requirements for them to be able to eat. They oftentimes even boasted in doing such things. Remember that parable that Jesus teaches in Luke's Gospel?

At Luke chapter 18, two men went to the temple to pray. One a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. Well, remember the Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself. And essentially he says, God, thank you that I'm such a wonderful guy.

Thank you that I'm so upright. Thank you that I'm so magnificent. Thank you that I am just about as perfect as a man can be. In fact, one of the things that he says, I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I possess.

And of course, the publican couldn't even look up into heaven, but he beat his breast and said, God be merciful to me, the sinner. Calvin speaks concerning these seeds. So as to make a display of extraordinary zeal or piety or for piety at the least possible expense. So they tithe mint, anise, and cumin.

But notice that they neglect the weightier matters of the law. Jesus teaches that there are weightier matters of the law. The church would do well to listen and to pay attention to this. Not everything is as important as other things.

Now, I realize everything in the Bible is absolutely crucial, and you need to know it and understand it. But with reference to how high the south wall surrounding the tabernacle was versus justification by faith alone, I'm going to take more time trying to explain to you justification by faith alone than how high the south wall surrounding the tabernacle was. Now, that doesn't mean we don't have to know those dimensions. We certainly should and must, but not necessarily onto our salvation.

Neglect of Weightier Matters

Notice they neglected the weightier matters of the law. Turn back for just a moment to chapter 22. You see this self-same distinction made by our Lord Jesus Christ when he was questioned by a lawyer concerning the first commandment. Verse 34 and chapter 22, but 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 answer. Well, they're all great commandments. Well, of course, they're all great commandments.

Of course, God's law is perfect in its entirety. Of course, it has the brilliance and the luster and reflects the perfections of our majestic and glorious God. But with reference to this particular question, Jesus makes a distinction. He highlights the first and foremost, and then he says the second is like it.

Now, with reference to these two, the entirety of the Decalogue hangs upon them. Our duty toward God is Commandments 1 to 4, and our duty toward man are Commandments 5 to 10. And so these are summary statements. Loving the Lord your God, and loving your neighbor as yourself.

But there is a distinction between weightier matters of the law. Going back to Matthew 23, he points out their emphasis in the first part of verse 23, for you paid tithe of mint and anise and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the law. And now he shows us or rather he indicates for us what those particular weightier matters of the law are. Justice and mercy and faith.

Justice and mercy and faith. Those are big ones. If you're weighing out little tiny seeds to bring to the house of God by way of tithing, but you've neglected justice, you've neglected mercy, and you've neglected faith, then you might be at a low point in your life. As I mentioned this morning, if you steal a sacrifice to present to God Almighty, you've hit rock bottom.

If you are weighing out seeds in order to tithe, and you neglect justice, mercy, and faith, you've hit rock bottom as well.

Justice, Mercy, and Faith Defined

Now, with reference to justice, mercy, and faith, this particular triad, or these three words, are found elsewhere in the biblical revelation. And I would suggest that in the first place, justice and mercy refer to the second table of the law. In other words, justice and mercy have to do with commandments 5 to 10. You've weighed out seeds, but you don't care about other people.

In fact, look at the context. The textual variant is found in verse 14. Again, if you're using a modern version outside the King James tradition, you won't have verse 14. It's probably in a margin.

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." What does that mean, devour widows' houses? Did they come under the cover of night and go in and raid these widows' cupboards? No, they devoured widows' houses by exploiting them and taking advantage of them.

When a woman's husband died, she would seek assistance, and she would seek assistance with her ecclesiastical community. And these sharks would seize upon this difficulty in her life and exploit her. And so while they're tithing the mint and the anise and the cumin, they are nevertheless exploiting widows in their hardship and under duress, and they're building their own bank accounts in the process. As well, look at verse 25.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of what? Extortion and self-indulgence. These were not innocent chaps. When Jesus calls them snakes, when Jesus calls them hypocrites, when Jesus condemns them, it is absolutely positively on point.

He's not making this up. This isn't rhetorical flourish. This isn't just trying to make a point, but he is actually underscoring the problem with the religious leadership in Israel at the time of Messiah. As well, notice their neglect of mercy broader.

Look back at chapter nine. Chapter nine, we see this lack of mercy when Jesus receives sinners and eats with them. Matthew 9 verse 9, as Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office. And he said to him, follow me.

So he arose and followed him. If you're not a believer here tonight, if you're not a Christian here tonight, listen to Jesus and do what he says. That's the best thing I can tell you tonight. Listen to Jesus and do what he says.

Notice, he says to Matthew, sitting in his tax office, follow me. Matthew doesn't say, oh no, I'm going to wait for another 10 or 15 years. Jesus says, follow me, and Matthew gets up and he follows him. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.

Trust me, that will make everything better in your life. I guarantee you. Doesn't mean there'll be a boat in your driveway, doesn't mean there'll be a new car in your garage, doesn't mean your bank account will grow, but it will mean that you have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And that is far more excellent than anything that this world has to offer.

So he says to Matthew, follow me. So he arose and followed him. Now it happened as Jesus sat at the table in the house that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples. See what Matthew does?

Matthew says, I'm gonna throw a feast because Jesus saved me and I want to praise and glorify and worship him. Additionally, I want my fellow tax collectors to hear this Jesus. I want them to be saved also. I want them to hear this good news.

But notice the party, you know, the party killers, the Pharisees. These guys could ruin anything. Notice in verse 11, And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to his disciples, Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? When Jesus heard that, he said to them, Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.

In other words, to whom else should I go? Doctors don't go healing the healthy, but rather the doctors go after the sick. Where does the Savior go? Does he go after the righteous?

No, he goes after the sinner. And then notice what he says in verse 13, but go and learn what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice, Hosea 6, 6. And what an affront for Jesus to tell the religious leaders, go and learn what this means.

Well, they knew Hosea 6, 6. When it says in the passage in Matthew 5 chapter 23, when it talks about their phylacteries, a phylactery was a little box they wore on their arm or on their forehead, and they filled it with scripture verses. So they knew Hosea's success. So for Jesus to say, go and learn what this means, They knew it cognitively.

They knew it at least to some degree in terms of words on a page, but they didn't know it experientially. They didn't understand that God does desire mercy. And then he summarizes by saying, for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. So going back to Matthew chapter 23, I think when he says you've neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy, this is a second table comparison.

But he also says faith. And herein, I think he means a first table, our duty to God, to have no other gods before him, to not make idols, to not blaspheme his name, to not desecrate or break his particular day. They rejected the Messiah himself, so they were obviously lacking in faith. They neglected justice and mercy relative to the people around them, but they neglected faith relative to the God who had created them and who had called them.

In short, what we have is that they were imbalanced in their obedience to the law. That's their problem, brethren. I think it's patently obvious. On the one hand, they tithe the mint and the anise and the cumin.

On the other hand, they neglect the weightier matters of the law, justice, mercy, and faith.

Imbalanced Piety Described

As R.T. France points out, there is no suggestion that the scribes and Pharisees were opposed in principle to justice. In other words, they didn't walk around saying, we hate justice, we hate mercy, we hate faith. Just like the modern day legalist and just like the modern day man who majors on the minors says, well, I hate justice, mercy, and faith.

He goes on to say, the problem was that they did not devote the same care to working out the practical implications of these basic principles as they did to the minutia of tithing herbs. You get that, right? Tithing herbs is definitely called for because the Old Testament demands it, but not to the neglect of justice, mercy, and faith. It's sort of like those fellows in that parable of the Good Samaritan.

It's the religious men that pass on the other side. It's sort of like when the Pharisees and the scribes and the religious leaders deliver up Jesus to Pilate at his Praetorium. They don't want to enter into the Praetorium because they don't want to be defiled for the Passover. violating the Sixth Commandment. You're delivering up the only innocent man that has ever lived to be summarily executed by the civil government, and you're concerned about ceremonial uncleanness in terms of the Passover later on today?

You see, this is not unique to them, but it also abdains in religious people today. We'll get to that in a bit later. Spurgeon says, their hearts were not right in the sight of God, therefore their minds were unbalanced. Because their hearts were not right before God, therefore their minds were unbalanced.

Now, as I said, there's background. In Micah chapter 6, verse 8, one of those passages in the Old Testament that a lot of Christians know. 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've got the second table references, to do justly and love mercy, and then the first table reference, to walk humbly with your God. Incidentally, Micah chapter six is very similar to what we find going on in this particular passage. Micah 6 begins with the prophet calling upon the created order to serve as witnesses to the covenantal lawsuit that he sues with reference to Israel. He indicts them for the same sort of heartlessness.

He indicts them for the same sort of callousness. He indicts them for the same sort of emptiness in their religious activity that the Lord Jesus Christ is doing in this particular instance. But it doesn't stop at Micah chapter 6. Again, this is something prevalent in the Old Testament.

This was the purpose for Abraham, Genesis 18, 19. For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord, that's a first table concern, to do righteousness and justice. Similar, not exactly the same, but certainly similar. This was to be the pattern for Israel, Deuteronomy 10, 12 to 13.

And now Israel, what does the Lord 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, to walk in all his ways and to love him with all your heart and all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord and his statutes, which I command you today for your good. So with Abraham, with Israel, and then prophetic denouncement, not just Micah 6, verse 8, but as well, Hosea 12, verse 6. So you, by the help of your God, return, observe mercy and justice, and wait on your God continually.

I'm pointing this out to show you that when you come to Matthew 23, Jesus ain't doing anything new. Jesus sounds exactly like the old covenant prophets, dealing with the same sort of people they dealt with. And he is using the same language, he is using the same literary convention, he is using the same sort of framework to indict them for their lawlessness and wretchedness. There's a prophetic denouncement in Zechariah 7, 8 to 10.

Then the word of the Lord came to Zechariah saying, 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. And with Micah 6, 8, when it says, he has shown you, oh man, what is good, never forget that context.

They had said, with reference to the Lord's indictment through the prophet Micah, something along these lines. What does God want? Does he want thousands of burnt offerings? Shall we offer up our firstborn children?

Shall we engage like the heathen and sacrifice our sons? And so the prophet says, you know the answer, you know what's required of you, you know what's always been in play. Don't give us that sort of lip service that you're going to try to appease the angry God in your own efforts and with your own methodology. So what Christ does in Matthew 23, 23 and 24 is absolutely consistent with the Old Testament prophets before him.

The Qualification Given

Now notice, secondly, the qualification given by the Lord. So that's the pronouncement of condemnation. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you paid tithe of mint and anise and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith. Now note the qualification given by the Lord.

These you ought to have done without leaving the others undone. When he says, these you ought to have done, he means the justice and the mercy and the faith. These you ought to have done. You ought to have really regarded those widows who came to you for assistance.

You ought to really regard even a Samaritan. or even a man that is broken and beaten and battered on the road, that even a Samaritan tends to. You ought to have that kind of love for God and love for man that your conduct is consistent with that profession. These you ought to have done, but then notice what he goes on to say without leaving the others undone. In other words, he's not saying you don't need to tithe the mint and the anise and the cumin.

He's not saying that the tithing laws were wrong. He's not saying that God was out of line back in the day telling you to actually give of your increase back to Yahweh. No, he's not saying that. These you ought to have done without leaving the other things undone.

In other words, in the language of R.T. France, what he objects to is this unbalanced piety which sets great store by these relatively insignificant rules, but misses the things that really matter. This is obvious, isn't it? I know it's hot, I know it's late, but give me a nod that you're following.

Because again, this is a condemnation of Pharisaic practice in the first century. Too bad this Pharisaic practice didn't die in the first century. We have remnants of it in our own religious practice in our own day. Now, before we end and make some matters or some points of application, look at the illustration provided by the Lord in verse 24.

So he gives the condemnation, pronounces that. He gives a qualification, these you ought to have done without leaving the others undone. And then he gives this illustration, blind guides who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel. Now the straining refers to keeping gnats out of the wine.

Obviously, people who drink wine don't want to ingest gnats while they do so. It's a very good rule. It's a very good practice. It's a very good thing.

As well, the gnat was unclean, according to Leviticus 11.41. So the practice was right, just like tithing. You should do that. It's a good thing.

Now, the camel was unclean, Leviticus 11.4, so that practice was wrong, like neglecting justice, mercy, and faith. Look at what he says, blind guides who strain out a gnat, again, good. Gnats are unclean. But swallow a camel.

Bad. Camels are unclean too. You shouldn't want to ingest that. You should try to strain out the camel along with the gnat so that you don't ingest either of which that are unclean.

So it works in terms of illustration with reference to his point. Davies and Allison say the lesser things, however useful or needful, must never eclipse the greater. Kelvin says it is evident that these hypocrites amuse themselves with such distinctions. For while they pass by justice, 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.

And while in this way they pretend to kiss the feet of God, they proudly spit in His face. Again, we're not relegating, we're not suggesting, we're not saying that somehow tithing was bad, and that law was bad, and the command was bad. Again, you need to see it in terms of comparative. You need to see it in terms of comparative analysis.

If you spend energy and you spend time on a Friday night in preparation for Sabbath worship, and you're weighing out mint, anise, and cumin, And on the way to Sabbath worship, you walk by some poor guy that has been taken out by thugs, you cross right around him, and then you actually go to the temple or to the tabernacle and you present those herbs and you say, I've done my religious duty. As far as Jesus is concerned, you're a hypocrite. You are a viper. There is big problems in your heart.

If you tithe mint, anise, and cumin, but neglect justice, mercy, and faith, you're not a good religious person. You've got big challenges and big issues. Before we get into the practical application,

The Illustration: Gnat and Camel

look again at verse 24. I want to draw out a point that I think the church needs to hear. Blind guides who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel. The illustration was hyperbolic and even humorous.

It was hyperbolic and even humorous.

Hyperbole and Humor in Preaching

In Aramaic, gnat and camel sound similar. Go back to Matthew 7 to see something hyperbolic and even humorous. Matthew 7, verses 3 to 5. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?

Or how can you say to your brother, let me remove the speck from your eye, and look, a plank is in your own eye. Hypocrite, first remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. Had you been in attendance and you cracked a smile, I don't think Jesus would have mean mugged you. I don't think he would have looked at you and said, how dare you actually crack a smile, any more than I think you would have been looked at with a mean mug by Elijah when he challenges the prophets of Baal and actually suggests that they're gods on the toilet.

You would have been slapping your knee laughing because it was a hyperbolic way to show the futility of idolatry. Turn over to Matthew 19. hyperbole and even humor is employed here to make a particular point. Now I point this out, no pun intended, because there are certain pastors and preachers and divines among us that suggest that to ever use humor in the pulpit is a horrific abuse of the pulpit. I have yet to find the passage in my Bible where it says preach the word in as boring a manner as you can possibly dull it out.

Preach the word in such a way that people can't wait for the sweet release of sleep. Preach it in such a way that they'd rather read a phone book than ever hear preaching of the scriptures. Brethren, pastors, men committed to preaching need to preach expositionally sound sermons that are exegetically good, but they should labor to make it interesting. You don't cook food so that it bores people out of their minds.

You try to make it such that it's pleasant to the palate. But there seems to be this class of men that see as their aim put us all to sleep. Brethren, if the Bible puts us to sleep, we're not understanding it the way we ought. Notice in Matthew 19, Matthew chapter 19 at verse 24.

And again, I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Again, I point this out simply as an aside. Blind guides, that two words is quite funny too. Blind guide.

Has anybody ever been to the Grand Canyon? Have you ever gone down into the basin of the canyon? Have you chosen the guy who's got the dark sunglasses and the stick to be your guide? No!

You would never pick that guy. You would never choose that guy. You want a guy who's got 20-20 vision. You want a guy who's got manual dexterity.

You want a guy who's able to navigate the burrow down that canyon so that you don't die. You see, the very language of blind guide suggests as much in terms of hyperbole. William Williams was a contemporary and a companion of C.H. Spurgeon.

He said, what a bubbling fountain of humor Mr. Spurgeon had. I'm not suggesting jokes for jokes sake. I'm not talking about pastors entering pulpits and say, hey, did you hear the one about the three guys that walked into the bar?

But William Williams says 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. And then Spurgeon himself made this observation. Sometimes when I have said 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 is here arrested and his attention won by a quaint 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, I'm not suggesting Jesus was the joke teller, Jesus engaged in levity, Jesus engaged in jocularity, but Jesus engaged in hyperbole that at times was humorous in order to make points to show the folly and the futility of a man who would spend his Friday night weighing out seeds all the while neglecting justice, mercy, and faith.

Application: Majoring on the Minors

Well, in conclusion, I would suggest in the first place, there is this tendency among us to major on the minors. That's what's in view here, majoring on the minors. I would suggest first, the minors are not unimportant and they must be attended to. Right?

My argument isn't don't engage in the minors. Don't major on the minors is different than get rid of the minors. You get that, right? Just because I say I like oranges doesn't mean I hate apples.

The minors are minors and should not be obsessed over to the neglect of the majors. In other words, remember tithing, mint, anise, and cumin in terms of the larger gamut framework, rather, of Christian ethics are not as important as helping somebody that's been beaten up and is bleeding on the street. Third, the majors and the minors must not be neglected, but both should be practiced by the believer. In other words, we shouldn't just major on the minors, and we shouldn't minor on the majors, but we should appreciate both and seek by God's grace and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit to do what he calls us to.

Matthew Henry says, sincere obedience is universal, and he that from a right principle obeys any of God's precepts will have respect to them all. We're not supposed to pick and choose. As well, the minors may be obsessed over, now listen to this,

Minors Used to Mask Neglect

the minors may be obsessed over in order to mask the neglect of the majors. In other words, fastidious attention to the detail of tithing mint and anise and cumin somehow assuages the conscience of the man who's able to exploit and devour widows' households. The same might be true in our situation. We might obsess about what we perceive to be the most important thing, but in the grand scheme of things, they might be minors.

And all the while, we're neglecting justice, mercy, and faith. Winston's girlfriend in 1984 made this observation. If you keep the small rules, you can break the big rules. And sometimes Christians, professing Christians, might engage in that.

I know of a man many, many years ago that was in a church in Southern California, and he was outspokenly against any Christian in any of the churches taking their families to Disneyland. Disneyland was horrific. Disneyland was wretched. Disneyland was the worst.

It was the epitome of worldliness. Now, you might be saying, amen, absolutely, positively right. My point is simply this, the guy was a serial adulterer. Now, whether you fall out with him in terms of Disneyland, with reference to his sort of masking what was going on in his life, Disneyland was the big problem.

Brethren, beware that the minors being obsessed over are not done so in order to mask the neglect of the majors.

Minoring on the Majors

And then the flip side to majoring on the minors is minoring on the majors. The church today needs to recover biblical Trinitarianism. The church today needs to return to Nicaea. The church today needs to understand what the Bible teaches concerning who God is.

Because a lot of professing Christians out there have thrown up for themselves an idol. Someone that's altogether just like them. We heard about that in the reading from A.W. Pink this morning.

God Most High condemns Israel in Psalm 50. You thought I was altogether just like you. God made us in his image and ever since we've been trying to make him in our image. The church today needs to major on some majors.

The Trinity, Christology, justification by faith are some suggestions that ought not to be thrown away by the side while we, you know, major on things like tithing mint and anise and cumin.

Warning for the Church

And then finally, there is a warning for the church. Again, the woes are directed against the scribes and Pharisees, but also serve as a warning. Spurgeon said this, there are great, or there are gnat strainers among us still, who apparently have no difficulty in swallowing a camel, hump and all. That is something we need to take to heart.

In the first place, we miss the point of the Bible in order to support our idiosyncrasies. This happens in cults. We miss the point of the Bible to support our idiosyncrasies. We're not supposed to do that.

We're supposed to understand the storyline, the plot, the major turns with reference to the biblical story. Secondly, We boast of our supposed acts of piety, but don't treat people with justice and mercy. Great, good, these things you ought, without leaving the others undone. Certainly, go ahead and tithe, but don't walk by some bleeding person on the street.

Third, we are obsessed with our shibboleths, but oftentimes can't define justification by faith alone. Now, if I were to ask you to raise your hand if you knew what a shibboleth was, I'm sure there wouldn't be a lot of them. Shibboleth has come to be in preacherese, preacher language, something that is unique to us. It's an idiosyncrasy.

It comes from Judges 12, especially verses 5 to 6, teaching time. In verses 5 to 6, the Gileadites seized the fords of the Jordan before the Ephraimites arrived. This is under the judgeship of Jephthah. And when any Ephraimite who escaped said, let me cross over, the men of Gilead would say to him, are you an Ephraimite?

If he said no, then they would say to him, then say Shibboleth. It's kind of like a fountain of springs. And he would say, Sibyleth, for he could not pronounce it right. Then they would take him and kill him at the fords of the Jordan.

There fell at that time 42,000 Ephraimites. Now, the point isn't we're going to kill people that can't say Sibyleth. The point is, is that we have our Sibyleths, we have our preferences, we have our idiosyncrasies, but again, We can't give a basic definition to what is justification. That is an abuse relative to this particular passage.

We, at times, are like the hypocrites in chapter 23. Notice, preachers often say, you, because that's how preaching ought to be. But when it's so obvious like this, I've got to throw myself in there with you. I'm not prone.

I'm not immune, I'm not the holy right reverend sir that never engages in this sort of stuff. We, like the hypocrites in chapter 23, are imbalanced in our approach to the Christian life. We're imbalanced. We're supposed to be balanced.

We're supposed to understand the weightier matters of the law and the not as weightier matters of the law, not so that we can dispense with them, but so that we can give equal allegiance to those things that God has called us to. As well, there are those among us who wait on the Lord to provide direction in our lives while neglecting the various passages which make his will for us abundantly clear. This says, I'm just waiting on the Lord. What do you mean?

I mean, there should be a waiting on the Lord. I'm not running ahead of that. Providence is a reality. But brethren, the Bible is pretty clear on what God's will is for us.

Check Romans 12, one and two. Check 1 Thessalonians 4, three. is the will of God for you, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality. You don't have to wait on the Lord. He's told you, be sexually pure, be faithful.

As well, we think that if the church gets this one thing right, then everything will be great. That's just not realistic. Again, as Matthew Henry says, obedience is to be universal. See, we need to make sure that all of God's commands are given attention by all of God's people.

And then as well, there is a tendency, and I've observed it in my own heart, and I've observed it in 24 years of pastoral ministry, to criticize others if they don't treat minor things in the exact same way that we do. We want to write them off, we want to distance ourselves, we want to make sure that we don't get defiled by them. Now again, I'm speaking more broadly, I'm speaking more generally, because a command like tithing is important, it is essential, it is crucial. But in terms of some of the idiosyncrasies involved in our religion, we're not supposed to separate from people that we have different preferences with.

We're supposed to separate from heretics. We're supposed to separate from Trinity deniers. We're supposed to separate from Christ deniers. We're supposed to separate from those who deny justification by faith alone.

Not from those who see things a little bit differently that are not the weightier matters of the law. May God Most High help us, may God Most High keep us, and may God Most High help us to navigate in this generation. On the one hand, making sure we do all that God calls us to do by the power of His Spirit. And on the other hand, doing it in such a way as to give credence to the reality that there are in fact weightier matters of the law.

And we're not supposed to be imbalanced, we're not supposed to be pharisaical, we're not supposed to be super condemnatory of everybody and everyone who doesn't dot every I and cross every T just like we do. Brethren, that is simply obnoxious, and we cannot maintain churchmanship with such a disposition. May the Lord Most High free us by a positive understanding of His gospel, of our salvation, and may He grant us the Spirit so that we may endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Well, let us pray.

Closing Prayer

Father, we thank you for your Word. We thank you for the Lord's direct teaching with reference to these scribes and these Pharisees. We as well, Lord God, pray that you would help us to see the tendencies, perhaps in our own hearts, to major on minors, to minor on majors, to try and masked behavior by fastidiousness to another piece of behavior. Grant us help and strength, grant us that grace to appreciate the gospel of our salvation and fill each of us with your spirit and guide and direct us for your glory and for your honor and for the good of your church here, your churches throughout this nation and throughout this world.

And we pray this in Jesus' name, amen. We'll close with a brief time of meditation.

Scripture References

• Genesis 18:19
• Leviticus 11:4; 11:41; 27:30
• Deuteronomy 10:12-13
• Judges 12:5-6
• Psalm 50
• Hosea 6:6; 12:6
• Micah 6:8
• Zechariah 7:8-10
• Matthew 5; 7:3-5; 9:9; 9:11; 9:13; 19:24; 21; 22; 22:34-38; 23; 23:13; 23:14; 23:15; 23:16-22; 23:23-24; 23:25; 23:27; 23:28; 23:37-39
• Luke 18:10-14
• Romans 12:1-2
• 1 Thessalonians 4:3