WOEFUL BEHAVIOR (PART 1)

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.”

Matthew 23:13

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Today, I start an eight part series titled, Woeful Behavior. Each devotion will cover one of the sinful actions practiced by the Jewish religious authorities of Jesus’ time, actions so beyond what God expected that He felt compelled to call them out.

So why spend so much time covering the woes?

We need to do so for several reasons.

The first is the most obvious. For people who are given spiritual responsibilities by God are held to a high standard and that standard is not to be modified, compromised, or, worse yet, completely ignored. If we don’t learn from the mistakes of the past, we can be doomed to repeat them and as we see in so many places today, people are still sinning in the same ways that people sinned in the scriptures. The time and culture might have changed drastically but the root wicked behaviors have spanned the ages.

The second might be less obvious but it shouldn’t be. You see, when you choose to receive Jesus as Savior and become His disciple, you are agreeing to spiritual responsibilities given by Him. Those marching orders were delivered before Jesus ascended to sit at God’s right hand, orders for His followers to carry out in His stead.

Thus, these woes are completely applicable to every Christian and we would be well served to treat them with the utmost seriousness. That is why it’s necessary to cover them.

Given this, we turn to the first woe presented by Jesus as we look at the Gospel of Matthew. Look again at His words here:

“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.”  Matthew 23:13 (NKJV)

Keep in mind as you read this that the Pharisees and scribes were deeply opposed to Jesus. They didn’t believe He was who He said He was and grasped every opportunity to reject Him and rebel against everything He was teaching. In fact, such was their deep opposition to Him that they were laying plans to have Him killed.

With Jesus already making it clear that it was only those who believed in Him who would have eternal life, the Pharisees and scribes were making their choice clear, not in a private sense at all but rather in the way of public proclamation. They were showing everyone who would listen that they would have no partnership or relationship with this man named Jesus. This is why Jesus told them:

“…you shut up the kingdom of heaven…you neither go in yourselves.”

The Jewish religious leaders had conscientiously denied Jesus and, in doing so, forfeited their entry into the kingdom of heaven. That in its own right was bad enough but the Pharisees and scribes compounded their sin by influencing others. That made the transgression all the more egregious. Look again at what Jesus said to them:

“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.” 

God had granted a lot of responsibility on the Jewish leaders to guide His people in the ways of righteousness but the Pharisees and scribes were only ushering their listeners down the path of destruction and away from the path to eternal life. They were shutting up the kingdom of heaven for others by convincing them to not believe and trust in Jesus. They were hypocrites because while they professed to love and care for those who were under their leadership, they were really only caring about themselves and the loss of believers. And so they did everything they could to discredit Jesus in the eyes of those He was trying to save and many people believed them to their own peril.

This is why Jesus proclaimed woes on the Pharisees and scribes and He would do the same today for anyone doing what they did. He would pronounce woe on anyone who rejected Him and further woe if they made it a point to sway others to do likewise.

Of course, there is an easy way to avoid all this or to move from the place of woe to a place where you are living in the Lord’s favor. All you need to do is to turn away from woeful behavior and instead be obedient to what the Lord desires for you to do.

One thing is for sure…you’ll never go the wrong way when you allow the Lord to make the way.  

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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