Like Whitewashed Tombs

Matthew 23, 27 and 28. A little context here. Jesus is talking to the Pharisees and the

scribes, the experts in the law. These would have been the really religious people of the

day and certainly some of them probably really were obedient to God but as we see in the

scriptures there were a lot of them that really looked the part. They looked the part. They

spoke the right words but Jesus called them out pretty harshly here in Matthew chapter

Matthew 23 · chapter mention

23. And we're just reading a couple of little verses here but that might be good homework

for you this week if you want to go through and read all of Matthew 23. It's pretty stern

the language that Jesus uses. So let's read through the text, Matthew 23, 27 and 28.

Then we'll pray and get started. Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You are

like whitewashed tombs which appear beautiful on the outside but inside are full of a dead

man's bones and every impurity. In the same way on the outside you seem righteous to people

but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. Let's pray. Father God we come to you this

morning and we thank you for your word and dear Lord this is a heavy word. It was heavy

for the Pharisees and dear Lord maybe it's heavy for us today. Maybe we fall into this

same category dear Lord. Maybe we do a good job of looking good on the outside but being

pretty rotten on the inside dear Lord. So God maybe we are hypocrites today. If so I

pray that your word would speak to us to let us see that. That you would encourage us through

this word dear Lord that we would learn from our hypocrisy and God be those who genuinely

trust you and serve you and live for you. God I pray that you would hide me behind the

cross that you would take away any pride or any fear I have today that I would be able

to preach and teach your word in a way that brings glory and honor to you. I pray that

your Holy Spirit would speak the words that you want me to speak that you want us to hear

and that we would listen to him dear Lord and that they would transform our lives. And

I ask these things in Jesus name. Amen. When you read through Matthew 23 you will see in

this short little section here in 19 verse span Jesus calls this group hypocrites seven

times. Now this is kind of a dirty word. This is not a word that any of us would like to

be called. None of us would like to be called out in our hypocrisy. We wouldn't like that

especially this religious group. Especially this group that Jesus was talking to because

they would have really considered themselves to be something special. They really would

have said that they were probably a little better than everybody else. They were better

at following God's laws than everybody else. They were better at doing what God said than

everybody else. But Jesus saw through that. He saw through their religion. He saw through

their outward actions and he knew that their heart was not right. That's pretty evident

to tell as you read through the New Testament as you see these encounters that Jesus has

with these Pharisees. Quite often it's easy to see that their hearts are totally from

where they need to be. They are far from being hearts that are focused on God. And here in

Matthew 23 Jesus really calls them out for it. So you can understand why it wasn't long

after this point that Jesus was nailed to a cross. They didn't like Jesus and then Jesus

goes and really gets on them here in Matthew 23. And certainly that would not have been

well received by this audience. But what does he say in this scripture? What does he compare

them to? He says in verse 27 that they are like whitewashed tombs which appear beautiful

on the outside but inside are full of dead men's bones and every impurity. Now whitewashing,

that might be something that you're familiar with or maybe not. If you watch HGTV you see

a lot of home restoration shows. Sometimes you see that's a popular thing. It kind of

became popular here in the last few years. And it's a good way to take something that's

old and particularly brick if you want more of a fresh look to whitewash it. Now whitewashing

is predominantly made up of lime. Now a lot of times what you see on these shows they'll

just water down some paint and scrub it on there. But traditionally speaking when you

talk about whitewash it's a lime. It's kind of the main ingredient and it can be a little

thicker than what we may think of as whitewash today. And it was common especially in those

days to wipe it and smear it along and around the entrance of a tomb or a rock that covered

a tomb, whatever it may be. That tomb would be covered in whitewash. Now that may have

been for a couple of different reasons. Some have suggested that tombs in those days were

marked with whitewash to make them stand out. That way nobody would get too close to a tomb

and be unclean because they touched something from a dead body. And so some have suggested

that whitewash tombs was simply a way for people to easily identify that there was a

grave there. Now we kind of, in our day, most of our graves are in a graveyard. It's easy

to tell where the graves are. They're usually within a fence of some sort and they're usually

well-kept and they're usually marked by a tombstone. But in Bible times there might

have been a grave here and a grave there and might have been a hole in the rock somewhere

here that they were stuck in. And so these tombs were kind of all over the place. And

so whitewashing might have been one way to establish that there was a tomb there that

everybody would easily be able to see those traveling from out of town. Perhaps there

were some other purposes for it too though. As far as lime goes, lime is good at killing

disease. It's a good disinfectant. And so it might have had some disinfectant qualities

too. After all, you've got a tomb there, you've got a dead body, the dead body begins to decay,

there could have been some disease there. And so perhaps part of it was simply we want

to make sure to disinfect this area and to take care of everything. And you still throughout

the centuries whitewashing is something that you see some places in the world. It's kind

of a part of their style, part of their building structures, the cyclades, some islands off

of Greece. Those islands are known for the fact that they have whitewash buildings. Every

building there is whitewashed. Every one of them is whitewashed with blue doors and blue

shutters and blue everything. That's kind of their style. And so throughout the years,

people have used whitewash for a variety of things. And whitewashing in and of itself

is not bad, but Jesus is using this term to make a comparison here, to say, okay, there's

a contrast between what you think you are and what you really are. And so when he tells

these people that they're hypocrites, and he's already said it several times before

we get to this verse, they're probably already steaming. And then he simply uses something

that they're all familiar with and he compares them with tombs. Now, they would have been

proud if they would have been considered whitewashed, if they would have been pure and clean and

disinfected, so to speak, from all the sin around them, they probably would have wore

that title proudly. But what Jesus said is, you are like a tomb. Now, anybody that knows

about tombs and about graves know that it doesn't matter what you see on top of the

ground. And the truth of the matter is this, that what's in the ground, it is rotting and

it is decaying. And we might not like to think about that, but that is the cycle of life.

That's the way things go. I was walking by the cemetery the other day and I saw some

beautiful tombstones. And there are some people probably in your family and maybe when you

die, you're going to have a beautiful tombstone and maybe on top of the ground, your family

is going to keep it well manicured and it's going to have the most beautiful flowers kept

up all year round for every season and your tombstone may be encrusted with diamonds.

I don't know. It may be as beautiful as it can be, but in the ground, we are going to

decay to the point to where we will eventually turn back into dust. And Jesus tells his audience

here who thought that they were really holy, really special. Jesus says, you are like a

tomb, like a whitewashed tomb. Jesus says on the outside, you are beautiful. You are

spotless and it's easy for everybody to see who you are. They can see you from a mile

away by what they see on the outside and they can say, oh wait, there's those holy Pharisees.

And then Jesus tells them the hard part, the part that they don't want to hear, the part

that maybe you and I don't want to hear today. And Jesus says on the inside, you are rotting

away. On the outside of that tomb, it's beautiful, but Jesus says inside of that tomb is nastiness

and dirtiness and filth and gross stuff and it is rotting away. And Jesus says, you look

the part on the outside, but inside you are a dirty, rotten, nasty sinner. Whoa. Well,

those are pretty heavy words that Jesus uses here. And maybe he picks this term whitewashing.

Maybe he's trying to call his audience back to Ezekiel 13. There's a large section in

Ezekiel 13 where God is condemning the false prophets, those who are acting like they are

God's people, but really they are leading people astray from God. They are leading people

in the wrong direction. And the same illustration is used there. It's used of the false prophets

to say, oh look, you've made whitewashed walls, but one day those walls are going to crumble

because they're not built on God. And then you'll gather around and say, but what about

all the beautiful whitewash? What happened to these beautiful walls? We see the same

language in Acts chapter 23 when Paul is, he's always on trial. He's always under attack.

Acts 23 · chapter mention

And on one of those occasions he's brought before the high priest and he uses the same

language. He says that they are like a whitewash wall, the Sanhedrin and the high priest that

Paul has brought before. Now, certainly it seems as though Paul is referencing that story

in Ezekiel in the same way that Jesus is here. And what Jesus tells his audience and what

Paul told his audience and what God told his audience in Ezekiel is this, is it does not

matter what's on the outside. It matters what's on the inside. This is a simple and basic

truth that we see throughout the New Testament. We see this in a few ways maybe that Jesus

reveals the same truth to us in his teaching. And that is we don't want to be those who

simply look the part on the outside. We want to be those people who live for God on the

inside. And so we have a simple question that we have to answer today and I can't answer

that question for you and you can't answer that question for me. We can all look as good

as we want to look on the outside. We can fool everybody. We can do all of the religious

things and we can say long prayers and we can do a lot of really religious stuff and

come to church and put lots of money in the plate. All to be seen by people and we may

have every appearance of good in our life but we need to look at our heart because within

our hearts there may be every appearance of evil in our life. And so perhaps today we

need to look at ourselves and we need to see is there sin there? Is there evil there? Is

there rottenness there that we're simply trying to cover up? Are we simply trying to cover

it up? Are we trying to whitewash our lives? Are we trying to fool everybody in this building

today? And you may can fool everybody in this building. You may have done a good job of

that but you can't fool God. And no matter how we look on the outside one day we will

stand before God and God always looks at the heart. God doesn't look at what man looks

like. It looks at God looks at our heart. So what's on our heart today? Are we whitewash

tombs today that are rotten on the inside? Are we those who are on the inside who are

doing the will of God? Living in obedience to God. If we're not today we need to stop

pretending. We need to ask God to change our heart. We need to go before God with the things

in our heart that shouldn't be there, the things that we struggle with. And maybe today

we need to acknowledge a hard truth that we would rather not admit and that is that we

are hypocrites. That we come to church on Sundays, that we say we love the Lord, but

yet we don't live it out. We don't show it in our actions, we don't show it in our attitudes,

we don't show it in the way that we treat other people. And maybe today if we're honest

with ourself, maybe there are more of us in here than we care to admit that we are a bunch

of hypocrites today. And praise the Lord. If we come to that truth today, if we hear

this passage today, if we hear the words of Jesus today, how will we respond? Well the

Pharisees, many of them at least, it doesn't appear responded very well. Wouldn't it have

been great if they would have said, Jesus, you know you're right, we are a bunch of hypocrites.

But they didn't. They continued in their hypocrisy and did their best to get rid of Jesus. What

about you and I this morning? We hear the words of Jesus here, are these words speaking

to us today? Yes, they were spoken to some Pharisees, but Jesus is speaking to us today

too. Will we hear these words and respond to them? Will we ask him to forgive our hypocrisy

and will we strive to live in obedience to him? Or will we simply walk away angry at

the Word of God today? Let us not be those who walk away from the Word of God, but walk

to the Word of God and trust in Jesus Christ. And not those who live in hypocrisy, but those

who live in the Word and obedience to God. Let's pray. Father God, we come to you, we

thank you for your good word today. I pray that you would help us to consider this simple

truth. Dear Lord, maybe we fooled ourselves. Maybe we've whitewashed ourselves so good

we think we're a little better than we are. Dear Lord, maybe we think just like the Pharisees

today. Maybe we fall into the same traps. We don't like to admit it, we don't like

to think it no more than they did. God, maybe if Jesus come in here today and preached to

us, we might not receive this word any better than they did. We think we would, dear Lord,

but the problem is, God, we have sin in our life just as they did. So dear Lord, I pray

that you would help us to examine ourselves, to see the areas of hypocrisy in our life

that we have, that we stop pretending, that we don't put on a mask that we're something

better than we are, but dear Lord, we just come to you and just lay it all out. God,

we are broken, we are a mess, we are rotten, we are sinners. And God, I pray that you would

just help us to see that, to be convicted of that, to confess that to you today, to

repent of our sins. God, that's what your word calls us to, that we would repent of

our hypocrisy. Yeah, if we're hypocrites, God, that's bad, but we don't have to keep

being a hypocrite. So I pray that you help us, because this is a struggle, dear Lord.

There are some parts of our life that we live in hypocrisy, we don't even realize it. We

don't even know it. So help us to see those things and be made aware of those things,

to repent of those things, God, and not to just look apart, dear Lord. We don't want

to just come to church on Sunday and look apart. We really want to know who you are,

dear Lord, and live for you. We really want our hearts to be changed so that people wouldn't

see us on the street and see us as a hypocrite, but people would see us on the street and

see us as people who love you and who love others, dear Lord, that you would receive

all the glory from that. So God, help us to be a good example, because, dear Lord, what

a tragedy it is that those of us who are supposed to represent you sometimes fail so miserably,

God. We have to be a light to the world, dear Lord. And if our light is nothing more than

hypocrisy, then, dear Lord, we're not doing a good job of turning people to you, and even

worse, dear Lord, we may be turning people away. So I pray, dear Lord, that you would

just help us during this Christmas season, that we would remember the light of the world

in Jesus Christ, that we would seek to be a light in the world with the people we encounter,

dear Lord. Forgive us of our sinfulness, dear Lord. We can whitewash the outside, but, dear

Lord, we pray today that Jesus would whitewash the inside with his precious blood, that we

would be cleansed as white as snow, and if there's one in this room that doesn't know

Jesus, God, I pray today that they would repent, confess their sins, and ask forgiveness. And

I ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.