Warnings From Christ - Luke 11:45-53

You know, sometimes we will go to the hotel, maybe take the kids.

Maybe some of you have gone to a hotel just to swim.

And you might notice in the hotel swimming pools, you'll sometimes see a sign that says no diving.

And you look at the sign, and sometimes you can view it in two ways.

You know, one as thank you, the other as why are you telling me what to do?

I I want to dive.

I I like diving and I came to have a good time at this pool, so don't tell me what I cannot do.

However, more than likely that sign was put there because the pool isn't deep enough for people to dive into.

The hotel knows that someone might get hurt diving into a pool that is so shallow.

That sign is not there to be negative or to stop you from having fun.

That sign is there to be helpful, serves as a warning to those thinking about diving.

Well, in our passage this morning, we receive some warnings from Christ that are meant to keep us from danger.

As we saw last week, Jesus was invited to the home of a Pharisee for dinner.

And there, this Pharisee noticed that Jesus didn't wash his hands before they ate, and he was astonished or shocked at seeing that.

The Pharisee or the Pharisees had in their law that one must meticulously wash their hands before they ate dinner.

That was, as we talked about last week, that wasn't part of God's law.

It was part of their tradition.

And they were used to people, especially the Jews, following their tradition.

However, Jesus knew better.

He knew that he was to obey God rather than men, and he used this opportunity to point out some things about the Pharisees themselves as he began to pronounce these woes on them for many of their practices.

Again, a woe is an expression of grief.

Sometimes you might be driving and see an accident that's about to happen.

And what expression do you usually make when you see that?

Let's say you see a car in front of you get into a lane that's about to hit another car.

You probably say, Whoa.

Hopefully it's clean version of woe, but you probably say, Whoa, because you you see something about to happen.

You see this accident about to happen right before your eyes.

Well, this is what a woe is.

When you pronounce a woe on someone, uh you are warning them of some danger of some kind.

This is what Jesus is doing in this passage.

Specifically, here it is a pronouncement of judgment.

And it often serves as a warning.

It says that if you don't repent and if you continue down this path, you will face severe judgment.

So I titled this sermon, Warnings from Christ, because after he pronounces his woes on the Pharisees, as we saw last week, he now turns to these lawyers and pronounces some woes on them.

And I believe these warnings are helpful for the church as well.

Many of these warnings can be applied to people that we often find in the church today.

And they are these a warning to hypocrites, a warning to the self-deceived, and a warning to spiritual hinderers.

So let's look at these together a warning to hypocrites, a warning to the self-deceived, and a warning to spiritual hinderers.

The first is a warning to hypocrites.

Look again at verse 45.

One of the lawyers answered him, Teacher, in saying these things you insult us also.

And he said, Woe to you, lawyers also, for you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourself do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers.

Let me stop there.

Again, last week we saw Jesus calling out these Pharisees, and now he is calling out these lawyers.

These two groups, the Pharisees and the lawyers, were closely related.

Both groups were careful observers of the law of God.

However, the lawyers were the experts of the law.

They were the ones who carefully studied and interpreted the passages for the people.

And they they taught others how to obey the law and follow the law.

Think of them as the most scholarly ones among the Pharisees.

One of them heard Jesus exhorting the Pharisees and said to him, You insult us also.

It's pretty interesting.

We don't know or have any idea how he expected Jesus to respond to that.

Maybe he thought Jesus was going to say, I'm sorry, I hurt your feelings.

But he asks, or he tells Jesus, that you insult us also.

But he said Jesus, rather than apologizing, turns and begins exhorting them.

As he says, Woe to you, lawyers, also.

They were guilty of doing many of the things that the Pharisees did.

And Jesus begins to point out some of these things.

The first one that he points out is their hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy means claiming or expecting a standard of behavior that you don't practice yourself.

And that's exactly what the lawyers were doing.

As Jesus says, you load burdens hard to bear, and you yourself do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers.

That right there is textbook hypocrisy, demanding something of someone that you don't do yourselves.

As interpreters and teachers of the law, they were requiring of the people adherence to things that they themselves weren't able or willing to keep.

And we know that this is still a major issue in our churches today.

The church doesn't lack teachers who teach that what they themselves don't practice.

I mean, just about every week we get a new story of some pastor who was caught cheating on his wife or embezzling money or doing something disqualifying, which means that for years this person was teaching and preaching something that they weren't practicing themselves.

That's hypocrisy.

That's what Jesus is warning against in the passage.

There will be harsh judgment coming for those who do these things and don't repent.

This is why it's important to count the cost if you want to teach someone or you want to teach people.

Because when you start teaching, you start being accountable for your words.

Not only must you teach rightly, teach the truth, but you also must live rightly, live the word.

And I don't think a lot of people consider that when they aspire to teach.

Some young men start to gain all of this knowledge and they learn new things and they grow in theology and they want to go out and become teachers.

But once you step into that role, you gain an accountability that you didn't have before.

Because once you start teaching, people start following.

And you're accountable for those who are following.

Not only for the words that you say, but also for the life that you live.

They are watching both.

James 3:1 says, Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.

James 3:1

Sometimes people hear preachers and teachers and think, you know, I want to do that, or I believe I can do that, and maybe so.

But always consider that teaching not only involves your words, but it also involves your life.

Because followers are watching both.

Romans 2, 21 tells us, You then who teach others, do you not teach yourself?

While you preach against stealing, do you steal?

You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?

You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?

You who boast in the law, dishonor God by breaking the law, for it is written, the name of God is blaspheme among the Gentiles because of you.

However, we all know that you don't have to be a teacher or a preacher to be a hypocrite.

Jesus is clearly pronouncing this woe on the passage on a group of teachers, and there seems to be, as we see in the James passage, a harsher judgment on those who teach.

But anyone can be hypocritical.

Because everyone has an audience.

Teachers and preachers may have more obvious ones, but if you're a Christian, you have a circle around you that you're accountable to, that you're accountable to be truthful to.

See, that's really what it's all about, living out the truth.

Because the simplest way to define hypocrisy is living out a lie.

It's not to live or to not live what you profess or to not do what you demand of others.

And again, anybody can do that, teacher or not.

See, the thing about the Pharisees is that they were zealous for doing the right thing.

They wanted to do the right thing.

And in a way, there's really nothing wrong with that.

Like we saw last week, back in verse 42, they had this desire to tithe rightly, and Jesus didn't rebuke them from that.

In fact, in the Gospels, Jesus sometimes commends what the Pharisees do.

Their zeal for righteousness wasn't bad.

It's just that in their zeal, they overlook their own hearts and their own practices.

So we must be careful not to let our zeal for righteousness run while our walk in righteousness stumbles.

In other words, that desire for others around you to live rightly needs to spring out of a heart that desires to live rightly yourself.

If not, then you're in danger of walking in hypocrisy.

And before we think, well, I'm okay, I never teach anyone, I never tell anyone anything, I keep my mouth shut, I keep to myself, I don't worry, I don't need to worry about being a hypocrite because I never demand anything of anyone.

Well, remember your profession.

When you became a Christian and when you got into the waters to be baptized, you proclaim to the world that you're living for Christ.

And if you're not doing what you profess, you might be walking in hypocrisy.

Because it's a lie to say, I'm walking in the new life of Christ when you're not walking in the new life of Christ.

And anyone who has proclaimed the gospel, anyone who has professed to be a Christian is doing exactly that.

Whenever you say, I'm a Christian, what you're saying is, I'm a Christ follower.

You're saying I have died to my old man and my old ways, and I've been resurrected with Christ, and the life that I now live, I walk in the newness of Christ.

And you don't have to be a teacher or a preacher to profess that or proclaim that.

Every Christian proclaims that the moment they make their faith public.

So when we live our lives in ways that make that a lie, we make ourselves out to be hypocrites.

Stephen Sharnock says, it is a sad thing to be a Christian at supper, heathens in our shops, and devils in our closets.

And look, here's where we have to be clear.

There's a difference between living out our Christian life in our fallenness and living out our fallenness in a Christian life.

Let me say that again.

There's a difference between living out our Christian life in our fallenness and living out our fallenness in a Christian life.

The latter is the one that's a hypocrite.

Because as we live out our Christian life, we're going to live out our Christian life in our fallenness, which means we're not going to be sinless.

We're not going to be able to keep the law perfectly.

This is why we need Christ for that.

He kept the law perfectly.

James 3.2 says, For we all stumble in many ways, and if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to brittle his whole body.

We all know the world will be quick to label every Christian a hypocrite.

Because the way they see it, if you're a Christian, your life needs to be perfect.

If you sin one time, you're a hypocrite.

We're never going to be able to live up to that standard.

So don't worry about them.

They don't know the Bible, they don't read the Bible, but somehow or another they're always trying to find a way to use the Bible against us.

But that's okay.

We don't live for them, we live for God.

His standard is what we need to live by.

And he knows who we are in our fallenness.

He knows that we will sin.

And he provides grace and mercy for us when we sin.

But he also knows the difference between someone who hates their sin and someone who hides their sin.

And I don't mean hiding it in a sense of shame.

Sometimes, you know, Christians will hide their sin because they're ashamed of it.

I would encourage that Christian to remind and remind them that sin loves to live in darkness.

And though you are ashamed of your sin, you need to bring it to the light and you need to be held accountable by a brother or sister to help you in that.

If you truly want to be free, hiding it is not going to help.

It's only going to make it linger.

But that will come as you grow in the Lord and you learn how to battle sin and so forth.

That's not the kind of hiding that makes you a hypocrite.

What makes you a hypocrite is intentional hiding.

With no desire to let your sin be gone.

With no desire to let go of the sin.

Because people who hide their sin usually hide their sin to proclaim to others someone they're not.

The world doesn't hide their sin.

The world sins openly because they're free to proclaim who they are.

They have no reason to hide who they are.

They sin openly and they know they're sinners and they have no reason to hide that.

However, those who hide their sins in the church typically want to be seen as something they're not.

But a hypocrite is someone who does this.

A hypocrite is someone who hides their sin, who makes others think that there's someone they're not.

And the motive behind it is always a desire to s for others other people to see you a certain way, for people to view you as someone in public, that you're really not in public or in private.

And that's really the spirit behind the hypocrisy of the Pharisees.

As Matthew 6 1 says, beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your father who is in heaven.

Right?

That's typically how hypocrites live out their life.

They they want to be seen a certain way, they want these rewards, but in secret, there's someone totally different.

So the first warning that Christ gives in this passage is a warning to the hypocrites.

Next, he gives a warning to the self-deceived.

Look at verse 47.

It says, Woe to you, for you build the temples of the prophets whom your fathers killed, so you are witnesses, and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them, and you build their tombs.

If you're familiar with the Old Testament, you'll know that the prophets that spoke for God weren't always received well by the people of Israel.

In 2 Chronicles 36, we're told how God sent his messengers to the people and they mocked and despised their words.

In Jeremiah 26, we are told of the prophet Uriah who prophesied in the name of the Lord, but was put to death by the king of Judah for his words.

There was a history of prophets being rejected and harmed and killed when they prophesied something that the people didn't like.

And yet the prophets were revered and honored long after their death.

The Jews saw them as monumental figures who played an important role or important part of their history and who stood on the side of God.

So naturally, the ones who sought honor among the people, like the Pharisees and the lawyers, wanted to be on their side.

And they wanted to portray themselves as men who were in line with the prophets.

And to show how much they were on the side of the prophets, they built these tombs over their graves to honor them.

Yet Jesus, whoa, is saying, Your fathers are not the prophets.

Your fathers are the ones who killed the prophets.

In other words, if you were alive in their day, you would be on the side of the people who rejected the message of the prophets.

You would be on the side of the people who killed them.

And the fact that you think that you're not just shows how self-deceived you truly are.

Let me read to you a definition of self-deception.

Self-deception is the act of hiding the truth from yourself and convincing yourself of a false belief to protect your ego and cope with reality.

That fits to the description of the Pharisees and the lawyers that we have in the gospels.

They deceive themselves into thinking that they were on the side of God when truly they were on the side of those who oppose God.

This is a second warning I want to point out from the passage: a warning to the self-deceived.

So, what does that look like today?

What does it look like in the church today?

And what ways can we heed to this warning of self-deception?

One way is to be spiritually prideful.

In Galatians chapter 6, verse 1, we read this.

Galatians 6:1

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in the spirit of gentleness.

Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted, bear one another's burdens, also fulfill the law of Christ.

For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.

What is the temptation here?

Paul says, keep watch on yourselves lest you too be tempted.

Well, the temptation is to be spiritually condescending to this one who was caught in sin or transgression.

To look down on them and say, you know, I would never do that.

I'm too mature to fall into that kind of sin.

Or I'm too strong in the Lord.

I'm too advanced in my spiritual life to do what they did.

Paul is saying, be careful.

Don't deceive yourself into thinking that you aren't capable of having a fall, just like this person who was caught in transgression.

As 1 Corinthians 10 12 says, let anyone who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.

You know, sometimes Christians can categorize sin into respectable sins and not respectable sins.

We can think that there are sins that are shameful and sins that are not so shameful.

For example, I heard a clip month ago of a Christian podcast that was talking about this influencer named Andrew Tate.

You've never heard of this guy.

He's a figure who was gaining uh quite a following in what some people call the manosphere.

This is a space online that speaks strongly on masculinity and against feminism and cause men to be more aggressive and things like that.

And you know, in a culture that has feminized or sought to weaken men and their roles, that kind of stuff can be appealing.

The problem is there's really nothing Christian about it.

These guys in this manosphere promote sexual morality, profanity, pride, vanity, and so forth.

Anyway, as these guys on the podcast were talking about this guy, Andrew Tate, they were mentioning, you know, he's a flawed guy, he's not a good guy.

But they added, yes, he sins, but at least he's sinning in the right direction.

In other words, his sins of sexual immorality or pride or vanity are more respectable sins than other sins, things like homosexuality and feminism and things that that we don't like.

Well, just this week I read in the news that Andrew Tate was arrested on many charges, charges one, which included indecency with a child.

There is no, or there are no respectable sins.

And there's no way to sin in the right direction.

All sin is in the wrong direction because it is against God.

And here's the thing, and this is where the spirit of the Pharisees and the lawyers is alive today.

Many people view their righteousness before God, not in who they are in Christ, but in who they are not among men.

In other words, I'm not like them.

I don't sin like he does or she does.

I may sin, but my sin is not as bad as theirs.

And this is where they are spiritually deceived, because they think and portray themselves to have a high view of God's righteousness when in reality they have a low view of it.

You know, the problem with self-righteous people and legalists who like to go around calling out everyone's sin is not that their view of God's law is too high, but that it's too low.

What they fail to see is God's law doesn't demand some type of respectable, respectable obedience.

God's law demands perfect obedience.

Do you hate the sin of homosexuality and adultery and drunkenness and perverse things that we see in our culture?

Good.

But do you hate the sin that you do in the privacy of your own heart just as much?

If not, then maybe you're spiritually self deceiving yourself into thinking that you're not the sinner that you truly are.

And those who don't make much of their own sin will never make much of Christ.

Another way self-deception shows up in the church, and I'll mention it quickly, is by people thinking they're Christians when they're not.

You know, there are a lot of people who play the part well but have never truly embraced the gospel.

Some might say a prayer, get baptized, jump into doing things in the church, serving, even teaching, but never understand the true gospel of Jesus Christ.

They get wrapped up in this Jesus culture rather than a Jesus gospel.

They can speak the Christian language, they can know the songs, they can know the Bible stories, they can live respectable lives in the community, and they can coast their way through a safe Christian life.

The problem is when they think of Christ, they don't think of the gospel.

When they think of Jesus, they don't think of the cross.

They think of Jesus as someone who came to make their life better.

They'll say things like, I need to add Jesus to my life so I can be better.

Or I need to add Jesus into my life to fix me, or I need Jesus to take the wheel and to put me in the passenger seat.

No, you need Jesus to take the cross and nail you to it with himself.

Then you need to rise with him into a new life.

You don't need a better life in Christ.

No one needs a better life in Christ.

You need a new life in Christ.

You need Jesus not as your helper, not as your friend, not as your co-pilot.

You need Jesus as your Lord and your Savior.

Matthew 7, 22 says, On that day many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not profess in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name?

Then I will declare them, I never knew you.

Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.

You know, there are many legalists who love this verse.

Because they read this verse and they see it as, oh, you need to do more.

You need to live better.

Or else, on judgment day, God is going to say, I never knew you.

But they're reading that verse wrong.

Jesus is not rejecting those who did a little.

In fact, he's rejecting those who did a lot.

Did we not do mighty works in your name?

But here's the problem: they did all of it in their self-deception.

Their work sprung from a heart that never knew God.

Well, they knew the rules, they knew his laws, they knew many of the scriptures, and they probably had worship music as their jam.

But they didn't really know God.

Because the only way to know God is to know him through his son.

Jesus said, no one comes to the Father except through me.

If you've seen me, you've seen the Father.

If you only know God through church culture, or you only know God through rules, or you only know God through him being this loving presence in the sky who just wants to make you happy, then you might be self-deceived.

Because the only way to truly know God is to know him through his bloody son who endured the cross to save a vile, wicked sinner from hell.

And some say, well, but I wasn't that bad.

Well, then maybe you haven't understood the gospel.

The gospel is not for good people who think they need to be better.

It is for dead people who need to be made alive.

It is for those who know that turning to Jesus is the only way that can be made alive.

So heed to the warnings of Christ and don't be self-deceived into thinking you're on God's side when you might not be.

And here's the true tell.

Whether it's spiritual pride or whether it's those who are lost, here's where you can tell you're on the side of God.

It's when you have humility.

As I was studying this point about self-deception, I was I kept coming across these passages in Scripture.

And I kept noticing that there was a connection between the self-deceived and those who lack humility.

Because humility is the only road to the cross.

No one will come to Jesus without walking down that road of humility.

Saying, Lord, Lord, I I don't have this all together.

I don't need you, Lord, for this or that.

I need you to be my savior.

So so people in their pride, they'll stay, they'll stay self-deceived and they'll stay away from the gospel that can truly set them free.

I can keep going on this point, but let's go ahead and move on.

And look at this third warning from Christ.

It's a warning to the spiritual hinderers.

For this one, we're going to jump down to look at the next woe, down to verse 52.

Verse 52.

Woe to you, lawyers, for you have taken away the key of knowledge.

You did not enter yourself, and you hindered those who were entering.

As he went away from there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press him hard and to provoke him to speak about many things, lying in wait for him to catch him in something he might say.

Again, the lawyers were the experts.

They were the experts of the law.

And the people looked to them to interpret the law for them and to show them how to live unto God.

But since they were adding their own traditions and their own interpretations to the law, they weren't pointing people to God.

They were pointing people elsewhere.

They were pointing people to themselves.

And in doing so, they were taking away the true knowledge of God.

And even though they rigorously studied the scriptures, they failed in their study to grasp the true knowledge of God for themselves.

So not only did they fail to understand the truth, they kept other people from understanding it also.

This is why Jesus is pronouncing this woe on them.

He's warning them about the error of leading people astray.

But the scribes and the Pharisees were relentless about justifying themselves.

As we are told, they tried to press him about many things.

They were trying to catch him.

They were trying to catch him saying something wrong.

They had already accused him of doing something wrong by not washing his hands.

So now they're trying to trap him in his words.

But all they were doing was proving Jesus' point.

By opposing the Son of God, they were failing to enter into the knowledge of the truth.

They were committed to their own ways, their own traditions.

They wanted others to follow them as well.

They were indeed spiritual hinderers.

What does a spiritual hinderer look like in our day?

Well, I think we can go on all day on this point, and this can be a sermon of its own.

But let me just point out a couple.

One way is by abusing our Christian liberty to hinder someone's growth in Christ.

You know, as Christians, we know that we are not under law but under grace.

So we're free to live before God without the traditions of men, without man-made rules and regulations.

We spoke about this a little last week when we looked at legalism and how some churches and some church cultures demand these things of Christians that are not in the Bible.

So we come into this knowledge of faith and we say, well, the Bible doesn't say we can't do that.

You know, the Bible doesn't say we can't do that, so we do that, right?

Because the Bible doesn't say, and we don't follow the church traditions, we follow the truth, we follow the word of God.

But sometimes, you know, Christians will take a little bit too much liberty in their Christian liberty.

And they'll start, you know, just doing whatever that they want to and being bad examples for others.

Let me give you an example of this.

I know there weren't movies in the Bible, but there's no law that says you can't enjoy a movie, right?

There's no law against entertainment.

And someone in their Christian liberty might say, I'm going to enjoy a good movie, and I'm going to invite a brother or sister over, and they might be young and growing in the Lord.

But what if that movie glorifies things like sexual morality and profanity and vanity and things like that?

Now, maybe one or two of those movies might not do you much harm, but if you start making that a regular practice, whatever you're viewing is going to creep into your soul.

And even still, maybe you have this spiritual discernment and you can say, I don't let that affect me, which is really hard, by the way.

But what about those brothers and sisters that you were inviting over to watch that movie who wanted to grow, who had this aspiration to grow in the Lord.

At that point, would you be a spiritual promoter or would you be a spiritual hinderer?

Romans 14, 13 says, Therefore, let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or a hindrance in the way of a brother.

I think you get the point here.

I mean, that's that movie thing was one example, but I think we come up with plenty of examples of how we can abuse our Christian liberty and exercise our Christian liberty in ways that will cause our brother or sister to stumble.

Let me point out another way by hindering the spiritual growth of people in our own homes.

I think this can happen in many ways.

One way is by parents provoking their children.

I think there are countless stories of people who reject Christianity because they saw the way Christianity looked like in their home growing up and they said, I don't want any part of that.

They saw their parents who proclaimed to be Christians, not living like Christians.

And they said to themselves, you know, when I grow up, I don't want to be like my parents.

And if they're Christians, I don't want to be a Christian.

That's a spiritual hindrance.

It can be husbands hindering their wives by keeping them away from church service or Bible study or the life of the church, or vice versa, wives hindering their husbands.

How about parents leading their kids to youth groups?

I mean, I'm sorry, to youth sports and to other church activities instead of leading them to Christ.

Galatians 5, verse 7 says, You were running well.

Galatians 5:7

Who hindered you from obeying the truth?

This persuasion is not from him who calls you.

A little leaven leavens the whole lump.

Look, every one of us carries a little influence on someone else.

You might not think you do, but if you're in any kind of relationship, you have some sort of influence on someone.

Even children have influence on their parents.

If you don't think so, look at how much advertising is directed to kids who don't have any money.

They know that their kid will get someone to pay for it.

It's usually gonna be mom or dad.

The point is that we must heed the warning of Christ not to spiritually hinder anyone that we're in a relationship with.

Are we doing those things?

Are we saying things or doing things that is gonna hinder their spiritual walk?

Are we asking someone to do something that might keep them from getting closer to God?

This is an important question that Christians need to ask themselves that we probably don't ask ourselves enough.

What am I doing in my relationship to it with others?

Am I moving them along towards Christ?

Or am I moving them away from Christ?

It's an important question to ask because there's a warning here for people that are moving people away from Christ or who are spiritually hindering others.

As we close, let's look back at verse 49 and finish off the passage and look at what happens to those who don't heed these warnings.

Verse 49.

Therefore also the wisdom of God said, I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute, so that the blood of all the prophets shed from the foundation of the world may be charged against this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary.

Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation.

Jesus is saying that God has continually sent his messengers to the people, and they kept rejecting it.

Ever since the beginning of the world, people have been rejecting the word of the Lord.

Jesus is basically saying, this is not going to be overlooked.

The blood of those messengers, those prophets who were rejected and killed, will be upon those who rejected them.

And we say, well, that doesn't apply to me.

I'm not an Israelite living in the first century.

I didn't have any prophets or anybody come to me.

But notice what Jesus says here.

He says, from the blood of Abel, whose story we find in Genesis, to the blood of Zechariah, whose life and story we find in 2 Chronicles, which traditionally was the last book of the Hebrew canon.

Jesus is basically saying, this is going to happen to you if you reject my word, if you reject the scriptures.

And today we have both the Old and the New Testament for people to reject.

And people are rejecting it every single day.

And people will go on living their lives as if there will never be any consequences.

Just as in the days of Noah, Jesus is saying here, not so fast.

Your rejection of God's word will not go overlooked.

Romans 2, 5.

But because of your hard and impotent heart, you're storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgments will be revealed.

The blood of those who rejected God's word or who reject God's word will be required of them on judgment day.

And those who fail to heed to the warning warnings and who continue to harden their heart to the truth of God's word are storing up wrath for themselves.

You know, we might read a passage like this one that's before us this morning and say, wow, Jesus can be a little harsh.

What happened to the loving and forgiving Jesus that gets so much press?

I want that Jesus.

I want the comfortable Jesus.

I want the happy Jesus.

I don't know so much about this Jesus that's pronouncing these woes.

However, yes, these warnings are harsh, but they're also loving.

Jesus is giving people who are walking in these errors a chance to repent and turn from their ways.

If these lawyers and these Pharisees in their day would have heeded to these woes and came with a contrite heart and said, Jesus, be merciful to me, a sinner.

And guess what?

Jesus would have been merciful.

This is not harsh.

Harsh would be to leave people alone in their error.

It's never loving or never unloving to tell someone the truth.

The reason you're a Christian, the reason you're here today is because someone told you the truth.

Someone loved you.

And here's the thing: Jesus is not calling anyone to do anything that he's not willing to supply.

Because in the gospel, Jesus offers himself to you.

And look, Jesus is no hypocrite.

He was not someone who was self-deceived, and he's not hindering anyone.

And in fact, he's welcoming people.

You want to follow in the way of the Pharisees?

You want to follow in the way of the lawyers?

You want to be a legalist?

You want to be a hypocrite?

You want to be self-deceived?

Then go right ahead, but you will never be free.

You'll never be free following that way.

Freedom only comes to those who come to Christ.

So take heed to the warning here.

And take his warning as another way of him saying, You want to be safe?

You want shelter?

You want to be kept from the wrath that is to come.

And come to me.

And I will keep you safe.

Amen.

Let us pray.