GREAT SORROW AWAITS THE TEACHERS AND STUDENTS OF RELIGIOUS LAW
Saturday – May 17, 2025
Video link: https://youtu.be/v7Rh2GT6DEg
Greeting children of God and welcome to Awake, Arise, and Triumph Ministries. Today I am continuing our in-depth study of the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. This was the major theme of Jesus’ Ministry. Jesus either taught how the Kingdom worked or demonstrated how the Kingdom worked and how it didn’t work. Really if you give it some thought the whole of Scripture has to do with explaining the laws of the Kingdom and the consequences of obedience and disobedience. Yep, there are does and don’ts in the Kingdom of God like every other kingdom.
I have spent the last several days in Matthew chapter twenty-three starting with verse thirteen and Jesus teaching about the Kingdom of God/Heaven. He is going to great lengths to the great sorrow that awaits those who teach religious law and practice religious law. This sorrow is to find in the end that one was never saved or missed the fulness the Father had for us in salvation. To see the rewards, we forfeited in the process of believing and following religious law. Religious law is not Kingdom of God law it is the traditions of men and the doctrines of demons. Back to our teaching by the Master.
Matthew 23:25-28 (NLT)
25 “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy—full of greed and self-indulgence!
Writers note: Jesus keeps warning those listening including us of the great sorrow that awaits those who teach and practice religious law and not the Laws of the Kingdom of God. Jesus says, you clean up really good, you look real to the observer, but you are spiritually nasty inside. Notice the motives of these teachers and those practicing religious law is all wrong.
26 You blind Pharisee! First wash the inside of the cup and the dish, and then the outside will become clean, too.
Writers note: Once again, he calls these folk blind. How did they become blind? The same as everyone else, ignoring, refusing, the Truth over and over again developing a hard heart, a stiff neck. They believed the lies. They apparently thought that looking like a Christian and talking like a Christian fixed everything. To the contrary, Jesus makes it clear that spiritual purity does not go from the outside in but the inside out.
27 “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs—beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity.
28 Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness.
Does it get any plainer than these last two verses particularly verse twenty-eight? Have you met people like this? They look like wonderful Christian examples but then outside the Church, we find them indistinguishable from the world and their true motives surface from time to time in speech and action. These may be referred to as carnal Christians.
TAKE HOME:
- Great sorrow awaits teachers of religious law and those who practice it. They put on quite the show but inside they are filthy, full of greed and self-indulgence!
- Let’s be careful to not just clean up the outside but to change from the inside out which can only happen with being transformed by the Truth not religious law.
- Let’s examine our hearts to see if we are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness or true righteousness.
Lord willing, I will resume right here tomorrow. Remember, we love you, the Lord loves you, and there is nothing you can do about either one.
By: Dr. David R. Wood, Bible Teacher, and Prophetic Voice
REMINDERS
Please take a moment before we continue with our study to share this teaching as widely as possible by every means available to you. Thank you for sharing.
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