Matthew chapter 23 verses 29 through 33, let us now hear God's word. 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 were 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? Let us pray. Oh Lord, I rejoice at your word as one who finds great treasure. We ask that you would help us today to find joy and delight in Holy Scripture, to treat it as the treasure that it truly is. Even those parts that speak of judgment, help us to treat them as a treasure because in these things you warn us and you call us away from our sins and back to you. And that's something to rejoice in. We thank you for this time. We ask your blessing upon the preaching of your word now. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Josephus was a Jewish historian and Josephus throws light on various things that happened during the time of the New Testament. One particular episode that Josephus relates is how Herod the Great went into the tombs of David and Solomon. And what was he doing in there? Well, he was looking for money, we might say. He was looking for treasure, wanted to plunder the tombs of the ancient. Israelite kings. Well, the story goes that his soldiers ran into a problem as they got there. It scared Herod. And so what he did is he got him out of there and he set up a memorial outside as a way to try and appease God who might've been angry for what he was doing. Well, the Jewish people would certainly set up tombs, memorials, monuments to honor great people of the past. But here in our portion today, Jesus will denounce the scribes and the Pharisees for doing these things in hypocrisy. Once again, we see Jesus pronouncing divine judgment and doom upon the religious leaders of his day. And we come now to the final one in Matthew chapter 23, and we'll do as we have been doing, we'll look at the pronouncement of woe, and then the reason for that pronouncement here in this passage today. In our last study, we considered woes six and seven, in which Jesus pronounced judgment on the scribes and the Pharisees for what? Well, the first was this neglect of the main things and this focusing on external minor things. The next one was what we might call externalism, being preoccupied with external outward purity, ceremonial purity, but having wickedness within, sin in their hearts and being full of it. Now we come to the eighth and final woe. that Jesus pronounces upon the scribes and the Pharisees. Let's begin with that pronouncement itself, verse 29. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. By now this should be a familiar formula that Jesus repeats over and over again here in chapter 23 as he denounces these men in their false religion and as he announces the doom that is inevitably going to be theirs because of their hypocrisy. So that's what a woe is. A woe is an announcement of doom. It's an announcement of judgment. Jesus is here denouncing these men for their false and hypocritical spirituality. And of course, this pronouncement is upon the scribes and the Pharisees, the religious leaders of his day, the biblical experts and the purists or the fundamentalists of the first century. Now there's a lesson in that in and of itself. As we've talked about a number of times now, Jesus is not talking to the amoral. He's not talking to the liberals of the day or the atheists of the day. Who is he talking to? He is talking to scrupulously religious people, devout, very conservative religious people. They are the problem. It's not because they're really religious, though, in the best sense of that term. It's because they are what? Again, verse 29, Jesus labels them as hypocrites. They are hypocrites. They're pretenders. The problem wasn't that they were too religious or they're too detailed or too specific. The problem was they were hypocrites. They were pretenders. They were mere actors. They weren't the real thing, the real deal. And in that, there is a lesson for you and for me. What does God want from you? He wants sincerity. He wants authenticity. No fake in it. No faking it externally like, yeah, I know I'm living in sin, but I'll go to church and I'll dress up and I'll look good and nobody will know. What does God think of that sort of thing? Here's your answer. Matthew chapter 23, woe to the man, woe to the woman who pretends, who engages in hypocrisy. So Jesus identifies them as hypocrites. He also adds something else, which we've touched upon before, but now we must focus on a little more than we have before. Verse 33, notice what he calls them serpents, brood of vipers. This is new. We haven't seen him speak this way in this particular discourse before, although Jesus has used this language before and someone else has as well. We'll come back to that in a minute. You know what a serpent is, right? It's a snake, but brood of vipers may need a little more explanation. What's a brood of vipers? Well, brood is another word for offspring. So he's calling them the offspring of poisonous snakes. Now, why would Jesus call them that? Why would he identify them in that manner? Well, as I just alluded to a moment ago, John the Baptist was the first one to call these men serpents, the offspring of snakes. Back in Matthew chapter three, It says, but when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, brood of vipers who warned you to flee from the wrath to come. The warm and cuddly John the Baptist who denounces these men for the snakes that they are. Now we see Jesus use that language. Jesus used it before in Matthew chapter 12, but now he does so again as he denounces these men and calls them the offspring of poisonous snakes. Now, of course, Jesus doesn't mean that literally. He knows they're human beings. He means that spiritually. They are deadly spiritually. Just like a poisonous snake is deadly physically. So these men are deadly and poisonous in a spiritual sense. Now, sometimes people get bent out of shape about Matthew chapter 23. So just one more word about it. Is Jesus calling names here? Yes, he is. He has called these men hypocrites, blind guides, fools, and now snakes. Is Jesus sinning and doing so? Of course not. God forbid we should ever think or say such a thing as that. No, there's no sin here. There's nothing but 100% pure unadulterated righteousness coming from the lips of Jesus. Why would Jesus call these men hypocrites? Because they were. Why would Jesus call these men snakes, the offspring of poisonous serpents? Because they were, and Jesus spoke the truth. Now we think we're nicer than Jesus. And so we don't call people those names. Now we can do it in a wrong and a sinful way. You can call somebody a hypocrite and your heart is wrong, but there is a way to do it. And it's absolutely right. But people, many people want to sugar coat things today and not say it like it really is. or speak the truth, but Jesus speaks the truth. He is the way, the truth and the life. So when he speaks here and he labels these men as snakes, as hypocrites, that is what they were. And what Jesus says is true of them. But we must also ask what the significance of this is. Why is it significant that Jesus uses this particular metaphor of snakes, of poisonous serpents, to identify the scribes and the Pharisees? Well, you know the answer, hopefully, right? It goes all the way back to what book of the Bible? To the very first book of the Bible in Genesis 3. What animal did Satan use as his instrument to lie, and to murder the human race, to draw them into sin and death. It was the snake, right? Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made. Satan uses that serpent and he is identified as the ancient serpent, the tempter of mankind. Now, when God judges the serpent in Genesis chapter three, he says something important. And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. Did you catch that? Who is the seed of the woman? Ultimately it's Jesus Christ and his people who are connected to him, who are in union with him. Who is the seed of the serpent? Ah, now we see who the offspring of the serpent are. They are sinful, wicked men like these scribes and Pharisees. And Jesus identifies them as a brood or offspring of poisonous snakes. Why does he do that? Because they are in league with and aligned with Satan himself. And so elsewhere in the gospel of John, Jesus says to them, you are of your father, the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. So he identifies these hostile religious leaders as having the devil as their father. And this is another way of saying the same thing. The seed of the serpent. Now, all you need to do to be The seed of the serpent is to be born into this world as a fallen sinner. That puts you in rebellion against God. That puts you in league with Satan, with the tempter. You don't have to wear long flowing robes and have boxes of scripture attached to your arm and all the sorts of things that scribes and Pharisees did here. All you need to do is live a life of rebellion against God. And guess who that aligns you with? It aligns you with the ancient serpent. If that's you today, then today is the day for you to repent of sin and come to Jesus Christ for salvation. He will transform you and make you a part of the people of God. Now, why does Jesus pronounce this woe upon them? Verse 29. woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because, okay, so that's why we're talking about the reason for the pronouncement. See that little word, because, because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous. What's Jesus talking about here? Well, the scribes and the Pharisees would have been those who erected monuments to the prophets of old, the prophets of the Old Testament era, the righteous people of old, the righteous men of old. They may not have been a prophet, but they were a righteous man known for their walking in the ways of God and keeping the commandments of the Lord. What would they do? They would establish and build these tombs for them. And they would set up these monuments to their memory. Why? In order to honor them. In order to pay homage to the prophets and righteous men of old. So they would decorate these things and make them very elaborate. So you can still go to Israel today and you can see the remnants of some of these ancient tombs and how elaborate they were and beautiful and carved out of the rock. all that sort of thing. Well, this is what the scribes and Pharisees did. They built the tombs, they adorn the monuments of the saints of old, of the prophets and righteous men of old. What's the problem? That's not the problem. The issue is not building tombs or monuments. What is the problem? Verse 30, 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. What they do is build tombs and monuments. What they say is, we're not like our forefathers. We're different. If we had lived in their time, we would have honored and obeyed and followed the prophets and the righteous. We would have had no part in putting these men to death. Verse 31, Jesus says, therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you were the sons of those who murdered the prophets. Say what you want. You're the children of the murderers. And we'll come back to that in a minute. They profess to be those who love the prophets of old, those who honor the righteous men of old. But in reality, they are just like the people who killed them in the past. Now, as we've noted before, we cannot help but make mention of the resemblance between the practice of the scribes and Pharisees and the practice of the Roman Catholic Church of today and of history. Rome is known for doing things exactly like this, establishing these elaborate memorials and buildings and places where they supposedly honor Peter or Paul, or in particular, the Virgin Mary. When I was a kid, we used to go to my uncle's church at times in Orlando, and we would drive down the highway. And on the highway, from a certain point on I-4, you could see the Mary Queen of the Universe shrine from the highway. Anybody ever been to Florida and seen that? Okay. I mean it is massive. And the first time I saw it, I was like taken aback. You know, I was a young Pentecostal kid. Like what, what in the world is that? Well, it's this massive thing built to honor the Virgin Mary. Now does the Roman Catholic church honor the real Paul, the real Peter? the real Mary, or would they have persecuted them to death? I think you know the answer to that. They profess to honor them, profess in such a way as to say, well, we really love Peter and Paul. We are the ones who are carrying on the apostolic tradition, et cetera, et cetera. Well, how do you know that's not true? Because the only thing that we have that tells us what the apostles did, taught and believed, and the Virgin Mary, in addition, is this book right here. Is Rome faithful to this book? No, she is not. But we Protestants aren't quite out of the woods either, are we? Sometimes we can delude ourselves into thinking certain ways about the past. You ever done that? What kind of church member would you have been in London in the 19th century at Charles Haddon Spurgeon's Metropolitan Tabernacle? You say, oh, glory to God, I'd have been a good church member. I'd have been there every week. I'd have been there all the time, every time the doors opened. I mean, it's Spurgeon. It ain't you, Nick. It's Spurgeon. So I'd be there, man, and I'd be faithful, and Spurgeon, he would have praised me to the heights. Well, brethren, if we won't do it here, now, wherever we are, I have a feeling we wouldn't do it with Spurgeon either. I think you'd get tired of Spurgeon like you get tired of somebody else. So let's not delude ourselves into thinking, well, if I'd only lived in this time and had this and been in this situation, I'd be different. and excuse our present disobedience and lack of faithfulness, as if, oh, you put me in a different situation, you put me in a different context, I'm faithful. I know I'm not faithful right here, right now, but if I'd lived in the 1600s, man, my hair would have been on fire and I'd have been a Protestant reformer. Maybe not. If you're not doing it now, why would you do it then? Okay, so what they do is they build the tombs, they adorn the monuments, and they say, not us. We would have no part. Verse 30, if we'd lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. It wouldn't have been us. Now Jesus brings things to a conclusion. Verse 31, therefore, that's why we're talking about a conclusion here. Jesus is dealing with what they do and say. Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. What's Jesus mean by that? What's he saying there? Well out of their own mouth, they had said or they had identified the people who persecuted and killed the prophets and the righteous as their fathers. Now in the Jewish mind, the son partakes of the nature and character of the father. We would put it like this, like father, like son. And Jesus says, you just condemned yourself. It just came out of your own mouth. You are witnesses against yourselves. You don't know just how much you are like your forefathers who put the prophets and the righteous men to death. You are their children. Truly, truly, you are like them. It's put this way in the gospel of Luke. Now this comes from a different time period, but it's very similar. Luke 11, woe to you for you build the tombs of the prophets and your fathers killed them. In fact, you bear witness that you approve the deeds of your fathers for they indeed killed them and you build their tombs. Now there it has a slightly different flavor. Jesus is saying, you're building their tombs and they killed them and you're in league with one another. They did the dirty deed and you built the place where they would be laid to rest, where they would be killed. So Jesus says, you are just like them. You are in league with them. Now, what is this? This is an example of what we might call self-delusion or self-deception. Here they are decorating the tombs, setting up memorials to the saints of old as if they were with them, as if they're approving of them and their ministry and their message and all of that, when in reality, they're just deluded. They think they're a certain thing, but they're not. And there's a danger here for you and for me, that danger is self-deception. Have you ever deceived yourself? Have you ever deceived yourself into thinking you were one thing, but you really weren't? You were the opposite of that. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3, let no one deceive himself. Why would he have to say that? Because we have a tendency to do it. We have a tendency to deceive ourselves into thinking we are what we are not. And here you see that with the scribes and the Pharisees. Matthew Henry puts it this way, quote, The deceitfulness of sinners hearts appears very much in this, that while they go down the stream of the sins of their own day, they fancy they should have swum against the stream of the sins of the former days. That if they had other people's opportunities, they should have improved them more faithfully. If they had been in other people's temptations, they should have resisted them more vigorously. when yet they improve not the opportunities they have nor resist the temptations they are in." Danger, truly a danger for all of us. May God open our eyes and help us to see who we really are, what we're really like, and grant us grace to repent of sins and disobedience and lack of faithfulness and hypocrisy in our own lives today. Jesus now issues a command. And it is an imperative in the Greek language, verse 32, fill up then the measure of your father's guilt. Why would Jesus say that? This is Jesus' way of saying, finish the job, complete the sins of your forefathers. You know, you might picture this like a cup, and the cup has been filled to a certain point by other people. You are told to fill it up the rest of the way So that it goes all the way to the top and it is filled to the brim. That's the idea fill it up the measure that your father's filled with their sin their guilt their disobedience go ahead and complete it Jesus says to them How exactly will they fill up the measure of their father's guilt? You know the answer, right? Even now, while Jesus is denouncing them in the temple area, and not just now, previous to this, what have they been doing? They have been plotting for some time how to murder Jesus, how to execute him, not how to bring him to justice, Not how to follow the law in relation to Jesus. No, no, they're not interested in that and the trial they put him through is Demonstrative of that it's evidence of that. What do they want? They want to murder him in cold blood and get rid of him and What are they going to do? They're going to go through with it according to the plan of God and and they're going to fill up the measure of their guilt, the measure of their father's guilt. They're going to complete it, so to speak, and terrible judgment is going to strike because of what they do to Jesus. It's like the culminating sin. It is the culminating sin. It is the ultimate straw that breaks the camel's back. The last drops an addition of liquid to the cup that fills it to the brim. Later on, Stephen will say, which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the just one of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers. Speaking of Jesus. You know, there's something important here in this idea of filling up something or completing something. You remember in the Old Testament, when God made a promise to Abraham or Abram at that time, and he told Abraham that he was going to give the land of Canaan to him and his descendants. But not yet. 400 years. 400 plus years would have to intervene between the promise and them coming into the promised land. Do you know why? Well, we're told, Genesis 15, verse 16, But in the fourth generation, they shall return here for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet what complete or full, as the King James Version puts it. What's that about? Well, the Amorites are doing their thing, living in sin and wickedness, and it's like they're filling the cup. It's like they're adding to it, adding to it. They're building up their judgment. And there comes a time when the patience of God runs out and the hammer drops and judgment comes. Similar idea here with the scribes and the Pharisees. They're going to fill up the measure of their father's guilt by putting the son of God to death and then judgment will fall. Now, let that be a warning to you and to me, to each and every one of us. God's patience is great, but when it runs out, and it does, then judgment comes. And not just some terrible calamity in this life, but as we'll see in a moment, an eternity in hell. That's why you must repent. That's why you must come to Jesus Christ in faith. Flee from the wrath to come and trust in Jesus. Be forgiven and be saved through him. Do it today, if you haven't done it already. Finally, this brings Jesus to the point of, again, identifying these men as snakes, as the offspring of vipers. Verse 33, serpents, brood of vipers. How can you escape the condemnation of hell? What a question. Wow, it ought to send a chill down the spine. How will you escape being judged for all eternity in hell? You know what the answer is to that? There is no escape. Your doom is certain. Why? Because they will not repent. They will not believe. They will not humble themselves. We know the rest of the story, right? They're going to go through with their murderous plans and they're going to put Jesus on a cross. You see Jesus again speak here of hell. Now, in our English translations, the word hell might have a different Greek term behind it, or Hebrew term behind it, in this case Greek. But here it is Gehenna, or Gehenna. And what was Gehenna? Gehenna was the name for the Valley of the Sons of Hinnom. It was a ravine close to Jerusalem there, south of Jerusalem. It was a trash dump. where fires were burning continually. It was a place where ancient kings of old of Israel had sacrificed children, their own children, to false gods, to pagan gods. And it was thus the symbol and the picture of the place of torment and punishment that we call hell. So Jesus says to the scribes and Pharisees, you're headed for hell. you're headed for eternal judgment. Their trajectory toward Gehenna was set, and there would be no escape. This is now the last mention of hell in the Gospel of Matthew, and I think we ought to stop and take notice of it. Jesus has spoken unhesitatingly of hell, of the place of eternal punishment for sin. Back in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warned us to deal seriously with sin in light of what? In light of hell. If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you. For it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish than for your whole body to be cast into hell. It would be better for you to pull your own eye out than go to hell. In chapter 10, Jesus told his disciples not to fear men who could only kill the body, but instead fear the one who is able to destroy both soul and body, where? In hell. And do not fear those who kill the body, Jesus says, but cannot kill the soul, but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. And now here it is again, Jesus speaks of it again as the place to which the scribes and the Pharisees are inevitably heading. They will not escape the judgment of God in hell. So the doctrine of hell is not something that medieval Catholics invented or Baptist fundamentalists in the 20th century. Where does it come from? It comes from Jesus. It comes from the Bible. It is the teaching, the plain teaching of the Word of God. And Jesus does not apologize. He does not sugarcoat. He does not beat around the bush. Instead, he pronounces judgment on these men and asks, how can you escape the condemnation of hell? Now, there are lots of people today who don't like hell. If you just start talking to people, you'll find out who they are. And it's probably the vast majority of people. Oh, they'll be happy to talk to you about heaven because they think they're headed there. And they think everybody they know is headed there to a better place. What do people say when someone dies? It doesn't matter how irreligious, how wicked, how ignorant of God, how disdainful of the church and the word of God they are. Where are they? They are in a better place. Not so. That is not always the case. Now if someone believes in Christ truly, are they in a better place? Of course they are. But not everybody believes in Christ truly. Even some professing Christians don't have any time for the doctrine of hell. It makes us squeamish, uncomfortable. Can't we talk about something positive? Can't we talk about something inspirational? I'm feeling down. No, we have to talk about it because Jesus spoke about it. And it's here in the word of God. And we must face it and face it head on. The doctrine of hell was the doctrine of Jesus. And again, we must note here who it is that's headed to hell. Remember who Jesus is talking to here. He's talking to men who prayed, who went to synagogue, who memorized scripture, who engage in all sorts of minute and detailed religious practices. But guess where they're going? They're headed to hell. Let this be a reminder to each and every one of us that religious hypocrisy secures you a seat in hell. You don't have to be an atheist to go to hell. You don't have to be a libertine living in all the sins of the flesh that you could possibly get your hands on. All you need be is an unsaved man or woman, someone who does not know Christ. Because if we live in sin and we go on in our sins, there is no escape from hell. There's no escaping it for the person who refuses to listen, for the person who refuses to humble themselves, for the person who will not repent. will not believe there is no escape. You're headed for hell. If that's you here today, then today is your opportunity. May you not look back on this day and say, I didn't listen. And that's why I'm in torment now. May you not look back on this time and say, I ignored pastor Smiley. I ignored more importantly, the words of Jesus in the text. But may today be your day of salvation. May you turn from sin and come to Jesus Christ in faith today and be saved. You don't have to go to hell. You don't have to go to the eternal place of torment. If you're still breathing and you're still here, there is time, there is opportunity for you to come to Christ, the one who speaks of it here. There is an escape from hell for the one who repents. for the one who believes. And that escape is Jesus himself. Jesus himself offers you and I mercy. He offers you forgiveness and the love of God. And I know most of us here today are probably believers. There's something to rejoice in at one time. You deserved, well, you still deserve hell. You still deserve the condemnation of hell. But by God's grace, He's saved you, forgiven you, and your destination is heaven. Your destination is a new heaven and a new earth. That's not something just to be relieved about, but to rejoice in with the greatest joy possible, that I won't be condemned in hell for all eternity. Not because I'm a good person, not because I went to church and I did some outward religious things, but because of Jesus. Because of what Christ did on my behalf, He died for me, He rose again for me, and now because of Him, my sins are forgiven. Rejoice in that today, brethren. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. If you're a believer here today, that's you. And if you're not, again, I call you to come to Jesus today for mercy, that you might escape the condemnation of hell. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, these are strong words from our Lord Jesus Christ, and we pray that you would help us to take heed, to pay attention, to take them seriously. At one time, many of us did not, and we disregarded you. We disregarded the preaching of the gospel. We had better things to do. We were in love with sin. And in a sense, we were on our way to hell. But in your mercy, you intervened. Now we know that from the foundation of the world, you had a plan for us. And we were never gonna end up in the place of torment, but we certainly deserved it. And so we thank you. for saving us. Oh, Father, help us not to be hypocrites. Help us to be sincere and true with you and before men. We see in our own hearts and our own lives at times the very sins that the Lord Jesus denounced in the scribes and Pharisees. We know we could be just like them. if you remove your hand of restraining mercy. And so we thank you for forgiving us, saving us, and changing us through Jesus, our Savior. And we pray that you would help us, Lord, to be the people you want us to be, to be faithful, to be obedient. Lord, I pray for the one here today, and there's undoubtedly somebody here today, who doesn't really know you. That was me at one time. And you mercifully drew me out of my sin that I loved to Jesus Christ. And I pray you do that for them too. We are no better than they. We are all of us sinners, rebels against you. I pray you'd open their eyes today. Open their heart to the gospel and save them in your mercy. Oh, we thank you for your word. Thank you for the challenge. for the correction, the rebuke that we receive when we open scripture. We know it's not always consolation. There is plenty of consolation there. We also need to hear the hard words. And we pray, Father, that you would help each and every person here today to receive the words of Jesus and repentance and faith. And we ask your blessing to this end as we leave this place. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. As you leave today, may grace be with you all. Amen.