The Gospel of Luke 11:37-44 Woe to the Pharisees

Good morning. Just a few thoughts and comments on the songs, as we had a few songs that talked about being made white. It reminded me, my grandmother, as I mentioned previously, was a missionary to the cannibals in Fiji. And she said that when they became believers, they liked to wear white clothing because it pictured their purity that they had in Christ after doing such a heinous and awful thing as killing another person just to have a meal. And another thought that came up here is, you know, we sing the song, May the mind of Christ my Savior. A lot of those things are things we have in position already. And so we're not asking for something we already have, but we're praying our position into our condition, is what it's talking about there. One last thought was that song, Over a Thousand Tongues. I was telling Nancy this morning, I don't have any idea what I'd do with a thousand tongues. I just have no idea. I have a tough time with the one I've got. So anyway.

So, looking ahead here as we continue to explore Luke, by the end of the year we're going to finish Luke chapter 12, keep on schedule, and then so by chapter count we will be halfway done with the gospel of Luke there at the end of the year. Christ's crucifixion, burial, and resurrection will take place six months approximately from the time of the events in today's passage. So as we go through this, what Randy just read, it's just about six months out. Christ will be crucified, buried, and resurrected.

In Luke chapter 16, we're going to kind of take a bit of a sideways turn there. It's the account of the rich man and Lazarus. This is also Abraham's bosom and those kinds of things. We're going to take a look at the structure of the spiritual realm because there are various realms and God has structured things in certain ways.

So we're going to take a look at that and look at the resurrections and judgments. Not everybody is resurrected at the same time. And all judgments are not the same. There are, in fact, quite a number of judgments in scripture. And so we'll be looking at that as well. Anyway, so that's just sort of a look ahead here.

So getting into Luke 11, 37 through 44, Jesus has lunch here with a Pharisee. So brace yourself for what Jesus has to say. These are hot smoking words that he's got for this Pharisee. And it's perhaps with these kinds of words He's sealing his fate so to speak that about six months out from this particular time He would be crucified Because actually we're going to stop with what he says to the Pharisee But next week we'll get on to the next thing that he says to the scribes so and those aren't Words that they're going to like either So at any rate, brace yourself for these words. It appears Jesus says these things before they begin eating lunch.

That's the apparent situation. His disciples are likely present, although not all of the dramatic depictions show that. And then among the Pharisees, because he's talking to a Pharisee here, the Pharisees and Sadducees and the Essenes are three major religious groups in Israel there.

The Essenes are not mentioned by name, but their, you know, hate your enemy is the teaching only of the Essenes. Neither the Pharisees nor the Sadducees actually taught hate your enemy, but the Essenes did. And guess who the Essenes' enemies were? The Pharisees and the Sadducees, right?

Okay. The Pharisees actually, among those three groups, believe most like Jesus, which might come as a surprise. They believed in a Messiah. They just didn't believe Jesus was the Messiah, except for a very few. They believed in the entire Old Testament, although that's not what they called it. The term for the Old Testament is the Tanakh. They believed in angels. The Sadducees, by the way, didn't. And miracles. The Sadducees didn't. And resurrection. The Sadducees didn't. And afterlife. The Sadducees didn't believe in that either. In fact, what did they believe in?

Tough to say. So at any rate, so he's having lunch with this Pharisee who, of the three major groups, is actually most closely aligned with Christ in terms of some of these basic beliefs. But Jesus sees some problems as well, and he doesn't keep quiet about it. We kind of need to keep in mind that Jewish social customs are definitely not like ours.

The customs of the time would allow others to stand at the door and to watch while those inside ate, and not only listen but make comments and ask questions. So it would be the sort of thing we'd probably be calling 911. But that was actually just accepted practice and customary for them. If a rabbi was in the room, it was allowed to have others come into the room without even an invitation, even while eating a meal. Even while everyone else was eating a meal, it was allowed for people to come into the room. So a much different arrangement than you and I would be comfortable with. Jesus was in fact considered a rabbi. Numerous places would attest to that, but one of them, John 3, 2, is where Nicodemus, one of the higher-ups in the Jewish authority system, Nicodemus calls Jesus a rabbi.

Now this isn't the only time We see Matthew 15, 1-13 and Mark 7, 1-23 both record other instances of Jesus and His disciples not doing the customary washing. And lest you think that, wait a minute, Jesus didn't wash his hands, the traditional washing was not to get your hands clean. It was a ritual, and sometimes they didn't use very much water. So it wasn't a get your hands clean thing, it was symbolic. It was a ritual or ceremonial washing of hands, not a get the dirt off and that sort of thing. In each of those instances, Jesus taught about what this means and why I don't do the hand-washing. The Pharisees would take care not to violate their many additions to the Law of Moses, would often overlook other more important spiritual matters in the Law, and we'll look at that a little deeper in a minute here.

So Luke 11.37 goes like this, Now when he had spoken, a Pharisee asked him to have lunch with him, and he went in and reclined at table. Actually in the original text at the table is not a part of it so he reclined and at the table was actually inserted But one of the things to note that hospitality was customary it was a strongly established custom among the Jews and it was actually an imperative you must you know, invite people over and that sort of thing, unless there's some very good reason not to show hospitality, you know, to a particular person or group.

You strongly disagreed with them, you know, you don't trust them because they're going to stab somebody or steal things or whatever. So unless there was some strong reason otherwise, hospitality was something that was very definitely expected within the society.

Here is a model, for example, of Jerusalem in New Testament times. If you lived in or near Jerusalem, it was expected that you would show hospitality to all the people that came for all the feasts. And you were not allowed to charge for it. So if you lived in or near Jerusalem, it's just like, okay, we're just going to do this, right?

Jesus told the disciples, look for a man carrying water, which by the way, the custom was a man doesn't carry water. That's a woman's job. Look for a man carrying water, and that guy will take you to the room where we're going to hold the Last Supper, right?

And so that was just standard hospitality. If you lived in or near Jerusalem, just like Mary and Martha and Lazarus lived in Bethany, just over the backside of the Mount of Olives, if you lived in or near Jerusalem, you're going to be host to lots of people during all those feasts.

The Pharisees' opposition to Jesus at this point had not become so widespread that every single one of them was opposed. This appears to be among the last invitations, however. So Jesus is probably going to say things here that will end those invitations, I think, it appears. Later on, it would happen, however, that they would be totally sealed out and all the Pharisees would be completely opposed to them.

So we reclined at table. Meals were eaten at a low table while sitting or sometimes even laying on your front side on cushions. So we read the expression reclined at table, and it's actually the verb there is just reclined, seated, and that's it. Typically there was no eating utensils like you know we have forks knives and spoons and all that. Bread was broken and used to eat dips and sauces and then beyond that of course they had finger food and that sort of thing.

The Pharisees had rules about washing one's hands before eating but again it was ceremonial washing not get your hands clean. So they would, you know, eat away with the bread and the dips and sauces and things of that sort, and then also the finger food, you know, grab your olives and various kinds of fruits and things of that sort.

So Luke 11, 38, when the Pharisees saw it, that is, that Jesus just sat down and did no ceremonial washing, He was surprised when He had not first ceremonially washed before the meal. So here's this Pharisee, and whoa, Jesus isn't doing ceremonial washing. Uh-oh, what's going on here? So Dr. Luke makes the point that Jesus did not wash his hands ceremonially before the meal, according to the customs and rules that were added to the law of Moses by the rabbis.

So this ceremonial washing thing was added. They had lots and lots of things that were added. They also added things that helped take away from the law. And we'll look at that in a minute here. One of the things we noticed when we were over in Israel is before you went to the Western Wall, they had people washing their hands at this basin there.

They also had, I noticed in the men's restroom nearby, they also had special washing facilities. And one of the things that was required is you couldn't just put your hands in a bowl to wash. You couldn't, like in this case, even with faucet, if you had something like that, you couldn't just put your hands under it like we typically do. You had to go take the water from the faucet, put it in a container, and pour it over your hands.

That's part of the ritual. So that's why they have all these containers attached here. And what I wondered is, look, you got a bunch of Jews hanging around, and they're supposed to ritually wash Why did they have to chain these things to the basin? I thought you're not supposed to steal. Anyway, that was really curious to me. But nonetheless, they consistently have them chained or tied to this wash basin. The Jews also had a tradition that they developed.

Ceremonial washing was done before and after copying the Old Testament scriptures. So you'd have these scribes and they would go first and do the ceremonial washing before, and then once they're done doing their copying for the day or for a time, then they'd wash their hands afterwards ceremonially. So that was another thing. So this ceremonial washing wasn't just washing your hands before eating, it was before doing a number of different things, including the copying of the scriptures. So they added this to the Law of Moses, they added it to different kinds of things besides just eating, and even just going to a holy place was something where washing the hands was necessary. The hands must be washed, the rabbi said, before certain activities, as we've mentioned some of them, including eating food.

And that washing must be done in a certain way in order to be ritually clean. It wasn't a matter of getting the water all over and then never use soap even. It was ritually clean, ceremonially clean, not clean your hands. It was to picture the supposed purity of the heart. Now, so now you have this surprised Pharisee.

Jesus seemed to do or not do things that were added to the Law of Moses, 613 individual statutes. We mentioned before there's actually just 613 individual laws in the Law of Moses, individual statutes, right? And so these things were added to that, oftentimes in order to make a kind of a fence around the law so that you'd make sure that you wouldn't possibly break the law. And so there's a whole bunch of additional laws in addition to the 613. And you had to keep track of all these things. And of course, that took a lot of work.

For example, Jesus healed on the Sabbath a number of times. We went to the pool of Bethesda over in Jerusalem, and there was where Jesus healed the lame man. Remember, he was expecting that the water would get stirred by an angel, and he was supposed to get in the water, but he never got there first, and so somebody else would get there first. So Jesus doesn't say, hey, I've got a bunch of disciples, they'll help you.

He instead says, pick up your bed and walk. You're healed, pick up your bed and walk. And you know what? The rabbis had rules against picking up your bed and walking on the Sabbath too. So Jesus healed on the Sabbath, which they thought was bad, and then Jesus told them, pick up your bed and walk, and they thought that was bad too.

This was horrible, awful things that Jesus was doing, healing this guy and everything. Here's another example. Jesus was in Capernaum. He was in the synagogue. That's shown here. This is actually a later synagogue, but underneath it is the foundation for the one that was there during Jesus' time. Jesus cast a demon out of a man who came to that synagogue there. And then, right nearby, here is Peter's house. Jesus went over there on the Sabbath, and it was only a short walk later, went from the synagogue into Peter's house, and there he healed Peter's mother-in-law, right?

And you know what he did the rest of the day? He healed and healed and healed and healed and healed and healed until sundown, made sure he just offended these people who didn't want healings. So he just healed lots of people that day, all the way until the sunset. And he says, OK, that's it. Sabbath's over. So Jesus actually, in multiple instances, deliberately healed on the Sabbath and broke their rules intentionally.

Notice, too, that the Pharisee watched carefully to see what people did and didn't do. They were kind of like the religious police, just constantly watching, you know, are you going to blow it? If you are, I'm going to let you know it, right? So that's what they did. And so this guy noticed. We don't know if the Pharisee said that he was surprised or that he had a surprised look on his face. or whether Jesus just knew he was surprised, because he knew his heart. So we don't know that, but it's clear he was surprised.

So Luke 11.39 says this, And the Lord said to him, Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but inside of you you are full of robbery and wickedness. Which, of course, the Pharisees just love to hear this, right?

Okay, I'm going to put this in a sort of a Texan literal translation. Okay? But the Lord said to him, now all y'all, the Pharisees, the outside of the cup and of the platter you may clean, but the inward part of all y'all are full of robbery and wickedness. Okay?

So that kind of gets the point across. In the English, unless you do something like this, you don't know whether it's singular, plural, whatever. But that's kind of the way the language comes across. Now, one of the things you'll notice, he goes from the outside to the inside here.

The Jews actually ceremonially wash not just their hands, but all the utensils for eating. And they wash the inside and the outside of the cup. Actually, they wash both. But Jesus only mentions washing the outside because he's going to shift from washing the outside of the cups and bowls to the inside of a person, into the souls. He's going to go from cups and platters to souls.

So that's his point here. The external washing was supposed to symbolize the internal purity, but it became all about the external act, eventually, of ceremonial hand-washing. So Jesus, knowing the hearts of the Pharisees, because there's no heart that he doesn't know, knowing the hearts of the Pharisees like no other human being ever has, because he is also deity and no other human being is, tells his host about a heart problem. He's got a heart problem. So what did the Pharisees have going on inside while they were ceremonially washing the outside?

Robbery and wickedness. Isn't that nice? Robbery and wickedness. I mean, that's intense, by the way. Is robbery and wickedness against the law? Yep. So he says, on the outside, you're adding to the law that I'm not going to abide by. On the inside, you're breaking the law. That's what he's telling them. So here's Luke 1140. Oh boy, they're going to love this.

You foolish ones, did not he who made the outside make the inside also? Like on Jeopardy, Jesus answers in the form of a question, right? Did not he who make the outside make the inside also? God is the one who made both. Now, one of the things that I think is important, he shifted from talking about washing the hands to washing the bowls and the platters. Why would he do that? And one reason I think is that both the Old Testament and the New Testament in multiple places looks at God as a potter and we are the clay.

And so here's Isaiah 64.8 as an example, But now, O Lord, You are our Father, we are the clay, and You are our potter, and all of us are the work of Your hand. Here's the Apostle Paul using a similar picture in Romans 9, 21 and the very first part of 22. Or does not the potter have a right over the clay to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? What if God, so he proceeds on there looking upon God as a potter, And there are other passages in both the Old and New Testament we could take a look at there. But I think that's why he shifted from washing the hands to washing the utensils, which was also something that they required to have ritual cleansing.

Jesus is saying that it's what's on the inside that counts. The approach of the Pharisees was to examine outside conditions and actions. all the while God is looking at the heart that's what he looks at first and what comes out of the heart the outside had better agree with what's inside right otherwise you have hypocrisy so these Pharisees have some serious heart disease serious heart disease so here's Luke 11 41 but give that which is within as charity, and then all things are clean for you." Now, why does he say give? Let's talk about that. What the Pharisees have been doing was to focus on all the externals, but making laws that allow them to keep what God said to give. Here is a for instance, Mark 7, 9 through 13, which you also have as a slide on page 2 there.

He was also saying to them, you are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition. For Moses said, honor your father and your mother, and he who speaks evil of father or mother is to be put to death. But you say, if a man says to his father or his mother, whatever I have that will help you is korban, that is to say, given to God, You no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus invalidating the word of God by your tradition, which you have handed down, and you do many things such as that.

The Ten Commandments includes honor your father and mother. And that word honor doesn't mean just show them honor in some sort of a symbolic way. But it also means that word honor is used in both the Old and the New Testaments as a Jewish expression for material and financial support. So if the need is there, you are to support them financially and materially. So that's what the commandment is about when it says honor your father and your mother. It means if material support and finances are needed, that you give those too. But here's what the rabbis figured out we could do.

I will go and dedicate things in my home, just go on from one item to the next, and dedicate them to God. And then they're dedicated to God. I can't give them to my mother and father, right? And so then you get to keep them, right? Because they're dedicated to God. So that was the way that they broke one of the Ten Commandments. is by dedicating it to God. Now, it looks good on the outside. Look at all the things that are dedicated to God in here.

But the truth is, it allowed them to be greedy and not to give. So, like declaring things korban, dedicated to God or given to God, in Mark 7, 9-13, the Pharisees had to figure out lots of additional laws to allow them to disregard the law. Lots of extra laws to help me disregard what's in the law. The Pharisees needed to focus on matters of character and spirituality before God from the heart. That was not happening. So here's Luke 11 42, but woe to you Pharisees for you pay tithe of mint and rue and every kind of garden herb. So they would go down and tithe. You see, this is something where we get messed up.

The tithe was to support the priests and Levites. And you had collecting places where you're supposed to bring your agricultural produce. and leave it at those collecting places so that the priests and Levites would be supported with those food items. Agricultural items. If you made money otherwise, you didn't tithe on it. You see that? The tithe that's been carried forward by a lot of people is supposed to give a tenth of your income. No, it was only of agricultural items. That's it.

And so what the Pharisees did was they would go down and say, well, I've got here some plants of mint. And so I'm going to give a tenth of my mint. And he'd go and he'd say, OK, I've got this other herb. And he'd go around to all the different herbs they had and give a tenth even of that. So they were very detailed in some things. And that was, I guess, commendable in some way.

But. He says, disregard justice and the love of God, but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. So the Pharisees get three woes here, right? Today's passage, the Pharisees receive three pronouncements of woe to you Pharisees, right? We'll see that their associates, the scribes, or lawyers as they're also called, experts in the law, are next. That's next week's passage, okay?

Jesus turns from them. the Pharisees next to the scribes. Does Jesus need to take a course on how to win friends and influence people? Jesus is actually not trying to win friends and influence people, but to tell them the truth about their heart disease. He's going to tell them the truth about their heart disease.

So he's not backing off. It's amazing. I mean, they haven't even started eating yet, as far as we can tell. Now, one of the things we find here is the law is holy and righteous and good. And Romans 7.12, right in the New Testament, says that. The law of Moses is holy and the commandment, thou shalt not covet, is holy and righteous and good. So, good thing. These Pharisees were keeping some external points of the law of Moses quite admirably.

Because it wasn't just, you know, major items of agricultural produce, but if they had little herbs, they would give a tenth of each kind of herb even. So they were being meticulous about some things, but they're also missing the heart and intent of the law. By doing so, they were failing badly in justice with others, the example that we'd looked at here was failing to honor mother and father, right? Failing to show material and financial support and the love of the Lord. It's all about washing the hands and washing the cups and washing, you know, before and after different events on the outside, right? So here's Luke 1143.

Woe to you Pharisees, for you love the chief seats in the synagogues and the respectful greetings in the marketplace. And of course, they're just delighted to hear this. The Pharisees were the culture's heroes. And I think that's something a lot of times we'll read the Gospels and we'll think, well, these guys are the bad dudes, you know. But actually, the culture applauded these guys. These were the good guys in the eyes of most Jews. The only ones who didn't like the Pharisees were the Sadducees and the Essenes, right? The Essenes hated them. So, but for most people, the Pharisees, those were the good guys. These are the guys who really did it right.

And they were missionary about it too. They went all over you know, the developed world of that time, and they'd go around and tell, you know, stories out of the Old Testament, and they'd invite people, and the Jews that were scattered outside of Israel, they'd go and take their message to them. They were the culture heroes. Everybody didn't look at them and say, oh, you nasty, naughty, thirsty.

Instead, they thought, man, these guys really do it right. So for Jesus to come out and talk to him the way he did, they were just stunned. Aside from which, that's one of the reasons why they didn't embrace Jesus as the Messiah. Because the Pharisees thought, when the Messiah comes, he's really going to love us. And so, one of the things when Jesus spoke like this, they thought, well, he can't possibly be the Messiah, because he doesn't love us!

Right? OK, nearly all the Jews applauded the Pharisees as the ones who were doing it right. The Pharisees liked being the heroes of just about everyone, except for the Sadducees and the Essenes. And the synagogues and the marketplaces where you're there in front of everybody showed it best. Oh, Pharisee, how good to see you.

Oh, I noticed that you're giving a tenth of everything. Oh, you're so meticulous. I noticed that you're washing your hands before everything. And when you go to the marketplace, you check everything out carefully, that cloth doesn't have mixed fibers, does it? This over here, this fish, this is not an allowed fish. See, they were picky out in the marketplace.

Everybody admired that. Everybody thought it was great. Jesus didn't. The unholy, hypocritical hearts of the Pharisees were what Jesus saw. He looks at the heart, okay? He looks at the heart, and the outward show did not impress him, as you get the picture here, right? They were for power, they were for position, they were for praise, and they were for pride. The four Ps. The Pharisees liked the power, position, praise, and pride that came with them being Pharisees a bit too much, I would say. God was not impressed looking at the heart. All these were things that gave them a high standing with other people, but not with God. The motive that drives the actions matters to God who looks at the heart. Matters to God who looks at the heart. So Jesus didn't applaud them.

Instead, rebuked the Pharisees openly and publicly. which of course they just loved. So 1144, woe to you, for you are like concealed tombs, and the people who walk over them are unaware of it. Now I've got to tell you about Pharisees in concealed tombs. The Pharisees would go to great lengths to make sure they did not touch a dead body, and therefore to avoid even getting close to touching a dead body, they really did not want to get close to a grave. And so they might possibly get close to being ritually unclean accidentally, and so they really didn't like concealed tombs. You might accidentally go by and touch something, and that would defile you, so they thought.

When we were in Jerusalem, this is the view from up top of the Mount of Olives at the southern end. You see lots and lots of tombs there. Across the way there is the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock there with the gold dome. By the way, it didn't always have a gold dome.

What you see in the foreground are the Jewish graves. Why the Jewish graves? The Jewish graves were there so that when the Messiah comes again, they'd have front row seats to the resurrection. But another reason for putting them all there is that you wouldn't accidentally go buy those, right? Because they're all in one place.

And they typically would go with a lighter color, maybe even white, maybe even whitewash. so that you would be sure to know where the tombs were. Tombs were whitewashed, and that's exactly what Jesus calls them at one point in time, the whitewashed sepulchers, so that a Pharisee would not accidentally come close to touching a dead body and therefore be accidentally ritually unclean. So Jesus turns this whole concern on its head. The Pharisees because they didn't want to accidentally walk over a concealed tomb, would stay away from them. But Jesus turns the tables on the Pharisees and says that you are concealed tombs.

Ah! I'm the very thing that contaminates and defiles people. Right? You're it! When people have contact with you, they get defiled. To a Pharisee, this was just as vile as you could possibly imagine. That meant that everyone else was being ritually defiled by having contact with these ritually unclean Pharisees, not knowing that they were being defiled by their contact with these admired dead guys. Shocking thing to say.

Well, what about us? We say, well, we're not Pharisees. Nor are many of us, even of Jewish ethnicity. We live in Colorado rather than Israel. And that was about 20 centuries ago, what was described there. So what's in this passage for us? For us in the body of Christ, we've got an almost reverse situation, I could say.

Hypocrisy is trying to live under the law of Moses and hold her in part. That's hypocrisy. Trying to live under the law of Moses in whole or in part is hypocrisy. Why do I say such a thing? Christ died not just for your sins, but to separate you from the law, all of it. Hypocrisy is trying our very best to look like a Christian on the outside, even by our own best efforts.

John Fisher wrote a song some years ago, Evangelical Veil Productions. And it goes, Evangelical Veil Productions, pick one up now at quite a reduction. Got all kinds of shapes and sizes, introductory bonus prizes. A special quality one-way see-through. You can see them, but they can't see you. Makes you look like you've just seen the Lord, right?

And so it's possible for Christians to end up trying to chase this Christian look. How does a Christian walk? Is there some special walk? How does a Christian talk? Is there a special talk? Got to look up to see if that's an allowed word. So what does God want from us? God doesn't want anything from us, right? It's everything from Him, nothing from me. Which is why we were crucified with Christ as the first step in our identification with Christ. We were crucified with Christ first to get us out of the way. Not for us to give our best effort to try to live like and be a Christian. What God wants from us is the life of His Son to be lived out in and through us as we walk in fellowship with our Lord out of our position.

There's Galatians 2.20, I've been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who, and I expand that a little bit, it's no longer I who do the living, but Christ does the living in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, faith in Him, not in me, not even in my best efforts, who loved me and gave himself up for me.

This fellowship with the Lord gets called different things in different parts of the New Testament. This His doing the living and not mine. In John 15, Jesus says, I'm the vine, you're the branches, abide in me. Now, it's a really funny thing, but branches out there in the vineyard don't really have any decision to make about abiding in the vine, do they?

But for us as believers, abiding and trusting and depending upon the Lord is a decision we have to make, moment by moment. Another thing that it gets called is beholding Christ or looking to Jesus. So in 2 Corinthians 3.18, we've talked about it, beholding the Lord through His Word. As we read the Word of God, it's not just spiritual information. It is about Christ and centered and focused upon Him, beholding the Lord through His Word. In Hebrews 12, 1 and 2, it's, we get rid of all the encumbrances and run our race as He ran His race. And we look unto Jesus, away from everything that will distract, the one who's the author and finisher of our faith.

We do that moment by moment, day by day, its fellowship. Another way that Paul puts it, and this is what I spoke on in Uganda, is walking in the Spirit. It's walking by means of the Spirit's multiple ministries, about two dozen of them. The Holy Spirit has multiple ministries that are centered towards our walking in fellowship with the Lord. These are some of the different things that gets called, but it's all fellowship with the Lord. It's all dependence upon Him. Nothing from us, everything from Him. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you as we look at this passage.

We see that the hypocrisy of the Pharisees who tampered with the law. We see also, though, that in New Testament truth that You have died on the cross to separate us entirely from being under that law. And so we want to learn from it. You have it there for a purpose. You even inspired it. But we're not to live under it or attempt to live under it. And so we look to you in this. We can't do this without you. And it's entirely dependent upon you. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.