Woes to the Scribes
Notes
Transcript
Opening Illustration
Opening Illustration
“The Ten Most Wanted Men in America” are listed on posters in prominent public buildings (like the U.S. Post Office for example).
Photographs of these criminals are shown in order to alert law-abiding citizens of their danger and to arouse the help of the public in locating these criminals.
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Now think for a moment:
Would you want to invite one of these dangerous criminals into your home?
Of course not.
It would be a very foolish thing to do.
If you did happen to see one of these criminals, it would be your civic duty to report the information to the police.
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A false teacher is just as dangerous to the church as a criminal is to the community.
But unfortunately the zeal that is displayed when a person reports criminals to the police is rarely seen when it comes to dealing with false teachers in God’s house.
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In order to protect the church, God has posted a “Most Wanted” list in His Word.
Therefore, the Christian believer has strict instructions to be on the lookout for these spiritual criminals.
Unfortunately, in Jesus’ day the top religious leaders where the ones who were acting as spiritual criminals...
They turned from God’s perfect Word and put their trust in their own doctrines...
Last week we witnessed Jesus rebuking the Pharisees for these spiritual crimes...
Today, Jesus turns His attention to the Scribes and their dangerous teachings.
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So, please turn your Bibles to the Gospel of Luke.
We will conduct our study in Chapter 11 and focus on verses 45 through 54.
Our message this morning is titled, “Woes to the Scribes”
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As you are turning to our passage...
Keep this in mind...
The message today will focus on three woes delivered to the Scribes...
These are in addition to the three woes that Jesus delivered to the Pharisees.
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So, this morning we will cover three main points:
1) The Burdens
2) The Tombs
And...
3) The Key
Opening Prayer
Opening Prayer
Before we consider our text, please join me in prayer...
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Heavenly Father...
You are our only hope of salvation...
For You are the Sovereign One.
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Help us identify Your truth over the lies of false teachers...
Help us to be faithful to the Holy Spirit inspired Scriptures...
And help us to serve You with dedicated boldness.
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Thank You for Your great patience...
Thank You for Your immeasurable mercy...
And thank You for Your saving grace.
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And it is in Jesus’s name we pray all these things...
Amen.
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Let’s turn to our text for today:
Reading of the Text
Reading of the Text
45 One of the lawyers answered him, “Teacher, in saying these things you insult us also.”
46 And he said, “Woe to you lawyers also! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers.
47 Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed.
48 So you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them, and you build their tombs.
49 Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’
50 so that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation,
51 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.
52 Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.”
53 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,
54 lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say.
So, let’s look at our first point...
1) The Burdens
1) The Burdens
Verses 45-46: 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 yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers.
Beloved, this section starts off when a Lawyer or Scribe reacts to Jesus’ woes to the Pharisees...
As a recap, we covered this last week in Luke 11:37-44 which says:
37 While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him, so he went in and reclined at table.
38 The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner.
39 And the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness.
40 You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also?
41 But give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you.
42 “But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.
43 Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seat in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces.
44 Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without knowing it.”
So, the Scribe notes that Jesus’ attack not only pertains to the Pharisees but also is in the line of fire of the Scribes...
For it is the Scribes who interpret the law and aid the Pharisees in their study of tradition.
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Likewise, it is the Scribes who developed the religious system that the Pharisees practiced...
So, to insult the Pharisees was to insult them too.
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Now, a “Lawyer” or a “Scribe” was someone who was considered an expert in the law of God...
Many of the Scribes, but not all of the scholars who pored over the law of Moses, belonged to the party of the Pharisees.
Their supposed superior knowledge of Scripture promoted their own and others’ assumption that their relationship to God was better than that of ordinary Jews who worked in other occupations.
So, they were highly respected as part of the top religious elite of Jesus’ day...
They were very full of themselves...
In fact, Revelation 3:17 comes to mind when thinking of their elitist attitude:
17 For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.
They thought they were examples to be followed...
But in reality they were bankrupt!
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Now, although there was some overlap, there was differences to the Scribes and Pharisees...
The Scribes were the professional interpretative experts on the Torah itself...
And the Pharisees were experts in theological matters that the Torah raised.
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Now, this Scribe in our passage said that Jesus was also insulting his group when Jesus insulted the Pharisees...
And Jesus...
Well Beloved, Jesus responds directly to this claim...
And He says the Scribes are in fact just as guilty too!
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Jesus then starts His harsh rebuke with the words, “Woe to you lawyers also!
For you load people with burdens hard to bear.”
Now, the word “burdens” refers to the extrabiblical traditions that were put them on others’ shoulders of the people by the religious elite...
These burdens where explicitly condemned by Jesus as a form of legalism that destroyed lives...
For these heavy weights of the religious man-made duties added to the actual Law of God and made them the original Laws of God null and void...
So, this burden on the people became so heavy that it actually directed people away from God and His Laws...
In other words, they are spiritually crushing the people with a suffocating weight.
As Acts 15:10 says:
10 Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?
The purpose of God’s law was to point out that we could not keep it on our own...
God’s law pointed us to the fact that we needed a Savior who could upload the whole Law of God which is good.
Yet, the Scribes, along with the Pharisees, added more laws for people to follow...
They thought that their man-made laws would help the people follow better God’s Law...
But that was impossible from the beginning and now they made the burden unbearable.
As the Reformation Study Bible puts it:
“The legal experts added to the law many regulations meant to ensure that the law itself would not be broken, envisioned as ‘a fence around the law.’
But these additional requirements imposed a heavy burden, compounding the weight of the law’s demands, which were already beyond the capacity of fallen humanity to keep.”
So, the people’s preoccupation with the details of the tradition of the elders often resulted in the neglect of God’s actual commandments found in the Old Testament.
As Mark 7:13 says:
13 thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.”
So, one can’t follow God’s commands and man’s commands...
To follow one is to destroy the other!
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Beloved, on top of all that, Jesus then says the the Scribes “do not touch the burdens” themselves which means they make no effort to help people keep these man-made traditions of theirs...
In other words, today we would us the expression that they would not even lift up a finger to help the people...
So, not only did they crush people with their man-made burdens...
The Scribes did not even attempt to help people...
They just watched them suffering and refused to lend a helping hand to ease the burden.
That is why Jesus words were so powerful in this context when He says in Matthew 11:28–30:
28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Beloved, I want you to imagine what it is like to be under the weight of men’s traditions...
The Jews in Jesus’ day understood this burden...
Some of you grew up Catholic and you too understand this burden...
Mercy and myself grew up in the Orthodox church and know this burden very well...
If you have not had this experience...
If you were blessed with a background in a faithful church then praise the Lord...
But, if you never experienced man-made legalism then the best way I can describe it to you is drowning...
Or trying to climb out of quick sand...
It is devastating!
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So, regardless of your background,
Whether it was man-made legalism or something else...
Praise the Lord for He gives all of His children rest...
And His yoke is easy...
And His burden is light!
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Next, Jesus will declare the second of His harsh rebukes to the Scribes...
And this takes us to our second point.
2) The Tombs
2) The Tombs
Verses 47-51: Woe to you! For you build the tombs 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. 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.
So, Jesus describes how the Scribes though that they were honoring the great prophets of old by building tombs for them...
However, in reality, the Scribes had more in common with there ancestors who killed the prophets than with these faithful men of God.
On the outside they attempted to honor the Old Testament prophets but they could not really honor them for they did not honoring their message.
The Old Testament prophets pointed to Christ as the long-promised Messiah but the religious leaders ignored all the evidence...
Likewise, by ignoring the message of the prophets of old they also rejected of the prophets and men of God of their day...
And that included John the Baptist and Jesus...
And that will include the apostles and the Christians throughout history.
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So, Jesus was basically saying to them that, “The only prophet you honor is a dead prophet.”
And the tombs you build are really “memorials of rejection” that reflect your agreement with what your fathers did in the past.
This brings to mind Jesus’ rebuke from John 8:44 which says:
44 You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
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Next, Jesus says, “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.”
As theologian Darrel L. Bock says:
“There is some debate about what judgment is meant here.
Is it the temporal judgment of Jerusalem’s destruction in 70 AD?
Or is it the ultimate judgment when God will evaluate people’s responses to Jesus and his message?
One could suggest that the focus on ‘this generation’ looks at a special judgment for it, Jerusalem, while the ultimate judgment does not have such a limitation.
But the remark’s eschatological, salvation-historical character suggests something more enduring than Jerusalem’s overthrow.
It is the audience at the judgment, not its timing, that is referred to by ‘this generation.’
Since Luke sees Jerusalem as a picture of the ultimate judgment, the combination is likely in view, but the eschatological judgment is the major point.”
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Next, Jesus uses the word “prophet” to refers to anyone who testifies to God’s way of righteousness...
And He mentions Abel and Zechariah who served as the first and last Old Testament martyrs, respectively.
You see Beloved, Genesis was the first book of the Old Testament...
And according the the Hebrew arrangement of the Old Testament...
2 Chronicles was the last book...
So, Jesus mentions two significant events of innocent blood being spilled from the first and last books of the Old Testament.
In Genesis we have the blood of Abel that was spilled in Genesis 4:8 which says:
8 Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.
And in 2 Chronicles we have the blood of Zechariah spilled in 2 Chronicles 24:20-21 which says:
20 Then the Spirit of God clothed Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest, and he stood above the people, and said to them, “Thus says God, ‘Why do you break the commandments of the Lord, so that you cannot prosper? Because you have forsaken the Lord, he has forsaken you.’ ”
21 But they conspired against him, and by command of the king they stoned him with stones in the court of the house of the Lord.
Now, this is not just a reference to just Abel AND Zechariah but a reference to Abel TO Zechariah.
So, this is ment to include all prophets martyred by those blind to God’s truth.
As the Faithlife Study Bible puts it:
“Jesus’ statement about Abel and Zechariah likely is intended as a merism, a figure of speech that uses the ends of a range to indicate the whole (e.g., ‘from head to toe’ refers to the entire body).
Jesus appears to be saying that the scribes and Pharisees are responsible for all the unjust deaths of righteous people in the Hebrew Bible.
By extension, Jesus may be holding the Pharisees responsible for the death of any righteous servant of God among His people.”
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Unfortunately, warning others of God’s wrath to come and the need for repentance is not a popular message...
God’s truth in general is an offensive message to the people that love this world...
And that is why prophets of old were meet with violence and death...
As Nehemiah 9:26 says:
26 “Nevertheless, they were disobedient and rebelled against you and cast your law behind their back and killed your prophets, who had warned them in order to turn them back to you, and they committed great blasphemies.
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So, as sad as it is, it was no surprise that Jesus was likewise rejected...
In fact, the first New Testament martyr, Stephen rebuked the Jewish people harshly for their murder of past prophets and of the Crucifixion of Jesus.
He said in Acts 7:51–52:
51 “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you.
52 Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered,
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So Beloved, as sad as it is, it was no surprise that we today are hated so much for declaring God’s truth...
To put it into perspective...
Christianity is the most persecuted religion in the world with Christians facing harassment in 145 countries...
Beloved, there are only 195 countries in the whole world...
So, 145 of 195 countries hate Christians...
That’s 75% of the world...
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Let me present it another way...
More than 365 million...
That is one in seven Christians face high levels of persecution for their faith and persecution is becoming dangerously violent in many countries.
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Let’s put it yet another way...
Over thirteen Christians a day were killed for their faith in 2023...
And again it is only getting worse.
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In America we sometimes take our level of persecution for granted...
However, in North Korea which is the most dangerous place in the world for Christians...
Being discovered as a follower of Jesus is effectively a death sentence.
In 2023, the country strengthened its border with China so it’s now harder for Christians to flee and harder for support to reach them.
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So, we must pray for our brothers and sisters around the world...
And we must ask God to strengthen us to stand up to whatever persecution we may be called to face in the future.
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Finally, Jesus delivers His final harsh rebuke to the Scribes...
And this takes us to our third and final point of today’s message.
3) The Key
3) The Key
Verses 52-54: Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves, 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.
In our final section we see an image here that Jesus paints of the Scribes locking up the truth of the Scriptures and throwing away the key by imposing their faulty interpretations and human traditions on God’s Word.
Their traditions increasingly obscured the truth contained in the Old Testament, turning it into a maze of riddles, allegories, secret meanings, and obscure interpretations, all designed to reinforce their cleverness and sell their false system of self-righteousness.
So, Jesus is saying that through the Scribe’s traditional interpretation of the law, they had made it impossible for ordinary people to understand the true meaning of the Law of God.
Additionally, these religious elite themselves also used their traditions to evade the very demands of the law by their man-made traditions.
As the ESV Study Bible puts it:
“The last woe condemns the lawyers for their interpretations of Scripture that deprive the people of the key of knowledge needed to understand God’s plan of salvation.
Not only do they refuse to enter into God’s plan and be saved, but their distorted interpretations keep others from truly knowing God.”
So, the religious teaching of the experts of the law was not simply unhelpful...
It was in fact an obstacle to seekers and caused them to oppose God’s messengers.
Their “religion” was worse than neutral...
It was absolutely hostile to God’s truth!
In fact, no one enters the Kingdom of God through them!
They are blind guides leading the blind to Hell!
As Matthew 15:14 says:
14 Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.”
Man-made religion that is built on man-made traditions can not and will not ever save!
If you have a loved one under the spell of a false or apostate religion then share with them the life saving message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ...
For many are enslaved in a delusion created by the wisdom of fallible men...
They are being led on the highway to Hell in the disguise of claiming up the stairway to Heaven.
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The blind guides in works-based religions are destructive...
Presenting themselves as religious leaders they are mislead the masses...
They bend the key of God’s saving knowledge so others will be blind to the truth as they themselves are blind.
Isaiah 9:16 puts it this way:
16 for those who guide this people have been leading them astray, and those who are guided by them are swallowed up.
Likewise, Peter in one of his epistles warns of these wolves...
Just look with me at 2 Peter 2:1–3 which says:
1 But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.
2 And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed.
3 And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.
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Luke then records, “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.”
The phrase “to catch” is the same word is used in Greek literature for the hunting of animals...
It carries the meaning of “to lie in wait” or “to ambush.”
This also has the picture is of a prosecutor examining a criminal.
In fact, the questions asked are with the idea of gaining an advantage and causing embarrassment to Jesus.
Since Jesus has charged the Scribes and Pharisees with lacking knowledge, they in turn are trying to dishonor His reputation by their disingenuous questions.
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So, we can see that the Scribes and Pharisees could not wait for Jesus to make a major blunder.
They wanted to get Him on the spot now.
They had rejected his criticism and identified Him as an enemy.
One way or another, they would stop Him.
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The Pillar New Testament Commentary on Luke perfectly sums up our passage by saying:
“The conclusion of Luke 11 may appear offensive to those who hold to a stereotype of ‘gentle Jesus, meek and mild.’
Jesus appears to be a rude guest who offends against good manners of ritual purity, who rebukes Pharisees for being internally filthy, and who concludes with an exposé of the worst offenses of both Pharisees and lawyers.
Such a profile poses a challenge for an age, like ours, that equates Christianity with ‘niceness’ and ‘tolerance.’
The present pericope also gives a fuller understanding of the virtues of Luke 6:27–31.
The denunciations of the Pharisees and lawyers demonstrate that ‘love of enemies’ does not mean saying what people want to hear, but telling the truth they may not want to hear.
‘Doing good to those who hate you’ does not mean being nice in the face of hatred and injustice, but speaking and acting in ways that have the potential to reduce or eliminate hatred and injustice.
The great violation of the agapē love-ethic is not confrontation, but indifference.
Jesus is not indifferent.”
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So Beloved, let us never be indifferent...
There are those out in our world who are destroying others because of their false message...
We are to rebuke them and tell others about Jesus...
We are to tell others that no organization's checklist can save them...
We are to tell others that we as humans can’t save ourselves...
We need a Savior!
So, we are to tell others that Jesus is the only way to eternal life...
We are to tell others that only Jesus can cover our debt...
We are to tell others that unless one repents and surrenders to Jesus they can not enter the Kingdom of God...
And we are to tell others that as Romans 10:9 says:
9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
So Beloved, tell someone about Jesus today!
Closing Illustration
Closing Illustration
So, as this message comes to a close...
I would like you to consider this:
In one of his sermons, A.C. Dixon told of an incident that took place in Brooklyn, NY.
A detective who had been looking for a local citizen finally tracked him down in a drugstore.
As the man began to make his purchase, the officer laid his hand on the citizen’s shoulder and said,
“You’re under arrest;
Come with me!”
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Stunned, the man demanded,
“What did I do?”
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The detective calmly replied,
“You know what you did.
You escaped from the Albany penitentiary several years ago.
You went west, got married, and then came back here to live.
We’ve been watching for you since you returned.”
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Quietly the man admitted,
“That’s true, but I was sure you’d never find me.
Before you take me in, could we stop by my house so I can talk to my family?”
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The officer agreed.
When they got to his home, the man looked at his wife and asked,
“Haven’t I been a kind husband and a good father?
Haven’t I worked hard to make a living?”
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His wife answered,
“Of course you have, but why are you asking me these questions?”
Her husband then proceeded to explain what had happened and that he was now under arrest.
He apparently had hoped that his record as an exemplary husband and father would impress the officer.
Even so, he was still an escaped criminal.
Though he was “right” with his family, he was all wrong with the state of New York.
Likewise, many in works-based religions are “right” with their organization...
Many Mormons, Jehovah's Witness, Jews, Muslims, Catholics and Orthodox are fine examples within their own organizations...
But what is the point of that if are all wrong with God?
What is the point of having the approval of men but at the cost of the approval of God?
What is the point of having the whole world love you for your great works if Jesus says to you on Judgement Day the words of Matthew 7:23:
23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
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So, our only hope is to surrender to the truth found in the Word of God...
Our only hope is found in Jesus Christ...
And those who trust in Him alone will never be disappointed.
Closing Prayer
Closing Prayer
Let’s pray...
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Heavenly Father...
If anyone hearing this message right now does not know You in a saving way...
Then open their eyes...
Destroy their false ideas of man’s religion and show them true and real religion...
Show them that a religion that saves starts with a relationship with Your Son!
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I appeal to Your Name’s sake!
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For those hearing this message who already know You...
Give us the boldness to reach those under the spell of false religions...
Give us the courage to speak Your truth even is the cost is high...
We desire to serve You faithfully.
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Again, I appeal to Your Name’s sake!
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It is in Jesus’s name we pray all these things...
To God be all the glory.
Amen.
