Matthew 24:2: “And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”

The disciples were marveling at the grandeur of the Temple, but Jesus saw into the future and foretold its utter destruction. The words of Jesus came to pass; in AD 70 the Romans destroyed it, and not one stone was left standing. (The modern Wailing Wall is actually not a part of the original Temple, but was built later.) This was done in judgment; the nation of Israel had rejected Jesus, so “all these things shall be brought upon this generation”, just as Jesus had said.

To this day the Temple has not been rebuilt, although that will happen before the end.

Matthew 23:39: “For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.”

This is exactly why Satan is trying so hard to wipe out the Jews. He knows that Jesus will not return (the Second Coming) until the Jews have accepted Christ. So, then, if the devil can kill all the Jews, Christ can never come back, and the devil will have free reign forever. That is his plan. Satan has tried very hard to kill them, but he has not been able to do so.

Jesus will indeed return. There are 7 years left of the 490 years of Daniel, which were set aside to finish the iniquity of the Jews. At the end of the Tribulation the Jews will repent and change, and they will cry out to Jesus – and He will answer them. Jesus will come and deliver them, just as He promised long ago.

Matthew 23:34: “Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city:
35 That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.
36 Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.”

Why were they held responsible for the blood of all the martyred prophets? Because all of them testified of the coming Messiah, and Jesus was the fulfillment of what they had to say.

In rejecting Him they rejected what the prophets said, and in doing so they aligned themselves with those who murdered the prophets. Since they refused the prophetic testimony about Jesus, God held them responsible for the murder of those prophets – and the price was high. The Romans destroyed Jerusalem and killed more than a million Jews, along with the Temple. All these things did come upon this generation.

Today’s lesson is on Genesis chapter 3 – the Fall of Man:

Genesis 3 (PDF file; 14 pages)

Matthew 23:15: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.”

One of the big problems that Jesus had with the Pharisees is that they were hypocrites. They looked good from the outside, but they were actually full of corruption and evil. They talked a lot about God, but they had no interest in God, and they stood in other people’s way. They actually tried to prevent people from going to God. Jesus had a lot of very harsh things to say about the religious leaders of His day – and I suspect He would have similar harsh things to say about the leaders in our day as well.

There are so many people who sing hymns and honor God with their lips, but who hate God and who would never dream of repenting of their sins or obeying God’s commands. They may sing His praises, but their hearts are very, very far from God.

Matthew 23:27: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.”

Keep in mind that Jesus is saying all of these things to people who already want to kill Him. Notice that Jesus is not “playing nice”. He is not trying to find common ground. He is not avoiding the tough subjects to find areas of common agreement. He is not trying to get them onto His side, or smooth over their differences, or use language that is easy to hear.

Jesus is blunt, direct, and harsh, and He says things that almost no one would dare to say today. Today we believe in being nice; we’re not going to be “judgmental” no matter what people do. But Jesus was not like that. He said exactly what needed to be said, because souls depended upon it. Many people believed the Pharisees and followed them down to Hell – and Jesus was warning them that the Pharisees were liars, monsters, and could not be trusted. This was not the time for playing nice; people had to know the truth, because their eternal destiny depended upon it.

I think that if we were this blunt about warning others against the false teachers in our midst, the Church would be vastly better off.

Matthew 23:14: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.”

Notice that Jesus is not a fan of long prayers! There are some people who like to go on and on and on when they pray – not because they have a lot to say, but because they think that long prayers are somehow “more spiritual” than short ones. Praying a long time, they think, is proof that they are Really Something.

As you can see, God hates this. Praying long, empty prayers for the purpose of impressing others was something that earned the Pharisees greater damnation. Stop and think about that. Your long prayers are not impressing God.

Matthew 23:11: “But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant.
12 And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.”

We are called to serve one another, not to be served. God commands us to give of ourselves to others, not to take everything we can and force others to do our bidding. We are called to be a blessing, not a parasite. If you spend all your time trying to take as much as you can from others, while going out of your way to avoid giving anything to anybody, then you are very far from the heart of God. The Lord will exalt the humble; He will not exalt thieves.

Those who are leaders should spend their time serving and giving. They are not allowed to use their position to steal from others and take everything they can.

But where is your focus? Are you concerned with what you can do for others – or with how much you can take from other people? What side are you on?

Matthew 23:8: “But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren.
9 And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.”

The Catholic church blatantly violates this, calling their priests “Fathers” – to say nothing of the Pope, who is said to be the “surpreme” of the faithful. Jesus wanted nothing of the sort. He said that “all ye are brethren”. There may be leaders, but there are no masters among believers – save for Christ, who is Lord of all. There are no Popes or Supreme Potentates. There are simply believers, all the same, all brethren, all under Christ who is Head over all. Calling people “Father” is simply wrong; in fact, it is a clear violation of a direct command from Jesus Christ. There is nothing Biblical about it at all.

Matthew 23:5: “But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments,”

In other words, the Pharisees were being extravagantly religious in order to show off. They were saying “See, look what good people we are! We are so much better than you. Why, we do X and Y and Z. We are amazing, and you people are pathetic.” It was all a show. They weren’t doing it to serve God; they were doing it so that other people would think that they were super special.

Needless to say, God was not at all impressed with this outward show. They were making a mockery of following God, and Jesus had nothing but bad things to say about them. (Incidentally, notice that Jesus did not live by Thumper’s motto. He did not believe in the idea that “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all”.)

God wants us to obey Him from the heart. Jesus made a point of saying that when we do good deeds, we should do them in secret so that only God knows. When we do this, God will be honored and He will reward us. Doing things just to be seen by other people doesn’t honor God at all. The point is to honor the Lord, not to get honor from men! God is our audience. He is the one that we should be trying to please. “Look at me and be impressed at how great I am!” is not a Christian sentiment.

Matthew 22:32: “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”

In this verse, Jesus is pointing out that God said I am their God, instead of I was their God. Since God used the present tense when talking about people who had died a long time ago, those people must therefore still be alive. Since they are still alive, there must be a resurrection.

Do you see what happened here? Jesus defended the resurrection of the dead based on the tense of a single word in the Old Testament. That is how much faith Jesus had in the Bible! He believed that every word was absolutely reliable.

Matthew 22:15: “Then went the Pharisees, and took counsel how they might entangle him in his talk.”

The Pharisees were not looking for wisdom, nor were they interested in the truth of what Christ was saying. They just wanted to trip Him up so that they could kill Him. Of course, Jesus was far too smart for that – it is impossible to trip up God. As you can see, though, their heart was not in the right place. They had no concern for truth or righteousness; they were thoroughly corrupt and entirely evil.

Matthew 22:17: “Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?
18 But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites?”

If you’ll notice, Jesus was not nice, kind, or understanding when it came to dealing with the religious leaders of His day. He knew that they were hypocrites and He called them out on it. He condemned them time and time again, and took them to task for their egregious behavior.

Many Christians today would never dream of doing such a thing, but Jesus did. The people needed to know that their leaders were a bunch of liars, and that listening to them would damn their souls, so He told them loud and clear. In our day there are also many religious leaders who are both heretics and hypocrites, but sadly we don’t have the courage to call them out and warn people about it. That isn’t a good thing, folks.

Matthew 22:11: “And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment:
12 And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless.”

In the Bible, garments are symbols of righteousness. This person did not have on a wedding garment, which means that their sins were not covered – they did not have the righteousness that comes from Christ. You cannot be saved apart from His righteousness. As we can see, that is fatal:

Matthew 22:13: “Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
14 For many are called, but few are chosen.”

This person tried to get saved on his own merits, apart from the righteousness of Christ. He was not successful. There is no salvation apart from Jesus.

Matthew 22:2: “The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son,
3 And sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding: and they would not come.”

This parable is widely misinterpreted, so let’s make a few things clear. First of all, the wedding is for the son, who would obviously be Jesus. So who is the Bride? Well, according to the Bible, the Bride of Christ is the Church. In this parable the servants are calling wedding guests, not the Bride! That means that the focus of this parable is not on the Church. Let me make this very clear: the Church is absolutely going to be at its own wedding! That is not in doubt. There is simply no way it can miss its own wedding.

So who are these wedding guests? Well, they can’t be the Old Testament saints because they are all dead. They can’t be the Church because the Church is the Bride. Since the guests can’t be the people who existed before the Church (since they’re all dead), and since they can’t be the Church, that means they have to be a post-Church people – in other words, people who are left behind after the Rapture. Logically, they are the only ones who could possibly be the wedding guests.

This means that after the Rapture happens, God will call on people to repent and be saved. When God does this there are some who will repent; that group will become the Tribulation saints. There are others, though, who will refuse. The Lord does not take this refusal lightly:

Matthew 22:4: “Again, he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them which are bidden, Behold, I have prepared my dinner: my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come unto the marriage.
5 But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise:
6 And the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew them.
7 But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city.”

Incidentally, this is exactly what will happen at the Second Coming: those who refused to repent and accept Christ will be killed. The Lord Jesus Christ will return with the armies of Heaven and fight against the armies of the antichrist, and He will kill them all. All those who rejected Him will be put to death. Plus, their capitol city – Babylon – will be burned with fire, as it says in the book of Revelation.

This parable, then, speaks of events that happen at the conclusion of the Tribulation. It is vital to understand this. It is not talking about becoming a Christian before the Rapture happens, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with the Church. This point gets misunderstood all the time.

Matthew 21:42: “Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?”

The Catholic Church likes to pretend that this stone is Peter, and that Peter is the stone that God built His church upon. That is ridiculous. Jesus is the chief corner stone; Jesus is the stone upon which God built His church. The Bible makes this crystal clear.

In the Old Testament, the prophets regularly condemned kings for their immoral acts. Today, though, churches go out of their way to avoid talking about politics. Even though John the Baptist rebuked King Herod, it’s unimaginable for churches today to do anything remotely like that. But is that really a good thing?

That is our topic for today:

Where Are All The Political Sermons? (PDF file)