ESOCS Devotional 15 February 2024 – Unwilling to Recognise the Messiah
MEMORY VERSE: “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.”. Matthew 23:13
TEXT: MATTHEW 23:13-22
But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.
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.
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.
16 Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor!
17 Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold?
18 And, Whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever sweareth by the gift that is upon it, he is guilty.
19 Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift?
20 Whoso therefore shall swear by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things thereon.
21 And whoso shall swear by the temple, sweareth by it, and by him that dwelleth therein.
22 And he that shall swear by heaven, sweareth by the throne of God, and by him that sitteth thereon.
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Without question, the biggest rub that Jesus had with the Pharisees was who He claimed to be, and what His miracles testified about Him, that Jesus was the Christ, that He was Son of the living God. It was the thing that the Pharisees took the most issue with, and it’s the issue for which they would kill Him.
The bottom line was that they rejected Him as the Messiah because He made Himself equal with God. They concluded that He was a blasphemer, that He wasn’t from God, that He wasn’t the Son of David foretold in Psalm 110, that John the Baptist’s prophetic testimony couldn’t be true and that Jesus’ miracles couldn’t have been work of the Holy Spirit.
This was the issue Jesus was addressing here in verse 13, when He said, “For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would to enter in.” In other words, the Pharisees were standing in the way of the people from entering the kingdom of heaven, that they neither enter themselves or allowed those who would to enter in. The scribes and Pharisees do not enter the kingdom because they refuse to recognize who Jesus is. Do you know who Jesus is? What’s your relationship with Him?
We can’t forget that the Pharisees were probably largely unaware of their own hypocrisy and sin, which is one of the great dangers of sin, especially pride. We’re prone to justify it, ignore it, trivialize it, and even call it good. Most of us are remarkably good at this. In fact, I doubt most of the people even noticed the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees either. So, don’t forget that these pronouncements against the Pharisees are an opportunity for us to examine our own hearts.
- How would you classify your attitude – a Pharisee, Scribe, Sadducees, Hypocrite, proud or any other vice? One thing is certain, you should delete from you completely any attitude, character or disposition in you that is not found in our Lord Jesus Christ. That is what would make you a true Christian.
- Father, give the enablement to be like your precious Son Jesus Christ in my life.
Further Reading: Exodus 35:30-end; Psalm 106:1-23; Acts 7:35-43
ESOCS Devotional 15 February 2024
