In the sermon 'Straining Out a Gnat and Swallowing a Camel,' Scott Brown discusses Jesus’ critique of the Pharisees' hypocrisy in Matthew 23:16-24. The sermon emphasizes the Pharisees' focus on outward appearances and neglect of core spiritual duties such as justice, mercy, and faith. Brown explains that the Pharisees manipulated religious practices, including making oaths, to maintain an image of righteousness while their hearts were far from God. The speaker highlights how this hypocrisy is a modern issue, urging Christians to examine their own lives for similar patterns. He outlines eight woes issued by Jesus, focusing on the fourth and fifth, which criticize the Pharisees for misplacing priorities and using religious activities as a mask for deeper spiritual neglect. Brown calls for repentance and genuine worship, drawing parallels between the temple imagery and the current condition of believers' hearts, emphasizing the need for sincerity and truth in worship.

Matthew 23, 16 through 24. Woe to you, blind guides, who say, Whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing, But whoever swears by the gold of the temple, He is obliged to perform it. Fools and blind, for which is greater, the gold or the temple that sanctifies the gold. And, whoever swears by the altar, it is nothing, but whoever swears by the gift that is on it, he is obliged to perform it, fools and blind, for which is greater, the gift or the altar that sanctifies the gift. Therefore, he who swears by the altar swears by it, and all things on it.

He who swears by the temple swears by it, and by him who dwells in it. And he who swears by heaven swears by the throne of God, and by him who sits on it. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice, mercy, and faith. These you ought to have done without leaving the others undone, blind guides who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel. Lord, we thank you for your word.

Lord, I pray for Scott as he comes to preach. I pray that you would speak through him, that he boldly proclaim the gospel. I pray that you would teach us from this passage Lord. I pray that you would show us where we have neglected the weightier matters of the law. Show us how we strain out gnats and swallow camels.

In Jesus name, Amen. Our Lord Jesus Christ here speaking in the last week of his life before he'll be crucified very soon. And he's speaking about how you would know if you love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And he's, as such a good shepherd, he always goes to the heart of the matter. Here, in this text that we're explaining here this morning, the main subject is focused on Jesus' words here about the hypocrisy of the leaders of Israel and how imposters can so easily, nicely get dressed up to polish up their image.

They can have all the right language, but the power of godliness is absent. How they major on outward appearances, how they produce a counterfeit righteousness that everybody can see, but God can't see, because it isn't there. And they wear a mask. And the reality is, even though the outward appearances look so good, there's so much activity, and there's so much seeming power, The truth is that it is only a mask, and there's death and enslavement and worldliness and obsession with their station in life and the world by their transitory hopes for, you know, respectful greetings in the marketplaces and whatever they can get out of the whole machinery of the temple. And the value for us in here is, for those who are Christians, is that the Lord would use this to penetrate our hearts, to help us get in touch with our inner Pharisee.

And that we would get in touch with the true condition of our souls and our eternal destiny, because this is what the Lord Jesus Christ is doing with these Pharisees. To heal the wounds, to get rid of the sham. You know, I was wondering what it would be like this week if TSA changed their metal detectors and replaced them with hypocrisy detectors. Wouldn't that be interesting? You know, how long would the lions be?

You know, you're going through the metal detector, you know, you're standing there, and you hear them whispering, no nets. What? Look at the size of that camel. Look at that. You know, how many people would be driving for the rest of their lives had they be forced to go through a hypocrisy detector.

And the truth is there are many hypocrisy detectors in this world that God has placed here. First of all, children. They can smell hypocrisy in children and in parents in a skinny minute, right? The second are the words of Jesus Christ. Those are the greatest hypocrisy detectors and they're used by the third hypocrisy detector and that's the work of the Holy Spirit through the Word of God, to open up our eyes to show us who we really are.

And so here we are, and we're going to deal with these, with just two of the woes, the woe number four, which speaks of using smooth words to cover up sin in verses 16-22. The Pharisees are playing games with words and Jesus uses their word games to expose what it means to have a dishonest heart, how pretenders operate, how you can lie and still do lots of spiritual things, because they were using their oaths to mask their lack of love for God. They created a way of operating the temple, to get paid for it, and living a lie by isolating their religion to just a couple of things, but definitely not everything, and they were lying. And God sees through that. And so this one woe, number four, will be focusing in on it.

And then woe number five, the doing of one thing and neglecting another. This is verses 23 to 24, using certain commands of Scripture while neglecting others. Engaging your life energies on things that are just easy outward manifestations of spirituality that are just replacements of other things that are so necessary and wonderful, like justice and mercy and faith. So here the Lord is revealing our finger pointing nature because he shows us that all of this leads to just a terrible hermeneutical error, and that is that the error is to say that, you know, look at these terrible Pharisees, rather than saying, look into my own heart and see what is there. And the Lord is revealing His concern for the church.

And when He's rebuking the Pharisees, He's also rebuking the Church until the second coming of Christ, so that the Church would be equipped for every good work. So the Church would become a purer and purer Church, that people would recognize and repent of their sins, and to find the church a place where there's more love than there was last year and the year before, and the year before, as hypocrisy is relieved, as it is confessed and as it is forgiven. And there's also his mercy in this revue here that we see. And he's proclaiming in these woes that there's time to repent, that there's a category of imposters who will be condemned to hell. And this is the mercy of God to expose hypocrisy, so that the poison can be drained, so that the robes of hypocrisy can be torn off and then replaced by robes of righteousness, the righteousness of Jesus Christ, so that the pretenses can become realities that are expressions of love.

And so it forces us to ask the question, am I an imposter? Do I have any imposter left in me? Those are the questions we ought to be asking. And so as you look at your outline here that you had before you, I just wanted to take us back and so that we can see where all of this is going. The Lord Jesus has just said, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength in mind.

And then he begins to drill down and examine what it means to not be that way. And so he lays a foundation for this hypocrisy that he's identifying. And the first is saying and not doing in verses 1 through 3. And the second is binding heavy burdens on others, but not on themselves. And the third is doing works to be seen by men.

The fourth is love for preferential treatment in verses 6 through 9. The fifth is self exaltation in verses 10 through 12 where you're creating classes and divisions of importance among the body. And then he moves into these eight woes, these very famous woes. And the first we've already covered, demanding from others but not of ourselves, Verses 13 through 15. And the second woe is using people for your own gain, devouring widow's houses, looking at people for what they can do for you.

And then Thirdly, using your energy to reproduce a fake, hypocritical life by reproducing all the worst things about you in verse 15. And then this fourth that we'll examine in some detail today, using smooth words to cover up your own sinful neglect in verses 16 to 22. And then fifth, neglecting important matters of love and justice and mercy, verses 23 and 24. And then the sixth, well, being satisfied with outward appearances in order to deceive, verses 25 to 26. And the seventh is inward uncleanness masked, only concerned by what you want other people to think rather than recognizing the gaze of God in verses 27 and 28.

And then number eight, finally the eighth woe, praising past prophets while despising the current prophets, this kind of duplicity And we'll speak about that in detail later. And then finally, the chapter ends with Christ's plea. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her. How often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing and This this wonderful plea that God that the Lord Jesus Christ issues here is for us as well. That he would call out of people who say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord deep within their hearts.

So that's the basic thrust of this. We're going to go into the fourth and the fifth of the woes here in this ocean of woes. I want to give you four observations of this passage. First of all, observe how Jesus is speaking just like an Old Testament prophet. There are 72 woes in the Old Testament.

If you turn to Isaiah 5, which our family did this week, it was really interesting. We were reading. We were thinking, whoa, Jesus is duplicating this in his discourse, where he is condemning the greed and the false teaching and the hypocrisy there in Isaiah 5, Jesus is acting just like the prophets. He is fulfilling the words of the prophets. He's also, secondly, observe how Jesus is speaking like Moses.

And He's really demonstrating what Moses said, that the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear, as he said that in Deuteronomy 18.15, where Jesus is doing just what Moses did. He took the law, and then he explained what it really meant. He went directly to the heart and explained that the law was not wooden, it was living. The law is spirit and life.

And it's actually meant to penetrate absolutely everything. It's not just meant to apply in one single narrow thing. This is what the Pharisees were doing. Jesus is just like Moses. And also observe an example of how to rightly apply the law of God.

This is one of the most profound examples of how Jesus Christ handles the law of God and applies the law of God. If you want to learn how to think about and use the law of God, do it just like Jesus did. Do it just like the apostles did, and you'll be using it correctly. And then fourthly, observe that this is a modern problem. We know it's a modern problem because we see the hypocrisy in our own hearts, our fear of man, our desire for praise, the duplicity that's in our heart, the inconsistencies.

A true Christian is aware of these things and is mortified and heart is broken for those things. These things didn't stop in the days of the Apostles at the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. These are matters of the work of the Holy Spirit to illuminate and then to teach, to lead out into a better way. The problem was in Galatia as well. You see it in Galatians chapter 6 verse 12.

Here's what we read. As many as desire to make a good showing in the flesh... This was just happening in the early church, just like it happens today. Everybody wants to make such a good showing in the flesh. Those would compel you to be circumcised, only that they may not suffer persecution for the cross of Christ.

This is this desire to make a good showing, neglecting something in order to avoid persecution. And then he says to the Galatians in verse 13, "'For not even those who are circumcised keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised, that they may boast in your flesh.'" This is just an example of what was happening with the Pharisees and what happens in every church in the world. The Lord Jesus Christ here is so kind to come to us, to come and penetrate into the inner recesses of our hearts, to find the poison and to poke it and relieve it, to drain it, to drain it through repentance and to drain it through humility. So here we find ourselves in the fourth woe, using smooth words to cover up sin. Have you ever done that?

Have you ever used smooth words to cover up your own sin? Have you ever used smooth words to cover up your own sin? To talk about things so so so sweetly, to explain them in such a compelling, understandable way that the truth is, it's just nothing but sin that you're explaining, and you're trying to make it palatable both to yourself and especially, especially the other person, using smooth words to cover up sin. Here what we find is this, it's kind of fake swearing here, playing games with the laws of God, pretending. This really points to our ability to be guilty of glaring inconsistencies, glossing over those inconsistencies with smooth words.

By swearing the way that the Pharisees were swearing on these different matters. We see what was driving them. Blindness, verse 16. What was driving all this gamesmanship and refashioning the issues so that people would be pleased with them. Well, it says in verse 16, they were blind.

It was blindness that was driving the gamesmanship. And these are, they're different kinds of blindness that we have. But here, the Lord Jesus uses the word blind over and over again in verse 17 and in verse 19. In verse 17, He's actually calling them blind morons. He uses the word mori, fools, mori, blind morons.

How's that? You know what your children are going to be calling their siblings morons, right? But the Lord Jesus Christ somehow finds it right to put His finger in the wound and call them blind morons, blind guides who they cannot see at all. It's reflective of Isaiah chapter 56, where the prophet says, his watchmen are blind. They are ignorant.

They are like dumb dogs. They don't bark. You ever had a dog that didn't bark? I know, I once knew a dog that didn't bark. Very interesting what happens when a dog don't bark.

But what they were doing, they were swearing by the temple, they were swearing by the altar, and they were swearing by heaven. Those three things they were doing. In the swearing by the temple in verse 16, the Lord Jesus is speaking of what they're doing by saying whoever swears by the temple it is nothing, But whoever swears by the gold of the temple he's obliged to perform it. Fools and blind for which is greater the gold or the temple that sanctifies the gold. So they were saying that there's that one kind of swearing is something, and another kind is nothing.

And that it's as if the gold was the only sacred thing in temple worship. Well, that was the problem. They believed that the gold was the most important thing. That's what they wanted the most. That's why they loved Corbin so much, where they were convincing people out in the community to have this financial planning mechanism to take their wealth and put it in the temple, the wealth that was actually supposed to be used to take care of their aging fathers and mothers.

The scribes and the Pharisees were running around raising money and saying, would you sign up for the Corbin? This is the best financial planning you'll ever do. Place your money in the temple, which actually meant Place your money in the temple so that we can make it into gold so that we can live better. That was basically what was happening. And so they had prioritized the gold of the temple, amassing the gold of the temple.

And they amassed a lot of gold in the temple. When we get to Matthew 24, we'll see why the stones of the temple were upturned. These gigantic stones, 40 feet long, 20 feet high, and 12 feet deep. Massive stones turned over. Why?

We'll find out when we get to Matthew 24. But the gold was there in the temple. And the heart of the problem was that they had created a system where Corbin was binding, but the true worship in the temple was not. They cared more about the gold you brought in the temple than the heart of gold that you brought in the temple. They cared more about the physical treasure than the treasure of the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is always the temptation of God's people to be caught up in the visible and to neglect the inward person of the heart, the sincerity in truth, the humility, the true broken spirit, the longing for God, the hopes for the future, the desire for holiness, All these things, these are the true treasures. But their eyes had shifted to the treasures of gold that were in the temple. And so they were swearing on the gold of the korban, the gift. And then Jesus asked this rhetorical question, which is greater? Well, it's obvious which is greater, really.

Everybody knows. I mean, everybody knows which is greater. You think the Pharisees are saying, oh, let me think. Which is really greater? I don't think they were thinking that at all.

They understood what they were doing. And they were turning something that was meant for humility and sincerity and truth and making it sin. And then he summarizes this in verse 20. He's summarizing the swearing of the temple and the altar. Therefore he who swears by the altar swears by it and all things on it.

He who swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in the temple." Jesus is saying, you can't make this false distinction. You're not thinking rightly about this at all. And they wanted to bring in treasure, but not the treasures of God. The contribution of gold and the beautiful ornaments were there to support their lifestyle, and that's what they loved the most. They loved their lifestyle, they loved the respectful greetings in the market.

Oh, they could get to maintain it, they would do it. That was the sense of the Pharisees in this sense. Here's how Thomas Brooks writes of this. They eye your goods more than your good. They care more about serving themselves than saving your souls.

So long as they have your possessions, they care not that Satan possesses your souls. In order that they may better pick your pocket, they will hold for such principles as are very indulged by the flesh." So they were misusing the temple in the same way that Jesus had already said about those who are managing the financial world of the temple. You've made this a den of robbers. Remember, it wasn't, it was just only, just hours ago that the Lord Jesus Christ had cleared the temple. He had gone through this gigantic footprint of real estate surrounded by these massive stones.

It was perhaps the greatest building in the ancient world. And the Lord Jesus Christ had already moved through and turned over all the tables, stopped all the commerce that was going on there. Now he's just speaking to them very personally about this matter. And he's really talking about the same thing. You've made my house a house of merchandise, a den of robbers.

And so they preferred the gold before the temple. That's how Matthew Henry says it. And the gift before the altar to encourage people to bring gifts to the altar and gold into the treasures of the temple which they hope to be gainers by. Now we could we could talk about the the whole imagery of the temple and it's a very long discussion but of course the temple is a type. The temple is a type of Christ.

Everything that happened in the temple, everything that's said about the temple, forms our imagery of what Christ would fulfill. So it's important, the temple worship was so important, but at the same time, the temple meant something greater than the temple itself. That's why Jesus said something greater than the temple is here. There's something greater. And what is greater has to do with the heart before God, the heart that loves God, the heart that loves a brother.

That's what's greater than the temple that is here. And the same sacred imagery of the temple is carried on into the New Testament era which is why the Apostle Paul in first Corinthians chapter 3 verse 16 says Do you not know that you are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are. So now the defilements of the temple become my own defilements.

The same things that you can do to defile the temple become the ways that I can defile my own temple. By loving the gold rather than the person who brought the gold. By treasuring what I get from someone rather than treasuring them and by treasuring God in the midst as an expression of it all. In 1 Corinthians 6 19 the apostle said, or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own, for you were bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God's.

So when Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees of the temple, he is simultaneously thinking about you and I and how we conduct ourselves in the body. Because the temple had to do with true and honest worship, a sweet aroma rising up before God of sincerity and truth. That's why Jesus said, those who worship Him shall worship Him in sincerity and in truth. That's what should happen in the temple, in the temple of the heart. And Jesus is driving a wedge into these men's hearts to show them, to open them up, to show them the hypocrisy that's there.

And there he is with his scanner, and he's saying, there's a camel, You swallowed a camel. I don't see any gnats in this radar, but I do see a camel. And he's there to relieve the terrible effect of swallowing a camel. Imagine that. How good would it be for you to swallow a camel?

I know we have so many people here who are very concerned with what they put in their bodies. Think of that one for a while. This is what happens to you spiritually when you act like this. And so the whole meaning of the temple is implied here. And then there's swearing by heaven in verse 22.

So the Lord Jesus just keeps continuing with the altar, the temple. Now he gives a whole other illustration on swearing by heaven. And he who swears by heaven swears by the throne of God, and by him who sits on it." Now the Lord Jesus has already addressed this in Matthew chapter 5, swearing by heaven. And in Matthew 5.33 He says, again, you have heard it was said that to those of old you shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to the Lord. But I say to you, do not swear at all, neither by heaven, for it is God's throne, nor by the earth, for it is His footstool, nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king.

Nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black. But let your yes be yes, and your no no, for whatever is more than these is From the evil one so Jesus has already talked about this whole duplicitous Way that they were swearing And he's identifying the heart of the matter The Pharisees are just playing games with words. They're saying one thing, but in their hearts there's something completely different. And they're saying, if you swear by the altar, it's not binding. If you swear by gold, it's not binding.

And now this whole matter of swearing by heaven is brought up again. Lord Jesus is not going to let them stop thinking about this, because it's part of their religious practice. And he's exposing what it means to have a dishonest heart that pretends that some things that you say are important and other things that you say are unimportant. That's the heart of a Pharisee. That you think you can speak out of one side of your mouth and then the other and had those two things be inconsistent and everything is fine everything is not fine and because everything you do is in the presence of God nothing is unspiritual everything that you do is an act of worship God hauls you to what you say, whether it's in the temple, out of the temple, about the gold, about the temple, about the altar, about heaven, in the secret place, to your wife, to your friend.

It doesn't matter. It's all under the watchful eye of God. And you can't take this part of your life and say, well, God's not part of that. That's what he's saying. And this is what religious pretenders look like.

They were using oaths to create sort of a dual track structure where they could deceive. And as a result they were pretending to be holy. They were lying about their spiritual condition in the law and in using these different kinds of o's. It was just lying about their condition because they really did want to have a part of their life that God wasn't looking at. That's what they wanted.

Well, that doesn't ever happen because God's eyes scan to and fro over the whole world and the heart of every person. No one escapes God's scanner. No one does. He can see all the camels that are here in this room. He can see all the gnats that got through the screen.

They're all before his eyes. Nothing is hidden from his sight. There's not a person in here that God is not penetrating into their hearts and he can see all the infirmity and the duplicity and the hypocrisy, the fear of man, the desire to please men, the love for money, the desire to just use people to prop yourself up. The Lord Jesus sees all that. His scanner is perfect.

He sees all the gnats. He doesn't need a camel to see. He can see absolutely everything. And so Jesus is just showing how the Pharisees were outwardly religious, but it was only a veneer, because they'd cleaned the outside of the cup. We'll get to that later in the woes as the Lord Jesus drills down on that.

But was there a sense of delight in God in His words, in His ways? Was there delight in the people? Was there love for the law? Or was it just like a taskmaster to them? You can tell if you love Jesus Christ, if you think the law is a taskmaster, or if you think it's a law of love.

If you hate the law, you've really put yourself completely on the other side of the equation, in the kingdom of heaven. That's why David said, Oh, how I love thy law. That's why Jesus said, not one jot or tittle will pass away till all is fulfilled. So you know, here, you know, the Pharisees were doing what can happen at any time, using all the spiritually approved catchphrases, but our hearts are far from Him. Do we come to church and all we care about is getting our families in order so that they behave and so that they can look good.

And our hearts have ceased to worship. And there's no adoration, there's no praise, there's no love, there's no hunger, because you're just so concerned about all the outward appearances that are going on. Well, do you think God sees that? Do you think your children see that? Children are some of the best hypocrisy detectors in the world today.

You know, It's the way that we try to compartmentalize everything. We relegate the work of Christ to these certain areas, but there are other things that we don't really consider at all. But the mark of hypocrisy here is that you present yourself to be a Christian, but your heart is really far from Him. Instead of yearning for holiness, instead of yearning for the treasures that are in heaven, instead of longing for the courts of the Lord, you know, feasting on His Word, loving the words, loving the songs, loving the prayers, where our minds are somewhere else. This is sort of the heart of the Pharisee.

You know, can you be a Christian and have that happen in your life? Yes, you certainly can. But if this is all you have, then all you'll get is the gold and the praise of man. And there'll be no, there's gonna be no joy in it. There'll be no love or heart in it at all.

But you can crank those gears, you know, year after year, like the Pharisees did. And then the fifth woe is in verses 23 and 24. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you pay tithe of mint and anus and human and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done without leaving the others undone. Blind guides who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel." Oh, there's that camel again.

The Lord Jesus Christ seemed to enjoy talking about camels. Camels trying to get through the eye of a needle. Now you're swallowing a camel. What an amazing thing. You know, this is probably why children just love to listen to the Lord Jesus Christ, because he was so beautifully graphic.

He spoke about nature and things that you can really understand. You know, just how ridiculous it would be to try to swallow a camel. So here what was happening among these Pharisees is that they were using certain commands of Scripture. They were focused on certain commands of Scripture and neglecting others. And they were engaging their energies in outward manifestations of godliness that were replacements, they were actual replacements of the other things that had enormous significance.

And it's a focus on outward manifestations of faith. In this case, he uses the example of tithing. And they're tithing mint and anise and cumin. And there they are. They're so fastidious, so careful.

And, you know, if you can imagine, you know, there's Mr. And Mrs. Finkelstein, you know, in the kitchen. And there they are. They're measuring out.

They're so carefully, they're looking at their mint. How much mint do we have? They probably didn't have like this much mint. They probably just had like you. They had just a little bit of mint.

And there they are. They're determining how much that tide is. They're sectioning that off and then they're doing it with the anise and the cumin and they're measuring it out. Just right. They're making a perfect calculation for the tithe.

But there's all kinds of other stuff going on in their hearts while they're doing that. And it's like you're making this perfect calculation of mint for the tithe. And you're calculating the sins of your in-laws and your out-laws and your brother-in-laws and you condemn them without mercy. While you're being so fastidious, you know, Mr. And Mrs.

Finkelstein, to do this so carefully, There's no care for what's in your heart. And actually, while you're doing that, your lack of love is all over your thinking. Or you're measuring out the, You're measuring out the anus and you're calculating all the ways your brother is wrong and how you're so justified in hating your brother and how it's so right for you to slander him and to speak evil. But you're doing that while you're measuring this out so carefully. You're just right, right in the zone of keeping the law of God.

You are righteous. You're measuring out the right amount of anus, and you're measuring the faults of your boss, you know, and you're grinding away at that. Why, you're actually separating this tithe amount, and you're rehearsing all the ridiculous things your pastor said, and you hate him for that. This is what happens. This is the inner Pharisee of the heart.

And all you care is wrangling about this and that and condemning the other brother. And you count your own quantifiable virtues so that you can give yourself the nod of approval. After all, they're quantifiable. After all, they're fruits of your faith, right? You can see the fruit.

It's all right out there. It's focusing on a few outward matters that are easy to do, neglecting the other significant matters of the heart. And you say, well, I've been reading my Bible, I have my quiet time, I have family worship, I'm giving my tithes, I'm not forsaking the gatherings, I always come to prayer, but there's little genuine love in your heart for God. There's no love in it, neither for God or man. And so he says they're neglecting the weightier matters of the law.

Mercy, justice, mercy, and faith. So while religious activity can be going on, at the same time, there can simultaneously be a hardness of heart. Now, Jesus is not condemning tithing here. He's condemning the neglect of other things that they are, as Calvin said, extremely zealous in the performance of trifling ceremonies. And so then there are these three categories that the Lord Jesus speaks of here.

The first is, the first thing that they have neglected or omitted is justice. Justice is to do justly, is to distinguish rightly. It's making a righteous judgment instead of an unrighteous judgment. One of the commentators I read said, it's refusing to injure one another with unrighteous judgment, but rather preserve justice. We judge people all the time.

We're always judging. We're judging children, parents, bosses, pastors, friends. We're judging other theologians. We're judging other preachers. We're always doing that.

But the question is, in the midst of all of our religious activities, is it righteous judgment? You know, in James 2, verse 12, he talked about judgment without mercy. He says, so speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty, for judgment without mercy, Judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. It's interesting in Luke, if you look at the parallel passage.

Luke gives us a little bit more than what Matthew gives us. He adds to it, to give us a clearer picture of what Jesus was actually saying. He says, but woe to you Pharisees, for you tie the mint and rue and every kind of herb, and pass by judgment and the love of God. They pass by judgment and the love of God. It's all mixed up together.

You can't just separate everything out. The law of God is all intertwined and tangled up. You don't just put one thing aside. It's all together. It's all one.

It's judgment, justice, mercy. This has to do with mercy toward people. You know, Jesus said, or he quotes, he quotes the Old Testament, I desire mercy, not sacrifice, you know, with the tax collectors and sinners. To have a heart that is merciful toward people, to love people. Self exaltation in the Pharisees, it really destroyed their mercy.

That's why you have this story of the tax collector and the woman who only has one might. There's this contrast. She's full, her whole heart is given to the mercies of Christ. And then faith. Faith is a true and an inward devotion.

This is what they lack, a true and inward devotion. So there are some questions that we should be asking ourselves in going through all of these things. You know, what am I neglecting? Because what the Lord is saying here is that they're neglecting something that they shouldn't neglect. They should keep doing what they're doing, but they should not neglect what they're neglecting.

That's the whole idea here. Christ is arguing for loving the whole law. He's already told us that the whole law is summed up in the word love. He's teaching them to love the whole law with their whole hearts. And, you know, Christ is not lessening the authority of the importance of laws.

He does speak of the greater, but he ends up just saying, you need to do all of them. So, you know, all the laws are integrated into one single theme, love. All of them are. That's why in Galatians the Apostle said, "'Cursed is everyone who performs not all things written in the law, ' quoting Deuteronomy 27-26. This is why when you go through Deuteronomy the word all is everywhere.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and keep all his commandments. They all have something to say to us. You know, that's why the details are important. He who is faithful in little is faithful in much. And then he speaks of this whole matter of the camels.

It's really amazing. And what is most likely happening here is that the Lord Jesus is speaking of a practice. When wine was being made, often gnats would fly into the wine and drink it. And they would have to be taken out, and they're taken out through a sieve. And they're strained out.

And so the Lord is using this outrageous illustration of straining out a gnat, and actually swallowing a camel. And actually swallowing a camel. I'd like to read you something that I felt was very helpful by Thomas Brooks on hypocrites. He says this, A hypocrite is all for his own glory. He acts for himself and from himself.

A hypocrite may be willing to embrace Christ as a priest, to save him from wrath, from the curse from hell, from everlasting burning, but he is never sincerely willing to embrace Christ as a prophet to teach and instruct him, and as a king to rule and reign over Him. Many hypocrites may be willing to receive Christ Jesus, but they're not willing to receive Lord Jesus. They may be willing to embrace a saving Christ, but they're not willing to embrace a ruling Christ, a commanding Christ. And they say, this man shall not rule over us. The hypocrite is willing to receive Christ in one office, but not in every office.

And this is that stumbling stone which the hypocrites stumble and fall and are broken into pieces. Certainly Christ is as lovely and as comely and desirable and delightful, as eminent and excellent in one office as he is in another. And therefore it is a just and righteous thing with God that hypocrites won't receive him in every office. Christ and his offices may be distinguished, but Christ and His offices can never be divided. While many have been laboring to divide one office of Christ from another, they have wholly stripped themselves of any advantage or benefit of Christ.

This is the essence of what was happening in the Pharisees. Hypocrites love to share with Christ in His happiness, but they don't love to share with Christ in His holiness. They are willing to be redeemed by Christ, but they're not cordially willing to submit to the laws and government of Christ. They are willing to be saved by His blood, but they're not willing to submit to his scepter. Hypocrites love the privileges of the Gospel, but they don't love the services of the Gospel, especially those that are most inward and spiritual.

But now a sincere Christian, He owns Christ in all his offices. He receives Christ in all in all his offices. He closes with Christ in all of his offices. He accepts of Him not only as Christ Jesus but also as the Lord Jesus and embraces him not only as saving Christ, but also ruling Christ. There you have it.

So here are some questions. Questions that perhaps could smoke out hypocrisy. If enough hasn't already been done by these words of Jesus. Here's one question. Is my practice the same in private as it is in public?

That's one way that you can help smoke out hypocrisy. Number two, am I doing what I do to inform and impress people, or God? Number three, what is my motive for what I do? Number four, am I a tither? But I hate to have people in my house because kids break things.

Number five, am I knowledgeable but not loving? What does that say about me? What is happening in my heart when I come to worship? Number seven, am I fiscally responsible and spiritually indolent? Number eight, why do I evangelize?

Why do I go to the abortion clinic? Number nine, why do I do what I do raising my children? Why do I do what I do when other people are watching while I'm raising my children? Number 10. Does my sin trouble me for how it offends God or how it makes me look and the punishment and shame I might receive.

Number 11, does my heart long for holiness? Number 12, do I fear man? Number 13, do I have a cloak of morality without reality? Number 14, am I content with my un-mortified sins? 15.

Do I ever use clever words to exempt myself from condemnation of sin? 16. Have my differences with others destroyed My differences with others destroyed my love for them." Thomas Brooks again, the hypocrites only care is to keep his outward life from defilement. But the sincere Christian's care is mainly to keep his heart from defilement. For he very well knows that if he can but keep his heart clean, he shall with more ease keep his life clean.

If the fountain is kept pure, the streams will run pure. If the heart is the spring of all actions, and therefore every action is as the spring is, from whence it flows. If the spring is good, the action is good, which flows from it. If the spring is evil, the action is evil, which flows from it Hypocrites are all for the outside they wash the platters in the cups and beautify the tombs Like an adulteress whose cares to paint a fair face on a foul heart. But a sincere Christian, though he has great concern for the well ordering of his outward life, yet his main business is about the work of his heart." And then Thomas Brooks says something that I think ought to be a prayer for all of us, and so helpful to us this morning.

Oh, that this ignorant heart were but more enlivened. Oh, that this lukewarm heart were more zealous for God and Christ and the gospel and the great concerns of eternity." You can read that from Thomas Brooks, A Cabinet of Choice Jewels. So what have we here? A beautiful and perfect exposition of the value and the interplay, the harmony of the law and the gospel. Christ shows us our sin, how Christ uses the law to convict and condemn, and how He does not set aside the law, He does not abrogate it, but He gives us hope, and He calls us to repent, and He applies His atoning labor for us.

He brings the cross of His Son to us. The purpose of the law in Mount Sinai was to crush our self-righteousness, both for the Christian and the non-Christian. For the non-Christian to drive him to the mercies of Jesus Christ, to drive him to see the power of the blood of Christ, to help him to see he has no hope in his own righteousness, to help him to see his only hope is in Jesus Christ for any of his righteousness at all, for him to give up trying to pretend outward righteousness and to receive the flood of the righteousness of Jesus Christ From his blood that was shed on the cross. It was meant it was meant for the for that Matthew Henry said the Gospel has its woes as well as the law, and the Gospel curses are all of the curses the heaviest. So Christ is trying to crush self-righteousness through his woes.

In the unbeliever to drive him to realize that he is not a believer, that his heart is dead, that his heart is far from him. To the believer to sweeten his mercies, to sanctify them, to help them see the infirmities, to admit them and confess them, and be less of a hypocrite tomorrow than today, by being more real, by being more genuine, instead of a faker, to drive out all faking in the life of a true believer. And here with these woes, he not only shuts the door to the dead heart that he cannot, that he will not convert. But he also opens the door and he says, how long, how I have longed to gather your children together. And he holds out, he holds out what the Apostle Paul said, in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace, which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence.

Or in Titus 3.5, He saved us, not of our works that we have done. Or the Apostle Peter in 1 Peter 3.18. For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive through the Spirit. And by that work, He is the life of the true believer who cries out and says, oh Lord, I believe, help me in my unbelief. Oh Lord, I see the sin, give me a heart of repentance.

Who walks through that scanner and hears the voice of the Lord and says, there's a camel in there. And he says, oh Lord, save me from my sins. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Would you pray with me? Oh Lord, we thank you for your great wisdom, your amazing logic, the imagery that you use to come and help us.

You are such a kind shepherd to come and penetrate the inward recesses of our hearts, to come and bring reality where there was nothing but fakery, to make us more real than we were before. Amen.