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Shutting the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 23:13) · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome to Reform Thinking. Today we're doing a specific
• 0:02
  deep dive and I want to start by thinking about how we usually
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  look at medical issues. OK, Medical issues.
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  Yeah. Like usually when we talk about
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  a diagnosis, there is this expectation of precision.
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  You know, almost like engineering, right?
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  Right. You break your arm.
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  The X-ray shows that jagged white line and the doctor just
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  points at it and says there it is.
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  Yeah, it's very binary. Yes, very binary.
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  You put a cast on it, you wait six weeks, it heals.
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  The visual evidence is immediate.
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  It's undeniable. But then you step into the world
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  of internal systemic disease and suddenly that X-ray machine is
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  completely useless. Oh completely.
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  It won't show you a thing. And you're looking at a
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  diagnostic landscape that is frankly terrifying because the
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  patient looks incredibly healthy.
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  They might be running marathons. Right.
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  Maintaining this impeccable diet, presenting as someone in
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  peak physical condition on the outside while a silent illness
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  is aggressively destroying their organs on the inside.
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  And that disconnect, that disconnect between external
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  appearance and internal reality is the core issue we are
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  analyzing today. Spot on we are conducting an
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  intensive analysis of Matthew 23.13 utilizing 2 rigorous
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  expository essays. 1 is called shutting the Kingdom of heaven
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  and the other is the door slam shut.
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  Those are heavy titles. They are, and our mission for
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  you, the listener, is to uncover the absolute gravity of
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  spiritual gatekeeping. We need to understand how false
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  religion acts as an active, aggressive barrier locking the
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  gates of the Kingdom of Heaven. And why this matters for you
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  right now, today? Because I want to start with a
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  statistic from the source material that frames why this is
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  not some dusty historical debate.
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  Oh, it's very correct. We are looking at recent data
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  indicating that only 30% of professing evangelicals hold a
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  biblical worldview today. That number should stop everyone
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  in their tracks. Just 30%.
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  I mean we are talking about people who sit in pews, sing the
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  songs and self identify with the Christian faith, yet 70% of them
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  operate with a worldview entirely disconnected from
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  scripture. That is the definition of a
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  systemic internal illness masked by external health.
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  It really. And that sets up the premise for
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  our deep dive. Religious deception is a current
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  soul destroying plague. We are not immune to what
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  happened in the 1st century. Not at all.
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  So we're going to look at a text that hits like a Thunder clap.
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  Jesus delivers a courtroom verdict right at the end of his
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  earthly ministry. And it is a divine sentence.
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  It's a courtroom verdict, not a mild suggestion, right?
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  The setting, the language, the audience, all of it converges
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  into a singular moment of judgment against those who use
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  the name of God to obstruct the way to God.
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  Let's set the stage. Historically, we are situated in
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  Passion Week. It is likely the Tuesday before
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  the crucifixion. The tension is at its absolute
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  peak. And the location is the Temple
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  in Jerusalem. Now, for someone who has never
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  studied for century Judaism, paint a picture of what this
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  space felt like. Because this is not a quiet
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  little Chapel, no. No, not at all.
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  The temple complex was a massive, sprawling architectural
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  marvel. It was the absolute epicenter of
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  Jewish religious, social and political life.
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  So it's crowded. Extremely During Passover week,
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  the population of Jerusalem would swell to multiple times
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  its normal size. The air is thick with
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  anticipation. You have the smell of animal
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  sacrifices, the noise of merchants, hundreds of thousands
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  of pilgrims flooding the city just.
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  A chaotic environment. Very chaotic, yeah.
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  And standing right over the temple courts is the Antonia
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  Fortress. OK, what's that?
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  That's where heavily armed Roman soldiers are looking down,
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  watching for riots. So the tension is palpable.
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  Jesus has entered the city to the shouts of Hosanna, He has
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  cleansed the temple and the friction between him and the
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  religious establishment has reached a boiling point.
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  And the specific targets standing in front of him for
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  this verdict are the Scribes and the Pharisees.
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  The elite. Right.
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  The scribes were the legal experts holding what we'll call
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  the key of knowledge. The Pharisees were the rigorous
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  practitioners, the separated ones.
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  They were the ones everyone looked up to.
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  But. Here's my question.
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  Weren't the Pharisees originally the good guys?
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  Yeah, historically. Didn't they rise up to protect
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  Judaism from being wiped out by Greek culture?
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  How do you go from being the cultural heroes, preserving the
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  faith to the villains of this narrative?
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  That is the tragic irony of their history.
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  You have to go back to the Mccabean period a couple of
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  centuries earlier. OK, set that up for us.
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  The Greek rulers try to completely eradicate the Jewish
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  faith. They were slaughtering pigs on
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  the altar, banning circumcision, forcing assimilation.
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  It's. Horrific stuff.
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  Absolutely horrific. And out of that trauma arose a
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  group fiercely dedicated to preserving the law of God.
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  They became known as the separated Ones, which is what
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  Pharisee means. So their initial motive was pure
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  preservation, yes. But the socio political pressure
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  of the Roman occupation in the 1st century was suffocating.
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  Judea is a vassal state. They're occupied territory.
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  Well, precisely. They are paying crushing taxes
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  to Caesar. They have no sovereign king.
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  So in a compromised society, under immense external pressure,
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  there is a natural reaction to pull inward, you build walls.
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  Yes, they built spiritual walls. They called it building a fence
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  around the Torah. Building a fence.
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  What does that mean practically? The idea was if the law says do
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  not work on the Sabbath, we're going to create fifty additional
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  highly specific sub rules about what constitutes work.
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  OK, I. See, if you never break the sub
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  rules you will never even get close to breaking the actual law
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  of God. And on the surface, their
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  strictness look like genuine faithfulness to the crowds.
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  It looked incredibly holy. I want to focus on that fence
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  concept. Can you give an example of how
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  extreme these sub rules became? Because when you say they
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  created rules, people might think of generic moral
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  guidelines, but we are talking about microscopic behavioral
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  control here. We are talking about absurd
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  levels of micromanagement. For instance, you could not
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  carry a burden on the Sabbath. Which sounds reasonable at
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  first, sure. But.
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  What defines a burden? The rabbinic traditions debated
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  whether a tailor could leave his house with a needle pinned to
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  his robe. Yes.
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  Is the needle a burden? Or consider tying a knot.
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  Tying a permanent knot, like a sailor's knot, was considered
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  work, but tying a knot that could be united with one hand,
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  like a camel driver's knot, was permissible.
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  That is wild. They even debated whether you
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  could eat an egg laid by a hen on the Sabbath because the hen
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  technically worked to produce it.
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  That is exhausting, and that labyrinth of oral traditions
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  obscured the actual heart of the law.
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  Completely obscured it. They created a system where
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  external performance was manageable if you learned all
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  the little loopholes, but inward purity was completely ignored.
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  And that leads us directly to the specific confrontation.
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  Jesus looks at these men standing there in their robes
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  with their phylacteries. Those are the little boxes,
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  right? Yeah, these little leather boxes
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  containing scripture strapped to their foreheads and arms.
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  And he uses the Greek word way. Which translates in English to
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  woe? Jesus uses this word repeatedly
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  in this chapter. What is the actual weight of
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  that word? Because when I hear woe in
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  modern English, I think of a mild caution.
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  Like woe is me, I forgot my keys.
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  Yeah, it sounds archaic and almost harmless.
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  Exactly. I mean precisely.
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  It sounds harmless. But it is anything but harmless
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  when we look at the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation
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  of the Old Testament used in the 1st century.
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  This word way translates the Hebrew word Hoy.
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  OK. And what does Hoi mean?
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  That specific Hebrew word is a term of mourning.
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  It is the cry used by professional mourners at a
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  funeral. It is a dirge of absolute grief
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  and finality. Wait.
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  Really. So Jesus is standing in the
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  temple talking to the most powerful, respected, living men
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  in the society, and he starts wailing a funeral dirge over
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  them. That is the scene.
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  He is quite literally preaching a funeral sermon for men who are
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  still walking around. He is announcing that their
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  religious system is dead. They are already under the
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  sentence of death, even as they stand there possessing all the
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  institutional authority of their day.
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  That brings us back to the medical analogy we started with.
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  Oh yeah, think about a physician delivering a fatal diagnosis to
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  a patient who thinks they're perfectly healthy.
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  Right, the patient feels fine. The patient says look at my
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  diet, look at my exercise routine.
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  I'm doing great and the doctor says I see the scans.
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  You are terminal. That's the Pharisees.
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  They thought they were the picture of spiritual health.
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  So here's my question. Did the Pharisees genuinely
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  believe they were protecting God's holiness, or did they
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  secretly know they were running a scam on the public?
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  The terror of this situation is self deception.
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  It is highly likely that many of them genuinely believed they
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  were the true guardians of orthodoxy.
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  That's terrifying. Over time, when you
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  institutionalized a system of rules that you yourself can
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  keep, you begin to mistake your own rule keeping for divine
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  approval. You essentially grade your own
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  paper. Right.
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  You lower the standard of God's perfect holiness down to the
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  level of your own behavioral fences.
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  They were blinded by their own self righteousness.
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  But self deception only lasts until the truth is forced upon
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  you. And the presence of Jesus forced
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  their hand. When the true light shone on
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  their system, their reaction was not to fall to their knees in
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  repentance. No, it wasn't.
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  Their reaction was to plot murder that reveals the dark
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  underbelly of their system. Beneath the veneer or protecting
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  God's holiness, they were fiercely protecting their own
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  authority. They're prestige.
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  Yeah, they're seats of honor. I want you to put yourself in
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  the shoes of a common person standing in the temple courts
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  watching this. These crowds looked up to the
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  Pharisees. They revered them.
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  The people closest to the Kingdom visually, the ones with
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  the long prayers, the rigorous fasting, the strict diets, were
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  just declared by the Son of God to be walking corpses.
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  And the greatest obstacles to the Kingdom.
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  It would have been intellectually and spiritually
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  dizzying for the average Jewish observer.
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  Everything they had been taught about what righteousness looked
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  like was being torn down in real time.
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  It really was a complete paradigm shift.
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  Knowing who was judged and where, we must examine the
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  specific weapon they used to commit their crime.
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  Because Jesus doesn't just call them wrong, he calls them
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  hypocrites. Yes, he does.
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  And this word has a very specific historical background
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  that changes how we read the text.
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  The Greek word is hippocrati. Which is a fascinating word in
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  extra biblical Greco Roman literature.
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  This word did not originally mean a liar or someone who is
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  morally inconsistent. What did it mean?
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  It referred exclusively to stage actors.
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  Like in a play. Right.
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  These were individuals who performed in the massive
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  amphitheatres of the ancient world.
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  They wore oversized masks, often with exaggerated expressions of
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  tragedy or comedy. To project to the audience.
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  Yeah, the mouthpieces of these masks were sometimes shaped to
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  project sound to the back rows of the theater, so the actor was
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  literally one who speaks from under a mask.
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  That completely changes the imagery.
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  So when Jesus applies this word to the religious elite, he is
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  not just saying you tell people not to lie, but you lie
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  sometimes. No, it's much bigger than.
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  That we often reduce hypocrisy to an occasional failure to
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  practice what you preach. But Jesus is describing a fully
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  produced theatrical performance. He is saying their entire
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  religious life is a stage play. Their public prayers on the
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  street corners are a script. It's all rehearsed.
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  They're fasting. Where they disfigure their faces
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  to look extra hungry and pious is stage makeup.
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  Wow. Their prominent tassels and wide
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  phalacteries are costumes. The entire system is designed
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  for an audience of men, not for God.
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  And there is an incredible literary symmetry in Matthew's
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  Gospel that highlights this if we go back to the famous Sermon
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  on the Mount in chapter 5. The contrast is striking, yeah.
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  In Matthew 5, Jesus sits down on a mountain with his disciples
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  and delivers 8 beatitudes or blessings.
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  Blessed are the poor in spirit, Blessed are the meek.
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  Blessed are the pure in heart. Right.
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  These describe the internal reality of someone who has
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  actually entered the Kingdom. Now Fast forward to chapter 23.
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  At the close of his public ministry, Jesus stands in the
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  temple and delivers 8 woes or curses.
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  And he delivers them to the crowds and the religious elite.
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  We move from an open invitation on a Galilean hillside to a
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  devastating indictment in the religious capital.
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  And this hypocrisy is not just a personal character flaw, right?
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  It is a systemic covenantal betrayal.
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  Institutionalized falsehood. Yes, the Pharisees had created
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  an environment where outward performance entirely replaced
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  inward submission to the reign of God.
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  It was not a matter of them slipping up occasionally.
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  Their whole framework was flawed.
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  Their entire theology was designed to elevate themselves
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  while demanding impossible adherence to their traditions.
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  From everyone else. They managed their image
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  flawlessly, but inside, as Jesus later says in the same chapter,
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  they were full of dead man's bones.
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  I want the listener to consider what happens to a community when
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  the leaders are just playing a role.
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  That's a vital question. You might think of a hypocrite
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  as just someone who lies, but Matthew describes this
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  theatrical production What happens when the people running
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  the show are actors? Well, the culture of that
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  community inevitably shifts from genuine repentance to image
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  management. Which we see everywhere today.
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  Everywhere people learn very quickly what buzzwords to use,
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  what behaviors to display, and most dangerously, what sins they
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  must hide at all costs in order to remain in good standing.
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  Because you can't break character.
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  Right. The tragedy is that in a
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  community governed by actors, a broken, desperate Sinner who
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  cannot fake, it feels entirely unwelcome.
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  The mask becomes the standard of fellowship.
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  If you cannot afford the costume, you are not allowed on
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  the stage. That is a perfect way to put it.
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  Now that we see the weapon, the theatrical mask, what precisely
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  is the ongoing crime they are committing against the public?
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  Let's look at the primary accusation in verse 13.
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  For ye shut up the Kingdom of heaven against men.
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  The grammar here is so revealing.
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  Let's unpack the Greek verb used here.
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  It's cleate, right? Yes, cleate, which means to shut
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  or to lock tight, and the tense is vital for understanding the
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  severity of the charge. It is in the present active
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  indicative tense. So it's not something they did
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  once in the past. No, it means it is a relentless,
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  continuous, habitual slamming of the door.
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  Is there ongoing occupation? They are professional gate
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  slammers. And Jesus also uses the Word and
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  prosthen. Right meaning in front of or in
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  the face of. Which indicates a highly
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  aggressive, confrontational act. They are not passively sitting
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  by a locked door, they are standing right at the threshold
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  threshold, looking seekers in the eye and pushing them away.
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  Extremely aggressive. But how did they shut it?
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  Because we aren't talking about a physical gait with a brass
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  padlock. No, of course not.
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  What was the actual mechanism of this spiritual obstruction?
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  To answer that, we have to look at a parallel passage in Luke
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  11.52. Jesus says to the lawyers, You
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  have taken away the key of knowledge.
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  The key of knowledge. The key of knowledge was the
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  correct interpretation of the Old Testament scriptures, right?
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  The entire Old Testament, the sacrifices, the priesthood, the
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  prophecies, all of it was designed to point to the
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  Messiah. The Law of God was supposed to
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  be a tutor. Leading the people by the hand.
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  Leading them to realize their utter inability to save
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  themselves, thereby creating a desperate need for a savior.
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  But instead of using the key to open the door, they swallowed
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  the key. They did, and they replaced it
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  with a padlock of their own making.
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  They replaced the message of free grace with an exhausting
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  treadmill of works. They weaponized the law.
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  They turned what was meant to reveal sin into a system of self
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  justification. Exactly, I mean that is spot on.
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  Every time a Pharisee taught that a man could be justified
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  before God by keeping human traditions, he was slamming A
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  deadbolt onto the gate of heaven.
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  Let's create a picture of this treadmill for a minute.
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  Imagine a 1st century peasant farmer.
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  He is trying to survive under Roman taxation.
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  Barely scraping by. Working his land just to feed
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  his family. And here come the Pharisees,
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  telling him that to be right with God, he has to carefully
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  measure out a tenth of the microscopic mint, dill and cumin
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  leaves from his tiny garden to give to the temple.
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  It's absurd, while at the same time those very Pharisees used
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  use legal loopholes like the Corbin rule.
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  Explain the Corbin rule. It was a rule where they could
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  dedicate their own wealth to the temple, essentially locking it
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  up so they wouldn't have to spend it taking care of their
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  aging parents. So they protect their own assets
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  while ignoring God's command to honor their father and mother.
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  Right. They created burdens that
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  crushed the average person, while they themselves
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  sidestepped the weightier matters of the law, justice,
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  mercy, and faithfulness. False, religion always demands a
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  toll that a Sinner cannot pay that effectively keeps the door
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  locked. I keep picturing a travel agent
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  from the source material. Oh, the travel agent analogy is
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  great. Imagine walking into an agency
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  to book a flight to a beautiful distant country.
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  The agents are selling incredibly expensive tickets.
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  Very expensive. But here's the catch.
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  The agents have never visited this country.
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  They possess no passport for this country.
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  They do not even know the way to the airport.
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  Right, they're clueless. And yet they are standing in the
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  doorway of the agency, physically blocking the actual
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  travelers from getting out the door to find the real plane.
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  They claimed exclusive rights to broker access to God, yet they
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  themselves were entirely alienated from God.
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  Completely disconnected. They demanded a toll of
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  legalistic perfection that they could not meet internally,
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  though they faked it brilliantly on the the outside.
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  And when Jesus Christ appeared the true way, the true door,
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  offering access entirely by grace, they saw him not as a
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  Savior. How do they see him?
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  As a hostile competitor destroying their business model.
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  Wow. And this obstruction doesn't
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  just hurt the seekers, it reveals A terrifying double
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  guilt on the part of the leaders themselves.
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  Let's look at the final clause of the verse.
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  Neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are
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  entering to go in. The Greek syntax here uses the
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  emphatic pronoun hymus, meaning you yourselves.
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  Jesus is pointing right at them. He is highlighting the absolute
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  tragedy of their spiritual condition.
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  Personally, the leaders remain unconverted.
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  Despite all their training. Despite all their theological
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  training, their memorization of the Torah, their high status in
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  the community, they are completely outside the Kingdom
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  of Heaven because they refused to repent and believe in the
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  Messiah standing in front of them.
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  But the tragedy is twofold. It is personal, but it is also
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  ministerial. Their unbelief is contagious.
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  And this reveals a chilling spiritual principle.
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  A man cannot lead people spiritually beyond where he
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  himself stands before God. That is a heavy truth.
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  Unbelieving leadership cannot produce saving entrance into the
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  Kingdom for others. If a leader is relying on his
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  own works, his own morality, or his own intellect to stand
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  before God, he will inevitably teach his followers to do the
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  same. And that phrase them that are
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  entering is really compelling to me because it shows there was
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  actual movement happening. Oh yes, Christ ministry was
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  actively drawing people. The unclean, the marginalized,
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  the tax collectors, the prostitutes.
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  People who knew they were broken were moving toward the Kingdom
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  because they heard the message of grace.
• 19:42
  And the Pharisees were actively tackling them before they could
• 19:44
  cross the threshold. Why?
• 19:46
  Why do they do that? Because false religion is highly
• 19:48
  offended by free grace, systems built on human pride and
• 19:52
  performance are terrified of broken people finding free
• 19:55
  mercy. Because it undermines their
• 19:57
  whole system. If a corrupt tax collector like
• 19:59
  Zacchaeus can enter the Kingdom simply by receiving Jesus, or if
• 20:04
  a notorious Sinner can be forgiven.
• 20:07
  Just by weeping at the feet of Christ, it completely destroys
• 20:10
  the economy of the Pharisees. It threatens the exact metric by
• 20:13
  which the religious leaders measure their own superiority.
• 20:17
  Think about the malice required to do that.
• 20:20
  It is one thing to say I refuse to walk through that door.
• 20:23
  It is another thing entirely to actively tackle someone else who
• 20:27
  is trying to get in. What drives a person to look at
• 20:30
  a desperate center, finding forgiveness and say no, stop,
• 20:33
  You cannot have that. Pride and the desperate need for
• 20:36
  control. When your entire identity, your
• 20:39
  social standing, and yourself worth are tied to being the
• 20:42
  gatekeeper. Anyone who bypasses your
• 20:45
  tollbooth to go straight to the king is viewed as a rebel.
• 20:48
  So they hate Jesus because he ignores their tollbooth.
• 20:51
  The malice arises because Jesus bypasses their authority
• 20:54
  entirely. He forgives sins on the street
• 20:56
  without consulting the temple priest, without requiring the
• 20:58
  traditions of the elders. He doesn't ask for their
• 21:00
  permission. Right.
• 21:01
  So to protect their franchise, the Pharisees have to discredit
• 21:05
  the Savior, even if it means destroying the souls of the
• 21:08
  people they claimed a shepherd. And Christ exposed this malice
• 21:11
  publicly, and Matthew wrote it down.
• 21:14
  Let's talk about the intended effect on the original audience,
• 21:17
  because we have to remember who Matthew was writing to.
• 21:20
  This is crucial context. This is a Jewish Christian
• 21:23
  community in the 1st century facing immense pressure from the
• 21:26
  synagogue and the rabbinic establishment.
• 21:29
  Yes. Matthew wrote this to produce
• 21:31
  disillusionment, discernment and comfort.
• 21:34
  We have to understand the trauma the early Jewish believers were
• 21:37
  experiencing. Following Jesus was not a casual
• 21:40
  weekend decision back then. Absolutely not.
• 21:43
  If you confess Christ, you were thrown out of the synagogue.
• 21:45
  And being thrown out of the synagogue wasn't just losing
• 21:47
  your spot in the choir, it was a social death sentence.
• 21:50
  It meant economic isolation. Your family might disown you.
• 21:55
  You could not buy or sell easily in the community.
• 21:58
  You were considered a heretic. So the stakes were incredibly
• 22:01
  high. And the Pharisees still held
• 22:04
  immense social capital in the decades after the resurrection.
• 22:09
  They were telling these early Jewish Christians that by
• 22:11
  following Jesus they were cut off from God, cut off from the
• 22:14
  covenant, cut off from their heritage.
• 22:17
  So Matthew records this specific woe to strip away the prestige
• 22:21
  of that Pharisaic system. It is almost like a Declaration
• 22:24
  of Independence for the early church.
• 22:26
  It shatters the illusion of their authority.
• 22:29
  Believers needed to stop fearing men who did not actually hold
• 22:32
  the keys to heaven. I mean, when a trusted authority
• 22:35
  figure abuses you or tells you that you are outside of God's
• 22:39
  grace, it is terrifying. The natural instinct is to
• 22:42
  wonder if they are right. Of course you second guess
• 22:45
  yourself. I want you to think about a time
• 22:46
  you realize a trusted authority figure, a mentor, a pastor, a
• 22:50
  parent was completely wrong about something vital.
• 22:53
  It hurts. That disillusionment is painful.
• 22:55
  It is incredibly disorienting to realize the person driving the
• 22:58
  bus is blind. But it is necessary.
• 23:00
  You have to break the illusion of false authority to find the
• 23:03
  truth. And that provides massive
• 23:05
  comfort for those wounded believers.
• 23:08
  If the religious elite cast you out and declare you cursed, it
• 23:11
  is liberating to read the Gospel of Matthew and hear the Son of
• 23:15
  God publicly state that those very elite are blind guides.
• 23:19
  It flips the script. It validates the believers
• 23:21
  faith. It assures them that Christ sees
• 23:24
  completely through abusive religious authority.
• 23:27
  True safety is found only in Him, not in the approval of the
• 23:31
  religious establishment. If the religious leaders are the
• 23:33
  false guides shutting the door, who is opening it?
• 23:37
  The text shifts our focus by necessity from the false guides
• 23:40
  to the true gate. Yes, Jesus says in John 10.9.
• 23:44
  I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will
• 23:46
  be saved. He is the only access point.
• 23:48
  And Revelation 3.7 tells us that Christ holds the key of David.
• 23:52
  He opens what no one can shut, and He shuts what no one can
• 23:55
  open. So we see Christ operating in
• 23:57
  three distinct offices here to solve the problem of the locked
• 24:00
  Kingdom. Prophet, priest and king.
• 24:02
  Let's unpack those. He operates his prophet by
• 24:05
  exposing the falsehood of the Pharisees and pronouncing the
• 24:07
  righteous woe. Calling out the error right?
• 24:10
  Then he operates as priest, becoming the very way the
• 24:13
  atoning sacrifice that was previously blocked by human
• 24:17
  tradition. And as king.
• 24:18
  He operates as King by pronouncing the final judgement
• 24:21
  over the Old Covenant administrators and establishing
• 24:24
  his church. The divine irony of the cross is
• 24:27
  staggering when you view it through the lens of this locked
• 24:31
  door, the very men who were trying to shut the Kingdom.
• 24:34
  The men who wanted to stop Jesus from offering grace.
• 24:37
  Plotted his death, and by driving him to the cross, they
• 24:41
  provided the exact perfect sacrifice that tore the temple
• 24:45
  veil from top to bottom. Which is the ultimate visual
• 24:47
  proof that the doors open. Explain the veil for a second.
• 24:50
  The veil in the temple separated the Holy of Holies, the
• 24:54
  immediate presence of God, from the rest of the world.
• 24:56
  It was a massive, thick curtain you couldn't just walk past.
• 24:59
  Only the high priest once a year.
• 25:01
  Right. And when Christ declared it is
• 25:03
  finished on the cross, the Father tore that veil from top
• 25:07
  to bottom. From top to bottom, meaning God
• 25:09
  did it, not man. The shutting of the Kingdom by
• 25:11
  the Pharisees was a temporary human rebellion.
• 25:15
  The opening of the Kingdom by Christ is an eternal divine
• 25:18
  decree. The Pharisees thought they were
• 25:19
  locking the door, but God used their wicked rebellion to swing
• 25:23
  the gates of heaven wide open for sinners from every single
• 25:26
  nation. It's beautiful.
• 25:28
  The text moves from a severe warning about bad leaders to a
• 25:32
  massive, welcoming presentation of the gospel without Christ.
• 25:36
  The gate is not just shut by men, it is sealed shut by the
• 25:40
  perfect justice of God. And Christ satisfies that
• 25:43
  justice entirely. So the woe spoken against the
• 25:46
  false shepherds becomes a welcome for the rest of us.
• 25:48
  Yes, a massive welcome. So how does understanding Christ
• 25:52
  as the absolute single door change how we view religious
• 25:55
  rules and institutions today? It shatters any reliance on a
• 25:59
  system of works. If Christ is the single door,
• 26:02
  then no human institution, no set of moral traditions, and no
• 26:06
  personal achievement can grant you access.
• 26:09
  Religious rules, when used as a ladder to climb your way up to
• 26:12
  God, are exposed as a complete fraud.
• 26:16
  The only proper use of the law is to show us our inability to
• 26:19
  keep it, thereby driving us in desperation to the door which is
• 26:23
  Christ. We obey out of gratitude for
• 26:26
  having been brought inside by grace, not as a toll we pay to
• 26:30
  gain entry. OK.
• 26:31
  That's the core difference. That brings us to the present
• 26:33
  day. If Christ opened the door, who
• 26:36
  is currently trying to slam it shut in our modern era?
• 26:39
  The spirit of the Pharisees did not die in the 1st century.
• 26:41
  No, it didn't. We need to look at the modern
• 26:44
  manifestations of the locked door.
• 26:46
  The material we are analyzing applies this text to several
• 26:49
  current theological and cultural movements.
• 26:52
  Let's look first at Roman Catholicism.
• 26:53
  The critique outlined in our sources is that this system
• 26:56
  functions similarly by adding human mediators.
• 26:59
  Right. The analysis points to systems
• 27:01
  that introduce layers between the Sinner and the Savior.
• 27:03
  When a theological structure insists on human priests acting
• 27:07
  as necessary mediators for forgiveness or teaches the
• 27:09
  concept of a treasury of merit. What is the Treasury of Merit?
• 27:13
  It's the idea that surplus good works of the Saints can be
• 27:16
  accessed to short and temporal punishment.
• 27:19
  OK, I see the. Argument is that this
• 27:21
  effectively obscures the door. It is like putting a massive,
• 27:24
  complicated maze right in front of the open gate.
• 27:27
  Yes, when church traditions and the Magisterium, the teaching
• 27:31
  authority of the church, are elevated to the same level of
• 27:34
  authority as Sola scriptura, meaning scripture alone, the
• 27:38
  path is clouded. The critique argues that this
• 27:41
  tells the desperate Sinner they cannot simply come to Christ by
• 27:44
  faith alone, but must pass through a highly controlled
• 27:48
  institutional labyrinth of sacraments and penance.
• 27:50
  Which is another form of a locked gate.
• 27:52
  Another movement analyzed in our material is liberal theology,
• 27:56
  and this approach shuts the door in a completely different way.
• 27:59
  Instead of adding a maze, they remove the concept of the door
• 28:02
  altogether. They remove the key of
• 28:03
  knowledge. How so?
• 28:05
  The argument regarding liberal theology is that it denies the
• 28:08
  core truths of the faith. It denies the inerrancy of
• 28:12
  Scripture, viewing it as a human document full of errors.
• 28:15
  And they deny the absolute necessity of the blood atonement
• 28:19
  of Christ on the cross. Right.
• 28:21
  Instead, they offer what is often called a social gospel.
• 28:24
  Now obviously feeding the poor and advocating for justice are
• 28:27
  good things. We all agree on that, of course.
• 28:29
  But what is the danger when that becomes the entirety of the
• 28:32
  gospel? The tragedy, according to this
• 28:34
  analysis, is that liberal theology addresses the physical
• 28:38
  and social needs of the body while completely ignoring the
• 28:42
  perishing state of the soul. It denies the wrath of God
• 28:45
  against sin. And if there is no divine
• 28:47
  judgement to escape, there is no need for a Savior to rescue you.
• 28:52
  If you remove the bad news of sin and judgement, the good news
• 28:56
  of the cross ceases to be news at all.
• 28:58
  It leaves people feeling very moral, heavily involved in
• 29:01
  social causes, while remaining entirely lost and alienator from
• 29:04
  God. They're comfortably locked out.
• 29:06
  Then there is modern pragmatism, often known as the seeker
• 29:09
  sensitive movement within evangelicalism.
• 29:12
  This one is incredibly subtle because it looks so successful
• 29:15
  on the outside. The seeker sensitive approach
• 29:18
  attempts to make Christianity as inoffensive and appealing as
• 29:21
  possible to the secular culture. You see huge crowds, amazing
• 29:25
  lights, great music. The argument made here is that
• 29:29
  by refusing to preach on hard topics, by avoiding words like
• 29:33
  sin, hell, wrath, and the absolute necessity of
• 29:37
  repentance, they hide the gate entirely.
• 29:40
  They want the crowds to feel comfortable.
• 29:42
  Pastors in these models do not want to risk losing an audience
• 29:45
  by speaking about the severe demands of the gospel.
• 29:48
  So they create an environment that mimics spiritual life.
• 29:51
  The production value is high. The music is emotional.
• 29:55
  The sermons are essentially self help talks with a Bible verse
• 29:58
  attached. But it lacks the actual
• 30:00
  regenerating truth of the word. It looks alive, but the sources
• 30:03
  argue it's spiritually vacant. Think about walking into a
• 30:06
  beautiful hotel lobby. The lighting is perfect, the
• 30:08
  coffee is hot, the staff is smiling and welcoming you by
• 30:12
  name, the band playing in the corner sounds incredible.
• 30:15
  It's very inviting. But there are no rooms.
• 30:17
  You cannot actually stay there. The lobby is a trap designed to
• 30:20
  keep you comfortable while providing no actual shelter.
• 30:23
  Wow. The critique is that this is
• 30:24
  what a church is doing when it gives you community.
• 30:27
  Excellent programming and emotional highs, but hides the
• 30:30
  narrow, difficult gate of repentance.
• 30:33
  The silence on the issue of Finn is the most insidious form of
• 30:36
  shedding the Kingdom. They make the door look like a
• 30:39
  blank, comfortable wall. People sit in these churches for
• 30:42
  decades. Decades believe and they are
• 30:45
  part of the Kingdom simply because they enjoy the music and
• 30:48
  the positive messages without ever once being confronted with
• 30:52
  their need to repent and trust in the finished work of Christ.
• 30:55
  We also have to address charismatic mysticism, which
• 30:58
  prioritizes subjective feelings and supposed new revelations
• 31:02
  over the closed Canon of scripture.
• 31:04
  The danger highlighted here is that when people are taught to
• 31:07
  look for a fresh word from God outside of the Bible.
• 31:10
  Whether through dreams, visions, or the pronouncements of modern
• 31:13
  self-proclaimed apostles. Right.
• 31:15
  They are LED away from the objective, finished truth of the
• 31:18
  gospel. The anchor is pulled up and the
• 31:20
  congregation is left drifting in the shifting sands of human
• 31:24
  emotion and manipulation. It is very easy for us to sit
• 31:27
  here and critique large theological movements, but we
• 31:31
  have to turn the mirror on ourselves.
• 31:33
  That's the hardest part. Modern believers can easily
• 31:36
  become mini Pharisees in their own neighborhoods, their own
• 31:39
  workplaces, and their own homes. This requires severe self
• 31:43
  examination. Are parents teaching their
• 31:45
  children mirror simple behavioral performance?
• 31:49
  Don't say bad words, dress nightly, get good grades and God
• 31:52
  will be pleased with you. That is teaching a child to be a
• 31:55
  Pharisee. It is teaching them behavior
• 31:57
  modification without ever teaching them about the
• 32:00
  desperate need for a new heart through repentance.
• 32:03
  And what about the individual sitting quietly in a Pew every
• 32:06
  Sunday? A person can be highly skilled
• 32:08
  in religious language. They know exactly when to stand,
• 32:11
  when to sit, what theological terms to drop in a conversation.
• 32:14
  They play the part perfectly. But internally they remain
• 32:17
  complete strangers to the grace of God.
• 32:20
  They might demand strict behavioral conformity from their
• 32:22
  neighbors or their Co workers before offering them an ounce of
• 32:25
  kindness or grace. That is the leaven of the
• 32:28
  Pharisees operating on a micro level.
• 32:31
  It is the subtle belief that I am acceptable to God because I
• 32:34
  am better than the people outside this building.
• 32:36
  Which is a complete denial of the gospel.
• 32:38
  We have covered massive ground today.
• 32:41
  We have traced the trajectory from that historic courtroom
• 32:43
  verdict in the temple courts where Jesus confronted the
• 32:46
  religious elite. To the continuous, ongoing crime
• 32:49
  of hiding the true gospel behind traditions, rules, but modern
• 32:54
  pragmatic strategies. The historical reality of the
• 32:57
  Pharisees stand as a permanent warning to every generation.
• 33:01
  The temptation to build fences and rely on our own
• 33:04
  righteousness never goes away. But the reality of Christ stands
• 33:08
  as a perpetual invitation. The door cannot be shut by human
• 33:12
  hands anymore. The veil remains torn.
• 33:14
  The access granted by the blood of the king is permanent.
• 33:17
  I want to leave you with a question to sit with.
• 33:19
  What if the greatest threat to your soul isn't the secular
• 33:22
  culture outside the church walls?
• 33:24
  That's a sobering thought. What if the greatest threat is
• 33:27
  the subtle, quiet ways you might be relying on your own religious
• 33:30
  resume? Think back to that X-ray analogy
• 33:33
  from the beginning. The machine cannot detect
• 33:35
  spiritual pride. You might look healthy to
• 33:37
  everyone around you. You might know all the right
• 33:39
  answers, but the diagnostic truth of Matthew 23 is that the
• 33:43
  door is wide open in Jesus Christ and you cannot walk
• 33:47
  through it while wearing a mask. You have to take it off.
• 33:50
  Take off the mask, drop the resume and just walk through.
• 33:53
  Thanks for listening to this deep dive.