Daily Archive

When Jesus says in Matthew 23:4, “And they tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger,” they have rules upon rules upon rules. When you think about what they would do, and in the writing of the Talmud, they would take the law of God (and then the rabbis came to the conclusion, the priests came to the conclusion, that there are 613 separate commands given in the first five books of the Bible) and they took each one and made a whole set of rules around that one rule so you wouldn’t break that rule. So if you don’t want to break this rule, here are all the other things you have to do or not do.

So they are adding to the Word of God. They are adding heavy burdens. And there was rule after rule after rule after rule – it’s the idea that if you are this far away from that rule, you won’t break that rule. Sadly, I think we go to the other extreme, and we see how close to breaking the rule we can get without breaking it. But that fear was, we don’t want to break God’s law, so we’re going to add to it. What they added to it became traditions. And that’s why when Jesus arrived, and He began to preach that He “heard that it was said,” and He would quote a false teaching from the rabbis, and He would say, “But I tell you, it wasn’t so from the beginning.” Then He would tell them what Moses actually said. And if you get to peel back those traditions, those rules upon rules that made it impossible to live a life that was pleasing to God, Jesus says this is a heavy yoke.

It’s a heavy burden. This is the burden of legalism, if you think God being pleased with you depends completely on what you do. Now here’s the good news by grace – we are able to do what is pleasing to God, but God is not pleased with us because of what we do, He is pleased with us because of His own good pleasure in His Son. It’s the finished work of Christ! If we thought that we had to be pleasing to God and everything that we could do only by our own efforts and only by our ability to obey, how miserable would we be? Now we know why legalists are always cranky. Because they are trying to do so much for God, missing what God has done for them.

Now does being a Christian come with a yoke? Yes, it does. Jesus talks about a yoke. But how did He describe the yoke? “Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden,” and what did He say? “I’ll give you an even heavier yoke.” No, He said, “I’ll give you rest because my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Why? Because it’s only by His strength that we can wear it and carry it. It’s only by His work that we can live as we ought to live. Here, they gave all of these commands, and they keep heaping condemnation on people. They did not give them any relief. No true help, no instruction. It was all just commands. It was all “Just do this, don’t do this.” There was no grace. There was no mercy.

John MacArthur said in his commentary on this verse said that we have to realize in the unregenerate heart, “Vice cannot be restrained and virtue cannot be produced.” So if we are telling people to obey the Word of God and to not sin, but instead be righteous, but they haven’t been born again, then they are incapable. We are telling them to do something that they can’t do. And then the frustration grows because there is no answer, there is no solution, there is no relief. There is no good news!

It says they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. That also points to the fact that I’m going to put heavy burdens on you as a false teacher, but I’m not going to live according to what I say. I’ll give you an example of this, the false teachers who want you to send them money. Justin Peters asked it in one of his videos. He asked, “Why is it always $1,000? Why is that a seed of faith? Why is it always $1,000? And you look at the cars and the planes and the houses and all the things that the false teachers have, and you know what? Maybe they need to give $1,000 to somebody. But they don’t do that. They’re not in the business of giving, they’re in the business of taking.”

So false teachers are going to put a heavy burden on people. Maybe they have a sick child, their bills are due, they are about to get foreclosed on, and so here’s what they need to do to get God to get you out of that mess. They need to give the false teacher a thousand dollars, which they probably don’t have. They need to stretch their faith and find a way, go to their neighbors, go to their family, get a thousand dollars, send it to the false teacher, and then God will take care of everything that’s burdening them.

Now how many times in the history of the world has anybody sent a televangelist a thousand dollars, and suddenly everything in their life went like it was supposed to? Never! Then they are worse off than they were before, and there is no relief, and so they ask why, and what does the false teacher tell them? “Well, you gave the money, but you didn’t have enough faith. It was enough money, but it wasn’t enough faith. So here’s what you need to do. You need to give another thousand dollars and give it with more faith this time.”

Here they are, caught in the dilemma of wanting to find relief, but getting none from these false teachers. That’s why Jesus condemns them. He says in verses 5-7, “But they do all their deeds to be noticed by men; for they broaden their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments. And they love the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, and respectful greetings in the marketplaces, and being called Rabbi by men.” They do what they do, all of their works, to be seen by men. In other words, if somebody’s not watching, I’m not going to do it. I’m only doing it because somebody’s watching, and I have an opportunity to impress them so that they might see how holy I am and how righteous I am. They might see how much I suffer for God, how hard it is to live a life of righteousness. They live before men instead of God.

Jesus addressed this concern in the Sermon on the Mount, didn’t He? Matthew chapter 6, “Beware of doing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.” Now, there are times we are going to do what we are supposed to do, and people will see. That’s not the point. The point is, are we doing it for people to see? We need to be obedient whether people are watching or not. If we change our behavior when people are looking, we fear men more than God. But when people aren’t looking, what do we do then? These men were only doing what they were doing to be seen by men.

Jesus went on in the Sermon on the Mount, “Therefore, when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be glorified by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving will be in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.”

That word trumpet there, that is the first appearance of a smartphone in the Bible. Don’t blow a trumpet before men. You know what that means? If I’m serving the Lord and I’m helping, I don’t need to be posting on social media about what I’m doing for the glory of God. That is exactly what He is talking about. You are doing what you are doing for people to see so that they will pat you on the back and say, “Yay! I’m glad you’re doing that.”

Some people say, “Wait a minute. Maybe somebody else will be motivated to do it and to give it if they see me doing it.” No! Jesus said you do it to minister to people for the glory of God and you don’t care if anybody else in the world sees. Period. If you’re doing it to grow an audience, you are not doing it to help others, you’re are doing it to help yourself. You are worshipping yourself.

In Matthew 6, verses 16-18, He says, “Now whenever you fast, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they neglect their appearance so that they will be noticed by men when they are fasting. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face 18 so that your fasting will not be noticed by men, but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.” There were commandments for the Pharisees two days a week to fast. Not anything from the Old Testament, this was their own tradition. It just so happened that the two fast days were the two days a week that everybody came from the villages into town for the market, for the market days. So everybody’s coming in to get what they need, to get food, to barter, to do whatever they need to do. That’s when the most people are in the middle of town, that’s the day the Pharisees fast.

When they fast, they can’t just stay at home and not eat. They would actually put on old tattered clothes. They would actually put ash on their face. They would put sometimes even cosmetics to make themselves look pale. Because when you go without food for a long time, you look emaciated and are wasting away. “I’ve been fasting for four hours and I’m going to die. You’ll see how holy I am.” They put on a show. This speaks to what Jesus says here. He says, you go and you want to be greeted in the marketplace so that people will see that they are fasting on that day, and people think, “Oh, what a holy man. What a righteous man.”

It is not enough that they fake it. They exaggerate everything. They would modify their clothing. They took the phylacteries and the tassels, and these are things that are commanded to be worn for everybody in the book of Deuteronomy 6:8, “You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as phylacteries between your eyes.” This is the little box that has the scriptures that would be worn on your forehead, and you wear them on your wrist, on your hands, so that anywhere you look, anywhere you go, you are surrounded by the Word of God.

It was as a reminder, it was a little box that could open these little letter boxes. They had the name of God around all sides. They had 12 stitches representing the 12 tribes. They were full of the Word of God, so that if you got to a point where you were stressed out with your day, you were frustrated, you were worried, you had the Word of God right there, and you could pull it out and read it, and you’d be reminded who God is. Well, they took that and made them bigger than they were supposed to be. Can you imagine walking around with a big box on your head? “Hmm, what a phylactery. Wow, you must really love God.”

The tassels were part of the outer garment, as part of clothing, and this was worn simply to make the people distinct in their clothing, to make them different from the people around them. In Numbers 15:38-40, it says, “Speak to the sons of Israel, and tell them that they shall make for themselves tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and that they shall put on the tassel of each corner a cord of blue. And it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of Yahweh, so as to do them and not follow after your own heart and your own eyes, after which you played the harlot, so that you may remember to do all My commandments and be holy to your God.” All of them wore this. Jesus wore this. In fact, the tassel there, when the woman with the issue of blood touched the hymn of Jesus’ garment, the word for hem there is one of the tassels hanging from His garment.

Well, what do you do if you’ve all got tassels that can make you distinct? Get a bigger tassel. Something that is supposed to remind you of the Word of God and the goodness of God, now you are wearing to draw attention to yourself. Do you know what it is called to wear clothing to draw attention to yourself? Immodesty. It’s about me. And I want to draw attention to me. Jesus says they want the best seats. They want the prominence. They want, when they come in, to be seated at the head table. Don’t look for the best seats. Don’t look for the prominence. Don’t look for people to make a lot about you.