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Amen. Right, Matthew chapter 23, and we're kind of following on really from chapters world 21 and 22. In chapter 22, Jesus was preaching at his enemies and he told the parable of the great supper, if you remember, and the Jews being those first invited who would not come, how the servants were sent out to bid others, but you had to have a wedding garment, if you remember that. And their answer to this, and he was clearly preaching what we kind of term replacement theology, like he did in the chapter before as well, their answer was to try and entangle him in his words. So instead of kind of, oh, wow, you know, maybe we need to respond to anything else, like, well, let's find a way of catching him out. Let's find a way of, you know, finding fault in something he says, try and, you know, get him to mess up in one way or another. And if you remember, they flattered him first and then try to catch him out about paying taxes. Then the Sadducees came and tried to mock the resurrection. And then the scribe then asked him what the greatest commandment was, wasn't it? And those were the sort of three attempts. And Jesus answered, master, flee to all of them, didn't he? And then he then asked his own return question, which was, you know, whose son is the Christ, basically, you know, having, having, you know, they've said that he's, he's the son of David. And then he said, then why then did David call him Lord? And really he just smashed all three of their attempts, didn't he? He's, I believe in a way as well, highlighting why he's just smashed everything, because he's the son of God, isn't he? Because he is God in the flesh. He's Jesus Christ. And in a way, I think he's highlighting that as well. And in verse 46, it ended with this, it said, and no man was able to answer him a word, neither does any man from that day forth ask him any more questions. And then Matthew 23, then begins with this in verse one, where it says, then spake Jesus to the multitudes and to his disciples, saying, the scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat, all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do, but do not ye after their works, for they say and do not. And I'd like to pray before we continue with this chapter. Father, thank you for this great, powerful, strong chapter of the Bible. Thank you for the many lessons that we can learn from it. Please help me to just preach those clearly now. Help everyone to have attentive ears, Lord. Help everyone to just be able to pay attention to what you've got to say for your word. Help me to preach this accurately and boldly. Please fill in with your spirit, Lord, and just help all these things to be done in Jesus Christ's holy name. Amen. So Matthew 23, famous chapter, isn't it, where basically Jesus lets these false prophets have it. And I love this chapter of the Bible. I like playing. I like the Alexander Scurvy version of this chapter of the Bible as well, if anyone's heard that, because he really goes on it. And I actually put it on on the way back here from soul winning as well, just to get me in the mood for this sermon. And look, he does let them have it. But if you remember, he's turned up in Jerusalem. He's cleaned house, isn't he? If you remember, he's kicking people out. He's casting out, you know, these people trying to trade and stuff in the temple. Then he's preached that they're going to be replaced in a couple of different parables. And then they try to catch him in his words. Right. That's what we just talked about. He smashed them. And now it's time for me to basically kind of finish them off with a with a direct verbal bashing. Now, it seems like this is all in the temple. Matthew 24 one says, And Jesus went out and departed from the temples. This is after, you know, he's arrived into Jerusalem. He's gone to the temple. He's kicked them all out. These just started preaching in there. It says, And Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and his disciples came to him for to show him the buildings of the temple. So for me, this chapter and look, some people would say, well, maybe the scribes and Pharisees starts directly at them maybe halfway through. I don't know. I think like in a way that if I was maybe preaching up here and I was saying like, woe unto you. I don't know. Woe unto you, Joel Osteen. You know, it doesn't mean that Joel Osteen is necessarily in front of me at the time. Yeah, I think he's kind of buried them in a way now. It did say at the beginning that he's preached to the multitudes and to the disciples. But, you know, it's kind of it's not a big issue either way with that. But he deals with them with preaching. And like I said last week, this is a biblical way, isn't it? OK, so the biblical way. And he's giving us a lot of examples for the New Testament, because I suppose people would imagine that the Christ was just going to come and start chopping off false prophets heads. But instead, he's giving us an example of how we now go on as a New Testament church and we preach against wickedness, don't we? And he's preached against it. He's preached against them. And this similar chain of events that we've just seen in the last few chapters is, well, it's what happened here in a way several months ago and at other churches and will continue to happen. You try to clean the place up. OK, that's what he did first. He turns up. He starts cleaning the place up. The wicked ones get angry. He preached on the wickedness in a roundabout way. Yeah, you preach on the wickedness. You maybe you're not necessarily naming names, but you're preaching on the stuff. That's what we're we should be doing. Yeah. If you're going to if you're seeing stuff going on in a church, you preach on it. Jesus did that with parables, didn't he? He's got a roundabout. He's preaching. He's parable. He's showing them what's going on. The wicked ones respond. How? By trying to bring him down. So instead of, you know, well, OK, we better clean up our act. They just go, right. How are we going to take this guy down? And well, one way or another, they try that. They're now exposed. And then what does he do at the end? He then directly smashes them from the pulpit, which is what we did here. And I have no regrets about smashing these wicked people from the pulpit here and how and will will happen in the future as well. There are certain things there are certain things that maybe don't need it from the pulpit. Some things can be in-house and a bit private and stuff. But when it's out and it's open like that, that needs smashing. And we see this exact example in scripture here. Now he's just naming them outright. So before and obviously said at times before he said, watch out for this. He said this to the disciples. But here he's now just for the multitudes. So this is kind of like just a public bashing of these people. Yeah. And that is very biblical. Verse one said, then spake Jesus to the multitude and to his disciples. And look, that's what we see here. What's what's my point? What's my point? Why am I saying this to you? Because, number one, don't be surprised when it happens again. OK, don't be caught. Surprised. Gone. Wow. Just can't believe it because that's just the way it's just going to be this cycle. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. That's what's going to happen. OK. Number two, understand that exposing wicked people is needed. OK. Is it because some people feel really uncomfortable and I know people feel a bit, oh, do we have to talk about them now because it's awkward and everything else? Or do we, you know, does he have to like, you know, does he have to preach against his persons? You have to preach about this sort of things. I kind of see this going on in the church. Yeah. Yeah. That's what the temple needs cleaning up. Yeah. Yes, it's not a temple, but it's now the house of God. Right. The house of God, the pilgrim ground of truth, needs regular cleaning up. And when they don't respond to the cleaning up, when they start trying to go for your attack, you catch in your words trying, then any preaching on. OK, that's what happens. That's what will continue to happen in this church. Jesus does go to town on him here, doesn't he? And really, he's naming names and you go, well, he didn't say the individual names. He basically groups the whole sorry bunch together, doesn't he? OK, the whole sorry bunch of scribes. In fact, he's preached on them enough by now. Yeah. He's got, from what we can tell, certain ones were probably the ones that maybe weren't as high up were getting saved. You know, people amongst the Pharisees, at least we see that, I think, in John's Gospel as well. We see an example of that, but they're not confessing him before men, et cetera. And now it's like, right, whoever's left in this kind of group of wickedness, I'm preaching on them. Yeah. And he makes that clear now. The thing with this is it's not that they're just some random false religion somewhere. OK, these people were or still are in the temple. Right. These people are a position of authority. This is theoretically meant to be the religion, isn't it? This is these are meant to be God's people. So it's not that he's just kind of, well, I'm just going to preach and he's just preaching on these guys full on in the temple. He's just smashed them. They've just tried to take him down. He's just showed them that they're nothing and who he is and now he exposes them. Now you might go, what about the ones that were saved? Wasn't that a bit mean? What about the ones that may be amongst them? Because he's just saying scribes and Pharisees, they're like a whole group just getting whooped here. Well, look, I would say by this point now it's time to come out from among them and be separate. Yeah. At this point, if you were amongst them and you've got Jesus Christ in front of you and you'll say, you need to be coming out from these wicked people. He's been preaching about them and preaching about them, roundabout, roundabout. If you've got the Spirit of God, you're going to understand that, right? And it's time to come out from among them. Verse 2 says, saying, the scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe that, observe and do. But do not ye after their works, for they say and do not. So they were the leaders of the nation, OK? And even under Roman occupation, there was a certain amount of self-government still allowed and needed. And if you think about it, you know, you've got this massive occupying army going to all these lands and take you over the land. They don't just go, right, we're just kind of killing or imprisoning or just kind of, you know, taking down anyone in any leadership role. No, they just they want it to be led in the right way. And there's many different cultures that, you know, they've got their own sort of governing rules, but they put certain things in place, like, for example, they were not allowed to take, you know, to do the death penalty and other things like that. So but they're still kind of to some degree doing some form of self-governing, aren't they? OK, so these people, these are leaders, they're like it's a religious leadership in a way, isn't it? Here, obviously, you do have Herod as well under his kind of jurisdiction as well. But these people have a certain amount of leadership still going on. And we see here, he said, all so ever whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do, but do not ye after their works, for they say and do not. Now, what are these people ultimately? They're false prophets. OK, they're false prophets. Now they're false prophets who are quite high up here, etc. But for me, this passage of scripture, there's much you can get from it and you could go through the different woes and some people have done that. For me, this just gives, it's such a great passage of scripture because it just gives you these classic traits of false prophets. So you've got like one after another. It's just, he's just preaching classic traits to look out for because it's something we want to watch for, whether it's someone online preaching, whether it's someone in a church, whether it's somebody comes into our church, classic traits of false prophets. Classic trait number one of the false prophets is hypocrisy. Hypocrisy. They preach one thing, but behave in a different way. OK, so they're saying one thing. He said, you know, whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do. Yeah, they're meant to be the religious leadership, but do not ye after their works, for they say and do not. And when I say preach, the people that preach one thing and behave in a different way, and these people are all over the place, I'm not just talking about the ones behind some form of pulpit or other. OK, and there are those. OK, there are people behind pulpits around this nation who preach one thing and behave in a different way. They're all over the place. False religion is full of them. Pure hypocrisy. They preach, you know, some of them will preach these holy standards of living and they're not living anything like that. They're not doing anything that they preach. But they do come these types of people in various shapes and sizes as well. So you've got them behind pulpits. You've also got them, like I've said many times, in their front rooms. OK, look, like social media is just a nightmare for you. You've got people all over the world sitting in their front rooms, false prophets teaching nonsense. OK, like I've been talking about a bit recently on soapboxes in town. How many of these morons getting in debates with whoever it is? I mean, the classic ones are Muslim. Everyone loves like a Muslim Christian debate, it seems. Most of them are false prophets, just up there teaching repent of your sin or something else on soapboxes. But again, they're just hypocrites. So they're preaching one thing, but they don't live that way. Yeah, it's all the same sort of people. And as well, all shapes and sizes, you do get them like we've experienced, you know, in something that we won't forget here and will continue to happen infiltrating churches. OK, this is, again, one of the mode of operandums of false prophets. Now, people that tell you to behave in one way, but they behave in another way. A classic one is just think of the repent of your sins preacher. OK, what a load of nonsense. He repented of his sins. Yeah. What a load of old nonsense. And, you know, there's various types of those. I mean, it's I mean, sometimes it's just a general hypocrisy because they'll just pick the sort the sins they feel they've repented of to preach on and talk about, but ignore the stuff that they haven't. Yeah. So there is that they'll pick and choose, you know, certain parts of holy living, discard other parts. And depending on the preacher, you'll see a kind of version of that. But they love to be so outspoken about it. And this is the same with like we had with the infiltrator types. For example, there was there was one family that was very big on the whole, you know, I would never eat that. I would not do that. I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't I wouldn't eat that sort of food. But I smoked 20 a day. You know, it's just like this bizarre hypocrisy people have with us with it. Now, look, if you want to look just because you smoke 20 a day, it doesn't mean you have to gorge yourself and all sorts of filth and poison. But you don't have to be putting it on other people, do you? That's the point. Yes. It's hypocritical living that these people, you know, partake in. Verse four says for they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be born and lay them on men's shoulders. But they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. So they love adding extra conditions, don't they? Trying to weigh you down with the extra burdens. So you could think of maybe the false profit pastors with their pushes for extra money all the time. You need to be free will offering, you know, it would show your heart if you were giving more and more and more and more whilst fleecing the flock. I mean, it's just ridiculous, isn't it? It's hypocritical. They're not doing that. They're taking all this money, constantly trying to encourage, encourage, encourage. And then like the leaders of their organisations are like, you know, going around on private yachts and things like that. Just unbelievable, isn't it? Or the priest with his I wouldn't harm a fly exterior, you know, the very meek and mild and passive priest whilst partaking in all sorts of wicked abuse for those many, many years while they're preaching, you know, this sort of pacifist, I'm just a friend of everyone crap, while doing all sorts of wickedness. But as well, it made me think because, you know, all this stuff just constantly makes me think of experiences we've had here. It made me think of Doreen with his soul winning pressure. So he and this is something that I was I was getting from him a lot. So Doreen would like, he'd be constantly trying to say to me, you know, so are you coming on this? So I only come only going twice this week. I used to run a church on top of a job and a family and preach, like, as everyone knows here, when you're first preaching as well. So let's take a long time to write, you know, sometimes they still do. And it was so bizarre because he's just constantly not going. And then I remember once I was preaching on Salaam Kamara and said, you know, I was kind of, I was putting it out, out, you know, if you're leading a church, you would think maybe you would preach. I was like, what do you think? Maybe once a week, more, more, you know, it's like, you know, this is like the kind of pressure he was trying to put on while he was able at this point in time without work to go to all the soul winning times and try and get his own little, you know, lackeys kind of following him going, wow, it's like the 10th analogy. You're amazing. However, he never preached a sermon, never preached one sermon. So he's trying to put it on me. I'm trying to write two sermons a week as well as going to like soul winning twice a week. And it's like, but he never preached a sermon. It's like such hypocrisy, isn't it? You know, they're just constantly trying to put these burdens on you that they wouldn't even try and lift with one of their fingers. Although he's happy to preach privately, apparently in his car, but not in public. Verse five says, but all their works they do for to be seen of men. And they make broad their phylacteries and enlarge the borders of their garments and love the uppermost rooms at feasts and the chief seats in the synagogues and greetings in the markets and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi. Now, classic traits of false progress. So we've seen the hypocrisy. Yeah, we see it all over these people that you could go into many, many examples of that. Number two here is the boasting, the boasting, the public showboating, the to be seen of men. It's all about how they appear, all trying to appear to be something that they're not. He said in verse five, but all their works they do for to be seen of men. I had a pastor who is just constantly like, just love you guys so much. You know, just, you know, just we've got a lot of love for you guys and just love all you guys. Always like how loving he is, how loving he is, how loving he is. And it's just like, come on. Like if you do. Yeah. Why do you have to keep telling us that? You know, it just it's it's it's a boasting that the three wheeler driving like local vicar, you know, the guys just in this clap tap old banger, he starts it up and it's like, boom, as it goes down the road. Yeah, everyone knows he's getting this massive payback for the Church of England and everything else. But it's like this to be seen of men, isn't it? You know, it's just to look so humble, to look like he's just happy to drive in the clap tap old banger. And we had it in this church where it was like, just going soloing everyone. Just just going solo every time. It was like constant every time, you know. And then the worst of it was the kind of just save the surgeon, just save the doctor, just save the whatever. Praise God. Just so all over the group, our group chat all the time. Just save this one. Just save another person tonight in wherever it was. Praise God. You know, it's just so ridiculous, isn't it? Yeah. But again, a classic trait, the to be seen of men, it's all boasting, etc. Just got the 10th salvation. Just going to need salvation, who do I tell? You know, oh, I just happen to be sitting next to our pastor. What a funny time to ask me that, you know, that sort of stuff. The social media, you know, public kind of trumpeting of your works. Yeah. Now, this is obviously quite a big one with the way that we have social media nowadays. And, you know, and there's many people out there like that. I don't know kind of what it's like. I'm not on this stuff. So I don't really know what it's like now. I remember when I used to have one of these accounts from my old gym and I had to have an account for that. And I didn't really type much on it, but it was always amused me if you ever looked at it with the kind of, so I was helping this orphan, this disabled orphan cross the road. And I was just so angry the way this car driver just didn't even start. I mean, people make me mad, you know. It's like, come on, everyone knows where you're putting that stupid poster, all this sort of stuff. And it's just so much of that. But there'll be that sort of false prophet on there, won't there? You know, just did this, we're doing that now, you know, going on about their soul winning, just, you know, as if they're trying to encourage other people. But really, it's just, you know, soul winning again, everyone, look how holy I am. Turn to Matthew 6, where for me, he is preaching to the saved in this Sermon on the Mount, okay. And I think I showed that when we went through those chapters of Matthew. But the thing with this sort of behaviour, and the thing with all these behaviours, okay, these are classic traits, it doesn't mean someone's a false prophet, someone boasts, it doesn't mean they're a false prophet, okay. If someone is hypocritical, it doesn't mean they're a false prophet, yeah. But these are classic traits, they are things to look out for. And obviously, when you start adding more and more on the list, kind of like the psychopath, well, he is like the psychopath, and I think there's a certain amount where it's like, okay, you're a psycho. And with this sort of stuff, you know, it's not one of them. However, all this stuff is obviously bad behaviour, and it's something that we want to make sure we don't do, and the flesh can kind of lean towards this. Matthew 6, he talks about this in verse one, where he says, Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them. Otherwise, ye have no reward of your Father, which is in heaven. So alms are good deeds. So if you're doing them to be seen of other people, there's no reward, okay. And that should just be a good kind of like, okay, good point from the beginning. Therefore, when thou doest sign alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory men. Verily, I sound to you, they have their reward. I remember again, one of these guys, Doreen, coming up to me to tell me how he's, you know, I've just done this fast and that, and I was like, you just lost your reward. Okay, I wouldn't normally do that. I thought it'd be funny, you know. Anyway, he said, they have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth, that thine alms may be in secret, and thy Father, which seeth in secret himself, shall reward thee openly. And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as a hypocrite, so for they love to praise standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily, I sound to you, they have their reward. The public prayer warriors. And you get a lot of these types, don't you, around. They just love to be publicly trying to be so holy, so relieved. Think about all these false religious types. Think about the, all the stupid, funny, different shaped hats. It's all the same stuff, isn't it? Whether it's a yamaka or whatever the Muslims call their silly hat, or whatever the Buddhists sometimes wear, the Sikhs, it's all just to be seen of men, isn't it? It's all just blowing their trumpet. Look how holy I am. Look how holy I am because I wear a dress in public. It's so ridiculous, isn't it? But it's all the same thing. Now, with that, it's something, sometimes you kind of struggle, maybe not struggle with, but it's trying to get that balance right. For example, you're in a restaurant, maybe with some other people. I would imagine most people here pray, they should pray before they eat their food. So we pray before we eat our food. But then there are those that want to make it into a ding-a-ling-a-ling, you know, okay, you know, everyone, calm down. Then it's like, you know, it goes into this sort of five-minute prayer. And we've had people try and do that when we've been out eating before, you know. There's no need for that, yeah? And again, it's the same people guys. It's not going on about these people, but they're just such a good example of this sort of stuff. However, we don't want to go the other way and be like, oh, I'm embarrassed to pray. But what's the prayer for? The prayer is to give thanks to God, isn't it, and to get your food blessed. It's not for the rest of the place to hear or for the rest of the place not to hear, whatever. We don't really want that to be our motivation. So I generally just myself just do a short simple prayer. I don't need to start praying for everything on my prayer list while I'm in a restaurant. It's just silly, isn't it? You know? And then there's people in their mind, well, I don't want to look like I'm scared, so I better, you know, you don't need anything. Just pray for your food, you know? Anyway, there are those that obviously make it a big thing. He said, but now when thy prayers enter into thy closet and when thou shut thy door pray to thy father which is in secret and thy father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. And that should be the majority of our prayer life, shouldn't it? The majority of our prayer life is between us and God. Go back to Matthew 23 and verse 5 says, but all their works they do to be seen of men. They make broad their phylacteries and enlarge the borders of their garments. So some false prophets are very subtle about this, but everything that they do is about how they appear to others. And some can be really clever with this, I've noticed. Some are just so open and out there. Some it's just subtle little things, subtle little comment here, subtle little act there. You know, it's all about how they appear to others. What are phylacteries? Well, the words only used once here, but it seems apparently to be strips of parchment with scripture on them in a case. And the Jews apparently either attach them to their arms or their foreheads. And I don't know if this is true. I think it probably is, yeah. It seems to be by all accounts an overly literal interpretation of passages such as Deuteronomy 6 and there's others Deuteronomy 6, 8, which says, and thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. So instead of thinking, yeah, we need to be constantly looking and thinking about the word of God, they actually took those scriptures and then bound them between their eyes. Yeah. I mean, you talk about the natural man receiveth not, you know, anyway. So, but for me, this is kind of, you can apply this. This is like the person that kind of has their Bible for show. You know, the one that loves, the one that like will come into a church and just happens to be the time when they do their Bible reading. Everyone else is chatting and stuff, but that's the time when I read my Bible. It's like, come on, you got your Bible, because you want everyone to see you read your Bible. You know, look, I'm not saying you can't read your Bible in church, but you know, there's those types of people. And again, you know, some of the most, some it's just, you know, something that people fall into, unfortunately, those where it's scripture in every conversation. A lot of people like that out there, aren't they? Have to put scripture into every conversation, everything you talk about, scripture, scripture. Now, I love scripture. I love the Bible. I love the word of God. Yeah. But what's your motivation when everything you talk about, now sometimes, look, don't get me wrong. Sometimes you're talking about something and scripture come into your mind, but there are those people who where it's everything they say is scripture, scripture, scripture, scripture. It's like, come on. Yeah. You know why you're doing that? You're trying to sound holy. And a lot of the time, these are pretty wicked people that do this sort of stuff. It's all for show. It's all about being for show. It's all about trying to sound holy, trying to sound as holy as possible. He then said that they enlarge the borders of their garments, didn't he? And then he carried on with and loved the uppermost rooms of feast and the chief seats in the synagogues and greets in the marketplace, market, sorry, and to be called the men, Rabbi, Rabbi. Now, we just looked at the boasting, classic traits of false prophets, boasting, hypocrisy was the first one. And this one's the pride. OK, pride is a big one. And I always find this one interesting. And I'm not saying, look, I'm not trying to make it a work. However, there has you had to have been at least humble at that point when you heard the gospel to have put your faith in Jesus Christ in the first place. Right. So I always find it interesting when you have these sort of whether it's pastors where and look, everyone can suck batter with pride. I'm not saying that means you must be. But I always find it a bit of a weird one when you get so-called Christians and they're just oozing this pride. And it's just really weird. I always find that really weird. It's quite a big red flag, isn't it? And like I said, it's a red flag that doesn't mean that they must be wicked. But we've got pride here. It says they enlarge the borders of their garments. OK, so they want like the borders, the outside, the bottoms of their garments to be enlarged, to be like these long flowing gowns. Yeah. And love the uppermost rooms at feasts and the chief seats in the synagogues and greetings in the markets and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi. Think about like, again, the priests, the rabbis, the imams with their long flowing dresses, the gowns of false religion for everyone to see. It's just ridiculous, isn't it? Absolutely ridiculous. The lead table at the wedding. I mean, that was a classic thing when people would have a church wedding in this nation, they would invite the vicar for the reception and the vicar would sit usually on the head table. Because it's a vicar, isn't it? It's the priest, of course. I mean, can you imagine? I mean, that guy on the table with you. Terrible. The special seat at the event, you know, they have that. I mean, we've even got archbishops, like I said the other day, in the House of Lords. But they, you know, they have like the kind of bishops or whatever. I think maybe there's only one archbishop. Anyway, so it might be at some sort of event, the dog collar for when they're not in their dresses. So I'm not going to put on a dress because I'm just walking down the road, but at least I put on a dog collar so everyone can see that I'm really holy. You know, and I'm like, you know, and I'm rabbi, rabbi or the equivalent of, yeah. And again, it's not just a dog collar, it's a yamaka, it's the silly top hats, it's, you know, the, all of it, all of it, you name it. You name the religion, they've got some silly outfit to show that they're religious, instead of just wearing normal clothes, yeah. But it's the same with the more subtle false brethren types, okay. They can't just serve in a church, they have to be something special, okay. They can't just get on, they can't just, okay, I'm just coming to church, serving in church, if there's something for me to do, great. They have to be something special. They have to be the centre of the social setting. This is what we had before, wasn't it? Had to be at the centre of everything. Had to be like, you know, everyone around me, everyone come to me, everyone come to mine, everyone do this, you know, we're in the middle of it all, etc. It's like they have to be like this sort of the character in the church up here, you know. The centre of it all promoting themselves as some sort of teacher. So, you know, constantly trying to teach new people, teach everyone, teach everyone this, teach everyone teach everyone, teach everyone this, teach everyone how to soul win, teach everyone how to do this. And it's not just the men, the women as well, we saw having to teach how to do, having to be like, you know, the one who teaches all the other ladies how to do this and that. It's all teaching, teaching just has to be like the centre of it all, don't they? It's like this innate lead, a need to be leading others. Now, I've wondered about this and I'm interested in people's views on this after, because I don't know, sometimes I think maybe they're unaware, maybe they're these empty vessels of sin, this sort of heady, high-mindedness, despising of government, presumptuous self-willed behaviour, which is all these descriptions of them in the Bible, along with whatever damnable heresy they believe just makes them an easy vessel to be used by the devil. That's what I sometimes flicked, I flipped between that and just said, just so wicked, they just know exactly what they're doing and they're just trying to destroy your church, destroy people, destroy them from behind the pulpit when they're, you know, obviously false prophets leading so-called church to everything else. I don't know, I flipped between the two. Either way, they're heady and high-minded, so they must convince themselves somehow that they're in the light and they're doing things right and I think that's kind of, I believe that's probably how it works, they're just so full of sin, they're just so easily used to just do the devil's bidding, probably, you know, with possession, I think probably comes with reprobation, same as we get indwelt by the Holy Spirit with salvation, I don't know, but these people, they're just, it just goes hand in hand, doesn't it? Because it's all, then all these sins just just make these sorts of people that just need everyone around and need to be the one and look, some are cleverer than others with it. You'll see, like, you know, they'll be overly ambitious in a church setting, you can't just come to church, can't just get on with church, need to be the one, need to be the one, the centre, need to be the one, like, need to find a way to be preaching, you need to find a way, you know, it's like, they just have to be something, it's like, just come to church and serve God, need to be someone special, need to be the top soul winner, I need to be the one, I need to be the one, I need to be the 10 salvation, I need to be 12 salvations, you know, I've got to be the one, need to be the social, the one who's having everyone around, my house is an open house, come on in, come on in, come on in, everyone stay over, you've got, you've got, you've got seven kids, come on over, you've got eight kids, come on, we'll have 20 of us there overnight because I need to be the centre, I need to be the one hosting, so again, it's the same sort of stuff all the time, isn't it? But again, like I said, women too as well, they want to be the teacher, the one teaching everyone else, to be called Rabbi-Rabbi, yeah? Yeah, women like to be called Rabbi-Rabbi or the equivalent of. Turn to 2 Timothy 3, because it describes these sorts of people, here it subscribes the Pharisees, but like I said, they come in all shapes and sizes, 2 Timothy 3 just gives us a great description of these types of people, it says this in verse 1, this know also, 2 Timothy 3 verse 1, this know also that in the last days perilous times shall come, for men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, so you see all this stuff, yeah, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, these are like these empathy-less ones, some are better at hiding it than others, truths breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those, excuse me, that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, yeah? Again, all this stuff that we're seeing Jesus given, you know, criticising these guys for, lovers of pleasures, more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof, they're not saved, yeah, they appear to be, they appear to be to claim to love God and everything else, they deny the power that's of the Gospel from such turn away, for of this sort are they which creep into houses and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with diverse lusts, notice that it's often the women that they target as well, ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth, they're not able, okay, because they're reprobate, now as jannies and jamborees withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth, men of corrupt minds reprobate concerning the faith, okay, so just a great description there and it just drives everything Jesus Christ is saying here about scribes and Pharisees. Go back to Matthew 23, where Jesus said that they love to be called Rabbi, Rabbi and then he said in verse 8, but be ye not called Rabbi, for one is your master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren, there's only one master, there's only one master, that's Christ, we don't need to be lifting ourselves up above each other, yes there are roles in the church, there are leadership roles in the church, okay, there are still leadership roles in the church and in a bigger church you're not just going to have the pastor, you're going to have maybe deacons as well, in our church we'll have like captains on soul winning times and things like that, there are, there are ordained roles and there are at least set roles that we have in a church in different places, you don't have to turn to Hebrews 13 17 says, obey them that have the rule over you and submit yourselves, for they watch for your souls as they that must give account that they may do it with joy and not with grief for that is unprofitable for you, but there's a difference between submitting to leadership and calling someone your master, okay there's a big difference between that, you submit to your employer don't you at work yeah, I'd hope everyone does submits their employer at work, but they're not your master there's a difference, there's only one master that's Christ, a master has control over your life, so look your your pastor or here you know we we we have I'm an evangelist at church, I don't control your life, yeah I don't you know I have I can't I don't have any say in any of that stuff, now I'll preach what I believe the bible says you should do, but you could take it or leave it, now when you come to church you need to respect the position of leadership yeah and you need to follow the rules of the church as it says in Hebrews 13 17 to obey them that have the rule over you over you and submit yourself and the wicked people find that so hard because really they despise you, they despise government, they hate it, now they can kind of act it out sometimes but they hate it really, however that's very different to being a master okay, a master a master controls you and your boss your your church leader in whatever capacity doesn't control you okay, he says and he then goes on with this point and says and called o man your father upon the earth for one is your father which is in heaven, so the Catholics and Anglicans must have missed this verse by the way yeah oh wait a minute they don't follow the bible anyway so they don't really matter just just the bits and pieces they like but but it's lifting men up to some sort of authority over your life so again you know you shouldn't do that with obviously obviously any leadership in the church I don't have that authority we're all brothers here I just have a position in the church where I'm leading the church yeah and same with the pastor same with anyone they don't have authority and you'd be amazed you know the the pastors out in the U.S. will tell you about you know they'll get calls from people that aren't even in their church emails you know what should I do in this situation and tell me you know tell me like whether I should do this or do that it's like look they're not your master look they can give you advice but a lot of people they just they want a master but there's only one master that's Christ isn't it okay but and it's same with a father thing and that's why these people love to be called father and stuff they like to lord like to have this control over people's lives and ultimately then they they have access to the weak and vulnerable don't they but it's lifting men up to some sort of authority over your life okay like a father has authority over his children by the way this isn't telling you to disown your parents okay this isn't saying all right cool no man father that's it dad it's done you know only the lord jesus christ no it's just saying don't lift other people up it's talking about in the context of these religious leaders want to be called rabbi etc it's giving a man some sort of parental control over you basically isn't it okay which no man has over you okay think about old pope papa yeah pope papa really he's a wicked false prophet but anyway let's not go into that so otherwise we're going to run out of time verse 10 says neither be you called masters for one is your master even christ but he that is greatest among you shall be your servant and whose servant shall exalt himself shall be a base and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted and and this is what these false prophet types people like your kind of bends and others who just crave this so much yeah just want to somehow be the leader be the man yeah they don't get it they really don't get it uh turn to acts 20 he just said he that is greatest among you shall be your servant whose servant shall exalt himself shall be a base he that he that shall humble himself shall be exalted whether it's the priest of false prophet pastor or the ambitious false brethren the role that god calls for is servant leadership that's the whole point okay you're serving the church now yeah there's a leadership and there should be a respect that goes with that towards the pastor towards the leadership in your life in whatever area however it's a servant leadership acts 20 and verse 28 he says here in acts 20 and verse 28 take heed therefore unto yourselves and to and to all the flock over the which the holy ghost have made you overseers to feed the church god which he has purchased with his own blood so look yeah they are overseers they're overseeing it but he then said to feed them so and people get confused between this don't they they're people think oh what a job you can just like run all these people to be and ultimately it comes from wickedness it comes from a wicked heart because that's not what it's about you're feeding people you're trying your best to give them what they need you have to have their like their needs in your heart otherwise it's all going to go wrong isn't it and sometimes they need like they need a whipping from the pulpit right and sometimes and sometimes the wicked people need a whipping to help everyone else sometimes it can be uncomfortable other things you're trying to feed feed feed aren't you trying to help and and they get it so wrong these people that crave it that desire to so want it like what do you so want what is it that you say is it because you so want to help me because it's funny because none of those people really yeah they want it they put on the act and everything else but really really those types of people they're not really the helpful types it's not like they're coming up to me going oh yeah you know can i do this and do that and just finding things to do no they just want to be in that position well then they got it all wrong haven't they from the beginning so he said overseers not masters yeah not fathers and they're to give to the people ultimately to serve them right not and and by the way that's not to get them on their own oh just to get them private oh oh yeah i'll give you a lift you know i'm not in the carly whispering things trying to set up my own things with them not to lift yourself above the pastor or the leader in our case whatever and their their wife that's not the point it's not oh well i'm i'm so i'm so i'm such a server of the people because really i want to be up here so i'm going to pretend i'm just so like charitable and everything else and and there's this is this weird competitiveness and just bizarre behavior that you see not getting frustrated because you're not the boss like again so many people get it's just serving just serving just coming to church and serving god and doing the things of god like that you you you could say how hard is that yet sadly so many people and and obviously there are so many wicked people anyway you're told many false prophets many coming to church like that and so many if you look at all these false religions that's who they all are they're all people that are trying to lord it lord it over the flock and that's not what it's about is it yeah you want to preach the word of god yeah you should be preaching the word of god properly and serving them with the word of god but it's not saying you can be a lord over everyone but so many people get this so wrong verse 29 says for i know this after my departing shall grievous wolves entering among you talking to the church here not sparing the flock also of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them and this isn't just false doctrine yeah there is false doctrine it's not just false doctrine it's the subtle lies the subtle lies are discrediting the little seed sown to discredit the pastor or his family or someone else in the church just constantly things perverse things being said either quietly subtly or not why because they want the role because they want the job because they can't stand not being the man at the front it's so bizarre okay so bizarre and we've experienced it we'll keep experiencing it verse 31 says therefore watch remember that by the space of three years i cease not to warn everyone night and day with tears brother Ian you preach this too much right hell do i not according to not according to Paul he warned him night and day with with tears for three years about this so definitely an important topic right and and what's the result of these people getting into those positions of leadership well let's go back to Matthew 23 and verse 13 which says this Matthew 23 and verse 13 it says but woe unto you scribes and pharisees hypocrites for you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men for you neither go in yourselves neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in so whether it's preaching damnable heresy which a lot of them do discouraging soul winning talked about these types of guys i believe there's a lot of them out there that look and act and behave like an independent fundamental baptist past but really it's just to weaken you to destroy you to just just ruin your walk whilst claiming to be a church and they're just trying to put a dampener on soul winning put a dampener on the things of god trying to discredit everything you do like we've talked about before the did they really get saved you know well let's hope they come to church then and all that sort of stuff and remember god does the saving and just all that nonsense all the time the the the discrediting real churches okay another tactic because again all they're really doing is shutting up the kingdom of heaven against men so if you think about the ones with their so-called exposure so you get ones that will come to a church they'll come for a while they can't really see an angle in to like be the leader be the boss and then what they'll then do is they'll leave but then they'll be trying to discredit from behind the scenes they'll make the little setup as if they're giving you the inside info well brother whoever or pastor whoever or whatever he said this and it and because they they've been there it gives it a certain amount of credibility that they wouldn't have got otherwise right now when they're kicked out for being railing infiltrators they're a bit smashed really aren't they because they'll really take what they say seriously but there are these types so they kind of they try and get so eventually they find an excuse to leave and then it's whisper whisper pull people out pull people out try and discredit again what ultimately they're trying to do shutting up the kingdom of heaven against men the less people you have in this church what's the ultimate result less people getting saved being a terrible testimony is another one okay shutting up the kingdom of heaven against men there's another style of false prophecy who are just wicked in their private lives away from the church sometimes even in front of just people they claim to be a christian they claim to be an independent fundamental baptist and their life is just full of wickedness open wickedness to be whether they're promoted to people in the church constantly telling them about wickedness or whether they're doing it outside the church and they're doing it in their own lives it's just people like what on earth what is this sort of love what are these people like now look look and and here's the thing yeah we all hate look we we all hate queers here yeah for good reason because we're told to hate queers yeah but but you have to be slightly at least sensible with that sort of thing if you're just like walking around i hate queers to everyone you come they're just like what on earth because they don't understand because they haven't read the bible now look sometimes it's going to come in conversation i'm not saying you you know you don't have to lie about it but really want to get them saved and preaching the gospel and is it that sort of thing as well people are just as bad testimony all the time you know to what people because people look that's what they're judging a lot of things by as well right destroying churches one way or another obviously another way they do that that they just shut you up the kingdom of heaven against men by destroying the the few good churches out there and they're people whose whole life ambitions to destroy churches okay they that's all they spend their time doing whether it's online offline whether it's whispering in whether it's whispering out whether it's you know just just whether it's behind a pulpit from their false church just constantly preaching against those things going on in the church they're just people whose whole life is to destroy churches and to pull people out of them in one way or another another the real end goal is what to prevent salvations and again like i said whether they accept what they're doing or not i don't know sometimes i think they just have this innate hatred of you in one way or another they don't really understand what they're doing they're just like trying to take it down they're just frustrated angry whatever else and then they just get so but they're just being used by the devil maybe they don't even realize i don't know obviously they don't they they probably don't admit it to themselves they're heady and high-minded can you be heady and high-minded we're going i'm just uh reprobate i just love destroy churches man i'm the best at it i don't think that really works so i think they convince themselves that they're doing the right thing verse 14 says woe unto you scribes and pharisees hypocrites for you devour widows houses and for pretense make long prayer therefore you shall receive the greater damnation these false religions they love preying on women whether it's their money or the children we're going to look about money in a minute they love having a little gaggle of women they love trying to go for what is the weaker vessel okay that's why men we need to be guarding our women really regarding our daughters we need to be to need to be protecting them because they do get targeted and another verse it teaches that there are levels of damnation by the way here therefore you shall receive the what the same damnation as everyone else no the greater damnation the greater damnation there's levels of damnation verse 15 says woe unto you scribes and pharisees hypocrites for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte and when he is made you make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves now proselyte is a convert and they work hard to find people that they can corrupt don't they they do people that are corruptible they work hard and look false prophets are often very active in their outreach aren't they look at the i mean the jehovah's witnesses have been putting people to shame for years haven't they putting people to shame for years they're they're out come rain or shine okay they might do 59 minutes and 59 seconds but they're out there they're out there doing stuff and a lot of people don't and these people will come to see and learn to find one proselyte and and whether it's the full like think about like the false the amount of like the ones with the kind of loud halo or whatever in the town centers and they're putting in hours shouting repent of your sins you know and all that stuff going down the pride the pride parades doing that sort of rubbish with their false gospels and everything else repent of sodomy i mean what a waste of time yet they're out there they're really working hard and they're compassing sea and land and that's you know it kind of in a way it can put a lot of christians to shame can't it but but they do they do work hard with this now we're looking at classic traits of false prophets number one the hypocrisy number two the boasting number three the pride and number four the covetousness we just saw that they devour widows houses and widows are kind of a good target for that i'd imagine as well you know a lot of the time maybe they've been left money they they you know buy maybe a deceased husband or something else they're no longer controlling the financing these people try and go for those types of people verse 16 says woe unto you ye blind guides which say whosoever shall swear by the temple it is nothing but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple he is a debtor he falls and blind for whether it's greater the gold or the temple that sanctified the gold and whosoever shall swear by the altar it is nothing but whosoever swears by the gift that is upon it he is guilty ye fools and blind for whether it's great the gift or the altar that sanctified the gift so when people are making vows swearing oaths it seems that they just consider it to be all about money i think for me it looks like they're basically lifting up the money here and putting everything else down here so it's like oh well that's not you're not really swaying unless you're swaying upon the money upon the gift upon the altar because these things are more important than the actual spiritual things and obviously we're talking about you know the old testament making oaths and agreements and swearing upon something sealed with some sort of swearing in or something like that so it seems like they're they're basically breaking oaths or not considering them even you know justified unless it's bound by some sort of money it seems like yeah but but they had shifted it basically to only be important if it was about the money or gifts okay that's what he's saying here he goes on in verse 20 who so therefore shall swear by the altar swereth by and by all things thereon and who so shall swear by the temple swereth by it and by him that dwelleth therein and he that shall swear by heaven swereth by the throne of god by him that sitteth thereon so point being that they diminish the importance of oaths made to god and put money as more important yeah and that's just classic carnal false profit isn't it where money the you know possessions all these things are of importance and covetous this is a massive issue with these people isn't it all about money earning more getting more it becomes up here and god comes down here and like we saw trying to trade in church all about money all about their wealth all about this sort of stuff i mean you're coming to the house of god what the hell is wrong with you coming to the house of god and it's all about your money your cash your business how you can get this how you can get other people involved in it it's so messed up isn't it so messed up but again this is this just classic traits of false poverty and he's just giving us them one by one by one that was number four the covetousness and number five we're going to see the uneven standards i'm going to try and hurry up through this verse 23 says woe unto you scribes and pharisees hypocrites for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin and have omitted the weightier matters of the lord judgment mercy and faith these all eat to have done and not to leave the other undone ye blind guides which strain at and swallow a camel so they pay tithes on the small gains yeah proud of their standards on tithing but they ignore the the important things now notice how he didn't say forget the tithing did he he didn't say forget it he said these ought ye to have done and not to leave the other undone he's saying yeah yeah you should be tithing on the small things even as well however you're betting all this importance on the tithing and they're not on more important things yes they love to have their uneven standards you can imagine them scolding someone for not tithing on their herb planter you know they've just cut a sprig off their kind of rosemary and it's like where's the ten percent you know where's the ten percent for that now he did say these ought you to have done right okay we should give ten percent on our game however you can work away at doing that however however these people aren't even saved now when i see that that they've omitted the weighty mass of the lord judgment mercy and faith that for me is a gospel isn't it judgment yeah these are weightier matters judgment there's a judgment coming mercy there's mercy given to you by what jesus christ did and where does it come from faith it's faith in christ maybe i'm wrong but it just seems like he's basically saying look you're doing these little things you ain't even saying you ain't even preaching the gospel you ain't even putting your faith in the coming christ who's standing by the way right in front of you yeah that's what i see that he's saying there and and there are many out there like that aren't they they just say got all these little things you've got to tick all these little boxes they ain't even saved or they're not preaching the gospel oh yeah well you know oh well this person you know they oh well as long as you tithe in church forget the soul winning we don't even have a soul winning program well as long as you come to church as you know as long as you when you come to church you dress in the right way but oh yeah yeah forget preaching the gospel to the lost and and look and these guys aren't even saved they've admitted that forget all of that forget the the judgment mercy and faith and you look the blind guys to restrain and that and swallow a camel i mean you can think of all sorts of examples of that straining camel swallowers and i know i preached this fairly recently and i just sort of a couple off the top of my head the loaded comments yeah and i was trying to explain this to you last time as well it's not just what they are and aren't doing themselves the the loaded comment the loaded questions and comments to you when people are trying to dig you out with a question about this a comment about that while swallowing the camel of offending you as their brother or sister that's a camel you're like purposely trying to offend her upset make them feel awkward whatever it is to someone by some passive aggressive comment whilst swallowing the camel of doing that to your brother and sister in christ it's ridiculous yeah how many people do that and again these wicked people do this a lot and we've seen that obviously many many times yeah and i've seen this from people who who claim to be a pastor of a church who'll do this a little passive comment here and there it's like what are you trying to do really you're trying to destroy me really because then when you look back in hindsight they were wicked anyway weren't they i had a pastor saying he said this once he said the language by um the language by so-and-so whoever it was i can't even remember he's talking about basically he should blue language are they even saved he said you question if they're even saved so they're straining at the gnat of what the world terms as bad language yeah and then swallowing the camel of basically some variety of work salvation are they even saved because they they haven't got a handle on their swearing so you're swallowing that camel whilst straining i mean it's ridiculous isn't it ridiculous and then the the other one is like the and you get this a lot people they'll pick a sin or not even a sin necessarily a lot of the time they just pick some sort of standard that they've set up and go i would never do that oh you'd never see me doing that sort of thing and what they're doing they're they're basically swallowing the camel of trying to lift themselves up above the person they're talking to yeah that's what they're swallowing so they're trying to trying to lift themselves up by by demeaning that person by trying to put down that but i would oh you do that i would never do that and again this stuff goes on in churches and sadly a lot of the time it's wicked people classic traits false prophets you got the hypocrisy the boasting the pride the covetousness the uneven standards he's given us all these examples here and number six is the fake persona the fake persona verse 25 says woe unto you scribes of Pharisees hypocrites for you may clean the outside of the cup and of the platter but within they're full of extortion and excess thou blind Pharisee cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter that the outside of them may be clean also woe unto you scribes of Pharisees hypocrites for your like under whited sepulchres which indeed appear beautiful outward but are within full of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness even so you outwardly appear righteous unto men but within you're full of hypocrisy and iniquity and there are many people out there like this aren't they they look the part they sound the part but they're full of wickedness they look good they sound good they act like like you know they should do but they're full of wickedness now these can be deceiving for a time and many people have been and will be deceived by this sort of thing and some of these people are great at copying as well okay like back to them because all the the most wicked all these wicked people if they're rep breaks the psychopaths yeah and and the clinical psychopath often if you look at some of these interviews and studies of these people they'll speak of feigning empathy and other normal behavior to try and fit in so they're kind of studying and watching how people behave to then try and copy it to then appear normal so it could be quite tricky at first because people you just think you know okay well they just seem like a nice person and they seem right think of for example the pious priest like i said earlier who's eventually convicted of a long list of abuse yet they were so pious and seemed to be just such a kind of you know just a holy person and meek and mild and just hates all sort of sin and then it's like years later it's like there's just this historic list of wickedness and look here's the thing with this on one hand we don't want to be coming to church bearing to all we don't want to come here and go just need to report in to everyone i was doing this this week and i did this this week and everything else but there's a difference between behaving in church and faking okay there's a big difference isn't there faking and when your mind your mindset is how do i appear to them how do i pay to that person how do i pay for that but that's like that's pretty wicked isn't it really if that's how you're trying to you know and because we could just be real can't look we don't have to give a list of everything we've done we could be pretty real in church and again here they clean the outside of the cup and platter but within they're full of extortion and excess so they've worked on looking good and looking holy and faking really because within it's wickedness because if they get it the right way around they clean within then the outside will become clean okay but these guys it's a fake so they clean the out they try and brush up and study and try and look the right way and look how everyone thinks they should look and look as holy as they can but within they're full of dead men's bones and look the the the outward is so important to these worst kinds of people why because they can't clean what's inside they can't do it they're full of it they're blind they're rejected they're given over to a rep bank mind they can never clean the inside so then they're it's really important for them to constantly go on about the outside the exterior the exterior the exterior the exterior because they'll never be able to clean the inside romans one says that they are filled with all unrighteousness it doesn't say they're just a bit unrighteous they're filled with it they're filled with this stuff and it's such a it's again these are really hard concepts to get our head around isn't it so classic traits you've got the hypocrisy so jesus christ given this example of the hypocrisy the boasting the prior the pride the covetousness the uneven standards number six there was a fake persona and we're going to finish up here uh and just finished a chapter where he then says in verse 29 woe unto you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites because you build the tombs of the prophets and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous this is a fake persona continuing pretending to be righteous and to care about these people and everything else and say if we had been in the days of our fathers we would not have been partakes for them in the blood of the prophets wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets fill ye up then the measure of your fathers so he's basically saying you're doing the same as them verse 33 ye serpents ye generation of vipers how can you escape the damnation of hell okay there is no escape they can't he's not going right well you know if you can work it out no how can you because there is no okay you cannot escape it he's not preaching the gospel to them is he because they're blind how do like how do all these people read these passages and come away going yeah everyone can be saved to the dying breath how do they read these passions come away going no that reprobate doctrine's wicked trying to put a limit on god and all this nonsense you hear he said how can you you didn't go oh you poor things if only i could reach you serpents you generation of vipers how can you escape the damnation of hell and there are certain signs of reprobates and when we know that someone's a reprobate for me they're serpents they're vipers you don't want anything to do with them john you don't have to turn to john 12 40 says he has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart that they should not see with their eyes nor understand with their heart and be converted i should heal them he's blinded their eyes and hard heart that they should not see with their eyes nor understand with their heart okay they're done they're done and that goes for all false prophets out there okay that goes for them all okay and that's from from the sodomite to the church of england vicar kind of the same thing a lot of the time whatever they are it's all the it's all the same it's all the same they're done he's blinded their eyes harden their heart verse 34 says wherefore behold i send unto you prophets and wise men and scribes and some of them you shall kill and crucify and some of them shall you scourge in your synagogues and persecute them from city to city so this is future tense now this is likely men such as steve and james peter that will obviously kill paul that was persecuted from city to city and whoever was with him among among others among many others verse 35 says upon upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth from the blood of righteous able unto the blood of zechariah son of barakas whom ye slew between the temple and the altar now just in case you're wondering this i was talking about this with the brother the other day this i was looking into this and this is the prophet zechariah okay who wrote the book of zechariah because he's called the son of barakah in verse one of of that prophecy of zechariah yeah which is you know in the mind of prophets at the end of the old testament now i this i don't believe is zechariah who was killed in second chronicles 24 and i did previously just think i must be talking about that because he's actually killed i think between the between the temple and the altar but he's the son of the priest jehoiada isn't he okay he's not the son of barakah and it's not a grandson thing he's okay i think it's ido or whoever is his his granddad as well these aren't the same people and and the point is you go well you know that's a bit of a coincidence well look people die the same way a lot of the time but the point is that even though we don't see the later murder a few generations on from from you know one of the prophets zechariah look i would say probably a lot of prophets were murdered without record of it yeah you got a book of all these minor prophets we don't really know how they ended but he's talking about all these prophets that were killed and then when you kind of study out you're like actually no because this is like a few generations earlier the other zechariah this is like one of the last prophets zechariah the son of barakiah and we don't have a record of him but jesus christ saying he got killed he actually got killed in a very similar way to zechariah from second chronicles and point being that look a lot of the prophets just because there's not a record of it in the bible and we just see their prophecy a lot of them did get slain and murdered by these people okay and they're guilty of that blood ultimately it's their fathers that did it but also because they're the same people it's the same spirit their reprobates as well god haters and jesus said the blood of all of them would come upon this wicked generation that he's talking to verse 36 says verily i sound to you all these things shall come upon this generation he then says oh jerusalem jerusalem thou that killest the prophets and stonest them which are sent under thee how often would i have gathered thy children together even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings and ye would not behold your house is left unto you desolate for i say unto you you shall not see me henceforth to you shall say blessed is he that cometh in the name of the lord now remember that the multitudes were saying that on on his way into jerusalem in matthew 21 9 it says in the multitudes that went before and that followed cried saying hosanna to the son of david blessed is he that cometh in the name of the lord hosanna in the highest and he is referring to jerusalem as a whole now isn't he and that that was my point earlier as well it kind of adds to that point is i don't believe he then switches like talking to the squires of strategy i think he's just preaching a sermon and now he's kind of referring to jerusalem as a whole rather than the scribes of pharisees there and i kind of think he's maybe saying look the only ones that will see me are those that put their trust in me maybe that's what he's saying or he's saying that it won't be until the end where every knee shall bow anyway whether or not you're going to end up in the lake of fire one of those two but either way he he talks to jerusalem there and says you you know you're done you're done your your house is left unto you desolate and if you think about it what again point being it every time in this chapter i've been bringing this up jerusalem got raised to the ground okay and that the house was left unto them desolate but then he said you shall not see me henceforth till you shall say blessed is he that comes in the name of the lord you could say those that then got saved because there was obviously there was that 40-year period and then obviously there were still there would have been a remnant there's always a remnant isn't there righteous remnant and those would have seen him obviously you know when when when they died and ended up in heaven but you know that that's that's how i see that but i'm not sure there however that was matthew 23 and i've probably got a bit of a sore throat now but that's uh that is a hard chapter the bible isn't it and that there's some hard truths there and you know and and look with that stuff you know it's just something that it's part of the christian life isn't it but it's not something to shy away from it's something that needs preaching hard and we need to respond to that we need to obviously make sure that our behavior is exemplary isn't it as well and we don't start you know behaving with the traits of these sorts of wicked people because it's you know obviously the we want to be as far away from that sort of behavior as possible however um you know i think that that helps to explain a bit as well as how these people behave why they behave like that as well because they're wicked false prophets on that we're going to play father thank you for your word thank you for well what a great chapter the bible such a powerful chapter of the bible um you know and and lord thank you that well you came here and you said it how it is you said it how it needed to be said you gave us an example of sometimes how we do need to sometimes preach um we need to preach the hard things as well as the nicer things you know and and we need to preach the whole council of god lord and um thank you for that thank you for those last few chapters where you've just made it so clear what these people were and you know that replacement of them and um you know many of the reason what kind of eventually come you know what happened to them by the end there and how how just far away from your will they all were as a majority at least um we thank you for the righteous remnant there we thank you for the remnant here in this country of which you know many of those are sitting in this church right now and maybe watching online and lord we thank you for for all of you know all your all of your children that are here and and around us and we we pray that that um you'll add more to our church lord that we'll be able to you know go out and get more people saved this weekend we pray that everything goes well with the soul in your mouth and that we'll be able to encourage more to get involved and lord we uh we thank you for everything you do for us in jesus name for all this amen