Matthew 23:13-39
Seven Woes on the Teachers of the Law and the Pharisees
13 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. [14]
15 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.
16 “Woe to you, blind guides! You say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gold of the temple is bound by that oath.’ 17 You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred? 18 You also say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gift on the altar is bound by that oath.’ 19 You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred? 20 Therefore, anyone who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. 21 And anyone who swears by the temple swears by it and by the one who dwells in it. 22 And anyone who swears by heaven swears by God’s throne and by the one who sits on it.
23 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. 24 You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.
25 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.
27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
29 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. 30 And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31 So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Go ahead, then, and complete what your ancestors started!
33 “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell? 34 Therefore I am sending you prophets and sages and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. 35 And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. 36 Truly I tell you, all this will come on this generation.
37 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. 38 Look, your house is left to you desolate. 39 For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”
God give us our Complete Freewill out of His LOVE...He does not force Himself upon us, though He could and the world would be a better place, with less evil...Freewill is a form of freedom we have that God gives us and does not force us to seek Him, follow Him, or love Him...We can make any choice we choose at anytime to cause evil or goodness to happen...But our God given freewill is something I believe we need more of...But if God forces His Freewill upon us, then we are no long free...So we are in a paradox when it comes to evil...We will have evil as long as man is given complete free will...In Noah's time man kept getting more and more evil, until finally God had had enough...He sent a blameless man out in an Ark to rid the earth of evil...But it only lasted a short time...Man is still wicked and we still all fall short of the Glory of God...Since evil is measured by each of us a little differently, in which we see can see little evils and then bigger evils happen...If we are looking for this world to get rid of evil just read the daily headlines...Evil is still with us, thousands of years after Noah and two thousand years after Jesus...Jesus gave seven woes to some Pharisees whom He called blind guides and hypocrites for how they were teaching people...We can see there was evil in Jesus' time...And evil is evil and a sin is a sin...
God is LOVE...He wants us to repent and love Him and all our neighbors...He doesn't want to destroy us...Author and theologian Norman Geisler wrote this gives us something to think about...Geisler wrote about freewill and eliminating all evil on earth: “There are some things even God cannot do...He cannot force anyone to freely accept Him...Forced freedom is a contradiction in terms...This is why Jesus said, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing (Matthew 23:37)...So the only way God could literally destroy all evil is to destroy all freedom.”...