Confronting Error with Condemnation, not Conversation, Luke 20:45-47

Thirdly, they love not only respectful greetings in the marketplaces, same verb, they love chief seats in the synagogues. They had elevated platforms on the front of the synagogue. The important scribes, Pharisees would sit up on that elevated platform, recognized as the experts in the law. Visiting scribes coming from their own place to another synagogue would expect to be ushered up to the elevated place.

Starting to get the picture? Now you know why I am not called doctor, why I don’t wear a robe, and don’t sit on the platform. It’s just a small way to keep from any of this.

And then, fourthly, they love places of honor at banquets. Any kind of a special occasion, they want the place of honor which is next to the host. They want to be the center of attention, the most honored of all.

This is what they’re after. It’s all about pride. All four of those things have to do with pride…elevation, that’s what they seek, religious leaders are after this…false religious leaders. It turns a corner with the fifth one. Verse 47, “Who devour widows’ houses.”

Now what is this? First of all, let me just tell you, the word devour is a very strong word. There is a verb in the Greek, esthio. It means to consume, or devour, or that’s metaphoric, literally it means to eat…the word for eating. But metaphorically, to devour or consume. This is not esthio, this is katesthio. Always when you add a preposition at the beginning, you intensify the verb. This is to totally consume, to plunder, to eat up. Hence, devour in the strongest sense. They go after the most defenseless. Like the false teachers of whom Paul writes to Timothy, they go after silly women. They go after the unprotected and the weak. They devour widows houses. Widows are the easiest ones to get to.

What do you mean? Well first of all, widows were to be protected, right? Back in the Old Testament, pure religion, says James, is to care for widows. Exodus 22:22, Deuteronomy 10:18, Malachi 3:5, and other scriptures call upon the people of God to care for widows. God cares for widows. These scribes devour them.
How do they do that? Now keep in mind, that they were the lawyers of the system. So when a woman who was a widow needed someone to protect her, she would turn to the lawyer with the idea that he’d protect her home, her property, all of those things. Some interesting study has been done, some interesting research on the kind of behavior that was going on. Here’s just a brief look at it.

First of all, they would take support, money for themselves from widows although it was forbidden. Knowledge without price. Knowledge without price, that was the code of a true rabbi, certainly with regard to widows. They would disobey that and whatever wisdom they would give to widows, they would charge them and do so exorbitantly. What could a widow do?

Secondly, they would cheat widows of their estate by getting in to the legal machinations under the guise that they would provide legal protection. They would literally begin to eat away the estate of that widow.

Thirdly, they would leach on and abuse hospitality, take advantage of available room, board, food. There are some stories about gluttony and excessive drinking…taking that from poor widows.

Another way, by mismanaging the property of widows so that out of complete carelessness a widow was absolutely made destitute. One of the popular ones was to take money from older widows with deficient mental powers, take advantage of those who were unable to defend themselves mentally.

And maybe the worst, they would accumulate debts the widow would owe them and owe them and owe them and be unable to pay and so they would take the widow’s home as pledge for the debt…and thus devour the house. When the widow couldn’t pay, they threw her out. That is why they are characterized in the words of Jesus, I’ll read it to you again, Luke 11:39, “You are full of robbery. You are full of robbery and wickedness.” Or the words of Jesus in Luke 16, or the words of Luke, I should say, in Luke 16:14, “The Pharisees who were lovers of money.” Proud and greedy, that characterized them, that’s typical of false teachers. They do what they do for filthy lucre. They elevate themselves. They put on a facade of spirituality. And they bilk the most helpless defenseless people.

Now there are lawyers who do that. Thank the Lord for Christian lawyers and lawyers with integrity who don’t do that. But there are lawyers who do that. But you know something? There are evangelists that do that, false evangelists, false religious teachers take money out of people’s pockets. And false religions prey of people in third world countries who are already impoverished to start with. The newest episode of that is happening in Africa, by the way. As the health, wealth, prosperity purveyors have now gone to Africa with great success. You’ve got a population of people who are hopelessly poor, who can’t see any kind of a future, who live on a meager amount of money, who are in a sense defenseless, living on the edge of hopelessness, you promise them health, wealth and prosperity. This is so successful.
I’ll just give you one illustration. In Logos(?), Nigeria there is one church where this stuff is being proclaimed with 54 thousand people in the church. And in order to get the health, wealth and prosperity, you have to give the leader one month’s salary. This in the name of Jesus, fleecing the abused, fleecing the poor, fleecing the defenseless. And this is spreading across Africa. They’re building the biggest churches on the planet in Africa in the name of the health, wealth, prosperity gospel, preying on poor people who have no hope. It’s a scheme that makes the guy at the top rich.

So, false teachers are proud and greedy…not all to the same degree. And then sixth, for appearances sake, they offer long prayers. Nothing wrong with a long prayer. I’ve prayed a few myself. But something wrong with praying one for pretense, praying just to be seen. Remember Matthew 6:5 and 6 where Jesus condemns that kind of praying in the Sermon on the Mount which was so characteristic of these false leaders. He says this, “When you pray, you’re not to be as the hypocrites. They love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners in order to be seen by men.” Spiritual frauds, spiritual phonies taking advantage of people. They do it under pretense.

By the way, the word “under pretense” interesting word, prophasis is the word. That which is put out in front to hide the true state of things. That’s what it is. They hide the reality of what they are. It’s a specious cloak that they wear, long prayers. It’s a game false teachers play. Again in Matthew chapter 23, the Lord describes this kind of hypocrisy. “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees,” verse 25, “hypocrites. You clean the outside of the cup and the dish, inside you’re full of robbery and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and the dish that the outside of it may become clean also. Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, you’re like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. And even so, you too outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you’re full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”

Those are the most religious people in Israel. You have evangelicals today who are saying we need to cooperate with Israel. We need to link arms with them because they’re the people of God and share our spiritual insights. No…no. Jesus didn’t have a conversation with the most religious in Israel. He issued a condemnation. That’s why Matthew 23, again, as long as you’re there, look at it, verse 15, “Woe,” that means damnation, cursing, verse 16, “Woe,” 23, 25, 27, 29…woe, woe, woe, woe, woe…pronouncing horrendous, horrific judgment on them. Verse 33, “You serpents, you brood of vipers, how shall you escape the sentence of hell?” That’s a condemnation, not a conversation.

Now let’s go back to Luke and we see the last words of the chapter. We saw the caution and the characterization. Here’s the condemnation. “These will receive greater condemnation.” The key is greater, not lesser because they’re religious. The Lord isn’t going to like them all of a sudden because they’re religious, because they’re good, because they’re moral, because God loves all religions, and all religions love God and Jesus loves all religions, and all religions love Jesus. This is wonderful. No. He pronounces on them a more severer damnation. Greater, perissoteron, it’s a comparative, krima, judgment. Perissoteron, a far greater, an excessive, a more abundant. Or if you will, an extraordinary condemnation, more than the usual. Religious people get a greater damnation, not a lesser one. Far from pleasing God somehow because they’ve lived up to whatever truth they had, they receive a greater condemnation…especially if they’ve trampled underfoot the blood of the covenant, counted it an unholy thing, Hebrews 10:29 to 31…rejected Christ.
The idea is clear, if you’re in the wrong religion, you’re going to be condemned. If you’re a purveyor of the wrong religion, you’re going to receive a far-greater suffering and damnation in hell. They’re dangerous, be warned. They’re hypocrites, they’re worthy of condemnation. Compassion…yes, gospel, give them the gospel, pray for their salvation, have a sad heart, but in the end, we have nothing to learn from false teachers and false religions. And they must know that they are under sentence of divine condemnation. They must know for their sake and the sake of those who need to be protected from them. Let’s pray.

Lord, we can only thank You that this is in Scripture. Were we to speak like this independently of clear teaching of Scripture, it might be more than people could bear. But we know it’s Your mind and Your will because You put it in Your Word. Yes we are sad. Yes we weep over those who are part of these false systems. Yes we desire mercifully to give them the truth, proclaiming the truth, even this message is a mercy to any false teacher who hears it. But we must warn them of their coming condemnation and we must warn those who might be seduced by them and fall into that same condemnation. Thank You for this gracious and merciful warning. And we thank You, Lord, for the truth. We thank You that we who know You have come to the truth because of Your power and Your Spirit. We do want to come together and find out what Moses and Isaiah and Paul and John meant by what they said because it’s You speaking in Scripture. We don’t want to have a conversation with anybody but with You and we don’t want to even answer, we just want You to speak. We have nothing to say, we have nothing to offer. We can’t improve on Your Word. We’re not going to find a better understanding in a conversation with anybody anywhere, especially with those who are dead in trespasses and sins and void of the truth. So, Lord, may we bow only to the Word and joyfully to the Word cause it is the truth and the truth sets us free. We thank You for it. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.

“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”