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Matthew Porter: Welcome to Key Life. I'm Matthew Porter, executive producer for Key Life, and we have something really special for you this week. We're bringing you a classic sermon from Steve titled "What God Hates," and it's based on a passage from Matthew 23. Steve gave this message way back in 1988. We'll get into it today and then continue tomorrow.

And it's brought to you by The Vault Project. The Vault is an online collection of carefully digitized and restored classic sermons from Steve, dating all the way back to the early 1970s. We have more than a thousand of those sermons in the Vault already, and thanks to your ongoing financial support, we're adding new sermons and series every single month.

Get all the details at keylife.org/vault. I'll tell you more about the Vault on the other side, but for now, let's go back in time to enjoy a classic sermon called "What God Hates" from 1988. Here's Steve.

Steve Brown: This morning we're continuing with our study in the Gospel according to Matthew. If you'll open your Bibles to the 23rd chapter of Matthew, we'll begin at the 13th verse. Before we turn to that particular text, let's bow our heads and hearts in prayer.

Father, we come before you this morning, thankful for all that you have done for us. You called us to yourself and we didn't deserve it. We would like to think that we were so gifted and so wise that we made the right choice, but we weren't. Your Spirit operated before we were ever born and you came when we couldn't come to you. Father, you loved us when we were not lovely. Father, you cared when we were not capable of caring. We come before you now, thankful and praising your name for calling us to yourself.

Father, you've given us a place to live where we're free. You've given us a family and you've given us laughter. But Father, if you'd never given us anything, you're infinite, you're all-wise, you're immutable, you're sovereign, you're omnipotent, and you're worthy of praise. Father, as we come apart and we remember what you've done and who you are, we feel uncomfortable because we remember what we have done.

Father, we're not good and we're glad that you haven't checked our purity level, but we feel a need to confess our sins. How often we've promised and failed. How often, Father, we have reached out and then turned away. How often we have known your will and got too busy. Father, forgive us, make us better, and get us home safely before the dark.

Father, as we come apart today, we come to study your word. We do pray for the one who teaches that you would forgive him his sins, for they are many. We've come to this place to see Jesus and him only, and we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Starting at the 13th verse of the 23rd chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew, where Matthew the tax collector says Jesus said: "But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.

"Woe to you, blind guides, who say, 'Whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple, he is obliged to perform it.' Fools and blind! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that sanctifies the gold? And, 'Whoever swears by the altar, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is obliged to perform it.' Fools and blind! For which is greater, the gift or the altar which sanctifies the gift?

"Therefore he who swears by the altar, swears by it and by all things on it. He who swears by the temple, swears by it and by Him who dwells in it. And he who swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by Him who sits on it. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and the dish, that the outside of them may be clean also. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, 'If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.' Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers' guilt. Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell?

"Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation."

Real up text this morning. Now that ought to banish from your mind forever any thought of sweet, nice, proper Jesus with whom you tiptoe through the tulips in the garden. If anything, it ought to create in your mind the idea and the reality of Jesus Christ, who is King of Kings and who can really be ticked. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't have liked to have been a Pharisee or a scribe standing in the audience that day.

Now, if any of you use this text for antisemitic views, you are simply way out of line and you don't understand what's being said. Scripture is never given to condemn another people, but to speak to those who read the Scripture. Jesus, we have seen in the past, was a Pharisee. We have seen that this is a lovers' quarrel as he deals with them, and none of it is applicable to the Jews as a race. And if you ever do that and I find out about it, you're going to hear from your pastor in a very harsh way. And I learned my harshness from Jesus, and I had a really good teacher.

You know the story about the man who went bankrupt and his wife left him and his children disowned him and then he was hit by an automobile and was there in the middle of the street with his broken bones and he looked up in the sky and he said, "Oh God, why me?" And a voice from the heaven said, "Sam, there's something about you just ticks me off."

I want you to know there's some things that really do tick off God. And if we take the incarnation seriously, that Jesus was God incarnate, we can look at what he said, see what made him mad, and then we can see what makes God the Father Almighty, the God of the universe, mad at us. I've been walking with Jesus for a long time and I think it's about time that we find out exactly what it is that makes him mad. So without further chitchat, let's dig into the text.

First, you ought to be careful because God hates obstructors of life. Look at Matthew 23:13: "But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in." I love the priest who said when he was a young man, "I thought I was going to win the world to Christ." He said, "When I got in my 30s, I was going to make a significant impact for Christ in the world. When I got into my 50s, I was going to really speak the gospel and draw thousands to his name. As I got into my 60s, I thought, I want to be faithful. And now that I'm at the age of retirement, I get on my knees and say, Lord, help me not to lose too many."

I want you to know one of the dangers of those of us who are Christians is that we think evangelism is dependent on us. Let me tell you what the source of evangelism is: it's Jesus Christ, and what we have to do is to get out of the way. I remember back a number of years ago when we decided in this church that in order to be a member of the church, you needed to know a whole lot more than what Jesus required that you know.

We required some 18 weeks of new membership classes, and in those weeks we taught you theology, systematic theology, we taught you doctrine, we taught you church history, ecclesiology, and we gave you an exam at the end. And if you didn't pass the exam, then you couldn't be a member of the church. And I remember Roland saying, "Steve, we're making it harder to get in this church than it is to get into heaven."

And Roland was right on. The only requirement for getting into the church and getting into heaven is that you be in a relationship with Jesus Christ. Now we still turn members away if they don't have that relationship, but that's the only thing. And I'll tell you something, Jesus is something else.

Matthew Porter: Yes, indeed. Thanks, Steve. Again, this week we're enjoying a sermon from Steve called "What God Hates." It's just one sermon from a series on Matthew that Steve preached way back in the late 80s, from 1986 to 1989. Wow, 40 years ago. You know, for as little as $5 a month, you can access that entire sermon series right now at keylife.org/vault. That's V-A-U-L-T.

We have thousands of classic sermons like this one that are essentially trapped on old tapes and reel-to-reels. Those sermons won't be playable much longer, but thanks to your ongoing financial support, we're constantly working to preserve those timeless messages of grace for us and for future generations. Hope you'll join us in that effort.

Well, on our talk radio show Steve Brown, Etc., we recently spoke to author Ray Ortlund about his new book called Eat, Drink, and Be Merry. And if you think that title is provocative, check out the subtitle: A Gospel Call to Bold Enjoyment. Ray based his book on a surprising lesson from Ecclesiastes of all places. You've got to hear this entire conversation, and you can when we send it to you on CD for free.

Just call us right now at 1-800-KEY-LIFE. That's 1-800-539-5433. You can also email Steve at steve@keylife.org to order that CD, or go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses for the US and Canada. Again, just ask for the absolutely free CD featuring Ray Ortlund.

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