This is our sixteenth study. Please click HERE for an intro to this study. Today we will look at how evil the Pharisees were.

Matthew 23:13, 15

13 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.

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 he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.

Observations

The Pharisees must have known how to enter heaven, or else they would not know how to shut it off to others. It wasn’t out of ignorance that they missed heaven. They plain out rejected it. And when they made converts, they made them not for heaven but for hell. It sounds to me like they had some kind of a bitterness against God and His Son that they would be so rejecting of God.

Application

Beware of this kind of teacher. And stir others away from this kind of teacher, who will try to keep them from true conversion to God.