Matthew 23: 13 - 14
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 devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation.
This was spoken by Jesus during His last week of Ministry, before He was to die on the cross. As we mentioned in our previous posts, Jesus was very critical of the scribes and Pharisees; they were supposed to be leading the people to God, but instead were leading the people astray. They were hindering the work of Jesus, they would sit in the back and to the side of the group, and intimidate new believers from joining Jesus. They did this through their false leadership. The second part of this passage shows the ways that the scribes and Pharisees, showed their Godlessness, by taking advantage of widows' and stealing their possessions, under the pretext of doing God's work. The Scriptures tell us over and over we are to protect the widows' and orphans' and all the less fortunate. The Pharisees would hide their evil with long prayers. Jesus taught us to pray in secret and not to keep repeating meaningless words and phrases that have lost their meaning. They think they will be heard because they talk a lot. Contradiction is never a good thing. This is what Jesus was calling the scribes and Pharisees on. How is your walk??
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