Take your Bibles with me and turn to Luke 11. Luke 11.

One of the most popular format for online articles is the "how to" article. People want to be told how to do things. Well, today I have a nice simple "How To" message. Today, we are going to talk about how to ruin the Bible in 3 easy steps.

It's been several weeks, but in our last message in the book of Luke Jesus really took it to the Pharisees - the religious conservatives in his day for the way they were missing the point and hurting people.

But there was another group in the crowd Jesus was preaching to, very similar to the Pharisees but not quite the same, and they are called in our Bible "lawyers."

Now, if you are thinking about lawyers today - you probably picture some guy with a briefcase in an expensive suit, arguing with a judge and jury over why somebody is innocent or guilty. Or maybe you think of Congress, where most of the members are trained as lawyers. Or maybe you think of the billboards on the side of the interstate that say "If you've been injured, call the Hammer!"

But none of those things have anything to do with the "lawyers" we see in the Bible. The lawyers in the Bible were actually Bible scholars. They were called "lawyers" because they called the Bible "the law." They were the people who were trained in interpreting and applying the law.

Now our lawyers are some of the most despised people in the world. Ask Daniel Birky if you want some good lawyer jokes. There are a million of them.

But the "lawyers" in jewish society - they were some of the most revered and honored people in society. The people really looked up to them.

Their word was considered even more binding than the law itself. So these people were extremely important people in Israel and in that society, and they were used to being treated with respect as the nation's great Bible scholars.

And when Jesus chastised the Pharisees, they felt like He got a little too close to them. They were worried that they were collateral damage. So one of them spoke up and asked Jesus about it.

And that is what our text is about this morning. Jesus is not going to easy on these "lawyers" and what He tells them will show us how Bible scholars and Bible teachers can ruin the Bible in three easy steps.

Let's read Luke 11:45-54

[!bible] Luke 11:45-54 - KJV 45. Then answered one of the lawyers, and said unto him, Master, thus saying thou reproachest us also. 46. And he said, Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers. 47. Woe unto you! for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. 48. Truly ye bear witness that ye allow the deeds of your fathers: for they indeed killed them, and ye build their sepulchres. 49. Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute: 50. That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; 51. From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation. 52. Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered. 53. And as he said these things unto them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to urge him vehemently, and to provoke him to speak of many things: 54. Laying wait for him, and seeking to catch something out of his mouth, that they might accuse him.

Let' s pray and we'll get into our message today.

In a boxing match, you want to protect your head and your chin at all costs. When someone stupidly sticks their chin out so they can easily be uppercut, we call that "leading with the chin."

When this lawyer asked Jesus "What about us?" Do you know what he was doing? He was leading with the chin.

This lawyer seeing Jesus attacking the pharisees and asked "what about us?" is exactly like a naughty child watching his brother getting punished and saying "what about me?" Dude, you should have hid out in your bedroom and kept your mouth shut.

So Jesus is going to tell them about what they were doing. It was just as bad as the Pharisees - maybe worse.

In our text, Jesus gives three woes to the lawyers. Three woes to the Bible scholars that show us three different ways religious leaders tend to ruin the Bible.

If you want a summary - here it is:

Jesus condemned the religious leaders of his day because they added a bunch of rules to the scripture that made it a burden rather than a blessing, they celebrated past preachers but persecuted current ones, and because they made the gospel inaccessible to others.

So how do you ruin the Bible in three easy steps? Let's look at this passage and I'll tell you.

The first way Jesus shows us that religious leaders ruin the Bible is...

1. They add a bunch of rules to it.

Look at verse 46 again:

[!bible] Luke 11:46 - KJV 46. And he said, Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers.

What Jesus was saying there is that these lawyers put heavy burdens on people that are not easy to carry, but they don't help with the burdens at all.

So how did these Bible scholars add burdens to people?

God gave Israel the law. God gave them specific commands about how they were to live their life. Even though we are no longer under the law, you should read it and study it because it still reveals the mind of God.

But if you read it, you will see it was hard enough. The law of God is actually impossible for us sinners to live out perfectly. The only person who ever perfectly fulfilled the law was Jesus Christ.

But what these scholars did was they took the law and they tried to protect it by adding rules to it. They said "Well, if God doesn't want us to work on the sabbath, we better make it crystal clear what working on the sabbath is."

So they defined dozens of types of work. Carrying stuff - that's work. Starting a fire - that's work. Cooking - that's work. Travelling - that's work. And so on and so forth.

And as Jesus and his disciples were ministering, they were constantly running afoul of these petty rules.

Jesus would heal someone and instead of the people rejoicing they would say "should He have done that on the sabbath day?" Jesus and his disciples walked around and picked some corn and ate it and the jews were ready to pounce on them with a half dozen sabbath demerit points.

And they were just as ridiculous with their exceptions to the rules. Let me read you one example from Kent Hughes commentary on carrying burdens on the sabbath rules:

This section declared that anything equal to or heavier than a dried fig was a burden. So it was permissible to carry something that weighed less than a dried fig on the Sabbath. But if one inadvertently put it down and then picked it up, he would be counted as doubling the weight and thus breaking the Sabbath!

I mean, it was just silly, silly stuff. They devised ways they could carry stuff on their feet or inside their clothes that were ok on technicalities. Keeping these laws became a full time job for people. It was an incredible burden.

And here is the thing, God never intended the Bible to be a burden. God intended the Bible to be a blessing.

Yes the law was impossible. But the impossible law was to lead people to the sacrifices - which would point people to Christ.

When Jesus came, this is what He was talking about when He said:

[!bible] Matthew 11:28-30 - KJV 28. Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

The sabbath wasn't supposed to be a burden, it was supposed to be a blessing. And that is true of the whole Bible.

[!bible] Psalms 1:1-3 - KJV

1. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
2. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.
3. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

Now, do people still do this today? Of course they do. Of course we can think of times when well-meaning Bible teachers and scholars have taken God's word and just encrusted it with a bunch of rules.

And those rules, even though they aren't in the Bible, could be tied back to the Bible.

I'll give you a few silly examples:

I remember going through a Christian bookstore in Tennessee and picking up a book, I believe written by an independent baptist, which was all about how Christian men shouldn't have beards. It even made the point that Jesus didn't have a beard, and the only reason they could pluck out his beard was because the events of the crucifixion made it hard for him to shave.

Folks, I believe the person who wrote that meant well - but it's ridiculous.

I've known Bible teachers to prescribe a very specific dress code for coming to church. Men, you have to wear a suit and you have to cut your hair like this and you cannot wear pleated pants, and your shirt has to be white.

But none of that is in the Bible. It might flow out of Bible principles, but it's not the Bible. It's not infallible.

Listen, there is nothing wrong with making personal rules in application of Bible principles. We should do that. But it is wrong to elevate those rules to the place of the Bible and expect everyone else to do what we are doing.

Let me make a non-Bible example as an example. Let's pretend there is a principles that says "Thou shalt live healthy."

Now, I might take that principle and count calories, and run, and you might take that command and do a keto diet and walk every day, and that command looks very different if you are 18 and swimming 3 miles every weekday than it does if you are 45 and your metabolism has basically stopped.

It is perfectly natural for me to take the principle and make application in my life. It is wrong for me to look at other people who aren't doing exactly what I'm doing and judge them for it.

That's what these lawyers had done. They had codified their applications and turned them into burdens for people.

Preachers and Bible teachers need to be very careful that they do not add extra burdens to the Bible. That they do not turn the word that is easy and light into a burden.

If we don't, we can ruin the Bible and be worthy of Jesus' woes.

There is a second way Jesus shows us we can ruin the Bible and that is...

2. Celebrate past preachers but silence present ones

Look at verses 47-48 again:

[!bible] Luke 11:47-48 - KJV 47. Woe unto you! for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. 48. Truly ye bear witness that ye allow the deeds of your fathers: for they indeed killed them, and ye build their sepulchres.

These lawyers made a big deal about honoring past prophets and preachers. They found their graves and they built elaborate gravestones for them. If it was today, they would be raising money to build museums for these past preachers.

But Jesus wanted to point out two ironic things about these lawyers:

1. That their spiritual forefathers were the ones who killed the old preachers in the first place.
2. That they were rejecting and persecuting God's current preachers today.

So lets deal with each of those things:

First, their spiritual forefathers were the ones who killed the old preachers in the first place.

Jesus wasn't saying that their actual kin, their flesh and blood, had been responsible for killing the old prophets. He was saying that people just like them had killed the old prophets.

It had been religious people, the religious establishment, that had always given God's mouth pieces the hardest time.

And this had been going forever. Jesus pointed out two examples: Abel - that's way back in Genesis 4 and Zechariah, he was in 2 Chronicles 24 - near the end of the Old Testament. The point Jesus was making was that the religious establishment has always opposed God's prophets and preachers.

The second point Jesus was making was that these men were opposing God's current prophets and preachers.

In verse 50 Jesus said:

[!bible] Luke 11:50 - KJV 50. That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation;

The religious leaders of Jesus' day was worse than the wicked religious leaders of any other generation because they had Christ, they had the Son of God, and they murdered Him. They opposed Him. Then they opposed the first generation of Christians - the disciples and apostles - and persecuted them.

Jesus was the culmination of all the prophets, and they killed him.

So these lawyers ruined the Bible by celebrating past preachers but persecuting current ones.

Now, does this still happen today? Are there professing Christians today who make a big deal about God's preachers of the past but who reject God's preachers in the present?

Absolutely it happens. I think our independent Baptist movement may be the worst in this regard.

We literally build museums to past preachers. To Charles Spurgeon, to D.L. Moody, to John R. Rice, to many others. But if you study their lives, those guys were mavericks. They were serving their generation with the gospel, and the old guard hated them.

Spurgeon was an innovator. He dressed like the common man of his day when everyone else dressed in stuffy preacher clothes. He spoke like the common man when the preachers used high and lofty language. He "gasp" moved around in the pulpit. They hated him.

D.L. Moody didn't care about labels or fancy things. He just wanted to see the gospel go out. He brought together people from different groups. He gave a platform to controversial people. He didn't talk like a preacher of his day.

John R. Rice was the editor of the Sword of the Lord and one of the founders of our Independent Baptist Movement, and yet in so many ways he was way too moderate for us today. He was on the board for the NKJV. He rejected the common interpretations of tithing that were popular in churches. He spoke with lots of people in the evangelical world.

And listen, I believe that if someone like Spurgeon or Moody or Rice came on the scene today - the old guard would reject them. 100%.

Do you know what I believe, I believe there are many, many Christians in our county, in our country and around the world who don't fit into our little box - but who are absolutely the real deal and who are doing God's work. And if we take the attitude (whether consciously or unconsciously) that we are the only real Christians out there, then we are not only opposing God's people, but we are in for a shock when we get to heaven.

We need to consider what Jesus told these scribes to consider: Maybe God is doing a work today, the kind of work we would memorialize if it happened in the past, but we are too blinded by our own traditions and positions to see it.

We can ruin the Bible by:

• Adding rules to it.
• By celebrating past preachers but silencing present ones

There is one more thing Jesus shows us here:

We can ruin the Bible by...

3. Hiding the key (making the gospel inaccessible)

Look at verse 52:

[!bible] Luke 11:52 - KJV 52. Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.

Remember, the lawyers were the Bible scholars of their day. They were the ones in charge of teaching and interpreting the Bible. But instead of helping people to understand the scripture, they hid the keys to scripture.

Do you know what the key to the Bible is? It's really simple: it's all about Jesus. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Jesus on every page. Jesus in Genesis and Jesus in Revelation. It's all about Christ.

Specifically, it's about Jesus dying on the cross for our sins and raising again in victory.

Everything from Genesis through the gospels are looking forward to the Cross and Resurrection. Everything after the gospels is looking back at the Cross and Resurrection.

That is the key.

Audrey is doing some college Bible classes and she had to read through Leviticus recently and she was telling me how hard it is. It is hard, but when you understand that it all points to Jesus - it comes alive.

When you realize that in the historical books God is pointing us to the One True King who will come. It comes alive.

When you see in the Prophets that God is getting His people ready for the Messiah, for Christ - it comes alive.

Jesus is the key. And when we make the Bible about anything other than Jesus. When we make it about politics or about rules or about anything else - we are hiding the key.

More than anything, people need to understand the gospel. They need to understand that Jesus died for them and rose again. That they cannot save themselves with good works, that that was never the plan, but that someone came and died for them.

That's the key. And listen, Jesus accused these lawyers of both hiding the key and stopping other people from entering into heaven.

I would hate it for someone to come into our church hungry to find Christ and leave and think that what we are all about is something other than Jesus Christ and Him Crucified.

I would hate for them to come here and think: those people are all about there rules, or their music, or their politics, or their denominational distinctive. No we have to keep the key prominent - it's all about Jesus.

And when we don't, we are hiding the key.

Conclusion

So there you have it - how to ruin the Bible in three easy steps. Add a bunch of rules to it. Celebrate past preachers but silence present ones. Hide the key by making the gospel inaccessible.

But here's the thing - this isn't just about those ancient lawyers. This is about us. This is about me as a preacher. This is about all of us who handle God's Word.

The lawyers in Jesus' day started with good intentions. They wanted to protect God's law. They wanted to honor the prophets. They wanted to teach people about God. But somewhere along the way, they lost sight of what it was all about.

They made the Bible about themselves instead of about Christ.

And that's the real danger for all of us. Whether we're preachers or Sunday School teachers or just Christians who love God's Word - we can take the most beautiful book ever written and make it ugly by making it about us instead of about Jesus.

But when we keep Jesus at the center, when we remember that it's all about the cross and resurrection, when we make sure the gospel stays accessible and simple - then the Bible becomes what God intended it to be: not a burden, but a blessing.

The Bible isn't about our rules or our traditions or our little boxes. It's about Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Let's make sure we never forget that.

Let's pray.