This whole chapter in Matthew comes at the end of Jesus' public teaching ministry. What little teaching remains in chapters twenty-four and twenty-five are for the ears of his followers alone. The seven woes recorded here are the most severe words ever pronounced by Jesus during His ministry. We would do well to remember that the seven woes in this chapter were addressed to the "super believers" of His day - the Pharisees and Sadducees. These woes are not so much curses as expressions of sorrow, and a better translation would be "Alas for you" rather than "Woe unto you".In this chapter, Jesus confronts the wicked and evil Pharisees who consider themselves God's elect. As teachers and leaders of the Jewish Church they imposed all kind of human regulations upon the saints who desired to worship and praise the God of heaven. Certainly, we know that some of this ruling class came over to Christ's Kingdom as they were given the light of the Spirit. There were Nicodemus, Joseph, Paul and numerous others.
Like these spiritual leaders, all of God's people need to meditate upon the implications of these earnest warnings of the very Son of God. Today, we will focus our attention upon the last woe. The implication of this warning is that the very leaders who honor the tombs of the prophets are the very ones who will reject and kill the Messiah. These leaders are more like the dead bodies inside of the white washed tombs than they realize.
Rather than call them devils or sons of Satan, he uses the unmistakable image of snakes and vipers! But there is hope. He will Himself send prophets, wise men and teachers. These will be the leaders of the New Covenant Church which will soon be established. We should learn a very important lesson here. In spite of a person's current condition, our Lord would earnestly contend with them for their soul. Witnesses will indeed be sent to the house of Israel. And if Jewish records are correct, about two million members of the Old Covenant Church transferred their membership and faith to that of the New Covenant. On this occasion Jesus asks these leaders an essential question: "How will you escape being condemned to hell?" This place of eternal destruction is a reality in His mind, and His listeners are very much in danger of ending up there. He longed to gather the people of His city under His wings, but as we see at the end of this chapter, they were not willing. Unfortunately, that description will apply to everyone who ends up in the torments of eternal destruction. By human means very many people, like these Pharisees, will choose the desolate and destructive housing provided by Satan instead of the home prepared in heaven by our Father. John Benton tells us that the Bible is generally restrained in its language describing hell. However, there are several things that Jesus tells us about hell in the New Testament. There are four things that we may affirm from His teachings.
First, hell is a place of separation. By this we mean that the wicked will experience hell as a state of being shut out from all of God's goodness. Sinners will finally get what they desire most, a place not infected with the knowledge of God's grace and goodness. Even as our leaders remove the knowledge of the Holy from the public sector, we see the direction that this lack of knowledge leads to.
This "outer darkness", as Jesus refers to it, three times in Matthew's Gospel, is a place where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. This outer darkness is in vivid contrast to the New Jerusalem where Jesus is the light of life. Instead of thinking of the horrific images of the medieval painters, imagine a complete lack of any and all good things of this present life. Think of nothingness. It is a black, dark hole from which you can never escape.
Second, hell is a place of punishment. The miseries of hell are not limited to complete sensory deprivation. There is the vivid image of the fires of hell. The contemporary image at Jesus' time was the valley of Gehenna, just outside of Jerusalem. This valley at one time was associated with the worship of Molech. To that idol were sacrificed little children. King Josiah stopped this terrible idolatry and turned the valley into the junk yard for Jerusalem. Rubbish, dead animals and the bodies of criminals were tossed into the pit and enough trash abounded that fires were almost always burning.
Have any of you ever been to a modern landfill? The smell is interesting. Of course by federal regulation, fires cannot be set, and so the pollution must be piled up in a series of "Mount Trashmores"! Think of hell as God's dump. The next time you are close to a dumpster take a good breath, and look in and consider if there is enough fuel for a good fire. Certainly, our imaginations can get carried away, but Jesus did endorse the fires of Gehenna.
Third, hell is a place of disintegration. In Mark, Jesus quotes Isaiah and speaks about the "worm that does not die". Years ago, people were often infected with worms in their digestive tracts. These worms could become rather enormous. This was one reason people generally were not as heavy as they are today! Infected people could eat and eat and eat and not gain any weight because the food was consumed by the worms. With the proper medication the worms could be killed and the victim given a new lease on life.
The image of Isaiah seems to imply consumption of a different sort. Perhaps that of personality. I think that that worm is very much like the school of psychology where many patients never get better, but only worse. Psychologists would have us ever turn inward to understand ourselves. Man becomes his own primary focus and the implications of a life focused on self go far beyond the ridiculous characters created by Woody Allen. Imagine spending eternity trying to figure yourself out without any success. Imagine no light of God coming into your heart and telling you that you are a sinner. Imagine never knowing any but hope in Jesus Christ!
Fourth, hell is forever. Now, this is a hard teaching for the world to accept today. And I will have to admit that I have wrestled with this doctrine for several years. I think I finally understand the justice involved in this reality. Once I read about a burglar who while waiting for his first trial managed to be caught for thirty-nine more cases of breaking and entering. Keep this example in mind as we consider the biblical teaching. If we go all the way back to the book of Genesis, chapter six, we note that gradually the length of man's life grew shorter. Also in that chapter we see that:
"the Lord saw how great man's wickedness had become and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time."
Now, ask yourself this question, do bad men very often get better in prison? Now you are beginning to understand why the damned never find their way out of hell. Even if, as one of my professors at Seminary hoped, there might be a chance of escaping from hell, the personality of those who go there would not think of escaping. The essential justice here is this: If a person must be punished for sin and they continue sinning even while being punished, there is no end to it. These are not pretty images. Well should we take Jesus' question in verse thirty-three. "How will you escape being condemned to hell?" If you have more than a passing fancy for that question, the way out is provided in verse thirty-nine.
"For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'"
In this verse Jesus is telling us all that He is the only escape. Will we bless Him and His Name so that we may praise Him for the salvation that only He can provide? May He be your escape. Amen.
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