Cleanse first that which is within

Jesus said-

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.

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Again, a 'WOE UNTO YOU', given by our Savior to the scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites. This time Jesus tells them they are making sure everything looks good on the outside, appearances are being kept up, they are looking every bit the way they are supposed to be the truth is another story. They are extorting and filled with excesses, more than they need.  This is truth! Jesus saw through their display of righteousness to the corruption underneath and He didn't hesitate to tell them He knew their hearts. They could lie to each other and all others but He knew and now they would know He knew.

Jesus said-

Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.

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He was telling them what they needed to do to be right with God. Clean the INSIDE, clean their hearts. It wasn't pointless to clean the outside when the inside was filthy.

Jesus said-

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's, bones, and of all uncleanness.

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Imagine for a single moment, Jesus telling us that we are full of dead men's bone and uncleanness!  We don't want to hear that do we? I know I sure don't! Yes, when our hearts are corrupt we are like a sepulchre, we are filled with uncleanness, with dead men's bone, there is nothing good in us. The scribes, the Pharisees, hypocrites were exactly like that! Unclean!

Jesus said-

Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.

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Appearing righteous unto men, but NOT unto God! God sees past everything we see of others and others see of us. God sees all our hypocrisy and iniquity, every single bit of it. We CANNOT hide the truth of ourselves from God! Not one single thing about us is hidden from God, not one.

Jesus said-

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.

Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?  Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city:  That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.

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They were LIARS! They believed they were better than their fathers and they were worse by far!

All too often we like to think we wouldn't do the evils of those in our past generations known for their evils and yet we do them. Our hypocrisy, our blindness keeps us from seeing the truth of ourselves and we LOVE our blindness! We don't want to see our evil! We want that coat pulled over all the evil in us, hiding it so no one can see it, and we want to forget it is even there blind to our own evil.

Jesus said-

Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!  Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.  For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.

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Enough was enough. Those who were God's chosen time and time again refused Him and this time they refused God's begotten Son, their Savior, Jesus Christ. Their uniqueness was past. They refused to be God's preferring their blindness, their hypocrisy. We must NOT do the same. We must loath our blindness, detest our sightlessness, despise our inability to see as we need to see through the Holy Spirit! We must hate our own hypocrisy. We must seek forgiveness, we must seek our Savior's forgiveness, we have to pray for the Holy Spirit to enlighten us. We NEED EYE SALVE for our blind eyes!

Please SAVIOR, please FATHER GOD, please HOLY SPIRIT, we need all of YOU to help us to be ONE with YOU, in full agreement with YOU all as YOU all are with each other! We would be YOURS. Please, we would be YOURS.   Thank You, thank You so much.

(Matthew 23)