The Ship Is Sinking: Call Out the Gospel.

Class Outline:

Sunday November 2, 2025

Intro:

 

There is a final judgment upon the world and it is coming, every day closer. Its coming and finality is a certainty. Nothing is going to stop it. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, you have nothing to worry about. 

 

This is the final public teaching of our Lord. 

 

Woe 7: MAT 23:29-36. 

 

Whereas in the previous woe the scribes and Pharisees were decorated tombs, now they build and decorate the tombs of others.

 

Intro: 

DEU 10:12-13

"Now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require from you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and love Him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13 and to keep the Lord's commandments and His statutes which I am commanding you today for your good?

 

6 woes: 3 groups of two. Summary of Israel’s history: not love neighbor, not love God, break law. 

 

Woe 7: Murder of God’s messengers. 

 

The final woe is the climax of Israel’s murderous history. 

 

Hypocrites: We would not have been like them. 

 

Why do people pretend? The human race, made in God’s image, has a conscience and collectively there is faint feeling or understanding of how things should be.

 

The Pharisees and scribes must have protested (vowed) that they would not have murdered the prophets quite often.

 

Uriah son of Shemaiah killed by the sword (by order of King Jehoiakim) JER 26:20-23.

 

Zechariah son of Jehoiada: Stoned in the Temple court (by order of King Joash) 2CH 24:20-22.

 

Legend has it that Isaiah was sawn in two (HEB 11:37) by Manasseh.

 

Micaiah son of Imlah Imprisoned, likely died in custody 1KI 22:26-27.

 

In Israel, as in the Christianized world, greed, power-lust, sensuality, evil and sin is usually covered in a nice veneer of good.

 

But it is a lie and the Lord is going to prove it to the world, by amazingly sending them even more apostles after they murder Christ. 

 

Ultimately, why this is so important, is that judgment is coming.

 

Blood of the prophets: Abel to Zechariah (Genesis - Chronicles; first and last martyr.) and appropriately in English: A to Z.

 

Appropriate last words of Zechariah:  2CH 24:20

Thus God has said, 'Why do you transgress the commandments of the Lord and do not prosper? Because you have forsaken the Lord, He has also forsaken you.'

 

 

God’s love and grace is to get to work on the center.

 

But this opened up another problem, that salvation would be by grace and not by works.

 

The Law in Israel, was designed to lead them to that gift - to lead them to the gospel. Today, the church is the vehicle, not through the Law but through the gospel itself.

 

The church must declare the gospel clearly and boldly before the final woes come.

 

Paul states clearly that he was called to preach the gospel, the unfathomable riches of Christ, to teach the Word of God.

 

COL 1:28-29

We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ. 29 For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.

 

It is labor due to the stubbornness of the heart of man. We are all priests and ambassadors.

 

1PE 2:9

But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God's OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;

 

1PE 2:12

Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them,

 

We mature, not for our own benefit, though the benefits are legion (many), but so that we might be awesome witnesses of Christ. How could we proclaim His excellencies if they were not in us?

 

The world is running out of time.

 

“Fill up the guilt of your fathers …” 

 

Only God knows when the cup of wrath is filled. 

 

The thing to know and to proclaim is that in Christ is the only safe place.

 

Jesus prophesies that they will fill the cup of the wrath of God to the top when they murder Christ and the ones He sends to them in the first generation of the church. 

 

As Christ knows, they will kill Him - the Prophet.

 

PSA 22:16

For dogs have surrounded me;

A band of evildoers has encompassed me;

They pierced my hands and my feet.

 

Pilate tried to set Jesus free. He gave them Barabbas as a way out. If they could have lawfully killed Him they would have, but God controls history; and God was going to pierce His hands and feet.

 

MAT 27:19-26

While he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent him a message, saying, "Have nothing to do with that righteous Man; for last night I suffered greatly in a dream because of Him." 20 But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas and to put Jesus to death. 21 But the governor said to them, "Which of the two do you want me to release for you?" And they said, "Barabbas." 22 Pilate said to them, "Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?" They all said, "Crucify Him!" 23 And he said, "Why, what evil has He done?" But they kept shouting all the more, saying, "Crucify Him!"

 

24 When Pilate saw that he was accomplishing nothing, but rather that a riot was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd, saying, "I am innocent of this Man's blood; see to that yourselves." 25 And all the people said, "His blood shall be on us and on our children!" 26 Then he released Barabbas for them; but after having Jesus scourged, he handed Him over to be crucified.

 

There is irony again, the ugly step-child of hypocrisy. “His blood shall be on us and our children!” How right they were. How sad and tragic it all is.

 

This first paragraph finishes with His dire warning:

 

MAT 23:33 “You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell?”

 

This must take us back to GEN 3:15, to the serpent who would be crushed but who would first bruise the heel of the Messiah - His cross, piercing.

 

Conclusion:

 

Our job as believers is somewhat like Jesus’ final week, His Passion Week - public declaration of Him. More woes are coming upon the earth. The veneer of the hypocrites will not fool the Judge.

 

REV 18:10

Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! For in one hour your judgment has come.'

 

While Babylon is destroyed in Rev 18; the wedding feast of the King of kings to the church is getting under way in Rev 19.

 

There is a judgment and there is a Savior who took judgment upon Himself and that faith in Him is the only freedom from the wrath of God. 

 

We must remind ourselves that before Christ came, Israel was meant to be God’s light to the world. In our age, the church is not like anything ever seen before. We are the only source of the gospel. Let us, you and me, not fail at shining the light of Christ like Israel did. Hell is real.