Luke 11:49-54 — “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.” In Jesus’s day, people looked to the lawyers for the answers to life’s most important questions. Being experts in the Word of God, the lawyers were the custodians of knowledge — the knowledge that leads to salvation and everlasting life. It was their job to impart salvation wisdom, but they had utterly failed. In fact, they were preventing people from entering into the kingdom of God.
In this the third of three “woes” that Jesus pronounced against the lawyers, we are given a stark illustration of their failure. We also see how seriously God takes the teaching of His Word, and the way His people live.