Matthew
16:6 Then Jesus said to them, “Take heed and beware of the leaven of the
Pharisees and the Sadducees.” NKJV
The public school systems in much of this country
the United States of America is under pressure to raise or elevate the ability
for our children to pass standardized test that every State develops to test
the knowledge of the student prior to graduation. The former President George
W. Bush implemented what was thought to be a ground breaking piece of
legislation (No Child Left Behind) that would surely improve the learning
ability of America’s children that attended public schools. However, we soon
learned that while legislation with goals, targets, and criteria serve a
purpose and are well intentioned that they alone will not transfer the required
skills children need to be successful at retaining what was taught in the
classroom and how it was taught to them. The founding of many Charter Schools
today where some of the same students previously in the aforementioned Public
Schools are now being observed excelling in learning and retaining what they
learned can be traced directly to the people teaching them, how they teach
them, and what they teach them.
Our Lord faced a similar problem while He walked with
His disciples many centuries ago but with far greater consequences. More than
the ability to receive a diploma, but the consequences of hearing, receiving,
and believing false or bad spiritual teaching could work to lead the souls of
men, women, boys, and girls to an eternal @#!*% . Therefore, our Lord sought with
earnest diligence to warn His true disciples to beware of two forms of false spiritual
teaching that they would encounter and that would sound so good it could pull
so many looking for truth away from THE TRUTH that He had been teaching them
and that He would continue to teach through them after His ascension into
Heaven.
There were two religious sects of the Jews during that
time that received respect, regard, and even reverence from many of the Jewish
people and they were the Pharisees and the Sadducees. First the “Pharisees” means the separated ones.
This religious sect of the Jews taught the doctrine of legalism, which essentially
means a strict conformity to the letter of the law rather than its spirit. They
appear to be responsible for the transformation of Judaism from a religion of
sacrifice to one of law. They saw God as concerned with the life of a person
without denying that the individual was responsible for how he or she lived. The
Pharisees opposed Jesus because He refused to accept the teachings of the oral
law. These were they that our Lord said, “Woe to you,
scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and
cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and
mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others
undone. Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!”
Second the Sadducees were the aristocrats (so called
blue blood) of the time. They were the party of the rich and the high priestly
families. They stood in opposition to the Pharisees and sought to conserve the
beliefs and practices of the past. They opposed the oral law, accepting the
Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament, as the ultimate
authority. The Sadducees were materialistic in their outlook. They did not
believe in life after death or any reward or punishment beyond this life. Therefore,
they taught the doctrine of liberalism, which
meant that since they believed in no after life this life was all that there
was and a person, could live as they desired indulging whatever sensual
passions that satisfied them, eat drink, and be merry for tomorrow you die. They
did not believe that God was concerned with what people did. Rather people were
totally free. These were they that our Lord said, “Are
you not therefore mistaken, because you do not know the Scriptures or the power
of God? For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in
marriage, but are like angels in heaven. But concerning the dead, that they
rise, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the burning bush passage,
how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the
God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’ ? He is not the God of the dead,
but the God of the living. You are therefore greatly mistaken.” They
wanted nothing to threaten their position and wealth, so they strongly opposed
Jesus.
Legalism
seeks to bind people to a strict list of rules and regulations, do’s and don’ts,
and the worship of angels and saints which things indeed have an appearance of
wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the
body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh. Liberalism, on the
other hand, designs to set people free to indulge the fleshly appetites without
limit or restriction and having no guilt because (in their unregenerate mind) God
does not care how people live their daily lives. The teaching of liberalism speaks
foolishness to people, and the heart of those who teach it and receive the
teaching will continually practice sin and all manner of evil and ungodliness,
and it will cause people to speak error against our Lord, and it will keep the
hungry heart/soul unsatisfied. Our Lord knew that many who would desire to come
to Him to receive the free gift of eternal life from His hand would meet with
these false roads or gates that appear to lead to the same eternal life, but
they are like leaven in dough permeating secretly, silently, and stealthily and
would lead the souls of people down, down, and down into degradation, despair, and
destruction. See article entitled "Making the Word of God of No Effect,
1
Corinthians 5:8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with
the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of
sincerity and truth. NKJV
2
Timothy 2:16 But shun profane and idle babblings, for they will increase
to more ungodliness. NKJV
“Nothing makes a man so virtuous as belief of the
truth. A lying doctrine will soon beget a lying practice. A man cannot have an
erroneous belief without by-and-by having an erroneous life. I believe the one
thing naturally begets the other.” Charles Spurgeon
“It is an undoubted truth that every doctrine that
comes from God, leads to God; and that which doth not tend to promote holiness
is not of God.” George Whitefield
“We should no more tolerate false doctrine that we would tolerate sin.” J. C. Ryle
“Doctrinal preaching certainly bores the hypocrites;
but it is only doctrinal preaching that will save Christ's sheep.” J. I. Packer
“Christians should not be content merely with
knowing mentally the doctrine of the Holy Spirit as given in the Bible; they
also need to know Him experimentally.” Watchman Nee
“There is scarcely anything so dull and meaningless
as Bible doctrine taught for its own sake. Truth divorced from life is not
truth in its Biblical sense, but something else and something less.” A. W.
Tozer
“Doctrine matters. What you believe about God, the
gospel, the nature of man, and every major truth addressed in Scripture filters
down to every area of your life. You and I will never rise above our view of
God and our understanding of His Word.” John MacArthur
“The foundation of true holiness and true Christian
worship is the doctrine of the gospel, what we are to believe. So when
Christian doctrine is neglected, forsaken, or corrupted, true holiness and
worship will also be neglected, forsaken, and corrupted.” John Owen
If
you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ and His amazing healing power, pray this
from your heart to the Lord Jesus Christ (you speaking directly to Him), Dear
Lord Jesus, I confess to You that I am a sinner and I need Your forgiveness. I
believe You shed Your Blood and died for my sins. I believe that You rose from
the dead proving that You alone are God. I repent of my sins. I want to turn
from my sins. I ask You Dear Lord Jesus to come into my heart and take control
of my life. I want You to be my Lord, Savior, and my God. Amen...
Sincerely in Christ,
Clifford D. Tate, Sr.
Author of “Silent Assassins of the Soul - Are you
Broken by Pornography and Masturbation? You can be Restored by the Lord Jesus
Christ and brought into Deliverance, Freedom, and Victory! A Guide for Men and
Women in the Enemy’s Crosshairs” e-book available now @ Amazon Kindle, @ Apple
I Bookstore for IPod, Barnes and Noble for Nook, Reader Store for Sony Reader,
Kobo, Copia, Gardners, Baker and Taylor, and eBookPie…
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