Am I a Pharisee?
Part two.
Hey welcome to today's Little Lesson as we continue to look again at the Pharisees but
not because we're so interested in them, because we want to find out if we, God forbid, resemble
in any way the Pharisees whom Jesus criticized and condemned, and of course, all of us initially
are going to say to ourselves well of course I'm not a Pharisee, I'm a follower of Jesus.
I'm not a Pharisee.
But as we look more closely and honestly at what Jesus said to the Pharisees, we may find
some resemblances which we can then make an adjustment.
That's another word for repentance, okay?
So we start off in Matthew, chapter 23.
There's a whole chapter of Jesus saying what's bad about the Pharisees and He said they've
seen it themselves in the chair of Moses, so in the synagogues they're in the seat ... They're
the ones reading from the Books of Moses, the first five books of the Old Testament.
That's where the law of Moses [inaudible 00:01:11].
Jesus said in verse 3 of Matthew 23, "Therefore all that they tell you do and observe."
Now that's I think specifically when they're in that chair reading from the scrolls.
I don't think Jesus meant everything they tell you do it because He corrected so many
things that they were saying.
Corrected their teaching and their doctrine and so forth, alright?
When they're in the seat of Moses, when they're reading the Bible, you're safe then and I
closed the last lesson by pointing that out, nothing's different today.
When your pastor is up there reading from the Bible, well you're safe.
You're safe then but it's after that when you have to beware because that's when you're
going to get something beyond the Bible and hopefully it's going to challenge you to face
up to what is very obvious there in the Bible.
I think so many sermons ... I've watched this over the years, I've been a Christian for
... Goodness, for four and a half decades now and been in the ministry for four decades,
and a pastor will get up and read a passage of scripture or a teacher, whatever, visiting
evangelist, you know.
Get up and read the scripture and in its plain obvious sense, it brings conviction to every
listener.
I mean, you can sense it.
That's what the Holy Spirit does.
The Holy Spirit convicts us when we're not doing what the word says we should be doing
and so the pastor gives that and everyone feels conviction and then the rest of the
sermon is all designed to make the pastor the hero who releases us from our conviction
because oh, it really doesn't mean what you may have thought it meant there because in
the Greek or in the Hebrew or you know, according to this church father or according to this
radio preacher or you know, we all know that can't be what it means because that's impossible,
nobody can be that obedient.
You know, all these things that preachers come up with and so by the end the pastor,
all he's done is made himself the hero because he's relieved everybody of the guilt they
naturally felt from just reading the scripture, and that's why I love the format that we follow
in the church that I'm a part of, which is just a little house church.
Where we read the scripture and then we all go around the circle and we talk about what
I like about that scripture, what I find challenging about that scripture, and then what that scripture
teaches me about God and what that scripture teaches me about people.
A lot of truth surfaces in that.
It's hard to hide when you've got all ... It's kind of like almost you know, in a court setting
where you've got all these people and you think man, I better tell the truth now.
If somebody gets off, well that can be counteracted, you know?
By somebody else in the group so there's those checks and balances just built right into
the format.
But not saying that all pastors are dishonest or that they're always twisting the word but
there's a huge temptation to do that.
A huge temptation to do that and the true men of God aren't doing that, of course, but
they don't have big churches.
All that they tell you, do observe but do not do ... Now I'm reading from Matthew 23:3,
"But do not do according to their deeds for they say things and do not do them."
Alright, so now Jesus is talking.
We read this in the first Little Lesson that Jesus is talking to the crowds and to His
disciples, so this is believers and unbelievers, and this is critical of the Pharisees and
He's saying you know, don't do what they're doing, do what they tell you to do but they're
not doing what they're telling you to do.
This is the first criticism that Christ makes of the Pharisees, specifically that they're
not practicing what they're preaching and there's a question that we can all ask.
You know, I remember reading John Wesley's, I think it's 21 Questions that he designed
to be asked in what they called the "class meetings".
That was the groups of disciples that met on a weekly basis for self examination and
admonition and [inaudible 00:05:45] and you know, spiritual growth, and I believe the
first question on that list ... If it wasn't the first, it was right after the first or
close to the first, and it was something to the effect of am I by anything I'm doing trying
to lead people to believe that I'm actually more spiritual than I am?
Because this is the fault of the Pharisee and anyone who's not just the teachers and
the preachers, but anyone who's speaking and relating anything regarding the truth of the
word of God but not practicing it themselves.
Oh, I'm so sorry to announce to you that I've been guilty of that and this is why it's so
good for us to read stuff like this.
Jesus didn't practice what he preached, he preached what he practiced, you know?
And that should be what we're striving to do and be as well.
Here's what I practice and so I only preach, I only prescribe what I'm doing myself and
a more subtle nuance of that is am I in any way trying to lead people into believing that
I'm actually more spiritual or more committed than I am because my public persona is different
than my private one.
Oh my goodness, you know.
So your pastor knocks at the door, let's just invent an example here.
Your pastor knocks at the door, oh my goodness, I look out through the keyhole, it's the pastor.
Quickly turn off the TV and open the Bible and walk to the door.
"Oh pastor, so good to see you.
Just reading the Bible here."
Well, you are a Pharisee and anything that resembles that when you put on this I'm more
spiritual than what I actually am act because if there's anything that Christ will see this
repeating itself down through Matthew 23, if there's anything He condemned them for
it was that.
You're hypocrites, which is another word for you're just an actor or an actress, alright?
A little conviction coming through here today.
Thank you so much for joining me.
We'll see you hopefully next time.