Saturday, October 10, 2020

PT-1 "The Danger of False Righteousness" (Matt. 6:1)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/10/2020 9:56 AM

 

My Worship Time                                          Focus:  PT-1 “The Danger of False Righteousness”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matthew 6:1

 

            Message of the verse:  1 "Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.”

 

            This introductory verse in the 6th chapter of Matthew introduces us to the section on the forms of righteousness and it applies to each of the three illustrations that are found in 6:2-18.

 

            As John MacArthur begins his commentary on this verse he tells the story of an Eastern ascetic holy man, and this man would put ashes over himself as a sign of humility and then many times set on the street corner.  When people wanted to take his picture then he would first rearrange the ashes in order to get the best image.  I suppose that the moral of the story is that a great deal of religion today amounts to nothing more than rearranging religious “ashes” in order to impress the world with one’s supposed humility and devotion.  MacArthur writes “The problem, of course, is that the humility is a sham, and the devotion is to self, not to God.  Such religion is nothing more than a game of pretense, a game at which the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’ day were masters.  Because their religion was mostly an act, and a mockery of God’s true revealed way for His people, Jesus’ most blistering denunciations were reserved for them.”

 

            If one would take the time and read through the Bible they will find many hypocrites beginning with Cain who brought the wrong sacrifice to God while his brother able brought the right one, and so Cain would kill Able out of resentment as seen in Genesis 4:5-8.  Absalom is another hypocrite who I believe was used by Satan to overthrow his father David’s throne, the throne that God had promised would last forever. 

 

            Now if we are looking for the supreme hypocrite we would look to no other than Judas Iscariot, who was the one who betrayed Jesus Christ with a kiss.  In the fifth chapter of Acts we find Ananias and Sapphira who hypocritically claimed to have given the church all the proceeds from the sale of their property, and lost their lives for lying to the Holy Spirit as seen in 5:1-10).   

 

            I will close this weekend SD with a quote from John MacArthur as he talks more about hypocrisy.  Hypocrites are found in paganism, in Judaism, and in Christianity.  There were hypocrites in the early church, the medieval church, and the Reformation church.  There are still hypocrites in the church today, and Paul assures us there will be hypocrites at the end of the age.  ‘But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron’ (1 Tim. 4:1-2).  Hypocrisy is endemic to fallen man, and integral part of his fleshly nature.  Persecution of the church helps to diminish the number of hypocrites, but even that cannot completely eliminate them.”  I just wonder how close the persecution is in our country today.

 

10/10/2020 10:21 AM 

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