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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