SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/12/2020 9:55 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-3 “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.”
We ended our last SD talking about
outside of idolatry the biggest sin that Israel committed was hypocritical
religion, and that is what Jesus has been talking about throughout the entire 5th
chapter of Matthew and beginning this chapter too. In the Old Testament, especially in the
prophets we have seen God’s call to the children of Israel on how to worship
Him, and for the most part they did not follow what God was telling them
through the prophets. I can think of the
prophet Jeremiah, the weeping prophet he is called, and how he lived out the
last days of the Southern Kingdom and spoke endlessly to the children of that
kingdom knowing that they would not respond, knowing it was God’s plan to have
them go into captivity, yet he continued to talk to them. The Jews were replacing the God’ given
ceremonies with ceremonies of their own which did not honor God.
John MacArthur writes “As Aesop’s
fable tells of a wolf who wanted to have a sheep for his dinner and decided to
disguise himself as a sheep and follow the flock into the fold. While the wolf waited until the sheep went to
sleep, the shepherd decided he would have mutton for his own meal. In the dark he picked out what he thought was
the largest, fattest sheep; but after he had killed the animal he discovered it
was a wolf. What that shepherd did inadvertently
to the wolf in sheep’s clothing, God does intentionally. The Lord judges hypocrisy.”
In the gospel of Mark chapter 7:6-7
we see the words of Jesus: “6 And He
said to them, "Rightly
did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, ’THIS PEOPLE
HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME. 7 ’BUT IN VAIN
DO THEY WORSHIP ME, TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN.’” In this section Jesus was talking about the
scribes and the Pharisees of whom Isaiah foretold.
In
the following Scriptures we see that Jesus used many figures to describe
hypocrisy as He compared it to leaven in Luke 12:1, then to whitewashed tombs
in Matthew 23:27, concealed tombs in Luke 11:44, tares admits the wheat in
Matthew 13:25, and in Matthew 7:15 He talked about wolves in sheep’s
clothing. Maybe that is where Aesop go
the fable listed above.
John
MacArthur describes the word “beware” “Prosecho (‘beware’) means to hold, or
take hold of, something and pay attention to it, especially in the sense of
being on guard. The scribes, Pharisees,
and other hypocrites are warned by Jesus to ‘beware’ of the religious activities
in which they had such pride and confidence.
He was about to show them again how worthless, meaningless, and unacceptable
to God those activities were.
“Theaomai
(‘to be noticed’) is related to the term from which we get theater. It has in mind a spectacle to be gazed
at. In other words, Jesus is warning
about ‘practicing’ a form of ‘righteousness (dikaiosune, acts of religious devotion in general) whose purpose is
to show off ‘before men.’ Such religion
is like a play; it is not real life but acting, It does not demonstrate what is
in the minds and hearts of the actors, but is simply a performance designed to
make a certain impression on those who are watching.”
We
can determine that such practices amount only to theatrical righteousness,
performed in order to impress, rather than serve and to magnify the actors
rather than God, for we can see that He is certainly not impressed. The scribes and Pharisees and other
hypocrites purpose is to please men, and not God and the activities are not
real life, but an exhibition. I remember
a long time ago I went to a live presentation of the “Passion of Christ” while
visiting my parents who lived in Lake Whales Florida half the year. I spoke to one of the actors and realized that
that is exactly what he was an actor and not a real worshiper of God, and that
is what Jesus is talking about in this verse we have been looking at.
Jesus
goes on to talk about this false righteous will not be rewarded: “you have no
reward with your Father who is in heaven.”
We can see if we go back to Matthew 5:16 that God does not reward
men-pleasers because they rob God of glory, and He is the only One who deserves
glory. MacArthur writes “It should be
noted that ‘your Father’ is used in the same sense as in 5:16, as a reference
to the Old Testament sense in which God was Israel’s Father (Isa. 63:16), not
in the New Testament sense of personal relationship by salvation (see Matt.
6:9).
“The
reference to God’s dwelling ‘in heaven’ distinguishes the eternal character of
divine reward from the transient, shallow praise that hypocrites receive from
other men.”
Lord
will we will move onto looking at “The Practice and Reward of False Giving” in
our next SD.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: It is truly my desire not to ever practice in
the hypocritical false religion that the scribes and Pharisees practiced, and
if I go that way may the Holy Spirit stop it right away.
My Steps of Faith for Today: May the Lord
help me to put together our Sunday school lesson on the 35th Psalm
for next week.
10/12/2020 10:33 AM
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