SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/22/2022 10:12 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-4 “They Receive Still Greater Light”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matt. 16:5-12
Message of the verses: “5 And the
disciples came to the other side and had forgotten to take bread. 6 And Jesus
said to them, "Watch out and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and
Sadducees." 7 And they began to discuss among themselves, saying, "It
is because we took no bread." 8 But Jesus, aware of this, said,
"You men of little faith, why do you discuss among yourselves that you
have no bread? 9 “Do you not yet understand or remember the five loaves of the
five thousand, and how many baskets you took up? 10 “Or the seven loaves of the
four thousand, and how many large baskets you took up? 11 “How is it that you
do not understand that I did not speak to you concerning bread? But beware of
the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees." 12 Then they understood that
He did not say to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the
Pharisees and Sadducees.”
We will begin with talking about the truth that is
found in Matthew 6:31-33 “31 “Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or
‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ 32 “For the Gentiles
eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all
these things. 33 “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all
these things will be added to you.” This
ties in with what the disciples were concerned about, not having enough bread
and so when believers live on the level of spiritual trust and obedience, then
God will make provision for their spiritual needs as seen in these verses from
the Sermon on the Mount. One move verse
to look at from 2 Corinthians 9:10 “Now He who supplies seed to the sower and
bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the
harvest of your righteousness.”
MacArthur
writes “The Twelve needed to heed the counsel Paul would one day give the
church at Philippi: “Finally, brethren,
whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure,
whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and
if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things” (Phil. 4:8;
cf. Col. 3:2). The Christian needs
constant exposure to the Word of God and constant illumination by the Spirit of
God. Only God’s Word and Spirit can
raise him above the cares, concerns, perplexities, and confusion that are the
inevitable heritage of life that is viewed and lived purely in the human
dimension.
“Jesus
was grieved that the Twelve, after so much clear teaching and so many
miraculous manifestations, were still living by human rather than by divine
sight. But He was patient with them, as
He always is with His own, and He knew they could not comprehend without divine
illumination.”
In
verse eight Jesus then repeated the warning “Beware of the leaven of the
Pharisees and Sadducees.” We have talked about leaven in earlier SD’s from
Matthew’s gospel and stated that leaven is not always something that is bad,
but leaven can also be something good after all it does make bread rise like
yeast does today. However the only
method that ancient people had for reproducing yeast was to save a small piece
of unbaked dough, which was later used to start fermentation in the next batch
of bread. I believe that when the
children of Israel left Egypt that they were told to get rid of all of the
yeast and to start new batches of bread.
They were in effect to get rid of the influence of Egypt and start over
as the nation that God was making them into on their way to the Promised Land.
I
mentioned that leaven (yeast) usually when spoken of in the Bible speaks of a
bad influence, but at other times it can speak of a good influence, like the
one just mentioned above with Israel leaving Egypt as they started a new life
without all the influences of Egypt, but unfortunately they continued to look
back to their lives in Egypt.
What
Jesus is saying to His disciples is to stay away from the spiritually
contaminating influence of the Pharisees and Sadducees, something they had
grown up with, but now they need to realize that it is all wrong what the Pharisees
and Sadducees were teaching. I have to
say that it all goes back to when Israel had disobeyed the Lord and were then
taken captive into Babylon, I am speaking of Judah, and this happened in 586 B.
C. They were only to spend 70 years in
Babylon according to Daniel’s prophecy, but many of them refused to leave
Babylon and go back to Judah when they were allowed to. While they were in Babylon and then back in
Judah that the different commentaries were written on the Old Testament, and as
they continued to write these different commentaries the “religion” of the Old
Testament was changed from faith to works, which is was during the time that
Christ walked on the earth.
Luke
12:1 says “Under these circumstances, after so many thousands of people had
gathered together that they were stepping on one another, He began saying to
His disciples first of all, "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.” What we see in Matthew 16:5-12 was not the
only time Jesus spoke about the leaven of the Pharisees, and in Luke 12:1 Jesus
says it is hypocrisy. In Matthew 23:27
Jesus said “For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear
beautiful but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.” He is again speaking of the Jewish religious
leaders.
MacArthur
writes: “The leaven of the…Sadducees, on
the other hand, was religious liberalism.
To them, religion was primarily a means to earthly, temporal ends. They did not believe in angels, miracles, the
resurrection, an afterlife, or anything else supernatural (see Acts 23:8). They were thoroughly materialistic and rationalistic,
and they, too, had an adverse permeating influence with many.” In
Acts Paul took advantage of this while on trial.
So
what we are learning that both types of leaven are enemies of the gospel. They corrupt God’s truth and God’s
people. Jesus is saying in effect “Don’t
let either the legalism of the Pharisees or the liberalism of the Sadducees
influence you,” He is saying false doctrine is always dangerous so stay away
from it.
In
Paul’s letter to the Galatians we can see that that church was threatened by
the legalistic perversions of the Judaizers, as they were the ones who insisted
that circumcision was to happen once a believer (male) is born-again. This is totally against what it takes to
become a true born-again believer. A
person can only accept the truth of the Gospel, that Christ died for them as
the Scriptures say and in your heart believe this and by faith ask the Lord to
cleanse you of your sin and come into your life and through the power of the
Holy Spirit led you as you begin your walk with the Lord.
“See
to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception,
according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of
the world, rather than according to Christ” (Col. 2:8).
MacArthur
concludes this rather long section by writing “False doctrine is never to be
trifled (played with) with or minimized. Jude warns that when a believer seeks to help
deliver someone from a false system he should go about it as if he were
snatching a brand from the fire (Jude 23).
To get too close to a cult or pagan religion is to risk being burned.”
8/22/2022 11:04 AM
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