PT-2 "False Leaders Are Cursed For Their Subversion" (John 23:15)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/21/2023 8:08 AM

 

My Worship Time                       Focus:  PT-2 "False Leaders Are Cursed For Their Subversion"

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                    Reference:  Matthew 23:15

 

            Message of the verse:  “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel about on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.”

 

            I have mentioned that it was the plan of God for the children of Israel to reach out to the Gentiles to tell them the truth about God, and the problem is that they were not doing this.  However it was during the time of Christ that they were reaching out to Gentiles, but the sad truth is that they were not telling them the things that God had planned for them to tell them.  Jesus thus is telling them in this verse that the proselytes that they were making were certainly not being taught what God intended them to be taught about God.  I suppose that you could say that the Jews were doing something similar to what the modern day cults were doing, giving them some truth about God, but not the real truth about Him in order for them to be saved.

 

            John MacArthur writes “There were two kinds of proselytes in the synagogue.  One was called ‘a proselyte of the gate,’ a Gentile who only attended the services.  He now worshiped the true God, but he had not committed himself to full ritualistic and legalistic Judaism.  Such proselytes are referred to in the book of Acts as a person who was devout (10:2, 7; 13:50), as ‘God-fearing’ (10:2, 22, 35; 17:4, 17), or as ‘a worshiper of God’ (16:14; 18:7).

 

            “The other kind was referred to as ‘a proselyte of righteousness,’ so called because he became as religiously Jewish as a Gentile could become.  They participated in all the ceremonies, rituals, and feasts; they observed all the cleansing and other rites, both biblical and traditional; and if males, they were circumcised.  Those converts were even given Jewish names in order to separate them as much as possible from their pagan past.  Contrary to their popular appellation, however, they became anything but righteous.  Like the scribes and Pharisees who instructed them, they became paragons of self-righteousness.

 

            “The obvious reasons there were many more proselytes of the gate than proselytes of righteousness.  It was the latter kind in which the scribes and Pharisees delighted, and it was considered a great achievement to initiate a Gentile into all their legalistic practices.”

 

            I remember hearing a story from a Pastor that I actually don’t remember his name as this happened soon after I became a believer who talked about once a person became a true believer in Christ that most times they became very “on fire for the Lord.”  Ok his name was Howard Ball, as it just came to me.  He tells the story that other older believers liked to “warm themselves around the fire of the new believer.  Well this is what happened to these proselytes of the Jewish leaders, and once they believed what the Pharisees had taught them they became on fire for Judaism, the kind that was taught by the scribes and Pharisees and that is why Jesus said “you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.”  You have to become on fire for the cause of Christ in order to please the Lord, and these proselytes were not as they were as much or more a part of the false religion of the scribes and Pharisees.  I suppose that this is true with the cults today as their new converts become on fire for the wrong things.  The problem that if they have children, many of them do not get so involved as their parents, and so some of their children will be looking for the TRUTH, and they are easier to come to the truth than their parents.

 

            In our next SD we will look at the Greek word for hell and it is my desire to then finish this section from Matthew 23:15.

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life:  I am going to give the verse that I have entitled my blogs for this section of this SD.  “Study to show yourself approved to God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15 KJV).

 

            My Steps of Faith for Today:  By God’s grace and the direction of the Holy Spirit to always tell the truth as I tell others about Jesus Christ in person and in my writings in by blogs.

 

10/21/2023 8:42 AM