PT-4 "False Leaders Are Cursed For Their Inversion" (Matt. 23:23-24)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/29/2023 8:20 AM

 

My Worship Time                          Focus:  PT-4 "False Leaders Are Cursed For Their Inversion"

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                    Reference:  Matt. 23:23-24

 

            Message of the verses:  “23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. 24 “You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!”

 

            It is my hope to finish this SD this morning because I do have to go and teach our Sunday school class later this morning.

 

            In looking at false religions, it is almost without exception they strongly magnify the insignificant and minimize or even ignore the things that are truly scriptural.  The truth is, especially at this time in history is that the worldly is idolized; the spiritual disregarded.

 

            MacArthur concludes this section by writing:  “It is also possible for true believers to be caught up in minutiae” (finer points or details). “Some Bible students, for instance, claim to have ascertained the meaning of virtually every obscure sign and symbol in Scripture yet give scant attention in their lives to the Bible’s clear and unambiguous moral truths.

 

            “Jesus graphically illustrated the scribes’ and Pharisees’ inversion of priorities by saying that they would strain out a gnat and swallow a camel.  The gnat and the camel represented the smallest and the largest, respectively, of the ceremonially unclean animals (see Lev. 11:4, 42).  Fastidious Pharisees would drink their wine  through clenched teeth in order to filter out any small insects that might have gotten into the wine.  In their typical reversal of values, those Jewish religious leaders were more concerned about being contaminated by a tiny gnat that by a huge camel.  They were painstaking about formal, ceremonial trivialities but were unconcerned about their hypocrisy, dishonesty, cruelty, greed, self-worshiping, and a host of other series sins.  They substituted outward acts of religion for the essential virtues of the heart.”

 

            10/29/2023 8:35 AM