TOXIC RELIGION

TOXIC RELIGION Matthew 16:5-12 February 26, 2006 Given by: Pastor Rich Bersett [Index of Past Messages] Introduction On my way to my prayer retreat driving down I-44, I was treated to a spectacle the likes of which I have only otherwise seen on a rare National Geographic documentary. I was making my way west at about 11:00 in the morning, when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked and saw a majestic hawk, a very large one, flying from a high point on a cliff to my right, and barreling full speed down and left. Mesmerized by the beauty and intensity of this bird of prey, I watched him all the way across the highway to the base of an outcropping of rock beyond the oncoming lanes of traffic. He was flying full speed all the way to the landing point—or should I say, the point of impact. There that hawk hit the rock hard, literally bouncing off it. But he also hit something else—his prey. For just a moment after impact his wings flapped so feverishly I thought he was hurt. Then up he flew with what appeared to be a baby rabbit held firmly in his strong talons. As I passed the hawk’s line of flight I was ecstatic to have witnessed such a scene! It was awesome. The master hunter zeroing in on his live dinner, some 150 yards away, and moving with such blinding speed and accuracy to make the grab, not even seeming to care about the pain of slamming into that wall of limestone. He was determined to make the kill. I’m glad I wasn’t that baby rabbit! The Bible teaches there is a powerful enemy who would make us his prey. He has neither talons nor a sharp beak, but he is motivated and he has a radar lock on us. Jesus graphically described the devil as a thief who comes only to steal and kill and destroy. (John 10:10) But Satan’s methods are rarely direct like a hawk’s, but every bit as virulent and deadly, when he tries to make spiritual mince meat of us. Here me well—he will do anything he can to turn you away from God. He stalks his prey, learns our vulnerabilities and moves in with crafty means to confuse and confound, to tempt and to trap. If you are at all trying to respond in faith to Jesus Christ today, you are in his sites. We’re going to study one of his sneakiest schemes this morning. Turn with me to Matthew 16:5-12, where we will find a warning given by the Lord Jesus to his disciples. When they went across the lake, the disciples forgot to take bread. “Be careful,” Jesus said to them. “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” Please note that Jesus stressed his point with two terms: literally, watch and beware, here translated as Be careful and Be on your guard. They discussed this among themselves and said, “It is because we didn’t bring any bread.” Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked, “You of little faith, why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread? Do you still not understand? Don’t you remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? How is it that you didn’t understand I was not talking to you about bread? But be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” Then they understood that he was not telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. If it wasn’t literal bread yeast Jesus was talking about, what was it? Yeast, as we learned a few weeks ago in our study of the parable in Matthew 13, is a methodical influencer. It works in a lump of dough to cause the bread to rise. Like yeast the kingdom of God is placed in the world and it influences whole cultures for Christ. Here, Jesus uses the yeast metaphor in its more common biblical say, referring to evil influence through bad teachers. The Danger of False Teaching By way of quick review, two weeks ago we did a brief study on the Sadducees and Pharisees, when Jesus and the disciples encountered them in Magadan. There we learned that the Pharisees were very strict, law-enforcing ritualists. They were also hypocrites, Jesus made that clear. In a word, what was wrong with their teaching was that it was legalism. The Sadducees, on the other hand, were anything but law-mongers. They were on the other extreme, not valuing much at all the Word of God or His moral law. They were, in a word, liberals. (Not politically speaking, of course, but theologically.) We need to understand, first, that yeast symbolizes influence. What we have from Jesus in these few verses, aside from the rather comic misunderstanding of the disciples, is a clear warning from Jesus about the yeast, or influence, of these two groups. The Lord warns His followers about the spiritually crippling influence of two kinds of teaching: liberalism and legalism. I’d like for us to draw some understanding from this text for ourselves today. We don’t have a lot of legalistic Pharisees or liberal Sadducees running around our world today—or do we? Could it be that there is still danger for us disciples of Christ in these brands of false teaching? Could it be that Satan would love to snare us by means of erroneous teaching and have us for lunch? Indubitably! If you thought for a moment that false teaching is no longer a threat to the Lord’s people, then I’m glad you’re here this morning. There is in fact a good deal of such false teaching all around us. And it’s not coming from the world, proper, it is in the church. If false teaching of liberalism and legalism is a leaven, then the enemy has already infiltrated the church with it. The New Testament warns us that there will be those, even from among the leaders of the church who will wander from the Christian faith and teaching. The apostle Paul warned the elders of the Ephesian Church: I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard! (Acts 20:29-31a) First Timothy 4:1 - The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. First John 2:18-19a - …as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us… Just as the New Testament prophecies said, Satan has extended his treacherous influence into the church and, just as it was in the day that Jesus spoke these words, religious teachers are bringing forth error, and we are being warned not to be “influenced” by it. This leaven may begin as a seemingly benign idea that hits you a little funny at first—you know, like it’s not exactly right. You must know, that initial niggling—that’s the Holy Spirit of God in you reacting to an element of error, warning you with static in your spirit that something’s not right. Reject it, then and there. Four Marks of the Leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees I want to address four marks of the kind of false teaching that Jesus branded as the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. The first mark is the mark of the Liberal. This is like the Sadducees. It is a basic disregard for the Word of God—His express will set forth in the pages of scripture. In 1985 a team of theologians began a project under the auspices of the Westar Institute, called the Jesus Seminar. One hundred scholars doing research to determine “what Jesus, as a historical figure, may or may not have said or done.” They meet, discuss a passage of scripture quoting Jesus, and they vote on whether or not He really said it. Actually they have four different color beads that they use to vote with—red, pink grey and black. Red: Jesus said it; Pink: Jesus might have said it; Grey: Jesus probably did not say it; Black: Jesus definitely did not say it. What arrogance! Now, these are people who define themselves as Christian theologians, but hardly any of them believes in the deity of Christ, His resurrection or His death as the substitutionary atonement for sin. Naturally, anything the gospels record Jesus as saying about any of these topics gets a black bead. I would not want to face the Lord in the day of judgment with black beads in my hand. The most insidious part of the whole sham is that these so-called scholars with their subjective, biased appraisals of holy scripture, go on insisting they are Christians, and theologians. How many believers or would-be believers will be dissuaded by such lousy theology? The words of Matthew 18:6 are haunting here: …if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Another self-styled Christian theologian, a German by the name of Gerd Ludemann, confessed, “I no longer describe myself as a Christian.” He went on to say Christian descriptions of Jesus as "Lord of the world" were "arrogant and ignore reality." I shudder when I read this man’s journey through liberal theology to total denial of faith, especially because of James 3:1 – Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. What is liberalism? Succinctly, it any denigration of Christ’s authority or the authority of the scriptures. As soon as you hear the slightest hint of erosion of the Bible’s truth and authority, run, don’t walk, away from that teacher. The quickest way for you to slide away from faith and into the waiting talons of the devil, is to start doubting the authority of Christ and His Word. All scripture is God-breathed [inspired by God] and valuable for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. [Webmasters note: 2 Timothy 3:16-17] This liberalism can come in a variety of forms: the cavalier treatment of scripture or the lack of scripture in their teaching. If you are listening to a Christian teacher who talks more about the news headlines or popular ideas that biblical truth, get away from that teacher. Another form of disregard for scripture is careless interpretation. If your regular Bible teacher is not devoted to clear, undistorted explanation of the scripture’s teachings, you are sitting under the influence of a Sadducee. A church’s faith and practice ought to be marked by such things as Bible study, prayer, worship and fellowship. If it isn’t, it isn’t biblically sound. Liberal churches tend to sink into a satisfaction with ritual and tradition because of the drift from the centrality of the Bible’s teaching. Liberal teaching ends up in empty rituals and often a punctilious concern for following traditions. Such is the religion of liberal Sadducees. War against liberalism in your personal life and in your church. Honor the Word of God above all other authority. Exalt Jesus Christ as Lord and keep enthroning Him in your thoughts and your worship and your behavior. The person of Jesus and the authority of His Word must be paramount, if you are to avoid the yeast of the Sadducees. The second mark of false teaching is legalism. The Pharisees were very detailed in their attention to the letter of the law—really the opposite extreme of the Sadducees in many ways. They would push the limits of the law’s demands, putting unwarranted burdens on people. Jesus said in actuality, they shut people out of the kingdom, rather than helping them in. The gospel of the new covenant in Christ has rendered the old covenant “obsolete” (Hebrews 8:13), and Christ-followers are no longer under the Law. But you wouldn’t know it by listening to some teachers in the church. With a heavy emphasis on Thou shalt not’s and You must do this or that’s, some teachers bring an awful lot of Law into their New Covenant teaching. But Jesus said, For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. [Webmasters note: Matthew 11:30]   He made atonement for us and rescued us from the law of sin and death. Therefore, is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1) Galatians five teaches: It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. (5:1) I don’t want to be misunderstood here. There are a considerable number of commands given to Christians in the New Testament. If there is a requirement for believers in the Word, it is non-negotiable, period. If someone comes up to you and says, “you must no longer steal and lie and speak evil,” you can’t just slough it off as so much legalism. Ephesians 4:25-30 teaches in no uncertain terms that these are the Lord’s expectations for His followers. But when, consciously or unconsciously, we begin to require of one another behaviors and attitudes and allegiances that are beyond the pages of the New Testament, we are sliding into legalism. The legalist requires things of believers that are beyond what the scriptures require. These things we require of one another may not be wrong, and may even be good things, but if our insistence moves beyond suggestion to law, we are wrong. There is nothing wrong with, and everything right with, teachers and believers in general, encouraging other believers to not do things not mentioned in the Word that are harmful. But there is a line that is easily crossed when we make it seem like this is your religious duty. That’s where it starts to get murky and especially younger believers can start to think if they don’t follow that advice they are not really Christians. What that means is I cannot demand of you as a believer that you not drink or smoke or chew or buy a lottery ticket or watch R-rated films—not with the kind of weight with which I can insist that you love one another and forgive one another and not commit adultery or fornication, because these latter demands are pure scripture, and I have the right & duty to urge them on you. How do I know if I am being influenced by legalism? Generally, anything that threatens to dislodge or replace my blood-bought, grace-based relationship with God through Jesus Christ alone, is likely to be the yeast of legalism. If your faith makes you feel oppressed, afraid, guilty or like you don’t “measure up,” you might be suffering the ill effects of legalism. If you fear or idolize your teacher/preacher, be careful of legalism. If you find that you would do anything for your teacher or you think your teacher has the right to tell you what to do, you are probably under the influence of the yeast of legalism. It is important that every one of us in Christ be able to say that everything we do for the Lord is something we know from His Word He asks of us. And it is equally important for us to be able to say that we are not striving to do anything for God or man that has been placed on us by threat or guilt or any other motivation than it’s being a scriptural command. I’m coming to one of the main things I want to say this morning. Legalism is always the result of bad teaching from a teacher who, whether he knows it or not yet, is putting a burden on believers to do more than God clearly demands in scripture. That always evolves from carnal motivation. What I’m saying is that those who are purveyors of Pharisaical legalism are often driven by a need to control. That may rise from their own insecurities or anger or simply a misplaced loyalty to a legalistic system they learned from others. Controlling leader twist scripture in order to manipulate believers to serve their personal agendas. If you are under a pastor or leader who has ever intimated that he or she alone is your teacher to the exclusion of other Christian teachers, you are in a toxic situation and you need to get out. It is a very unhealthy circumstance and a very unhealthy leader. Teachers and leaders who have a high need to control need healing. The best thing you can do is confront them and encourage them to get some help. If they won’t listen to you, and usually they won’t, get out, and take your friends and family with you. If you feel you are usually being manipulated through pressure or guilt or mind games to do things that are beyond what the Word requires of you, which things always tend to benefit your leader, that’s the yeast of legalism. It is happening in a lot of churches, folks. In the name of Christ and the Christian faith, there is much chicanery and ill health, all rising out of the bondage of legalism and her children. And there is another extreme, closely related to the control issue. That is the cult syndrome. This is an extreme, but predictable, pattern that evolves from the control issue. Think Jim Jones here, David Koresh, as well as most other personality-driven cults. These are situations where the enemy has empowered the control skills of leaders to such a degree that they begin to feel invincible. They take on delusions of grandeur and begin to really think that they have an inside track to God that no one else has. Or worse, that they are God or at least God does what they say. Cult leaders invariably accuse all other Christian teachers as being wrong. Believers tragically get caught up in these situations. A very, very high percentage of cult members were Christian believers before they were lured into the cults. How did they become vulnerable? They did not learn the Word well enough soon enough to be able to discern whether they were getting good teaching or not. And in many cases they suffer from their own emotional problems which left them vulnerable to a strong, charismatic leader who would tell them what to do. All in all, the cult syndrome is the most extreme and most tragic. Concluding Exhortations 1. Get focused in the Word and stay focused in it 2. Get emotionally healthy 3. Get under “servant leadership” [Back to Top]