Beware of False Doctrine
Notes
Transcript
Matthew 16:5-12
In verses 1-4 Jesus rebuked the religious leaders for their lack of spiritual discernment. They knew how to determine earthly matters. Specifically, they were pretty good at determining the weather. But they were awful at determining spiritual truth.
They could not recognize that their Savior had arrived. Christ had fulfilled prophecy after prophecy, yet they were willfully blind to this truth. They believed and taught false doctrine as a result.
The religious leaders were not the only ones who had problem with spiritual discernment. The disciples did as well.
They believed in Christ.
They loved Christ.
They followed Christ.
But when it came to false doctrine they were not as discerning as they should have been. In this section Jesus corrects the disciples in this area.
1. Doctrine Matters.
A. The Bible has much to say about doctrine.
1. There are dangerous doctrines that we must combat with the truth.
Scripture teaches there are doctrines of men (Col. 2:22. There are doctrines of devils (1 Tim.4:1)
There are strange doctrines (Hebrews 13:9).
2. Doctrine is to be an important part of the Christian’s life.
The Bible says the early church continued steadfast in the apostle’s doctrine (Acts 2:42),
We are to teach no other doctrine than we have been given (1 Tim. 1:3),
We are to give ourselves to doctrine (1 Tim. 4:13)
We are to honor those that labor in doctrine (1 Tim. 5:17)
We are not to blaspheme the doctrine of God (1 Tim. 6:1), in the end men will not endure sound doctrine (2 Tim. 4:3).
Scripture makes it clear that doctrine matters. The content of our faith, the message we deliver matters.
3. Doctrine is truth that is derived from the Word of God.
1 Timothy 4:16 says:
Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee.
How important is it to know the truth about God?
Well how important is it to know:
The truth about electricity before you wire a house?
The truths about an engine before you work on it?
The truths about the body before you write a prescription?
Truth matters. If we want to be saved and we want to show others how to be saved, then the truth about God matters.
Biblical doctrine teaches us:
The nature of God. Who is He? What is He like?
The nature of man. What is our purpose? Why do we sin?
The way of salvation. How can a person be forgiven?
How to live. What does God require of us?
How the church should operate.
The eternal state. What happens when a person dies?
B. Many have abandoned the preaching of doctrine.
Somewhere along the line the word “doctrine” took on a negative connotation. We hear things like:
We don’t focus on doctrine.
For some reason that’s supposed to be a noble statement. In fact there are many churches today they do not even make a doctrinal statement available on their website. Or if it is there, they have something very vague like “We believe the bible” or “We believe in Jesus”.
When doctrine no longer matters then sermons become man centered rather than God centered.
We have seen that in our culture:
We preach on felt needs
We preach on Holidays
We preach on current events- politics, movies, trends
There are those who will tell you clearly they don’t want to hear preaching on doctrine because:
It divides
It’s not about me
It’s not practical
Hear me well “It is un-Christlike not to emphasize doctrine.”
Jesus wants us to be clear about what is truth and what is error.
How can we identify false doctrine if we do not know what true doctrine is?
C. The preacher’s of the first century suffered for their preaching.
They were not killed for preaching on felt needs. They were not persecuted because they preached a sermon titled:
“Five Bible Ways to Balance Your Budget”.
They suffered because they preached on:
The sinfulness of man
The Deity of Christ
The exclusivity of the gospel
The reality of heaven and hell
It is the preacher’s responsibility to make sure that the church hears the doctrines of God.
He is to labor in the Word of God and proclaim truth to his hearers. I am afraid that doctrine is not in the pew because it is not in the pulpit. The pulpit is full of jokes, illustrations, personal stories, weekly headlines, but too often it is void of the Word of God. The Bible is our Book. We ought to read it, memorize it, meditate on it, proclaim it and live it.
2. Jesus rebukes the disciples for their lack of discernment.
A. Someone had forgotten to bring food.
They were probably in a hurry to get away from the religious leaders. They got in a boat and crossed the Sea of Galilee. When they got to the shore they realized they forgot the food. Mark’s gospel tells us they only had one loaf of bread.
There were 13 grown men to feed. One loaf wouldn’t help much.
I’m sure it was someone’s responsibility to bring the food. Whoever was responsible dropped the ball. This led to an argument among the disciples (7).
When men get hungry, they get grumpy. As well, some of these guys were brothers and we all know how brothers can argue.
This shows us how normal the disciples were. They were like us. At times, they forgot to do important things.
There is an important lesson for us here. When we or someone we love is careless it should not lead to an argument.
There is a difference between carelessness and sinfulness. We are humans and we forget to do things. We should give grace to others. Jesus isn’t going to lecture them on forgetting the bread. As well, He isn’t going to cast them away for being forgetful or careless about the food. He is going to take care of them.
Someone lost the bread.
It wasn’t a sin.
It wasn’t the end of the world.
The disciples weren’t going to starve to death.
This should not have led to an argument.
B. Jesus interrupted their argument with spiritual instruction.
He told them to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees (6). Leaven represents influence. It was like yeast. In Jesus day women would save a small piece of uncooked dough. This dough became sour. A small amount of this sour dough would cause the loaf of bread to rise. The small amount of leaven greatly influenced the entire loaf of bread.
Jesus was warning the disciples not to be influenced by the false teachers.
They misunderstood Him. They thought He was saying that when they restock on bread, they shouldn’t get it from the religious leaders.
They thought Jesus was joining the argument.
Jesus was trying to get their mind off trivial matters.
They were focused on eating.
He was focused on error.
They were focused on physical things.
He was focused on spiritual things.
Jesus didn’t want the disciples to repeat the error of Israel when they were in the wilderness.
On several occasions their hunger blinded them to truth. They were hungry so they asked Moses to take them back to Egypt.
An unhealthy desire for physical things can blind us to error. We will tolerate false doctrine because fleshly needs are met.
The truth is Jesus didn’t even mention bread. He mentioned leaven. They heard “bread” because that was their focus. Their focus was their own appetite. If they had been focused on the dangerous false doctrine of the religious leaders and trusted God to feed them they wouldn’t have misunderstood Jesus.
If we are worried about physical things in this world we may miss the leaven trying to come into the church.
Let me illustrate this for you.
If we trust God to grow our church, we will be careful. Our focus will be:
The Word of God
The glory of God
Holiness
Biblical Unity
The gospel
Confronting error
If we trust ourselves to build the church, we will be concerned about fleshly things like:
Being popular
Not offending anyone
Appeasing certain people
Telling people what they want to hear.
They will blind us to error. That’s how leaven gets in a church. If we build a church we can be sure it will be filled with leaven.
C. Jesus rebukes them.
He peppers them with questions. Jesus breaks out the spiritual machine gun and fires shot after shot in the form of questions. Matthew lists four questions Mark lists eight.
We may or may not have used this tactic on our kids:
What did you do?
What were you thinking?
Have you not been listening to me?
Why would you do such a thing?
Let’s look at the questions Jesus asks:
Why are you arguing the fact that you forgot to bring bread?
Do you not understand neither remember the five loaves and the feeding of the 5,000?
Do you not also remember the seven loaves and the feeding of the 4,000?
How do you not understand that I’m warning you about the LEAVEN of the Pharisees and Sadducees?
These questions focus on two errors of the disciples (9).
1) They did not remember.
The last thing they should have been worried about was food. Jesus was not going to let them starve and they should have known that.
Listen to me friend. God is going to take care of you. Stop being preoccupied with worry. God is going take care of your needs. He has promised that He will.
How many times has He fed you?
How many light bills has He paid?
How many nights have you had to sleep without a roof over your head?
It’s foolish to worry about things God has already proven to be faithful in.
Stop worrying about the future and remember what God has done for you in the past.
2) They did not understand.
They should have understood what Jesus meant. They didn’t because they were too focused on food.
Our time on this earth should be spent studying the Word of God and doing the will of God.
God is going to feed you.
He is not going to study the Bible for you.
Not worrying about the things of this world frees you up to learn about God. What about us? What would Jesus say to us?
Do we worry more about ourselves?
Do we know more about God?
3. The leaven of the Scribes and Pharisees (12).
Verse 12 states very plainly that the leaven Jesus spoke of was the doctrine of the Scribes and Pharisees.
Jesus was continually correcting the false doctrine of the religious leaders. These two groups mentioned were the two biggest religious groups in Judaism. They were both wrong in their understanding of truth yet their belief systems were far apart.
A. The error of the Pharisees was hypocritical legalism.
The Pharisees added to the bible.
They were focused on:
Appearance
Public religious acts
Unbiblical traditions
Ironically, they couldn’t live up to their won standards they had created.
Jesus said of them that everything they did was to be seen of men.
They were proud.
Their prayers, fasting, & giving was all a sham.
They had found loopholes in order to get away with sin. They said their money was dedicated to God but didn’t honoring father and mother in their old age by helping them financially.
They swore by the altar instead of the gift.
They strained at gnats but swallowed camels.
They looked good on the outside but were dead on the inside. They were the epitome of hypocrisy.
Legalism is all about appearance. We have seen it on own churches.
You can’t cut your hair if you’re a woman.
You can’t wear pants if you’re a woman.
You can’t cut the grass on Sunday.
You can’t wear a piece of jewelry.
It’s hard enough to obey the Bible already. If you add to it you sure won’t be able to keep it!
B. The error of the Sadducees was liberalism.
They only accepted the first five books of the Bible as truth.
They didn’t believe in angelic beings.
They didn’t believe in the resurrection of the dead.
They didn’t believe in an afterlife.
We have this today in our culture. We have people in our churches that do not believe in the virgin birth, the sinlessness of Christ, resurrection of Christ. They don’t believe in the miracles of the Bible. They don’t believe that the teachings of the Bible are for our generation. They believe there are many ways to heaven. They don’t believe in hell. The doctrine of the Sadducees is alive and well.
There are people who call themselves Christians but only believe the Words of Jesus. Their faith is based on the four gospels and nothing else.
The same man who wrote the gospel of John wrote 1,2 and 3 John and revelation. The same man who wrote the Gospel of Luke wrote the book of Acts. It’s not even logical to say you believe the Words of Jesus in the gospels but not the rest of the Bible.
Liberalism is dangerous because it leads to atheism. You can’t really love a god that doesn’t exist and idols do not exist.
There is no love to be received from a false god.
No prayers can be answered by a false god.
No leadership given by a false god.
The religious liberal is merely superstitious. And soon they find that out and just quit believing in God altogether. A liberal culture left to its liberalism will soon turn to atheism. We must combat liberalism by teaching the truth about who God is. That is why mission work, evangelism and discipleship in the home and church are so important.
C. The Bible says we should not add to or take away from the Word of God.
The Pharisees had added to the Word of God.
The Sadducees had taken away from the Word of God.
The Pharisees were hypocrites.
The Sadducees were religious liberals.
That leaven still seeks to influence our churches. Our responsibility is to:
Believe the Whole Bible
Live our faith in sincerity.
Grow in our knowledge of truth.
Address false doctrine.
I’ve seen the leaven of hypocrisy in my ministry.
I’ve seen the leaven of hypocrisy. I remember speaking with a man who was loud about being saved but lived an ungodly life. I said to him one day “You preach one gospel with your lips and another with your life.” He told me “I love God as much as Billy Graham does.” That’s what hypocrisy does. It causes us to be self-righteous and ignore the real problem. Let me be clear, if you love God you live for God.
I’ve seen the leaven of liberalism in my ministry. I had a church member walk up to me after a sermon one Sunday morning and ask “Do you know what the difference between me and you is?” I was caught off guard. I replied “No.” He said ,”You believe that book right there and I don’t.”
Let me be clear with you, friend. You can’t be a Christian and not believe this book because you have to believe what this book says to become a Christian.
Jesus says to us: beware of the influence of hypocrisy and liberalism. Be on the look out for it. It is dangerous.