Beware Fermented Doctrine

Sermon Summary: Christians need to be on the lookout for false teaching. It may look good, but it spreads and ferments faith.

Introduction

[[Read Matthew 16:1-12]]

Growing up, one of my favorite types of shows to watch were those “real life crime” shows. I was addicted to the “who-done-it” style, and my favorites were where you actually got to see the crime solved in the end.

I remember one such episode where a mild-mannered businessman died at his desk one day. The actors all hustled about and looked like they were scared as this man’s body lay slumped over his keyboard, lifeless. Of course, this was only the introduction, and as the episode goes on you find that he had been suffering from worsening health over the course of a few months.

It was almost ruled a natural death, but one detective grew curious and took on the case.

The detective began to suspect the wife because of a massive life insurance policy she had taken out on her husband just months before, right about the same time he started getting sick. The wife had been poisoning her husband slowly. She had been lovingly making him his morning coffee, and she had been sweetening it with antifreeze.

What tasted sweet to the man, softening the bitterness of his coffee and waking him up in the morning, and seemed like an act of affection from his wife, was slowly killing him.

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False teaching does something quite similar. Often it makes sense, maybe it even evokes an emotion or a feeling of worship in a person, but it is really bringing a very slow, painful suffering on a person’s soul.

It’s very hard to cure a man who has been ingesting the poison of false teaching. We are supposed to be on the lookout for such things, but false teaching rarely has a warning label on it, which can make it very hard to identify.

I. Relentless disbelief of the Pharisees

Note: I will probably simplify the phrase to “The Pharisees” instead of “The Pharisees and Sadducees.” Both Pharisees and Sadducees were Jewish religious sects who had banded together to ruin Jesus, but the Pharisees were greater in number than the Sadducees, thus they were Jesus’ prime opponents.

1. The Pharisees and Sadducees demand a “sign from heaven”

a. The Pharisees were not content with seeing all that Jesus was doing “on earth”

i. Healing

ii. Casting out demons

iii. Multiplying food

b. Instead, they wanted to see a sign “from heaven,” namely a sign in the sky

i. They were superstitious, assuming that Satan can work here on earth and God in the sky

2. Jesus uses their ridiculous demand to show them how foolish they are

a. The Pharisees are already aware of how to look for storms on the horizon, but are completely missing the Messianic age in front of them

b. Jesus was the Messiah, the One that the Pharisees claimed to be waiting for, yet they were looking past Him and becoming His opponent

3. “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign…”

a. Adulterers do not usually step outside of their marriage bed once, but they make a habit of it // They are serially unfaithful to their spouse, just like those who always demand more

b. The Pharisees and Sadducees were adulterous in that they had stepped outside of faithfulness to the God of the Bible

c. Just like Israel and Judah, the Pharisees and Sadducees were committing spiritual adultery

i. Jer. 3:6: The LORD said to me in the days of King Josiah: “Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there played the whore?

d. Those who are spiritually adulterous are never satisfied with God, but always crave some new pleasure of knowledge or experience

i. In this case, demanding a sign from Jesus

4. Jesus leaves

a. Instead of granting their request (which He could’ve done easily) He abandons them knowing that their disbelief was relentless

II. Jesus’ disciples miss the point

1. When they had left the Jewish region and gone back to a Gentile area again, they realized that they had forgotten to bring food (16:5)

a. The disciples were preoccupied with their physical needs

2. Jesus tells them: “Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees”

a. Leavening (now typically yeast or baking soda) creates a process of “fermentation,” where sugar is digested, producing energy and giving off carbon dioxide

i. This is what causes dough to rise when yeast is used

b. Jesus is telling them to watch out for the leavening that the Pharisees and Sadducees have, because it consumessomething (in this case, true faith and true teaching)

3. The disciples miss the point

a. The disciples think Jesus is referring to physical bread, so they perhaps begin wondering who has bread from the Pharisees

i. Maybe they thought someone was holding out on them

ii. Maybe they thought someone had bread that was poisoned

iii. It isn’t explained because it’s not the point (it’s not what Jesus was talking about)

4. Jesus is not talking about physical bread

a. He reminds them of the miraculous feedings to provethat their preoccupation is unimportant

b. Jesus could provide bread from a rock if He needed to, as Satan tempts Him to in Mt. 4:3, so we’re not talking about bread

5. The disciples get the point

a. The point is to avoid the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees

i. The teaching of Pharisees and Sadducees is like leavening. It may look like good, but it consumes and spreads. It rises and causes fermentation.

Transition: Therefore, I would like to spend the remainder of our time discussing false teaching and false teachers

III. Watch out for false teaching

1. What does false teaching do? False teaching usurps what is biblical

a. False teaching often sounds biblical, and even can have biblical support

i. False teaching is usually derived from a handful of verses

ii. This is called “cherry-picking,” where a man grabs only the verses they like or that support their position

b. Satan is a usurper, and the teachings of Satan try to usurp men’s hearts especially when faced with proper doctrine

i. The Pharisees often tried to usurp Jesus, even trying to command Him to do a miracle in the sky on command

ii. They did have not have the patience or the humility to see themselves as usurpers, as divisive, and were thus headed toward judgment while thinking themselves righteous

iii. False teaching, when it has taken root in a person’s heart, causes the person to regard their corrector as “less of a person” and even questions the validity of his/her corrector’s motives

1. As Satan did in the garden (“Did God actually say…” and proceeds to twist those words

c. A person who picks from one tree does not have a fruit salad, therefore true teaching must come from every tree in the garden of the Bible

i. In order to avoid false teaching, we must always check what we’ve been taught by reading more and more of the Bible

1. Any teacher who is afraid of certain books of the Bible, or afraid of being lovingly checked is one who has been leavened by the leaven of the Pharisees

2. It is best for our souls to keep meeting correction from God’s Word in totality, not in part

2. How does false teaching work? False teaching exalts pride and self-righteousness, and murders the humble

a. False teaching cannot abide by these words: “For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.” (Rom. 12:3)

b. Those who have adopted false teaching will jump on every weakness of the humble like a lion on an injured wildebeest

i. They, like their father Satan, are predators whose very natures “seek someone to devour” (1 Pet. 5:8)

c. Nowhere in Scripture is the person psychologically divorced from their action, therefore false teachers should be corrected just like false teaching

i. Yes, Jesus said “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Lk 23:34), but He meant that they didn’t understand how heinous of an act it was to kill the Son of God // Murder was always as in, and the Pharisees thought they had found a loophole by having the Romans kill Jesus, but they still knewmurder was sin and would suffer for it

ii. Therefore, a false teacher is in a dangerous condition

1. He is prideful and conceited (“he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing.” -1 Tim. 4:4a)

2. He creates division and strife (“He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions…” -1 Tim. 4:4b)

3. He expects to be rewarded by people in either status or money for His righteousness (“imagining that godliness is a means of gain.” -1 Tim. 4:5b)

3. What is the result of false teaching? False teaching produces false teachers, which is why we are to beware of them

a. Most of the Bible’s epistles (letters) were written to both correct false teaching and rebuke false teachers

i. Paul with the Judaizers

1. We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. (Gal. 2:15-16)

ii. John with the Gnostics

1. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us… (1 Jn. 1:1-2a)

iii. Peter with Antinomians and theologically unaware Christians

1. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” (1 Pet. 1:14-16)

2. Most of 2 Peter is a correction against shallow theology

b. To “beware” of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees means to both look out for false teaching and teachers

i. There is no greater kindness you can do to someone who has erred in their doctrine than to lovingly correct them

1. My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. (Jas 5:19-20)

ii. It is far easier to let a person alone in their wrongness than to sit down with them and guide them back to the truth

1. This takes patience and true Christian charity

2. In this case, we must “beware” for them, since they are unable to beware of themselves

Conclusion

All of us should be fearful that what we teach and know about the Bible is true and accurate.

All of us should stand convinced that we are in need of growth in knowledge and holiness at all times.

There were two characteristics that the Pharisees did not have, nor did they want to have them. Instead, they demanded more proof of Jesus on their terms (Mt. 16:1), they “could not interpret the signs of the times” (16:3) meaning the Messianic age and who Jesus was while He did ministry on earth. They were “evil and adulterous” (16:4), meaning that they were coveting for more and more evidence of Jesus being who He was.

The Pharisees and Sadducees are the villains because they, in their pride and conceit, could not see or hear what Jesus said and did as better than what they themselves did.

At another time in Jesus’ ministry, Luke records Jesus saying these words with a little more emphasis: “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops” (Lk. 12:1-3).

The leaven of the Pharisees is like a slow-acting poison. It moves through the system of a man’s soul, and it doesn’t kill them outright. Instead, it poisons a man into an opponent of God and His people. False teaching tries to “drive God’s Word into a corner.” It cannot accept the whole of God’s Word, so it tries to argue that one verse is true and another false.

Christians are to stand against false teachings and false teachers. Jan Hus, a man who was burned at the stake for defending God’s Word 100 years before the Reformation, called Christians to action to defend the whole truth of the Bible by saying this: “O brave Christians! Are you all dead that you allow errors to be bandied about and God’s word driven into a corner? Scorn them, and do not let the devil rule over you. May the Lord God herein be your Helper, who alone can be, and is, Creator.”