Study of Matthew |
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Matthew Chapter 23
The scribes and Pharisees said all the right things, they knew how to teach the law, they even added to it when it suited their purposes but they did not live the word themselves. That is why they were quick to condemn a woman taken in adultery but failed to see that they too had done the same thing or the equivalent. Paul said it best:
Jesus also says:
It is so easy to see faults in others and fail to see that we ourselves are guilty of the same things. We must not take this as a license to allow sin in a brother or sister in Christ go without reproof. We must at times make judgments but we are to make righteous judgments. If we do not reprove sin, people will sin and think they stand when they have fallen. We must teach and encourage fellow believers to make sure that we are not guilty of the same things we are correcting in someone else. Concerning faults:
Notice the emphasis on the spirit of meekness. If we go in a haughty self righteous spirit, it will not bring forth any fruit.
When someone who claims to be (in Christ) and who is a part of a local body of believers is allowed to continue in sin without repenting and openly continue in that sin without reproof or correction, the whole body will be influenced to do the same thing. There is a place for judgment and correction. We must be held accountable and not allow someone who claims to be a believer to continue in sin and hold offices in the church or be held in high esteem as a leader. To give someone over to the destruction of the flesh is to allow Satan to put upon them a sickness or disease in order to bring them to a place where they recognize their sin and repent. This is not a license for the church to do any physical harm to anyone but allow the hedge of protection God has around them to be removed so that Satan can attack their physical body. When they get sick because of their sin, we are not to pray for their healing unless they first repent and stop the sin that brought the judgment. This is serious sin I'm speaking of here not faults and weaknesses that people think are sins. These are sins that the bible is clear about like a person living in open adultery and still claiming to be a teacher of the word. This also has to been done by the whole body of believers under the authority of the Holy Spirit. We can't as individual believers just up and decide to do this on our own. It is similar to the shunning that the Amish do for a wayward believer. Of course most of us would disagree on their reasons for shunning. The type of shunning that is scriptural is for very serious sin like fornication that is mentioned in scripture, not for personal preferences like dress codes and such. I've heard some claim it's a sin not to shout praises to God and I've heard others say we need to be still and listen to God. A quiet person doesn't have to feel guilty about it and if a loud emotional person shows his love for God that way and they too do not have to feel guilty about it. We are all different. Those are not sins, they are traits that we all have differently. The sin that is serious enough to need correction, is not little things like how we worship, how we dress, how we witness or what church we go to, but sins against the commandments of God. In other words what God's word defines as sin, not man. We must not assume though that all who are sick are under the judgment of God. Little children get sick and even die so we are not to make assumptions. Job was attacked by Satan and he did no wrong. Bad things do happen to people who have not sinned because we live in a fallen world that has a lot of disease in the atmosphere and by inheriting the diseases of our ancestors. When someone deliberately lives in sin without repenting after they have been found out, the rest of the church should not show that they condone it by eating and drinking with them acting like they are best friends. In doing so we are partaker of their sins. We must reprove them. If they still do not make things right with God we must step back and turn them over to the Lord not praying for physical healing but praying for their soul to be saved. By the way, my words here is an explanation on what these passages in the bible are teaching, not my own opinions on the subject. It does make me thankful for God's grace and forgiveness. All we have to do is repent and we are restored to God. Paul later tells the church to forgive and restore fellowship with the one that sinned. It is better to suffer the loss of a business, financial blessing, health, relationships, or anything else than to lose one's soul for eternity. Eternity is forever. Things in this life is for a moment.
There are people who criticize others for not visiting the nursing homes, homeless shelters, hospitals and many other things that they either do or not do themselves. If God lays something on our heart that needs to be done, we are the ones that are supposed to do it, not sit in judgment on those that are not doing it. Many people criticize their pastors for not visiting their people enough. If someone needs a visit, why don't we do it ourselves? If we see a need, we don't have to call up the pastor who is probably overworked as it is, we do it ourselves. Many times when we judge someone else for something they do or don't do, we are judging ourselves because we are not doing it either. The same thing can be said of those in leadership. They may criticize those in their congregations for not doing this or that and be guilty of the same thing themselves. Do we preach against playing video games, watching TV for instance and then sit and do it ourselves? If God lays something on our heart that people do wrong, we must first examine ourselves and make sure the mote is out of our own eye before we look at someone else. Then we preach or teach what God lays on our heart. This doesn't mean that we don't correct but we correct ourselves first.
This is why I dislike titles and separation of clergy-laity. We are all equal. We need godly leadership to protect the weak and teach what God lays upon the heart but we use this sometimes to exalt one above another and lord over people rather than be servants of God to help the weak not fall into sin. We like to be called Doctor, Reverend, father, bishop and many titles in order to make a show of authority. I heard of one preacher who even wanted his own blood brothers and sisters to call him Pastor so and so instead of by his first name. Do we hold our positions of authority to be seen of men or to serve God? Our attitude should not be, "Look at me, I'm on the board of elders and have an important position higher than the rest of the church." Our attitude should be, "God I've been elected to this position and I realize it is serious. To mess up would harm the church. I'm here to serve you and do your will. I need your help." Anything that causes us to lose our humility and servant hood, lifts us up in pride and makes us arrogant, or makes us think we are better than someone else that may not be on what we think is "our level", we need to step down. We are not qualified to be a leader until we learn to serve in humility. Jesus Himself stepped down from His position in Heaven, was born into an ordinary Jewish family. He wore ordinary clothes, ate ordinary food, was poor and sometimes didn't have a place to lay His head at night. He suffered and died for the sins someone else did. At His second coming He will be exalted and come as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He is our example.
If we humble ourselves and submit to God's authority and do all things in love both love for God and love for people, we will be much happier than seeking high exalting positions that we have to worry about losing if someone more qualified or favored comes along.
So if we are not to call people Rabbi, Father and such, why are we still doing it? It is strange how we pick and choose which scriptures to obey and which ones to ignore.
When we allow our religion to get so legalistic and harsh, we not only can't make it to heaven ourselves but no one else will understand how to enter into it also. We must serve the Lord with love and gentleness as an humble servant. Our attitude should be to save the lost and encourage the believers. We should not gloat and hope people miss the mark and lose their souls. We are saved by faith in the Lord. We rest in His mercy. Our salvation message should not be a bunch of legalist rules and regulations made up by men or keeping the ritualistic works of the law. Our salvation comes when we turn away from sin and turn to Christ to forgive our sins. He alone can do that. We are not saved by keeping ordinances and rituals required by the law set up before the coming of Christ. He ushered in a new and living way to where the spirit of God enters into our innermost being and we serve God in love, not in works of the law. This is not a license to return to sin though. Jesus said:
It is actually fun and a joy to keep God's word in our hearts and do His will. To live outside of God's will and His word is misery.
It sounds like an earlier version of the modern prosperity gospel. Do we not devour widows houses when we guilt widows who barely make enough to exist on, to pay tithes even if they can't buy any food or medicine? If we want to keep the tithing law similar to those in the Old Testament, then we would see that the poor did not pay tithes. Part of the tithes given to the Levites were to help the poor. The tithes helped many people, not just the priests. Tithes were food and grain given by those that had it to give, not by poor people who did not own land and could not grow any food to give.
They are winning converts to a religion, not bringing people to God for salvation. There is a difference in being "born again" by the spirit of God and just accepting a different religion. One is not saved by grace or born again just by accepting a religion we call Christianity. Salvation is repent and believe the gospel.
How beautiful is the message of salvation and repentance. It frees us from the bondage of sin like literal chains broken that is binding a slave.
This is an example of rules and regulations or doctrines of men rather than the word of God. It is easy for us to make up things that have nothing to do with anyone's salvation. One example is forbidding priests and nuns to marry. That is a man's doctrine, not God's. Another is praying to Mary (not in scriptural). Many outward ordinances appear to be godly but are not even mentioned in scripture. Sending people to seminary in order to obtain a license to preach is not in scripture. Some require college degrees. Many things we have added over the years that is so far from the original that the apostles would not recognize it.
Outward shows, outward religion, trusting in appearances cannot save one soul from hell. Getting dressed for church in our best clothes, sitting in a church pew all together with our families, serving on boards, helping out in charity drives, doing all the right things for an outward show of being a good church goer is not salvation. We can do all the rituals, do all the right things, even memorize the whole bible and still not be saved. The inside has to be cleansed before even worrying about how it looks to others or how we look on the outside.
We can look righteous in front of important people or those we think are important and be an entirely different person behind the closed doors of our homes. A true believer full of the Holy Spirit is going to be holy at home as well as where he or she can be seen of men. A man sat up a message that stated: "The church is backslid if...." and he wanted us to fill in what we thought was a sign of a backslidden church. There were a lot of good answers but only one person said, "When they stop preaching the message of the gospel that saves the soul." One answer that really floored me was, "When the pastor wears blue jeans and doesn't tuck his shirt in." I thought, "What does that have to do with anything." There are people that look for a church were people dress casually because they can't afford dress clothes. I've heard people in the past, state that they didn't go to church because they do not have the clothes to wear to church. Are we friendly outgoing and do many good deeds in front of men but when no one is around and we are alone with our family, are we mean, cruel and hateful. There are some people who would give people the shirt off their backs to their neighbors but beat their kids and be hateful to their spouses when no one was around to see. We are not fooling anyone. God sees us everywhere we are. Should we not be kinder to those God has entrusted us in our own homes to shelter and protect? My dad or some other relative of mine, can't remember for sure, told me about a man years ago who actually worked hard to build the local church building, take people to church and appeared to be a good upstanding Christian but he threw his wife out and got another one just because he didn't like something about the first wife. That was before we had laws to protect the female victim in that case. No wonder God hates divorce.
We love to use Malachi to teach tithing but forget to see this section against divorce. Putting away means divorcing.
This whole chapter shows us the difference between outward religious show and inward love for God and for one's fellowmen (includes, wives, co-workers, children and neighbors). We are not fooling God with our religious shows. We've got to be for real. He gave us access to the Holy Spirit (the living water), forgiveness of sins, cleansing of sin, power to overcome and many good things we have access to. We do not have to just have outward religion. We can be for real with the power of the gospel. Our first step is the want the real thing instead of just enough to fool those around us. Humility is the first step. Recognizing we can't be good in ourselves. We need His salvation. Pride and putting on vain shows is the very opposite of this. Be the same person in private as we are in public. Sum it all up with this one.
In order to live like that we must be born again by believing in the one God sent to save us from sin, Jesus Christ.
Believing is partaking of, accepting and receiving. The devils believe in Christ. The devil knows who He is but the devil is not saved because He doesn't live it or accept it in his own life. There is a difference between knowing something and being something. DC
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