Mistakes Of The Pharisees
By H. E. Phillips
Jesus warned us about imitating the Pharisees in their religious practices. No
group of religious people were more severely rebuked by the Lord than this group.
Matthew 23 contains a list of their sins and if we fall into the same sort of
activity as they practiced we are under the same condemnation.
A few of their sins we must avoid are: (1) Saying and doing not. It is not
pleasing to the Lord to say what is truth and not practice it, regardless of
what excuse
may be offered. Today thousands who have named the name of Christ try to hold
to a truth but never pretend to put it into practice. (2) Love of personal
praise. The Pharisees loved the praise of men and the places of importance
in their feasts.
They loved to be called by names of distinction and they adored the dress that
separated them from the common people. It is now a sin among many people in
the body of Christ. (3) Make void God’s command by tradition. They did
this by adding a word or two here and there in the law God had given to them.
Sometimes they ignored a matter that did not suit their purposes. They had
modified, changed and substituted for the true law of God until God refused
to accept their
sacrifices. We may fall into the same condemnation. Tradition will always become
authority over the revealed word of God when men begin to rely upon it. (4)
They pretended in their religion. The whole practice of religion of the Pharisees
was a pretense; they played the role of a hypocrite and Jesus condemned this
in the sharpest terms He used while on earth. Many in the church today are
living
a life of a hypocrite, pretending to be what they are not. (5) Keeping men
out of the kingdom of heaven. Jesus said these Pharisees would not enter the
kingdom
themselves—they would not do what was required to enter and stay in the
kingdom—and they would not suffer (permit) others who would enter to
do so. This no doubt, was done by their lives as well as by their teaching.
The Holy Spirit recorded these events in the life of Christ while on earth for
a good purpose. We must strive to avoid the sins they committed and work to live
as Christ taught his disciples to live. The work of being a Christian is much
more than attending worship a few times and reading the Bible regularly. We must
put into our lives the truth that comes from the word of God, This is what makes
a church strong and useful in the service of the Master. We have no use for the
philosophy that says Christ will accept us no matter what or how we do things
religiously. It is of the devil and not of Christ. Let us strive to be faithful
to our charge as workers in the cause of the Master.
- Preacher Of The Word, September 1996
The Heart and Lip Service
by H. E. Phillips
The piercing question of Paul in Galatians 4:16 is in order: "Am I therefore
become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?" Why do we foolishly and
carelessly allow ourselves to be carried away from the truth in our daily lives?
Why do we talk about doing better, and promise both ourselves and the brethren
that we will repent of indifference and get to work in the kingdom of Christ,
but never make the change? Why do we hear more and more brethren express alarm
because they are not able to pray and to study the word of God as they once did?
The answers to these questions may be found in our own hearts where our real
goals and desires reside. An individual needs to be urged to do more serious
soul searching with special emphasis on his spiritual and moral concepts. We
need to really ``Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own
selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except
ye be reprobates?'' (1 Cor. 13:5).
Jesus told the Pharisees of their hypocrisy and referred to the prophecy of Esaias,
which he applied to them in Matthew 15:8-9: ``This people draweth night unto
me with their mouth, and honoureth me with the lips; but their heart is far from
me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of
men.'' Of course, they were offended after they heard this (v. 12), but Jesus
said to his disciples: ``Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind.
And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch'' (verse 14).
One could say, ``Look what we are doing, we draw nigh unto God with our singing,
praying and preaching the word, and in addition, we praise and honor God with
our lips and promise to serve Him. What more could one ask?'' Every word of this
could have been said by those hypocritical Pharisees to whom Christ spoke. The
problem was not that they did not give vocal praise and lip service, but the
real and only problem was that the heart was far away, and in fact not involved
at all in their professed praise to God.
I could follow the typical line of many prayers which we hear today: ``Father,
we thank thee for this wonderful opportunity to meet here and worship thee in
spirit and truth,'' when in fact I could care less whether I am present upon
the occasion or not. And the ``wonderful opportunity to meet here'' is really
a painful burden I wish I could avoid, and I do dodge the ``opportunity'' every
time I can. I could also sing loud the words of the song: ``My Jesus, if ever
I loved thee, tis now,'' and not give a simple thought to Jesus, love, or time.
This lip praise and verbal honor is the cold, lifeless, formalism that now enshrouds
churches all across the land. Because the lifeless body does nothing more than
lip praise and promise, the commandments of men are brought into play to try
to pump some life or activity into an otherwise cold, dead body of people.
Back to some of the questions at the beginning of this article which we should
be asking ourselves. We must realize that without heart action, the lip and hand
service is nothing. While all responsible people have the capacity to see, hear,
and understand with their hearts, by comparison, not many of them use the heart
in praising God. The heart becomes dull of hearing, gross and calloused so that
what is seen and heard does not effect any change in the thinking, believing,
and obeying from the heart.
The heart hardened by the practice of sin explains why the preaching of the gospel
in the most persuasive manner produces little more than blank stares, vague promises,
and a few attempts at lip service. We must bring heart worship to God if we expect
it to be accepted.
- Searching the Scriptures, June 1992