Beware the Leaven of False Religion!

God's word comes to us as a seed. Seeds are powerless if they are not planted in good soil. Man’s religion can be very good at amassing  the seed of God’s word, but because there is no true faith in it, the seeds never germinate.  Religion will amass the "seed" of God's word, study it, memorize it, talk about it, but the seed is never watered with faith and therefore does not germinate into experience.

 Religion is like a group of people studying a map of Europe but never going to visit, or reading a menu yet never expecting dinner to be served. Man's religious beliefs and traditions don't really expect to experience God-nor do they actually need God.  In fact, the mark of all false Christian religious systems is a disdain for the power of God. Often, this lukewarm attitude towards experiencing God is even viewed as faith, as in, "I believe God so much that I don't have to see Him do anything." True, our faith must proceed experience. Jesus said that those who demand a sign in order to believe are wicked, but that sort of "faith" is simply unbelief parading as faith, and it keeps men and women out of the fullness of His Kingdom and out of their inheritance in Christ.

Beware the leaven of the Pharisee, the Lord said. He told this to His disciples. The Pharisees lacked spiritual understanding. They had eyes, but could not see. They were devoted to their religion and to scripture but lacked understanding. Jesus told them that they did not really believe Moses, because if they had believed him, they would also believe Jesus, because Moses spoke of Christ. Had they truly sought God, God would have rewarded them with faith to discern and understand, however, they did not love God, nor seek Him, therefore their eyes were closed, and their hearts could not see and understand. 

Jesus also said that they claimed to hold the keys to the Kingdom of God when in actuality they did not and they actually kept people from entering in! This is a serious statement and gives weightiness to Jesus’s warning to beware. Leaven is the yeast that is mixed with bread to make it rise. He is telling us to always be on guard against it, because it is an ever-present danger in Christian circles. If it were not a danger threatening to choke the life out of us and keep us from Him, he would not have issued the warning. To beware requires that we be able to identify it when we see it. If we can’t identify it, we are vulnerable to be influenced by it. What we don't resist will eventually become a part of us.

Jesus said that those who teach this manmade religion are like unmarked graves that men stand on without knowing it. In His day, Jews considered it defiling to stand on someone's grave. So Jesus was saying that these teachers defiled their followers and students and they had no idea they were being defiled. This is serious to think that people think that they are drawing near to God, yet in reality they are being defiled by false religious teachings.

Here are ways to spot it in various forms:

1.      Trust in self/flesh more than God’s power. Satisfied with self.

2.      Intellectual instead of spiritual. It can have great intellectual knowledge of God, scripture, and doctrine that is good and true but no spiritual understanding. Jesus said that God is a Spirit and seeks spiritual worshippers. His kingdom comes through the “Gift of the Father”, His Holy Spirit living in us, by faith. Without faith, the Spirit cannot illuminate our hearts.

 This religion is fleshly, therefore it has no true revelation of God. It keeps us stuck in pride and condemnation which are opposite side of the same coin called, self. The Pharisees wanted to stone the woman caught in adultery because they failed to perceive the mercy of God as well as their own desperate need of that very same mercy.

4.     Self is the source. God is not needed because they can do it themselves! Everyone leans on their own strength and understanding because we can see it and control it. God is unseen. A friend of mine once remarked that it was frightening to trust in Christ because she felt less certain of her standing with God than when she followed religious rules that made her feel good about herself. That’s the leaven of the Pharisee, and such religion does nothing to transform us on the heart level, which is where God wants to make us just like Himself. Now, try to do that in your own power. Love like God. Be free from your selfishness, your pride, your ego, your envy, your greed, your addictions. We can't fix ourselves, nor should we try.

 The cross and power of Christ is unseen. This is why we must marinate in the word, even as Christ marinated in scripture (we know by His diligent command of scripture and constantly quoting it in the NT), so that we may enter into the reality of what God did for us in Christ. When we seek Him, we will find Him, and His reward is a spirit of revelation that sees with the heart! It's glorious.  Hebrews says that we are to labor to enter His rest. We labor in His word, because His word brings faith and faith brings life. Labor in the word to receive from God. The Kingdom of God is to be received by faith.