“When [John] saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.’
“‘I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’” [1]
One of the fastest growing religions in North America is atheism. [2] That statement is not a sign of growing confusion for this ageing preacher. You see, atheism is a religion despite the common perception that there is nothing religious about the concept. The atheist denies the existence of any divine being. It requires incredible faith to hold to atheism; it means that despite any evidence to the contrary—and there is a great deal of such evidence for God as Creator and for His providence, the atheist has chosen to believe there is no deity.
As untenable as the faith of the atheist may be, I don’t believe it is as illogical as that of the agnostic. Pseudointellectuals often wish to appeal to the intelligentsia without actually denying reality. When pushed, an atheist will most times acknowledge that they hold a position of faith. “I don’t believe there is a God,” they will confess. Or perhaps they will go so far as to admit that they choose not to believe.
When I was completing doctoral studies at the medical school in Dallas, I engaged in a philosophical discussion with one of my professors. Our conversation moved to the concept of origins. I readily confessed that I held to the concept that Living God was the Creator who called all things into being. As might be expected, the professor with whom I was speaking responded, “I don’t believe that.” When pressed to disprove there is a God who created all things, he admitted, “To believe such as that is sheerly incredible.” In other words, it wasn’t that he was convinced there was no God, he simply was unprepared to acknowledge God. The very thought gave him the willies!
The agnostic holds a position that doesn’t even concede that God is an impossibility. In his arrogance, the agnostic says, “I’ve examined all the evidence, I’ve studied all the possibilities, and I simply can’t decide if there is a God. I have no evidence for or against God.” He is trying to hold to a position in the middle of the road.
I’ve often cautioned people that the only thing in the middle of the road are yellow stripes and dead skunks. The atheist and the agnostic must hear the warning voiced by the Psalmist:
“Fools say to themselves, ‘There is no God.’
They sin and commit evil deeds;
none of them does what is right.”
[PSALM 14:1 NET BIBLE]
As a point of significant interest, the Psalmist doesn’t say that the individuals in view are convinced that there is no God; rather, they have determined that there will be no god for themselves. In effect, the verse serves as a vigorous condemnation of the atheist and the agnostic because they have decided that they will not believe. They are rejecting all evidence before it is even presented.
Religion is the practise of one’s faith. Religion, of itself, is neither good nor evil; it is a neutral concept. It is what is worshipped that is problematic. Religion that leads one to exalt that which is not godly is evil. Religion that compels one to move toward the Living God will be witnessed in how that one lives. Do you remember the statement concerning religion that was penned by the brother of our Lord? “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world” [JAMES 1:27].
The message for this day looks at religious people. No one would argue that the Pharisees were irreligious—they were scrupulous in the conduct of their religion. While excoriating the Pharisees and their scribes for their religion, Jesus exposed them for being extremely religious. However, He revealed that they had too much religion in the wrong place. They had meticulous rules for making oaths, though they created their rules without consideration of the will of God. They painstakingly counted seeds so that they gave neither too much nor too little of what they possessed. These religious nitpickers were fastidious in washing their hands, in counting the number of steps on the Sabbath, of identifying what qualified as work and what constituted rest. However, they were ignorant of the mind of God.
And what was true of the Pharisees was equally true of the Sadducees, with this one difference, whereas the Pharisees and their scribes claimed to be fundamentalists in religion, the Sadducees were modernists. The Pharisees were conservatives; and the Sadducees were liberals. Both were overly religious.
What is interesting is the observation that before Jesus ever spoke a word against these religious leaders, John took them to task. He stripped the hide off their backs, calling them a brood of vipers. He wondered who had warned them to flee the coming judgement. He questioned their connection to God or to those whom God had approved. Make no mistake, these Pharisees and Sadducees were extremely religious; they wore their religion on the outside so that everyone would recognise just how religious they were. They wore clothing that identified them as religious. They performed exaggerated rituals to demonstrate their religious commitment, bowing and praying aloud with just the right intonation and phraseology. They recited the appropriate prayers to demonstrate that they were connected to the faith of the fathers. However they were guilty of having too much religion in the wrong place.
THE RELIGION OF THE PHARISEES AND SADDUCEES — John was a phenomenon. He burst on the scene like a lightning strike, seeming to come out of nowhere, his ministry stunning all who witnessed him as he announced the coming of the Messiah. John was unlike the religious leaders who populated the land. Unwilling to recognise the religious leaders as “good,” his words were scathing, scorching, searing.
The masses flocked to John to hear what he would say next. No wonder the religious elite were distressed by him! No wonder that the common people were delighted by his ministry. The religious elite have always had a sense of revulsion against those who occupy the pews.
Some years ago, Lynda and I were attending a denominational meeting. We were seated at breakfast with the staff of a large congregation from the Calgary area on the first morning of the meetings. As we ate, we listened in astonishment to the comments of the members of that staff. They ridiculed the naiveté of the members of their congregation. They laughed heartily at how the people were so easily duped by what they taught, mentioning that the common members didn’t understand the finer points of religion. My wife and I were offended then, and I am offended still by what we witnessed that day.
It was an example of the religious elite who had transformed the Faith into a place for them to run roughshod over the people who looked to them for guidance. These religious phonies had forgotten, if they ever knew, the words of the Master, when He warned His disciples. “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves. For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves” [LUKE 22:25-27].
The Pharisees and the Sadducees are with us to this day. After Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, was taken prisoner in Jerusalem, he was haled before the Sanhedrin, the Jewish Council that ruled under the Roman occupiers. Seeking permission from the Roman tribune to speak to the mob that had attacked him, Paul had attempted to defend himself. However, at the mention of the fact that the Lord had sent him to the Gentiles, the mob brayed so violently for his death that the tribune was prepared to flog him to obtain the answer to the question of what was going on.
The Apostle had appealed to his Roman citizenship, which halted all efforts to punish him and resulted in an appearance before the Sanhedrin. The rage of the high priest became apparent when Paul was struck at the command of the high priest. Then, this happened. “When Paul perceived that one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, ‘Brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. It is with respect to the hope and the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial.’ And when he had said this, a dissension arose between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all. Then a great clamor arose, and some of the scribes of the Pharisees’ party stood up and contended sharply, ‘We find nothing wrong in this man. What if a spirit or an angel spoke to him?’ And when the dissension became violent, the tribune, afraid that Paul would be torn to pieces by them, commanded the soldiers to go down and take him away from among them by force and bring him into the barracks” [ACTS 23:6-10].
The distinction between these two parties will lend perspective as we try to understand this particular event. It is not that we are particularly concerned with the distinction between these two groups, but we are interested to see what they shared in common. It was their common interests that allowed them to set aside their differences and unite in opposition to righteousness. Religion doesn’t really define convictions. Underscore in your mind that religion merely points out our preferences—preferences that are malleable, flexible, able to be manipulated to fit whatever situation we may face. Convictions, however, speak of our faith. Convictions cannot be traded for convenience. Religion will inevitably lead us into a dark place, which is precisely why we need to guard ourselves against allowing religion to supplant faith.
In the modern church world, we might say that the Pharisees are most readily identified with evangelicals and the Sadducees are best represented by liberals. The Pharisees at least professed to love God. They wanted to ensure that the Faith which had been delivered by the fathers continued without interruption. However, they focused primarily on the externals of the Faith. For Pharisees, they were convinced that all the minute details of religious exercise would prove their dedication to the Lord God, or at least that was their thought, whether openly admitted or not.
This particular knowledge likely reminds you of an exchange between some Pharisees and Jesus on one occasion. Here is the account as presented in Luke’s Gospel. “A Pharisee asked [Jesus] to dine with him, so he went in and reclined at table. The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner. And the Lord said to him, ‘Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also? But give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you.
“‘But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others” [LUKE 11:37-42].
Apparently, Jesus was focused on the pharisaical tendency that led these religious leaders to focus on the externals of their religion while excluding what really mattered. On another occasion, Jesus was holding the Pharisees and their scribes to account—excoriating them, in reality. Among the vital points that the Master made was this one. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel” [MATTHEW 23:23-24]!
As an example of their dedication to minutiae, we note that the Pharisees were intent on tithing just the right amount—no more and no less. There was no particular joy in their giving, but they would give exactly what was prescribed in the Law. For them, this was a duty and not an opportunity. If the law called for a loonie, they gave a loonie—not a toonie, not a loonie and a quarter, a loonie. As time passed, the Pharisees grew hidebound in codifying the precise manner in which each law was to be fulfilled. They set up barriers to proscribe those who were lesser creatures from participating in their rituals. The unlearned will sit over there, and those who are deemed acceptable will sit here with us. Their diet was explicitly and minutely dictated by the commentary of the rabbis.
The Sadducees, in contradistinction, were not in the least concerned with the Faith of the Living God except as a vehicle to personal power. They were the ones who saw religion as a means to personal advance rather than seeing the religious exercises as expressions of love for God. They would perform the external aspects of duty that might be required to occupy an office, but they really didn’t believe much of anything other than the power they then held.
An example of the lack of belief that characterised the Sadducees is provided in an incident recorded by Matthew in the Gospel that bears his name. Here is the incident in question. “The … Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked him a question, saying, ‘Teacher, Moses said, “If a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.” Now there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died, and having no offspring left his wife to his brother. So too the second and third, down to the seventh. After them all, the woman died. In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had her.’
“But Jesus answered them, ‘You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?” He is not God of the dead, but of the living.’ And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching” [MATTHEW 22:23-33].
This was an old saw that had stumped the Pharisees from time immemorial. You see, these brilliant scholars (NOT!) had decided that contractual conditions of this life would extend throughout all eternity. Thus, if someone was married in this life, then the marriage would continue throughout eternity! They were the original Mormons, the precedent for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints! All they lacked was young missionaries trudging door-to-door to read their own literature with those foolish enough to invite them into their homes!
Jesus, however, quashed their racket by pointing them to the Word of God. They didn’t accept the Word as valid in any sense, but their lack of faith did not stop the Master from citing what is written. There is a truth here that each follower of the Master would do well to emulate—when engaging in a religious discussion, use the Sword of the Spirit. That is why it has been given to the people of God.
“You are wrong,” Jesus chided, “because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.” That is the way to handle religious arguments—use the Word of God! When I was conducting doctoral studies, I was assigned to study under a brilliant physical biochemist conducting molecular weight determinations on tuna myosin. The studies required long periods of waiting as the preparations were spun in an ultracentrifuge to separate the various proteins into their respective molecular weights.
During these periods of waiting, that brilliant man sought to engage me in discussions concerning my faith. He knew that I was a follower of the Son of God, and he wanted to discuss “religion.” He told how he had been raised in a “fundamentalist” church, though he had rejected the faith of his parents and became an agnostic. Thus, he considered himself well-versed in religious matters. He had but one ground rule, I could use any Scripture save those which came from the Gospel of John. He insisted that I could not quote from that particular Gospel because it was clearly false and distorted.
Let’s just say that he wasn’t nearly so conversant with the Word of God as he thought. He really didn’t know where passages I quoted were to be found—many came from the Gospel of John. And he assuredly didn’t recognise statements Jesus made that were recorded in the Gospel of John, since I quoted a number of those statements in our conversations.
I learned early on in my Christian walk that the Lord gave the Sword of the Spirit as a weapon to be used by His people. God meant for the Word to be used as an offensive weapon, not to be relegated to the place of a defensive weapon. That brilliant man fancied himself to be knowledgeable, but he demonstrated that he was but a fool when he attempted to exalt his ideas against what is written in the Word of God. Though he boasted in his agnosticism, I would point him to the Word of God, repeatedly pointing out, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.”
THE CONFLICT BETWEEN RELIGION AND FAITH — I confess that I find it amusing whenever I read the account describing John’s comments during the time he was baptising—amusing because of the pronounced difference between the message John was proclaiming and the attitude of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Matthew has written, “When [John] saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our father,” for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
“‘I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire’” [MATTHEW 3:7-12].
The Pharisees and Sadducees shared one trait in common—they both wanted power. These two parties were not in agreement on much, but they did enjoy regulating the lives of others. Much like modern politicians who quickly become creatures of the swamp after being elected to office, these religious leaders were intent on compelling others to do what the religious leaders might dictate. Have you ever noticed that it is the progressive mind that always wants to control others? The conservative mindset, whether in politics or in religion, will seek to persuade; but the progressive mindset is programmed to coerce, to compel compliance through dint of force. I iterate—this is not merely a political position, tragically, it is an ecclesiastical position as well. There is nothing reasonable about imposing one’s view through force. And in this, both the Pharisees and Sadducees were in agreement.
Consider just some of the instances when the Pharisees and Sadducees attempted to control the disciples of the Lord during the days of the Master! Religious leaders complained about Jesus’ followers on one occasion we read about. “Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, ‘Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat’” [MATTHEW 15:1-2]. These leaders said that the disciples were eating with “defiled hands” [see MARK 7:1-5]. The disciples didn’t perform the ritual ablution demanded by religious leaders.
This particular instance reminds me of religious zealots who think nothing of transforming airplanes into missiles that will immolate thousands, yet will carefully shave all the hair from their bodies and bathe so they are “pure.” Their hearts are black and sullied with hatred, but they are oh so pure in their own eyes.
On another occasion, we read, “On a Sabbath, while he was going through the grain fields, his disciples plucked and ate some heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands. But some of the Pharisees said, ‘Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath’” [LUKE 6:1-2]? We are fasting, so we will compel you to fast with us! Their empty bellies were only matched by their empty hearts. Ignorant of the Word of God, they were equally ignorant of the mind of the Master.
Wherever Jesus went and whatever He might do, the religious leaders watched. They were not watching in order to learn; they watched the Master in hopes of tripping Him up and accusing Him. Even when He was invited to dine, the intent appears to have been to trap Jesus. For instance, we read, “One Sabbath, when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully” [LUKE 14:1]. On this occasion, the religious leaders were attempting to set a trap by having a man present who had a palsied hand. Jesus turned the tables on them by asking, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not” [LUKE 14:3]? When they gave no answer, Jesus healed the man.
Here is another example of pitiful religious zealotry gone awry. “The scribes and the chief priests sought to lay hands on him at that very hour, for they perceived that he had told this parable against them, but they feared the people. So they watched him and sent spies, who pretended to be sincere, that they might catch him in something he said, so as to deliver him up to the authority and jurisdiction of the governor” [LUKE 20:19-20].
Of course, this says nothing of the efforts to control what the disciples said and even thought after the Resurrection of the Master. After Peter and John had healed a lame man at the Temple, and then preaching to the crowd that gathered, the religious leaders attempted to silence them. After haling them before the Sanhedrin, “They called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus” [ACTS 4:18].
It is a serious matter to command a disciple of the Risen Saviour how he is to think or what she is to say. When someone attempts to do this, they will return to their own and pray for courage and strength. And the Risen Lord will hear them and grant what they ask! It is a sure recipe for religious leaders to be compelled to face their failure again. That was what happened in this instance. Here are Peter and John, now with the full complement of Apostles, incarcerated and then released by the power of the Lord, appearing before these same religious leaders. The leaders, enraged and barely able to contain themselves, demand, “We strictly charged you not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man’s blood upon us” [ACTS 5:28].
Peter’s answer, echoed by the entire band, is classic. “We must obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him” [ACTS 5:29-32].
Nonplussed, the religious leaders could only bluster. Accordingly, we read, “When they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go” [ACTS 5:40].
The Apostles responded by rejoicing that they were counted worthy of suffering for the Name. The result was that “Every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus” [ACTS 5:42]. It is impossible to control the Spirit-filled follower of the Christ. If you threaten him, he rejoices because you recognise that he is a follower of the Saviour. If you punish her, she is happy to know that she is counted worthy of the Name by which she is called. If you say you will take away that believer’s life, you are only threatening to send them home—there is no fear in going home. You can’t control the Spirit-filled child of God! You must either tolerate that believer or kill them. And if you kill them, God will raise up others from their spilled blood.
Tertullian is reputed to have said, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” [3] There is some question as to whether he wrote those words. However, there is no question that he did pen a warning against those who were persecuting the Faith, “The oftener we are mown down by you, the more in number we grow; the blood of Christians is seed.” [4] Truly, from humble beginnings, the followers of the Son of God multiplied. They would not be silent, but they would proclaim the message of life wherever they were and to whomever they should meet.
It is only as Christians have become comfortable that we have grown senescent. At such times, God has allowed the wicked to set themselves against the faithful to move them out of their comfort zone. There is certainly a suggestion of that when Moses wrote in a song,
“Like an eagle that stirs up its nest,
that flutters over its young,
spreading out its wings, catching them,
bearing them on its pinions”
[DEUTERONOMY 32:11]
When the assembly in Jerusalem became comfortable where they were, despite having been commanded to carry the message of life into all the world, God moved the saints out of their comfort zone by raising up the mad rabbi, Saul of Tarsus. So, we read in Scripture, “There arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles… Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word” [ACTS 8:1, 4].
I anticipate that God may soon stir up the churches of the western world. We have grown comfortable; we are no longer grieved for lost loved ones or for colleagues. We are content to know that we are saved, but we are not particularly concerned that our world is dying. We watch our culture’s morality shrivel and die; and though we are disgusted, we don’t bestir ourselves to stand for righteousness. We have grown old, senescent, sterile; we are no longer a threat to wickedness. We have become religious.
CONQUERING RELIGION — John confronted the religious leaders of his day, challenging them with their religious practise, even while pointing them to the One who should have been the centre of their religious devotion. John identified these religious leaders for what they were, and not for what they wished to be seen to be. They sought to maintain an image, but the Baptist called them to maintain a relationship with the Living God. The rude prophet called them a “brood of vipers” [MATTHEW 3:7b]. He called them to repentance, and to demonstrate their repentance by producing fruit that would be expected of those who were truly penitent. “Bear fruit in keeping with repentance” [MATTHEW 3:8].
We shall never fully eradicate religion that seeks to supplant the Faith in this life. I’m not entirely pessimistic, but I understand that people, by virtue of our fallen nature, will always seek an easy way to serve God. It is inherent in the heart of fallen people to seek to use God, to attempt to manipulate Him for our own purpose. God seems distant, not at all an immediate consideration in our lives, busy as they are with the details that constantly demand attention. We want to be comfortable rather than being committed. We want to be affirmed, to be congratulated for how great we are, to be commended for our wisdom and insight. However, the Faith exposes who we are, calling us to make the inside of the cup clean rather than cleaning the outside and then resting on what we see as our accomplishments. Image is what we are trained to esteem in this world, but God calls us to build a relationship with Him. In building a relationship with the Living God, we build relationships with His people.
Some years past, while watching a movie depicting the life of the great Reformer, Martin Luther, I was especially struck by one scene in particular. This was not a particularly well-done movie, but this one scene did stand out in my memory. In this scene, Luther was about to meet the papal legate. The representative of the Vatican was depicted as extremely religious, scrupulous, meticulous in the extreme about all the particulars of religious observance, but he was godless. Religion was a vehicle to achieve what he wanted, and not a means of honouring the Lord God. History does appear to verify that depiction of this man. Before Luther can be ushered into the audience, the legate ostentatiously assumes his position kneeling at his private altar, carefully arranging his skirts as he kneels and bows his head as though reciting prayers. It was all show. The depiction was not unlike that of many of the supposed religious leaders of this day!
Earlier, I told of the time that Lynda and I attended a training session sponsored by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. This is the rest of the story. At breakfast on the first morning, seated with the staff of a large congregation located in a major metropolitan area of one of our western provinces, we witnessed the staff laughing at how they regularly duped the parishioners whom they purportedly served. They ridiculed the credulity of the benighted people who sat under their teaching week-by-week. These “ministers,” so-called, were phonies. They had no concern for the welfare of the flock; they were concerned only with their personal comfort and a large salary.
As they laughed and spoke, my mind turned to the Word of the LORD against the shepherds of Israel as delivered through Jude, the brother of our Lord. “These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves” [JUDE 12a].
His statement echoed what Ezekiel had written years before. “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy, and say to them, even to the shepherds, Thus says the Lord GOD: Ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep. The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd, and they became food for all the wild beasts. My sheep were scattered; they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. My sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with none to search or seek for them” [EZEKIEL 34:2-6].
That Word readily serves as an accurate description of what we heard at that table on that particular morning. Then, God delivered His assessment of the despicable evil perpetuated by these self-focused shepherds, when He said, “Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD: As I live, declares the Lord GOD, surely because my sheep have become a prey, and my sheep have become food for all the wild beasts, since there was no shepherd, and because my shepherds have not searched for my sheep, but the shepherds have fed themselves, and have not fed my sheep, therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD: Thus says the Lord GOD, Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require my sheep at their hand and put a stop to their feeding the sheep. No longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, that they may not be food for them” [EZEKIEL 34:7-10].
Before we took our leave of the table that morning, I informed that staff gathered around the table that I was not in sympathy with their attitude toward the people of God. Neither was I in sympathy with their disregard for the work to which God had supposedly assigned them. The flock of God is precious to Him; He purchased them with His own blood. This accounts for the stern admonition delivered to the Elders of Ephesus when the Apostle met them at Miletus. “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood” [ACTS 20:28]. The disdain which that church staff displayed toward God’s holy people revealed the disturbing reality of the warning which the Apostle attached to his admonition to the elders from Ephesus. We witness Paul warning, “I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them” [ACTS 20:29-30].
Religion that attempts to supplant the Faith continues from the days of the Apostles to this day. In his Second Letter to Christians of the Diaspora, Peter warned, “False prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep” [2 PETER 2:1-3].
These words anticipate Jude’s warning when he wrote, “[The Apostles] have said to you, ‘In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.’ It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit” [JUDE 18-19].
Peter also instructed us who are following Christ the Lord, “Count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures” [2 PETER 3:15-16].
Dear people, I do not wish you to be irreligious, but I assuredly do not wish to see you attempt to substitute religion for the Faith. As followers of the Christ, your first responsibility is to know His will, which you discover through reading the Word that He has provided. You verify His will through seeking Him in times of prayer and submitting to the Spirit of Christ. Then, guided by His Spirit, you can walk in confidence through this darkened world, always honouring Him. Amen.
[1] Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers, 2001. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
[2] Alex McFarland, “Atheism on the Rise? Growth of Disbelief Signals Danger for America, CNSNews, April 17, 2015, https://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/alex-mcfarland/atheism-rise-growth-disbelief-signals-danger-america-0, accessed 7 May 2019; Daniel Cox, “Way More Americans May Be Atheists Than We Thought,” FiveThirtyEight, May 18, 2017, https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/way-more-americans-may-be-atheists-than-we-thought/, accessed 7 May 2019
[3] F. Watson, The Defenders of the Faith; Or, The Christian Apologists of the Second and Third Centuries, The Fathers for English Readers (Brighton: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; E. & J. B. Young & Co., London; New York, n.d.) 174
[4] Tertullian, “The Apology,” in Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian, Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe (ed.), S. Thelwall (trans.), vol. 3, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Christian Literature Company, Buffalo, NY 1885) 55
