Beware
Last week we spoke about the church, the power that Christ gave to the church and the foundation of a true Christian church. Today I want us to examine this topic a little further. Today we will not be talking about the church itself, but we will be talking about the different doctrines that exist in this world. Before we begin I want us all to know the meaning of this word that causes such great controversy, we are talking about the word "doctrine." According to the Spanish dictionary, the word "doctrine" is defined as: " Opinion or group of opinions by an author, school or sect. Preaching or speech. A group of political, social or religious ideas that unite a group. Group of Christian dogmas." Keeping this definition in mind let’s now examine the Word of God to see what Christ tells us about doctrines.
Matthew 16:5-12 - And when his disciples were come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread. 6 Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. 7 And they reasoned among themselves, saying, It is because we have taken no bread. 8 Which when Jesus perceived, he said unto them, O ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves, because ye have brought no bread? 9 Do ye not yet understand, neither remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many baskets ye took up? 10 Neither the seven loaves of the four thousand, and how many baskets ye took up? 11 How is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees? 12 Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.
To have a better understanding of what is happening here in these verses, we will have to learn a little bit of history. During His ministry here on earth, Jesus was challenged by the pharisees and the sadducees numerous times. When we read and study the Word of God we find that He was criticized because He would eat at the same table as sinners, He was accused of breaking the Sabbath, and on occasions they demanded that He give them signs. It is for these same reasons that Jesus warns His disciples about the doctrines. It is for these same reason that He speak to us today with such a strong warning. I tell you that it is not only a strong warning, but one that should be in our thoughts at all times. All we have to do is look around us to realize that in this world that we live in, there are numerous religions, that there exists numerous doctrines. But this simple word is the word that separates us from religion.
I am sure that by now many of you are asking yourself, "how does this warning apply to us today? Since there are no pharisees or sadducees here, correct? But I tell you that there is a great number of pharisees and sadducees living out there, I tell you that there are so many and we encounter them so often that we don’t even notice them any more. There are so many people out there that can be classified as pharisees or sadducees because our enemy does not rest while trying to separate us from God, he does not rest in his attempts to lock us up within the fiery walls of hell. But what does it mean to be a pharisee or sadducee? Let’s take a close look at that and see if we can spot any out there today.
First let’s examine the pharisees. The pharisees believed in a personal God and believed in the scriptures as the Word of God, the problem was that they would add things (Luke 6:2). They would add rules and regulations, rituals and ceremonies, thereby imposing restrictions on the people. This led them to committing two great errors. The first one was that they were leading the people to believe that with a good behavior and through rituals they would be accepted by God. The second mistake was that they were leading the people to a religion of social respect, an external religion. In other words, if a person was well respected socially and would do all things correctly, then that person was judged as being acceptable to God. But I tell you that they were nothing more than hypocrites because they would profess one thing, but would do something completely different. They would do things not for the glory of God, but rather to obtain recognition. They simply used religion as a means of obtaining wealth (Matthew 23:1-10).
Let’s now examine the sadducees. The sadducees just like the pharisees were a group that generated a great political and religious influence. They were considered as the liberal minds of the times. The problem that they had was that they would take away from the Word of God. They denied all scripture except the Pentateuch which are the first five books in the old testament. They did not believe in life after death, nor in heaven or hell. This why we see that Jesus found two faults in them. First is the fact that they did not believe in the resurrection and secondly was that they did not even know the word of God, that which they professed and affirmed to know (Matthew 22:23-29). They were the liberal idealists, the rationalists and materialists of that time.
Now, why am I saying all of this? I am saying all of this because we all have to know what is the truth and what is a lie. We all have to be able to tell the difference between the things that are of God and the things that are of men. You see, religion created by men include both truth and errors intertwined. This is exactly what happened to the sadducees, pharisees, and the religious leaders in the time of Jesus. I tell you that we have to be very careful when it comes to this topic. I tell you that we must all use extreme caution because there is a lot of evil in the world. There is a great number of people and there exists a great number of organizations that profess to follow God, that profess to be founded firmly in the Word of God, but in all reality they are not.
What has happened in the world is that we have not taken the warning from our Lord Jesus Christ seriously. In these verses we see that He made a comparison that I found very interesting. He compared the doctrines of the pharisees and sadducees with yeast (leaven). I tell you that I found this comparison very interesting because if we were to look at what yeast is, I would say that is not a bad thing. I say this because who does not like to eat cake? I think that all of us here love cake since every time we share our meals and we have some, it’s usually the fastest thing to disappear. And of course, without the yeast we would not have a very good cake. So we can then say that yeast itself is not bad. But, why did Jesus then use this comparison? The answer is not in the looking at the yeast itself, but rather in the way it works. When you add yeast to the flour when baking a cake or bread, the yeast is spread through out the dough and it cause the flour to rise. Can you see the why now? The same thing happens in church with the doctrines. When man begins changing the Word of God, when man begins adding or deleting things in order to be able to use it to their advantage, well that is where it all begins to get bad. I tell you that things begin to go bad because just like the eleven, it just simply spread and mixes in with everything. In other words we fall under the same plain of the pharisees and sadducees of that time. We stop being the way Christ wants us to be and begin being the way our enemy wants us to be.
Let me give you an example of what I am saying. How many here have been invited to attend other churches? Once we receive an invitation, the majority of the times we accept and we attend. I can tall you that I have attended several churches because of an invitation, but in the same breath I tell you that I would never go back. With this I am not saying or implying that the only church with a sound doctrine is this church. I know that there are numerous pastors, deacons, ministers, brothers and sisters that truly love the Lord. I know that there are numerous churches with sound doctrines, doctrines based and founded on Jesus Christ. But unfortunately, there is also a large number that are not. There is a great number of organizations and supposedly called churches that are nothing more than a business. Places that have accepted and adopted doctrines based on men and not on God. Doctrines that do not glorify or edify, but rather confuse and prevent people from having a true encounter, from having a personal encounter with Christ.
To conclude. Brethren we must all be very careful that the same thing that happened to the disciples in these scriptures does not happen to us. I tell you that what happened to them is not something too uncommon, it’s something that happens to a great number of us. When Jesus began talking to them they were so preoccupied with the things of this world that they did not recognize what He was telling them. When Jesus said: "Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees," the only thing that came to their mind was that they had forgotten the bread. They did not remember all those other occasions when He supplied all of their needs. The same thing can happen to us. We must be very careful that we may not be too preoccupied with the things of this world in such a way that when He talks to us and directs us to where He wants us, we will not know His will. All Christians have to learn to differentiate between the things that are of God and those that are of men. We can’t allow for that which is popular or appears to be good to corrupt our personal relationship with Christ. We have to maintain our focus on Him and the Word of God, nothing can be more important than this. We can’t allow for the doctrine of men to separate us from His will and glory. This is why today I tell you BEWARE!
Preached: October 1, 2000
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