OPEN: Down thru the ages, there have been rare occasions when different printings of the Bible have been found to have small errors them
· For example in 1653 Christians were upset to find that one Bible which declared: “Know ye not that the UNRIGHTEOUS shall inherit the kingdom of God?”
· The first English-language Bible to be printed in Ireland in 1716 became known as the “Sin On” Bible because it encouraged its readers to “sin on more” rather than “sin no more.”
· And in 1631 – the infamous WICKED BIBLE was printed - So named because it had mistranslated the 7th Commandment to say “Thou SHALT commit adultery,” King Charles was angry that he ordered all copies destroyed and fined the printer 300 pounds
APPLY: All those Bible versions created a scandal in their day. And no one - even today - would ever dream of accepting them as valid. But these minor mistranslations serve to illustrate that even a small change can dramatically alter the messages from Scripture.
(pause…)
Our text today introduces a disturbing question Jesus asked the Pharisees:
"You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?" Mt. 23:33
One commentator noted that this was the most severe language Jesus had ever used with anybody. Jesus was essentially telling the Pharisees that they were going to hell because of their teachings.
Look again with me at Matthew 23:15 in the NIV "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.”
In other words: The Pharisees sought to teach others - to bring them into their understanding of how to please God. And their teachings would convert new people and destine them to the same destination the Pharisees were bound for: Hell.
I. What were they teaching?
Well, just as an example, let’s look again at Matthew 23:16-22
“Woe to you, blind guides! You say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’
You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred?
You also say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gift on it, he is bound by his oath.’
You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred? Therefore, he who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. And he who swears by the temple swears by it and by the one who dwells in it. And he who swears by heaven swears by God’s throne and by the one who sits on it.”
You might ask: What was Jesus complaining about? It seems somewhat confusing to our ears.
Well, I could get real technical about this… but the short and fat of it is this:
The Pharisees were teaching their followers that if they swore by the GOLD that was in the temple – or the GIFT that was on the altar…they would HAVE to keep that promise.
But if they wanted to make a promise they didn’t want to keep they could simply say
“I swear by the TEMPLE” (not the gold of the temple)
or “I swear by the ALTAR” (not the gift upon that altar)
It was the equivalent of making a promise with their fingers crossed.
It was like a little child saying: “Yes, I know I promised… but my fingers were crossed.”
Now, that is childish. Today, it’s easy to look back on that kind of teaching and just shake our heads. It’s seems almost amusing to believe anyone could be that foolish.
But Jesus wasn’t shaking His head
He wasn’t amused
He wasn’t even annoyed.
He was downright angry
And the reason He was angry was that the Pharisees had become accustomed to making up their own rules and regulations and then passing along those rules as if they were the laws of God.
Earlier in Matthew, Jesus had condemned that tendency, and He quoted the prophet Isaiah:
“… in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” Mt. 15:9
In other words, God’s people must never get into the habit of accepting the teachings of men as if they were the commands of God. BECAUSE IF WE EVER DO - it will make our worship vain, empty, worthless.
Even worse… such teachings could lead to an eternity in Hell
Now, there are other issues at play in this confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees, but at the heart of the issue was this substitution man’s rules for God’s. The belief that men/women could change, add to, or improve on God’s Word. Such a belief opens up every kind of perversion of righteousness, holiness and good doctrine.
II. Now why would the Pharisees do this?
Why would they feel compelled to alter and add to God’s Laws?
Well – at least initially – they may have thought they were doing God a favor.
ILLUS: For example: The Law decreed that Israel should “Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy…. Anyone who desecrates it must be put to death; whoever does any work on that day must be cut off from his people.” Exodus 31:14
God’s Law told the Israelites that they were not allowed to work on the Sabbath. But the Pharisees noticed that God didn’t completely define what work was… so they decided to help God out.
By the day of Jesus, the Pharisees had decided upon 1521 ways in which you could desecrate the Sabbath.
· If you walked more than 750 yards, you were breaking the Sabbath.
· You couldn’t wear a heavy coat, because if you got hot and took it off, you had to carry it. And that was work.
· You couldn’t tie a knot
· You couldn’t kill flies.
· A woman was not allowed to look into a mirror because she might see a gray hair and pull it out – which would have been reaping. (of course none of you ladies…)
Down thru history, there has always been the tendency to want to
· “help God out”
· to improve on the things that He has said
That’s why there is a repeated command through out Scripture to keep your hands off
Ø Don’t mess with it
Ø Don’t change it
Ø Don’t try to improve upon it
In Deuteronomy 4:2 God says: “Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the LORD your God that I give you.”
Proverbs 30:6 warns “Do not add to his words, or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar.”
Paul warned the Elders at Ephesus “Even from your own number men will arise and DISTORT THE TRUTH in order to draw away disciples after them.” Acts 20:30
And Peter condemned those who tried to alter the Apostle Paul’s writings:
“(Paul) writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people DISTORT, AS THEY DO THE OTHER SCRIPTURES, to their own destruction.” 2 Peter 3:16
Thus, we must never try to change, or improve upon God’s Word and His commands.
ILLUS: I found it intriguing that this sermon coincided with our “Old Fashioned Day” (I had rented a “Parsons” outfit from a costume shop to wear for this occasion). As I was preparing the sermon, I decided to use the following illustration, and then it occurred to me that the man I’m going to tell you about would have worn clothing much like the type I’m wearing today.
It was the early 1800’s, and there was a preacher who’d come to the new country of America to serve as a sort of missionary for the “Old Light, Anti-burgher, Seceder, Presbyterian Church.” Now, each one of those monikers in from the word Presbyterian spoke of a division within the Presbyterian church of that day.
For example, if you were “anti-burgher” it meant you didn’t want the burgher (or mayor) of your city to have any influence in your congregation. Other Presbyterians apparently had no problem with that arrangement.
Anyway, almost all churches of that day practiced what was called “closed communion.” If you didn’t belong to their particular flavor of church, you were not allowed to partake of communion in their building. The Presbyterians controlled this by means of having their people come in the Saturday before communion Sunday and answer some questions. If they answered the questions correctly, they would receive a coin (you can find examples of these on the internet).
This troubled this preacher, a man by the name of Thomas Campbell, because that practice meant that there were Presbyterians in his community that might not be able to take of communion. So he got into the habit of giving the coin to any individual who could convince him of their Christianity… whether or not they belonged to the Old Light, Anti-burgher, etc.
All went well until word got back to headquarters in the Old Country of what he was doing. They summarily fired him, branding him a heretic.
About that same time, Thomas’ son Alexander was on his way to join his father, when his ship was wrecked on the shores of Scotland. While waiting for another ship, he attended church at a local Presbyterian congregation. When Saturday came around and he went in to answer the required questions, he was shocked to find that they asked him questions he wasn’t acquainted with. He knew what they wanted, answered the questions accurately. But he was so disturbed the experience that he went to church the next day, dropped his coin in the box and left without taking communion.
When father and son were reunited, they were both convinced of one thing. There were too many man-made rules in their denomination. These human regulations were like walls separating people from the Lord’s Table that Jesus died to establish. It was His table, not theirs.
About that same time, there were individuals amongst the Methodists and Baptists who were struggling with the same issue. They all arrived at the conclusion the Campbells had:
The leaders of their denominations had gotten into the habit of accepting the doctrines of men as being equal to the Word of God.
They all came to realize almost every group had their own creeds.
Their own unique doctrines
Even their own distinctive names (like “Old Light, Anti-burgher, Seceder, Presbyterian Church)
And they realized that all these man-made distinctions and doctrines were responsible for much of the division in Christendom. They were faced by the sad reality that they had fallen victim to a deceptive way of thinking. They determined that they would no longer accept that kind of thinking. If they couldn’t find it in Scripture, they just wouldn’t do it.
AND SO, they came up with a set of mottos (or principles) that they hoped would keep others from falling into that trap that had once ensnared them.
1. “No Creed but Christ, no book but the Bible, no law but Love”
They were tired of the creeds of men, the doctrinal books that had once ruled them, and laws made by men. They wanted their only Creed to be Christ, their only book of doctrine to be Scripture, and their only Law – the mandate to love others.
2. “Where the Bible speaks, we speak; where the Bible is silent, we are silent.”
I once candidated for a small congregation in northern Indiana. They had about 25 people in attendance and they were asking me to be their preacher. Since they came from a different background that I did, I asked to see their church constitution. What I found amazed me. It had about 5 pages of doctrine that someone had to believe to belong to their church! Most of it I could have agreed with, but their were some questionable issues in those creedal statements as well. I met with them again and explained that if I were to preach for them I’d have to change the doctrinal pages of their constitution.
“Oh dear,” one of them said, “the last two preachers have wanted to change those pages” (and I could imagine why).
“Well,” I said “what I want to do is remove those doctrinal statement completely and replace them with one simple statement: ‘where the Bible speaks, we’ll try to speak, and where the Bible is silent, we’ll be silent.”
They thought about that for a couple of moments and then said “Well, I don’t see anything wrong with that.”
And of course, what could anybody find to argue with about that?
3. “Bible words for Bible things” (use Bible terminology in the same way Scripture does)
If you’ve ever spent any time in a hospital, you may have noticed that the Doctors and Nurses have a very particular set of terminology they use for their instruments and procedures. That is because they need to be very precise in how they respond to your illness and surgery. If their language was imprecise it could cost you in health or even cost you your life.
It is equally important to be precise in using Biblical language as it was set forth. When we become accustomed to using definitions for Scriptural words that is not accurate, then we run the risk of poor doctrine… or even demonic doctrines (I Timothy 4:1)
That’s why many in our brotherhood struggle to maintain even the most mundane of biblical distinctions. For example, you’ll rarely hear anyone here refer to me as Pastor Strite. That’s because, in Scripture, the term pastor or shepherd was used for the Elders of a congregation (I Peter 5:1ff). For the first 20 years of my ministry, I did not qualify as an elder because I had no children (Titus 1:6).
And while I’m not likely to give anyone a hard time who refers to me as Pastor, I distinctly avoid being called “Reverend”, since the term “revere” means to “hold in awe”. In Scripture, the term Reverend applies only to God’s name (Psalm 111:9)
4. “We’re not the only Christians… but we intend to be Christians ONLY”
Oftentimes, if you were to ask a person on the street if they were a Christian, they would say “I’m a Methodist” or “I’m a Baptist”. They didn’t actually answer your question. You asked if they were Christian, and they tried to tell you what flavor they were. It is man-made names like that often divide people and create walls that God never intended. If someone asks you if you’re a Christian, say “yes” and don’t go any further than that. We were called to belong to Christ and to Him only. Anything else is based on human definitions.
Now these “mottos” are not intended to be creeds which would serve to interpret or define Scripture. Rather, they are principles whose purpose is to point us back to the Bible as our sole source of authority.
The Scriptures’ teachings and principles are non-negotiable. You must not change them, add to them or attempt to improve upon them.
Above all else, these principles/mottos were set down in the hopes that we would not fall prey to human terminology, human traditions and human doctrines as many others before us have.
Does that mean we’ll always succeed?
No.
We’re mortal. We’re as susceptible to the tendency of trying to “help God out” as anyone else. And there have been preachers in our brotherhood that have fallen back into that old trap.
What happens is that - when we prepare for our sermons or lessons - we often research books written by scholars and Ph.D.s. And there are many such educated men who would try to convince us that the Bible needs to be filtered through…
· Human reasoning
· Human experience
· Church traditions
· And Church history
They will argue that stands (like the one we try to take) are the result of our “interpretation” of Scripture. Now, that’s a catch phrase. Whenever you hear someone say “that’s your interpretation", they are essentially saying:
“I don’t agree with you, but I don’t know of enough Scripture to disprove what you’re saying.”
A scholar who is attracted by human traditions, might scorn a Scriptural stand by saying “That’s just YOUR interpretation.” And that would be true… if we were substituting man-made doctrines for Scripture. But more often than not, leaders in our brotherhood painfully seek to cling only to the Bible.
The heresy of accepting manmade traditions and doctrines destroyed the Pharisees. It’s damaged many good churches down thru church history… and it could creep into our brotherhood as well.
III. But, I’ve noticed that the tendency in our brotherhood is to fall into another kind of trap that ensnared the Pharisees.
In Matthew 23:23 Jesus condemned these religious leaders by saying "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices— mint, dill and cummin…”
In other words, these men were lovers of rules. They would obey the rules scrupulously. Here Jesus was referring to their tendency of going thru their gardens and tithing every tenth berry they found there. The Pharisees loved rules… but they didn’t really care for people all that much.
Which is why Jesus continued by saying:
“But you have neglected the more important matters of the law: justice, mercy and faithfulness….”
The Pharisees loved rules. Whether they were God given, or man generated didn’t matter. In fact, I’m not sure they always knew the difference. But as much as they loved the rules of God, they mistreated and looked down on those who didn’t live up to their standards.
There are times when we of the Churches of Christ/ Christian churches hate the doctrines of men so much, and fight so hard to cling to God’s Word, that we can end up not treating others very well. We don’t often play well with others.
But, for us to be able to claim that we cling to God’s Word we have to show we’ve been influenced by it. One person wisely observed:
“The important thing is not how many times you have been through the Bible, but whether the Bible has been through you.”
If we are people who really believe in God’s Word, then we should not only zealously guard it’s truth… we should reflect it’s Spirit. Galatians tells us the fruit of the Spirit is “…love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control…” Galatians 5:22-23
These are the attitudes that God’s Word and Spirit should create within us.
When we encounter someone who disagrees with us/or is not as committed to God’s Word as we
We “… must not quarrel; instead, (we) must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Those who oppose (us) (we) must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth.” 2 Timothy 2:23-24
Even if someone says something so foolish we want to bite their heads off, God tells us to bite our tongue instead. We won’t win anyone to God’s way of thinking by beating them over the heads with Scripture. But we must never let another’s foolish attitude toward His Word drag us down and away from God’s wisdom.
CLOSE: My main point is this: we must never allow ourselves to be taken in by the tendency to alter, change, improvise, or “improve” on God’s Word. Why? Because it has the power to change men’s lives.
Back in 1787, a British ship called “The Bounty” set sail from England bound for the S. Seas. Their mission was to spend time in the islands, transplanting fruit-bearing and food-bearing trees, in the hope of making some of the islands more habitable.
After 10 months of voyage, the Bounty arrived safely at its destination, and for 6 months the officers and crew committed themselves to completing their task.
However, when the order was given to leave the islands the sailors rebelled. They liked the climate. They liked the islands. They liked the girls. And so they staged the famous “Mutiny on the Bounty”. The sailors placed Captain Bligh and a few loyal men adrift in an open boat.
Ultimately, Captain Bligh, survived the ordeal, was rescued, and eventually arrived home in London to tell his story. Almost immediately an expedition was launched to punish the mutineers, and in due course - 14 of them were captured and paid the penalty for their crime.
But 9 of the men had gone to another distant island and there they formed a colony. They discovered that one of the native plants could be distilled to create a passable form of whiskey. Their lives were filled with wickedness and depravity. Disease and murder took the lives of all but one of the original crew: Alexander Smith.
Smith found himself the only man on an island surrounded by a crowd of women and half-breed children. Seeking some way to pass his hours, he began looking thru the possessions of one of the dead sailors. And there he found a Bible.
The Book was new to him. He had never read it before. He sat down and read it through. He believed it and he began to see that it spoke truth about his life and his need for God. He wanted the others on the island to share in the benefits of this book, so he taught classes to the women and the children, as he read to them and taught them the Scriptures.
It was 20 years before a ship ever found that island, and when it did, they found a miniature Utopia. The people were living in decency, prosperity, harmony and peace. There was nothing of crime, disease, immorality, insanity, or illiteracy. How was it accomplished? By the reading, the believing, and allowing the unchanging and powerful truth of God to change their lives.
OTHER SERMONS IN THIS SERIES
There Be Monsters; Mark 4:35-4:41
Don’t Leave Jesus Behind; Matthew 16:13-16:23
What Would You Have Me Do For You? Matthew 20:29-20:34
How Shall You Escape Hell? Matthew 23:15-23:33
If you’d like to HEAR any of these sermons, go to www.churchchrist.net
