All right, well, good morning
and welcome to our Bible study in Luke. We're in chapter 12,
beginning of chapter 12 today. And the title of today's lesson
is 11 of the Pharisees. So we'll read the first few verses
here that have to do with this and remembering that he had just, been involved with these Pharisees
and lawyers, having supper with them and all the things that
went on in chapter 11 with the word that he gave to them about
the evil sign and the Queen of the South and the wisdom of Solomon
and all that. And so, as this It appears that as this dinner
wound up, and he's back with his disciples in chapter 12. So we'll start reading here in
verse 1. We'll read the first three verses.
In the meantime, when there were gathered together an innumerable
multitude of people, insomuch that they trod upon one another,
he, that's the Lord, began to say unto his disciples, first
of all, beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. For there is nothing covered
that shall not be revealed, neither hid that shall not be known.
Therefore, whatsoever you have spoken in darkness shall be heard
in the light, and that which you have spoken in the ear in
closets shall be proclaimed on the housetops." So that's the
beginning of this chapter, and it's kind of a lengthy chapter
here, and it kind of begins and ends you know, dealing with the
same couple of things. And the next section, he talks about judging. And one
of these people came up to him later here
in chapter 12 and says, hey, you should have a talk with my
brother. And he's not dividing up the inheritance correctly.
So you should intervene here in this. And then at the close
of the chapter, he talks about this hypocrisy
issue, and he says, you don't even know how to judge rightly
yourselves. It's just a hard thing that he
mentions about our natural condition. And boy, when we look at this,
It just makes you so much more appreciative of grace and the
mercy of the Lord. So, here in this beginning of
chapter 12, he starts off with a serious warning to the church
at large. He says, first of all, he began
to say unto his disciples, first of all, beware ye of the leaven
of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. When we look at these deep issues
of this text, it just makes us ever more grateful for grace,
as our pastor always says, we're just all recovering Pharisees. And so it makes us kind of examine
ourselves a little bit here, and not just point the finger
at the Pharisees, but they are the main topic here. So, you
know, it just reminded me of no wonder that the Lord in John
chapter 1, when Nathanael was coming to Him, He said, Here indeed is an Israelite in
whom there is no guile. It kind of gives you that indication
that it's not a common trait. It's not a common thing that
you run into. The Bible records a few Pharisees
upon whom the Lord bestowed mercy. And we have the record of Nicodemus
who came to the Lord in chapter 3. And he just had no understanding
of the Gospel, of the law that he was an expert in. And then
we find in chapter 7, he was one that defended the Lord in
the council. And then in chapter 19, he came
with things for the burial of the Lord. So, kind of a picture
of his his journey from the law to grace. And then, you know,
we have Saul of Tarsus. He was a Pharisee of the Pharisees,
he said of himself. So, it's an issue that it just
requires grace to overcome. And, you know, Paul wrote We look at this, what the Lord
said here, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. And Paul wrote
in chapter 3 of Philippians, beware of dogs, beware of evil
workers, beware of the concision. And he was kind of referring
to that mutilation of the gospel, That's what that concision means. Mutilation. He says, for we are
the circumcision which worship God in the Spirit and rejoice
in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. Philippians 3.
And he says, though I might also have confidence in the flesh,
if any other man thinketh that he hath wherein he might trust
in the flesh, I more. I would circumcise the eighth
day of the stock of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, the Hebrew
of the Hebrews, as touching the law of Pharisee. Concerning zeal,
boy, there's an issue that we come across. Concerning zeal,
persecuting the church. touching the righteousness which
is in the law blameless." That's how he viewed himself in that
former life. And he says, "'But what things
were gained to me, those I counted lost for Christ, yea, doubtless,
and I count all things but lost for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss
of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ
and Here we come down to the important thing about his change
from being a Pharisee. And be found in Him, be found
in Christ, not having my own righteousness, which is of the
law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness
which is of God by faith. So beware ye of the leaven of
the Pharisees, and he spells it out, he says it's hypocrisy. And you know, we think of hypocrisy now as
in modern days, more or less correctly, that it's a person
that says one thing but does another. And they're hypocrites,
you know. And from a biblical and spiritual
perspective, we look at this, he talks about the leaven of
the Pharisees which is hypocrisy and remember from some of our
previous lessons we looked at that leavening agent and that
leaven was a an additive which was typically added to bread
dough to puff it up to make it swell and make it seem like more
and when in reality you know the original volume of the bread
doesn't really change it just It's just expanded with gas bubbles
from the leavening agent. It's swelled up. It's puffed
up. And that kind of metaphor for the Pharisees were puffed
up. I thank God I'm not like other
men. I was a Pharisee of the Pharisees. all these laws I've kept from
my youth up." That was their view. So when we apply this in a physical
sense to the Pharisees, to them their appearance was paramount.
how they looked, how they were perceived by the people, by society. You love to have the uppermost
seats, the most prestigious seats in the synagogue. And you love
to be seen in the marketplace and recognized and greeted and
all those things that we looked at in chapter 11. We observed
that This warning is given to the
disciples. Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. Not to get
caught up in that. And aside from the self-aggrandizement
issue, there's an issue of the Gospel and the true bread of
life that we mentioned that that leaven was a an additive that puffed up the
bread and made it seem like more than it was when the bread of
life is complete all in itself. It's perfect. It needs nothing. And that's typified in the bread
of life in the Passover Supper and now in the Lord's Supper.
It's unleavened bread. It pictures His perfect body. It says, this is my body nothing
added, broken for you. From 1 Corinthians 11, verse
24. It's 100% the Lord God Almighty. Salvation is of the Lord. And
it needs nothing added. And nothing can be taken away
from it. It needs every bit of what it is. And yet, there's
nothing can be added to it outside of the completeness of Christ. He said, take, eat, this is My
body which is broken for you. This do in remembrance of Me.
And it pictures that substitutionary death of the Lord in the place
of the people giving Him from the covenant of grace, saving
them from their sins. don't add anything to it. And
to add something is predicated on the false assumption that
the death of Christ was really insufficient. And Paul said, you know, I thought
I had my own righteousness which is of the law. And I was keeping
that law. As of the keeping of the law,
I was blameless. Nobody saw me do anything that
violated the law. So, many in religion today, they believe that to add something,
it's predicated on the false assumption that the death of
Christ was insufficient, and it merely provided an opportunity
for men to add their own works and merit in addition to or in
the place of the finished work of Christ. So there's that leavening
agent. Well, you know, Christ supplied the main thing, but
you need to have this additive here to make it effectual or
hurry it along. Well, we're just impatient with
the Lord's timing, so we want to kind of help him out a little,
move things along. So we put some leaven in there.
to move it. So in our text verse from chapter
12, verse 1, this leaven is used in conjunction with these false
religious leaders of the day, the Pharisees. And again, that
leaven was defined by the Lord as hypocrisy. And that's a really
interesting word. And I was just kind of looking
that up and doing some research on it. And the etymology of that
word is, in the Greek, it's actually a two-part word as we often find,
and it's so descriptive. And then when we understand more
correctly what it is, then it makes the rest of this little
block of Scripture that we're looking at more understandable. So, in the Greek, hypocrite, hypocrite is hippocrisis
and it says it's acting a feigned
part and it has to, the application of it was from plays, from acting
and They, in ancient times, the Hippocrates
was a stage actor or a player, and they often wore large masks
to kind of portray an image of who they were representing in
the play. And they were just an actor pretending
to be what they are not. and reading lines pre-written
that dealt with the character they were portraying and not
necessarily who they were or what they were. And according to Webster, the word
comes from two Greek terms, which means the first part is an interpreter,
And the second part is from underneath. And it had to do with that mask.
They would speak from under this mask and give their lines or
their interpretation of this character from the play. So they interpreted or spoke
to the part from under the mask. And so that when we look at verse
3, or verse 2 rather, there is nothing covered that shall not
be revealed, neither hid that shall not be known." So I think
that understanding a little bit about that origin of the word
hypocrite there helps us to put that in the perspective here
of how things, how they tried to cover their their self with
the mask of religion or whatever, and yet the Lord would be able
to look underneath that. You know, it's interesting that
people, they're always trying to make the Lord and give Him the attributes of
themselves. Well, I put this mask on, nobody
can see what I looked like underneath. And boy, you know, we're all
kind of guilty of that a little bit. You know, nobody wants to,
we don't want anybody to see the real us sometimes. And yet the Lord says, Nothing is hidden. Everything
will be uncovered. The mask will be useless in the
end. And boy, that makes you appreciate
grace because the Lord sees right through all that stuff and loves
you anyway. He just sees Himself because
of the covenant of grace and His works. And He's able to present
us without spot, without wrinkle. And underneath that mask in our
natural condition, boy, we've got plenty of wrinkles. We've
got plenty of spots and all these problems. And physically, we
don't get rid of a lot of them. after the new birth, but spiritually we're cleansed from them, we're
cleaned from them. So, you know, in modern times, We
have certain celebrations even today where people wear masks
to pretend briefly that they're someone or something else that
truly they're not. And it's just done in kind of
fun and everything, but spiritually it's a little more
serious than that. And so the application then and
now for the church is, and remember he said, first of all, he said
to his disciples, beware the leaven of the Pharisees, which
is hypocrisy." So it's just a harsh indictment against these Pharisees
for falsely pretending to be moral and to present themselves
in various situations as virtuous or pious or without sin or righteous
by virtue of keeping the law or by works. I do all these sayings that we
looked at previously in all our other studies. I tithe, I pray,
I fast. And it was all just not really representing
the truth there when they did that. So, remember in our previous
lesson in Luke 11, He said, you Pharisees, you make the outside
appear clean, but inside you're full of ravening and wickedness.
So it's the mask of hypocrisy where on the outside you appear
virtuous and clean and religious, but inside you're scheming and
greedy ravenous and wicked. Secondly, this warning to the
disciples, and so that makes it applicable here to the church
at large, is to beware. Beware of that. If it wasn't something we had
to watch out for, He wouldn't be recording that for us. To beware means to hold the mind,
to be cautious about, it means to pay attention. as we're not to get caught up
in that. So the view to the church then
is one of really of self-awareness, of paying attention, of being
cautious, and especially of those that are in leadership roles
who would introduce this leaven of hypocrisy, this leaven of
works or self-righteousness into the simplicity of the gospel,
which is complete and needs Nothing added. It's complete in itself. So we're just to stick with that
and then leave the results up to God. We don't need to help
Him along or try to make it more effectual. You know, the Pharisees were
kind of famous for just trying to make proselytes, and for whatever
purpose that they could get more revenue that way, or more people
that looked up to them, or whatever their purpose was. So we're to
be cautious of that. We're to watch out for those
that would do that. And you know, it's the fact that
adding works to grace just increases the sin debt because of unbelief
that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.
It's just one more thing that you have to have chalked up to
your account there. metaphor presented by the text
here declares that they who present themselves as religious and in
a lot of most of them all to say well we're a declarer of
the gospel and these pharisees were experts in the old testament And yet they didn't see Christ
in it. They didn't see the Gospel in it. As Norm was pointing out,
some of them said, well, we're looking for a Messiah. His coming
we have just celebrated here recently. When he was there, they didn't
recognize him. They didn't recognize him. They
said, well, it says here, we know that it says in this text
that he'll come out of Bethlehem and all these other characteristics
of the Messiah. but they didn't recognize any
of the spiritual part of it. He shall save His people from
their sins. So, there are these various schemes
that these actors come out with, and there's various degrees of
that that we see in churches. Some in religion, they may be
sincere or a zealous actor, but really they're just playing a
part. And there are always those that that try to enter in under
the guise of religiosity to convince others erroneously that salvation
really lies within each one of us and we only have to fan that
little spark of light that they say we have in us and to teach
falsely that Christ only made provision for salvation and didn't
in fact really secure completely salvation for those for whom
He died. I remember what Paul wrote in Philippians. He said,
beware the concision. So, beware of that. You know, others teach that death
only partly secured salvation. That you can add by some form
of works. You can add to that. Or you can
supplement Christ's part with your own merit. Thus, you can
jointly participate in the new birth of salvation. You know,
Norm's always pointing out, well, how much did you have to do with
your original birth? Well, that answer is pretty obvious. You didn't get to participate
other than just being the recipient of it. And it's the same in the
new birth. You're just the recipient of
grace in that. Another scheme instructs you
to place Christ under some obligation simply by saying a certain phrase
or repeating a certain prayer, and without that burdensome requirement
that you must be born again. You can just say these words
and then Christ is obligated to respond in a certain way.
Yet, that's just a mask. of nothingness, of hypocrisy.
And some are motivated purely by monetary greed and they don't
really have any actual care for the spiritual condition of the
people they're robbing in the name of religion. They just lead
them on through the prosperity gospel, they call it, I think.
God wants you to be rich. God wants you to be prosperous. You can start that ball rolling
by mailing me a check. And it works for him, but he
says, in the end, there's nothing hidden. that shall not be revealed,
and there's nothing covered that shall not be known. So, that
only gets you so far. So watch out for those. Beware
of those. You know, there's just so much
of that in religion that we need to beware of. Almost anything is excusable
and can be rationalized by people in an unsafe condition under
the clause of leading people to Christ. And we find out that
we can't lead anybody anywhere. God said, no one can come to
Me except the Father which sent Me to draw him. All we can do
is when they come, present the Gospel in simplicity and in truth,
and leave the rest unto Him. So, we can't really lead anybody
anywhere. No form of chicanery is off limits
as long as you claim that your motives are pure. And even if
it in truth denies the actual Gospel of the Son of God, it's
kind of the end justifies the means train of thought. And you know, these Pharisees
are just an example of it. We go through all these rituals
and acts and religious ceremonies and things. and pretend to ourselves that
we're good because of that. Paul says that they have a zeal,
but not according to knowledge. They just have no understanding
of God. They try to develop their own
image and picture and relationship. And I remember a pastor of mine
once was famous saying, if I can just get them lost, I can get
them saved. And boy, I thought, well, that's
an awful thing to say. The two I's in there deny the
work of the Holy Trinity in salvation. The work of God is complete and
eternal and it's irrevocable. You know, who's assigned to accomplish
that complete salvation? It's Christ. He shall save His
people from their sins. You can't get somebody saved. Who are His people? Well, you
know, those Pharisees were famous for their knowledge of the Old
Testament. In Isaiah 8.18, it says, And the children whom the Lord
hath given me are for signs and wonders in Israel, from whom
the Lord of hosts which dwelleth in Mount Zion." And of course
that verse is parroted by Paul in the Romans in the New Testament. Behold I and the children whom
the Lord hath given me for signs and wonders. Well, when were
they given to Christ to redeem? It says, if the Lord hath given
me children, when did He do that? Well, in Ephesians 1, it says
that according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before
Him in love, having predestinated us under the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ to Himself according to the good pleasure of His will.
to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made
us accepted in the Beloved, in whom we have redemption through
His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches
of His grace." Boy, when they leave out that chapter in Ephesians,
they've just got a mask of religiosity on. they just don't believe or understand
the underlying grace that's involved in it. You know, the covenant
of grace between the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit encompasses
eternal foreknowledge and election. And that just means choosing.
We all know what election means. When we elect to do something
or we elect not to do something, it means we're choosing to do
it or not to do it or to vote for this person or to not vote
for that person. Predestination means that pre
means before, and destination means where you're going to end
up. And what's going to happen? Predestination, calling, justification,
and glorification. You know, all those things are
recorded for us in Romans 8, verse 29-30. For whom He, that's
the Lord, did foreknow, You know, a lot of religion under
the mask of religiosity and the hypocrisy of it, try to convert
that into a what? And it says whom. It's dealing
with people here, not what they would do, or what he would foresee
they would do, or any kind of thing. Just take the doo-doo
out of it. It says for whom he did foreknow. He also did predestinate to be
conformed to the image of His Son." That's the predestination. "...that He might be the firstborn
among many brethren. Moreover, whom He did predestinate,
them..." Another word that speaks to people, not things. "...them
He called." And whom He called, them He justified, also justified. And whom He justified, them He
also glorified." And of course, you can look up the tense of
those and understand that. If it means anything to you spiritually,
it's pretty plain. So, it's all of God. It's all of Him. And whatever
mask we put on to diffuse that and make it seem like we have
something to do with it, we find out that we're just recipients
of grace. By grace are you saved through
faith, and that's not even of yourself, it's a gift of God.
So what does God use to effect this in His people whom He gave
to Christ to redeem? We've just gone through all those
scriptures that kind of laid all that stuff out that gets
lost in this hypocrisy thing. It says, for after that and the
wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. And that's where
they are in this natural state. They know not God. It pleased
God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. That's
what He uses. That's the element. He uses the
preaching of the Gospel of the death of His Son to save them
that believe. And then we find out that We
didn't even have anything to do with that, because it says
further on in Ephesians, if you read on down through verse 19,
it says, We believe according to the working of His mighty
power, not of ourselves. So there you have that. In Romans
10, It lays it out for us in Romans
10, 14. How shall they call on Him in
whom they've not believed? How shall they believe in Him
whom they've not heard? And how shall they hear without
a preacher? It takes someone to declare the gospel of the
death of His Son, the death, burial, and resurrection, the
good news that He took care of your sins, and there's nothing
left for you to do but just, Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner. We don't have to try and come
up with our own Well, I've got ten pounds of Jesus here. I need
four pounds of works here to kind of even that out or to add
to it to make it work out. Salvation is of the Lord. So
it begs the question, can one come to Christ on his own as
some of these masked pretenders assert? You know, it says being
dead in trespasses and sin. That's a metaphor certainly for
inability. If you're dead, you can't do
anything. So can you come? Well, we mentioned earlier in
John 6.44 that no man can come to Me. No man has the ability.
That's what that word can means. No man can come to Me except
the Father which hath sent me, draw him, and I will raise him
up at the last day." You know, it's interesting, we mentioned
in John 1.47 that he saw Nathanael coming to him. Because his brother
had said, hey, we found the Messiah. We found Him that the Scriptures
declared. And Nathanael was in. I don't think so. But I'm going
to come take a look. But he was coming to Christ and
Christ said, Behold an Israelite indeed in
whom is no guile. And then when he had his personal
little conversation with him, he says, I saw you under that
tree. And he was kind of in the same
boat with that woman at the well and others that we've mentioned.
Here's a man that told me all things ever I did. He said, I
saw you under that tree and what you were saying, pouring out
your heart to God. Because he said, an Israelite
in whom is no guile. There's no falseness. There's
no trickery. There's no bait. Remember that
word guile meant the mechanism or the bait that you use in a
trap to catch something. There's none of that. So no man
can come on his own. Can you will yourself to be born
again? In John 6.63 it says, it's the
spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing. The words
that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. And
then Paul adds to that in Romans 9.16, so then, So then, after we look at all
those elements of grace, it is not of him that willeth, nor
of him that runneth, but God that showeth mercy." And so anybody
that has that mask of religiosity on that tries to convince you
of it's all up to you. If you come, it's because the
Father drew you. If you flee to Christ, it's because
the Father drew you. and there's no other reason for
it. So, it's not of him that willeth or him that runneth,
but God that showeth mercy. And in the end, the Gospel concludes
with the fact that salvation is just of the Lord, knowing
in 1 Thessalonians 1-4, knowing, brethren, beloved, your election,
your choosing of God, knowing your choosing of God because
our Gospel It came not unto you in word only, but also in power
and in the Holy Ghost and in as much assurance as you know
what manner of men were among you for your sake." Boy, when
the Lord saves you, you have knowledge of those things and
you can't be fooled by all this religious fakery. work stuff,
and you know that the Gospel came to you in power and in the
Holy Spirit, and then you have much assurance about it. He doesn't
just do that and then leave you to wonder. So beware the leaven of the Pharisees,
the leaven of religious pretension, the leaven of works or self-righteousness
for salvation, the leaven of a false gospel which falsely
allows anything outside the total reliance of Christ for salvation. And there's just so much of that
around. And Paul seemed like he fought
that all the time. He wrote to the Galatians, I
marvel that you're so soon removed from Him who called you to a
gospel that's not another gospel. And beware of those dogs. Beware of this concision. And
beware of those ones that were ordained to this of old, that
were trying to lead you astray and convince you of something
besides the total efficacy of Christ and salvation. this mask will be removed, and
there's nothing covered that shall not be revealed, neither
hid that it shall not be known." And in the end, there's no hiding
from God, no mask to hide behind. In Hebrews chapter 4, verse 12,
beginning in Hebrews 4.12, it says, the Word of God is quick
and powerful. and sharper than any two-edged
sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and
of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts
and intents of the heart, nothing hid that shall not be revealed,
nothing covered that shall not be known. Neither is there any
creature that is not manifest in His sight. But all things
are naked and open unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do."
You know, it's one of those hymns that I just love. Nothing in
my hand I bring. Rock of ages. Seeing then that we have a great
High Priest that's passed into the heavens. Jesus, the Son of
God. Let's hold fast our profession.
Let's not get drawn aside by the leaven of hypocrisy in our
declaration of the Gospel and our relationship with Christ. For we have not a high priest
which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.
You know, He knows about our real self. He knows about the
real Mike and the real Norm Craig, and you know, there's nothing
hidden there. It just makes grace so much more
precious when we know that He loved us in spite of ourselves,
in spite of our sins. He said, "...let us, therefore,
come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy
and find grace to help in time of need. Know, leaven, woe to
them that substitute works for the substitute which is who is
Christ so that's the end of our lesson today on beware the leaven
of the pharisees thank you for your attention and as always
be free from all that amen