Narrow Way with Steve Phillips Leaven
Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy –Luke 12:1
Leaven is corruption and works hidden within. It is a living fungus and feeds upon its host. It progressively transforms the whole by its internal spreading. Leaven puffs up filling the mass with air.
It adds lightness to what is weighty and makes palatable what is distasteful. Unchecked, it inflates to enormous proportions. “A little leaven, leavens the whole lump; clean out the old leaven of malice and wickedness” -1 Corinthians 5:8. And that corrupting process is active in the church.
“Beware of the leaven of the teaching of the Pharisees” –Matthew 16:11. Their instruction injects leaven into the hearts of the unsuspecting. Beware! If not arrested, it will certainly transform you into “twice as much a son of hell” –Matthew 23:15 as the Pharisee who rules over you.
Beware! Pharisees are neither sincere nor true. Behind their mask they peddle deadly Traditions: “the precepts of men” –Mark 7:7. Be warned against their influence, their pretensions, and their doctrine.
Leaven’s effect is visible from without. Though it has permeated the whole, it betrays its presence by what it does on the exterior. Visible, outward, and tangible are the hallmarks and preoccupation of Pharisees. Everything revolves around the external; a pageant could not be otherwise.
Having not the inward reality of a “broken and contrite heart” –Psalm 51:17, they can do nothing else but emphasize the external act. “Why do you do what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” –Luke 6:2, is the rallying cry of their wretched hearts. Censure, condemnation, and self-justification formulate their “ministry”: “The Pharisees’ disciples often fast and offer prayers, but Yours eat and drink” –Luke 6:33.
Without joy, void of compassion, the slightest affront to their self-generated scruples launches an assault upon any who dare to transgress: “It is the Sabbath, and it is not permissible for you to carry your pallet. And for this reason the Jews were persecuting Jesus” –John 5:10,16. Loveless Leaven.
There is joy in the presence of God over one sinner who repents [Luke 15:7,10], but the heart of the Pharisee, as a deadened stone, is unmoved in its malice: “And the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, began saying in response: ‘There are six days in which work should be done; therefore come during them and get healed, and not on the Sabbath day’” –Luke 13:14.
Christ, the Lord of the Sabbath [Mark 2:27,28], steadfastly refused to stoop to the bankrupt rebukes of these petty scrupulous fools. Their tangled maze of requirements sprang from the polluted Leaven of their own depraved hearts, and not from that blessed Spirit of Light and His unchanging Word.
“Why do Your disciples not walk according to the Tradition of the elders?” –Mark 7:5 is their exclusive touchstone of reality. All is arraigned, tried, and convicted in the supreme court of Self, with lord Tradition presiding. In that tribunal, their intricately inscribed volumes “nicely set aside the commandment of God” –Mark 7:9. Their burdensome weight of multiplied codes “invalidates the Word of God by your Tradition which you have handed down” -Mark 7:13.
They teach “as doctrines the precepts of men” –Mark 7:7. Because Pharisees receive nothing from above, they merely reshuffle useless fare received from fellow scribal mongers. Their doctrine is “safe,” but it cannot save. It is ever-so-balanced, but not piercing to the conviction of soul and spirit: having the approval of men, but not that of Heaven.
Their doctrine and their very lives are Leaven, and leaven corrupts. Their teaching permeates the heart and transforms the lives of those infected. To be seen before men and not by the Father in secret becomes the motivation in life; pleasing lord Pharisee now is the governing principle of the heart.
“Nevertheless many even of the rulers believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they were not confessing Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the praise of men rather than the approval of God” –John 12:42,43. The Leaven had done its work in them and continues up to today.
They did not glorify God because they feared men. They dared not transgress the determination of the “reputed pillars” –Galatians 2:9 lest they incur their wrath and thereby lose their standing before them.
A puffed up religion of external empty folly is all one is left with after Leaven has done its work.