The Leaven of the Pharisees

I'm going to talk about some of the things that are most incredible about boudin. The bread that they make today has been made from a natural sourdough start that is made from a natural sourdough start. It's a very, very important bread. It's a very important bread. It's a very important bread. The bread that they make today has been made from a natural sourdough start that the company claims dates back to the original sourdough start that he began his company with in 1849. They have been using the same sourdough start unbroken for 166-plus years. What they do is they take a little bit of the previous batch and they put it in the next batch and they let it do its thing. They let it spread. They let it grow. They make bread out of that. Then they grab a little bit out of that batch and they make the next batch and they let it do its thing. It grows and it bubbles and it starts to smell like sourdough. They say, okay, we're good. Pull it out of there. It makes more bread. They do the same thing. They've been doing that unbroken for 166-plus years since 1849 when that company was created. That sourdough start is made from naturally occurring yeast, lactobacillus, a little water, a little flour. Ultimately, that's what they do. That's what they make their sourdough from. Interestingly, I was reading some history on Boudin's company. This streak almost ended in 1906. What happened in 1906 in San Francisco? Huge earthquake. Three-quarters of the city burnt to the ground. Huge fire earthquake. Everything else. Apparently, Louise Boudin, quick thinking, she grabbed a bunch of the sourdough start, threw it in a wooden bucket, and ran out of the factory. The factory ultimately burned to the ground. But they had their start. They had what they call their mother dough. They started over and used that same mother dough that had been going for as long as it had been going. They ultimately started making sourdough again and again and again. Boudin has been making their sourdough the same way ever since they started. Using naturally occurring yeast in that mother dough to sour and leaven the next batch. Honestly, it's a very similar process to what the Egyptians record in history. Believe it or not, some of the first sourdough bread that is recorded in history is from Egypt. Back in the 1500s BC is where we first see historical accounts that the Egyptians utilized sourdough bread. And that they made sourdough bread. As far back as history goes, they are some of the first that we're able to look at. So there is a record of them doing that back in 1500 BC. And it's not hard to imagine how they might have come across this. You leave bread out for a little while. Flat bread flour that you've mixed flour and water and salt. And it gets natural yeast in it and it starts to bubble. And you make bread out of it and you realize, wait a minute! This isn't that hard tack kind of stuff that we normally make. This is a little lighter. It's a little airier. And you start to go, I wonder why? And as time goes on, it becomes more and more refined until eventually you have what Boudin's has done, which is the pinnacle of sourdough bread, right? You know, it's important to recognize when we talk about leavened bread in ancient Egypt in particular, and when we consider the upcoming days of unleavened bread and what God commanded his people, we're not talking about nice, neat little packets of Fleischmann's yeast. It's important to understand the context. Fleischmann's yeast wasn't even started as a company until 1868. They didn't start isolating yeast strains for production of leaven and rising bread until 1868.

In fact, 1857 is when Louis Pasteur first isolated yeast as a causative agent in the rising of bread and in fermentation. 1857 was the first that we even knew what yeast was. That's a pretty relative development. You know, Boudin's bread predates that. They were making bread prior to the discovery of what was actually going on inside of that dough, and they understood that things were leavened by these things. In fact, you look at it, and we've known about fermentation for quite some time.

Beer is an ancient production. Sourdough bread is an ancient production. Even though they knew that it worked, they didn't fully understand what it was that caused it. Now, our breads today, you go to the store and you go to buy bread today, and you walk down the bread aisle, and our breads today are leavened using pure, uncontaminated strands of very highly efficient yeast. It's what it does. It raises things. And if you've ever done that, if you've ever mixed yeast together and thrown it and walked away and forgot about it, that stuff just goes and goes and goes and goes and goes.

The bread that we have today is very, very poofy. Very poofy loaves of bread for a very scientific term, poofy. But we get these very airy, very light loaves of bread. You don't get any off flavors. You don't get any weird off flavors from the yeast. It's a very clean contamination or bad bacterial growth using our yeast strains today. It's clean. It's bacteria-free. And it's puffed the way that people want their bread puffed today.

They want bread that's soft and chewy. And if you've ever had white bread, you know, Wonder Bread or whatever it might be, it is chewy and poofy, for lack of a better description. Some of you have made your own sourdough before. You've used sourdough starch in the past.

And I know some of you are bakers and have done this. But you've had a start that you've been able to keep going for a pretty good length of time within a year's time period. You also might know that it can spoil. Have you ever had a sourdough start go bad? Have you ever had one get some sort of weird thing in it and you come back and it's pink colored or it's gooey and it's brown or it smells like roadkill?

Turns out, don't bake bread with that. It's become really contaminated. But what's interesting is, sourdough itself, that's the point of sourdough. Sourdough already is contaminated. That's what makes it sourdough. It is contaminated, but it's contaminated to a safe and manageable level. A safe and manageable level. It hasn't gone so far gone that when you eat it, it makes you sick. But if it were allowed to go long enough with the wrong strains of bacteria in it, it would be a problem. Some of the bacteria that is used ends up putting acetobactors, which make vinegar, kind of gives that vinegary taste.

There's lactobacillus, which gets in there as well and some sourdough starts. It kind of gives it that lactic acid-y sourness to it as well. And that's what gives it its characteristic sourness that is desired in a sourdough. When we talk about leaven in ancient Israel, this is what we're talking about. We're not talking about Fleishman Jesus. We're talking about, essentially, a sourdough start. So let's go to Exodus 12, verse 15.

Exodus 12 and verse 15. Exodus 12, verse 15, we'll see God's command to put out leaven and the reason why we go through this process during the days of unleavened bread. And this doesn't invalidate the way that we do it today. We use different leavening agents today. We don't just make sourdough bread today. That was the option back in those days. We use a lot of different things today to leaven things. We use yeast. We use chemical leaveners, baking soda, baking powder.

There's a lot of stuff that can be used as a leavening product and can rise bread and other things. But Exodus 12 and verse 15, we see the command that is given. Exodus 12, verse 15, we'll take a look at it in its context. It says, seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses.

For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. So we see Israel was very clearly instructed by God to put leaven out of their homes. And it's a preparation process, again, we still do today. We still go through this process. Every year, prior to the days of unleavened bread, we search through our house for leaven.

You heard in the sermon by Mr. Petty that we had on video a while back, talking about we go full bore sometimes. We start cleaning the window sills, you know, is the point that he made, thinking that somehow we have leaven in the window sills, because we've been eating a sandwich over the window. But we kind of turn it into this spring cleaning thing that probably is a little more than really what God's expecting of us in that case. But we go through and we remove these things from our homes. We remove the things that puff up.

We remove the things that contaminate. We remove all of these things before the days of unleavened bread begins. And so it was this starter dough, if you take a look at the word there in Hebrew for leaven in Exodus 12, verse 15, when it says you shall remove leaven, the Hebrew word is seor.

It's seor is the Hebrew word. It's H7603, and that's the word that the translators chose to translate as leaven. Now, Israel was instructed to put these things away. When you look at the concordances and you look at the Bible dictionaries as to what seor is, the strongs describe seor as barm or a yeast cake. It says also swelling as by fermentation. And if you've ever made beer, barm is the froth that is at the top of malt liquor.

So when you produce a malt, a malted liquor, you make beer or something along those lines, sometimes referred to as a kraizen or a krausen, you have barm at the top. That's the English word for it. It's like a frothy, bubbly mixture of yeasts and other things. Credence Concordance describes seor as a piece of dough that is faulted and soured in order to ferment and to relish a massive dough of bread. So it's the little piece of dough that you pull from one batch, and you put in the other, and you knead it in, and you let it do its thing, and pretty soon it begins to cause that to occur in that new dough as well.

The Smith Bible Dictionary says various substances were known to have fermenting qualities, but the ordinary leaven, regular leaven, quote-unquote, consisted of a lump of old dough in a high state of fermentation, which was mixed into the mass of dough prepared for baking. So when it says, put leaven out of your home, the context is, get rid of the old dough that you would now mix into a new batch of dough in order to create a new dough, okay?

A new fermented dough. And so let's turn to 1 Corinthians 5, verses 6 through 7, because this is the kind of leaven that the Apostle Paul referred to by way of analogy in 1 Corinthians 5. So in 1 Corinthians 5, we'll kind of jump into the account here, and we'll jump into the context to help us understand what we're really getting at here.

And in this particular passage, we are jumping into a rebuke from the Apostle Paul to the brethren and Corinth regarding a member in their midst who was sinning in such a way that the Gentiles didn't even have a name for it. I mean, this was a practice that was not even named among Gentile nations. And so Apostle Paul's point was, you know, these sinning Gentiles out here, they don't even have a name for what this guy is doing.

They don't even have a name for it. And he makes the point to them that they were puffed up about this. They had a degree of leavening about this. They had a degree of contamination and fermentation, so to speak, about this. They hadn't mourned. They hadn't mourned about it. They were puffed up about it. 1 Corinthians 5 and verse 6 says, Glorying is not good. Your pride in this is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven, which if it were Hebrew would have been theor, but because we're in Greek it's not, leavens the whole lump?

Don't you know that a little batch of dough from the old lump mixed into the new lump sours and leavens the new lump? This is what the Apostle Paul is telling those in Corinth. Therefore purge out the old leaven. Throw out the old dough. That you may be a new lump.

Indeed, you are truly unleavened, for indeed Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us. Brethren, when we talk about context and when we look at context in Scripture, we recognize they didn't have Fleischmann's yeast in the New Testament either. It was not specifically yeast that they were talking about in its purest form like we have it today. Yes, in that old dough there was yeast and there was bacteria and there was all kinds of stuff mixed into that old dough that caused the new dough to sour and to rise and to ferment and to bubble and to become more fluffy than it would be otherwise.

But I've got to imagine the bread in those days was not poofy like our bread is today. It was kind of a lesser poofiness, so to speak, but not quite hard tack, right? A little bit more than that. Remember, it's 1857 before we even knew what was going on with this stuff. The bread that Paul is referring to in that time would have also been leavened with seor, a small chunk of the previous dough put into this batch. And that analogy would not be lost on the Brethren and Corinth, especially the number of times he references it in this single book indicates the timing.

We are reasonably certain that this was written at or around the spring holy days to those in the church in Corinth. And Paul is asking them, don't you understand that a little bit of leaven, just even a little bit of that starter dough, just a little, mixed in with the new batch of dough is going to cause the new batch to sour and leaven as well.

Paul tells them, purge it out. Get rid of it. Throw it away. Don't put a batch of old dough in the new dough. If you think about ancient Israel, jumping back to in time here a little bit, the Egyptians had been producing sourdough for some time. They very likely would have taught the ancient Israelites how to make sourdough. And frankly, there's a pretty good chance they may have gotten their starts from the Egyptians.

There's a very good chance they may have gotten their starts from the Egyptians. The bread that the Israelites made as slaves may well have been from the same starts that the Egyptians had used for hundreds of years, just like boudines. Boudines have managed to keep a sourdough start alive for 166 years. Ancient Egyptians could have done something similar.

Maybe some of those were 430 years old. Maybe that had been the start from the original process that had just been being shared and been being moved on from every batch of dough from that point forward. Just like their sourdough starts, Israel got their customs, they got their idolatry, and they got their sin from Egypt. The Israelites were slaves in that system for 430 years. It's a long time. You know, the U.S.

hasn't even been a country that long. It's a long time. That is long enough for Egypt to become institutionalized within the people, for that society, for Egypt to really become a part of them as they had assimilated into what it meant to be Egyptian. What it meant to be Egyptian. And God drew a very clear line in the sand when the Israelites left Egypt. He drew a very clear line in the sand.

God said, no more of Egypt is coming with you. No more of Egypt is coming with you. You're not going to leaven your new dough with the old dough. You're simply not going to do it. You're not going to leaven your new dough with old leaven. Leave it behind, put it out. And God's saying, look, I brought you out of this system. I brought you out of this land. I brought you out from these people. And you will become new. You are not going to bring that corrupting influence with you. Don't bring your sins. Don't bring your idolatry. Put it out.

Now, with our understanding of the spring holy days, we recognize that metaphorical connection of leaven to sin. We recognize that. There is in our lives sin that needs to be put out. There are attitudes to overcome. And those attitudes and those sins, the things that we do that are in contrary to God's holy, righteous, and perfect law, can cause problems not just for us. They can cause problems for others. They can cause problems for our family, for our congregations, and for our communities.

When you look at the New Testament, you start doing a word search for leaven. It's interesting. You come across a couple of very specific references to leaven in the New Testament that is correlated to attitudes that can crop up in us too, if we're not careful.

They can crop up in us very, very easily. And what I'd like to do today with the time we have left is to explore some of these places. In a couple of spots in the New Testament, Christ warns His followers, His disciples, people who believed and followed Him, to heed and beware the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. He told them to heed and beware the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And so what I'd like to do today is take a look at what does that leaven look like? What are we really talking about when we're told to beware the leaven of the Pharisees? What does that mean?

How do we heed and beware that leaven today, especially in the modern era of the church, as we work on living our lives as disciples of Jesus Christ? So for those that like titles, today the title of the message is, Beware the Leaven of the Pharisees.

Let's go ahead and start by turning over to Luke 12. Luke 12 is where we see one of these references. So if you turn over to Luke 12, please. Luke 12, and we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 1. And this is one of those situations where there was a multitude of people gathered. You know, it wasn't just Christ and His disciples. There was a multitude of people gathered together. In fact, a huge multitude of people gathered together, because they were actually said that they began to trample one another.

I mean, this was enough people that they began to smash on each other as they were walking, and as they were trying to jostle into here, they were trampling one another. You know, you have these situations when you get these large crowds, very large crowds. It happens sometimes at concerts. It happens sometimes at large gatherings of people, where everybody moves forward, and sometimes people's feet go out from under them and they get stepped on. Well, in this case, in Luke 12, verse 1, it says, In the meantime, when an innumerable multitude of people had gathered together so that they'd trampled one another, He began to say to His disciples, So all these people are gathered, there's a huge multitude of people, And He turns to His disciples, and He sells His disciples.

Beware the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed nor hidden that will not be known. Therefore, whatever you have spoken in the dark will be heard in the light. Whatever you have spoken in the ear, in inner rooms, whatever you have whispered to someone else, will be proclaimed on the housetops. In Luke 12, we have a very incredible benefit in this passage. We're not left wondering what Christ is talking about. There are times that Christ, when He spoke, was a bit more cryptic. This time, He very clearly says, Beware the leaven of the Pharisees, and then He says, Which is hypocrisy?

Which is hypocrisy? He tells them very specifically what this looks like, And He continues in a passage that, you know, should give all of us pause. It really should give all of us pause. That there's nothing that's been covered that will not be revealed, Nothing hidden that will not be known. What has been spoken in the dark will be heard in the light, And what you've spoken in the ear has been whispered and will be proclaimed on the rooftops.

I don't know if you've ever thought of it in this way before. You know, we can look back in Scripture, we can read stories of people from back in the Old Testament, And we can read about their faults, We can read about all the things they did wrong, We can read about the things they did good too, And we can read about all those things.

And then you think, Boy, what if a book were written about my life? You know, that somebody later on could look back and go, Well, he did really great here, but boy did he crash and burn here. Or boy did that plane go down in flames on this thing. You know? It's really easy sometimes for us to think that the things that we do aren't ever going to be discovered, they're not going to be found out, They're not going to be whatever. But sometimes they are. And that can be very, very difficult. There's an accountability that comes with this life.

There is an accountability that comes with this life, that when we make a covenant with God in baptism, we commit to living this way of life. There's an accountability that we've signed up for that comes along with that. There's a certain accountability that comes from saying that I am a follower of Jesus Christ, I am signing on to be a disciple. There's accountability in that. We are expected to live in accordance with what we profess to believe in every aspect of our lives, really submitting our will to the teachings of our rabbi and his instructions. Luke 6 and verse 46, if you go ahead and turn over there, Luke 6 and verse 46, we'll see a parallel scripture to the Sermon on the Mount that we read about in Matthew 5.

Luke 6 and verse 46, which really is a parallel scripture. And he's asking the multitudes gathered, and frankly, this book is written for us, too, and we know that. That same question is being asked of us through history as well. The same question is being asked of us through history as well. Luke 6 and verse 46. Luke 6 verse 46, he asks the question, But why do you call me, Lord, Lord, and not do the things which I say? Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do the things which I say?

I tend to be a person who reads into words and feelings and attitudes as I read them in scripture. I don't know if it was said in the way that I read into it, but I read exasperation in this sentence. I read a degree of exasperation, and I read that because I've been there.

I taught middle school. I've been there. Where I have said something over and over and over and over again to a group of kids. Sometimes within a five-minute period, I've said the same thing over and over and over and over again. Sometimes it feels like every day I have this exact same conversation, and yet my thought process is, Why are you not doing what I've asked you to do? In fact, it's funny.

I've had kids come back and tell me, Oh, you're my favorite teacher. Oh, I had so much fun. And my response is always the same. I look at them, I go, Really? Because, you know, you didn't do anything I asked you to do. You acted up every single day. You did this, this, this, this, and this. Yeah, but you're great. There's a disconnect. There's a total disconnect. And I read that exasperation into this because I've been there.

I've had this exact same conversation at times. He says in Luke 6, verse 46, Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do the things which I say?

He tells them, Look, you recognize that I'm the Messiah. You recognize you know who I am. You call me Lord. You call me Master. You call me Teacher. And yet you don't do what I ask you to do. And he says, Why is that? Why is that? He goes on in Luke, in verse 47 of Luke 6, Whoever comes to me and hears my sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like. He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat the hemminently against that house, and it could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock. But he who heard and did nothing, verse 49, is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream beat the hemminently, and immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great. Christ connects the importance of not just hearing, but doing, following through on what it is that we believe to be true, so that when things are tough, when life gets difficult, not if, when, because it is going to get tough, and it is going to get difficult, that we have the strength of foundation necessary to then navigate whatever that trial might be. We have the strength in God to be able to navigate that trial. If you turn over to James 2, verse 14, it is going to feel like we shifted gears slightly. I promise it will come back. James 2, and we'll start in verse 14. James 2, verse 14, when we talk about becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ, and when we talk about our responsibilities as a disciple of Jesus Christ, it is yielding ourselves to His teachings. It is yielding ourselves to what we read in Scripture. We don't have the luxury as a disciple of going, you know, I really like that, that, that, and that, but that and that, not happening. We yield ourselves to the totality of the instruction that we see in Scripture. And frankly, when we're baptized, we kind of sign a contract that says, I'm on board for all of those things. Even the ones I don't like, I'm on board for all of those things. That was the covenant that we made with God. We said, I'm on board for all of this. I'm in. I'm all in. For all of it. James 2, in verse 14, says, What is it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith, but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or a sister is naked in destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, Depart in peace, be warmed and filled, but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Verse 17, Thus also, faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. Verse 18, Someone will say, You have faith, and I have works. Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. I will show you my faith by my works. What does that follow through? Verse 19, and this is not a coincidence that this is tacked in here, you believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe and tremble.

The importance of us following through on what it is that we believe is scripturally established. Belief is not traditional belief in the classical sense of the term, or as some in modern Christianity have defined it. I believe in His existence, therefore that is enough, which is kind of what modern Christianity in some ways, in certain denominations, teaches. They look at, well, I can live my life however I want, because I believe, I have that faith, Christ died on my behalf, therefore I'm fine. What we're reading in the book of James says, no, that's not the case. Belief isn't enough. It requires follow-through, it requires action, it requires us to act on that which we believe. And verse 19 tells us, even Satan and the demons believe that God exists. Turns out that's not enough. They didn't follow through. They rebelled.

Simple belief is not enough. But is that what Christ is getting at when He tells us to watch out for the leaven of the Pharisees, not just following through on what we believe, or is there something more insidious? Let's go over to Matthew 23, and we'll see. There's something more insidious to this. It's not just not following through on what we believe. There's something more to it. Matthew 23, we're going to spend a bit of time here, because it's one of those places where Christ really outlined what He meant by hypocrisy when He talked to His disciples. In fact, you could argue that at this point, He kind of takes a Pharisee and lays it bare, so to speak, and says, this is what I'm talking about. This is what I'm talking about in Matthew 23. Matthew 23, again, we'll see this type of hypocrisy that's kind of laid bare for us to see. And we'll see it is a lot more than just not following through on what they believed. There's an attitude here, and frankly, a dangerous attitude here, that Christ did not want His disciples becoming leavened with. He did not want even a shred of that dough getting into His disciples. He didn't want them even coming near it, because He knew what that dough would do. He knew how that dough would sour and leaven that new dough that those disciples were. Matthew 23, verse 1, and we'll see how this hypocrisy was manifested.

Matthew 23, verse 1, Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples, saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. Therefore, whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do according to their works. For they say and do not do. Now, at that time in history, the Pharisees did sit in the seat of Moses. They had religious authority at that time to bind and loose law in the Jewish system.

Christ tells the people, do what they say. Observe what they tell you to observe, but don't follow their example, because they don't walk the talk, so to speak. They pretend that there are certain ways while really living another way. They're actors. Or, as we see in the word that's used here in Hippocrates in Greek, which means actor.

It means someone who wears a mask. It means someone who wears a mask. You put the mask on, you come in, everything's fine, you get out, you take the mask off, you throw it in the back of the car, come back next week, you know, whatever, put the mask back on. That's along the lines of what he's saying.

These Pharisees, when they came out in public, would put on the mask. They'd stroll through the marketplace, and they'd look all fancy and important. And then, when they got home, they'd take the mask off and go about living how they would live. Verse 4, Matthew 23, For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and they lay them on men's shoulders.

But they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. So they're binding all these really heavy burdens, putting them on other people, and they won't even undergo these same burdens. But all their works, they do to be seen by men. All these works, they do to be seen by men. They make their flakteries broad. So a flaktery was like a little box, essentially, that they kept the law in. And, you know, you'll see some Orthodox Jews today will still wear flakteries. And they'll have a little scroll of the law in it, and they'll be on the frontlets of their eyes, or, you know, be near to their...on their arm, near to their heart.

They'll have a little arm band or something along those lines so that it's close to their heart. And so they would take these flakteries and they'd make them really big. They'd broaden them. They'd make them so noticeable. You know, it's like the pair of Texas Longhorns on the front of a Cadillac. You know somebody's from Texas when you see those Longhorns. You roll up and, blah, blah, blah, you know, there's a Texan! There's them Longhorns. So, you know, you know that you're dealing with that situation.

It's done to be noticed in that case. It says, too, he goes on in verse 5. It says, "...they make their flakteries broad and they enlarge the borders of their garments." And again, at that time, there were teet seats, these tassels that were there. And, you know, the tassels, they wouldn't keep them small. They'd enlarge them to where they'd, like, hang on the ground and they'd be so noticeable.

Again, being done to be seen. Verse 6, "...they love the best places at the feast, the best seats at the synagogues. They like greetings in the marketplaces. They like to be called by men, Rabbi, Rabbi, teacher, teacher. But you, do not be called Rabbi, for one is your teacher." We have one Rabbi. It's not me. It's Jesus Christ. It says, "...you have one Rabbi, teacher, the Christ, and you are all brethren. Do not call anyone on earth your Father, for one is your Father, he who is in Heaven.

Do not be called teachers, for one is your teacher, the Christ. But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." So when we look at the Pharisees, and we look at this example of hypocrisy that Christ laid out there, the good works that they did, the things that they did, were done to be seen. That was the explicit purpose for why it was being done. It was, hey, look at me.

It was the real reason why. They wanted the recognition. They wanted the title. They loved the position. They wanted the accolades. They lacked true humility. The service was done publicly in order to be seen. They didn't serve for the sake of loving their fellow man and for doing what others needed. They did it so somebody could see them. And so somebody could slap them on the back and say, hey, nice job, you awesome Pharisee.

Verse 13, Matthew 23, verse 13, But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, in fact, this section, sometimes they call it the seven woes. But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, again, hupokritis, actors, wearing a mask. For you, shut up the kingdom of heaven among men. For you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. Verse 14, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers.

Therefore you will receive greater condemnation. Now, they would judge someone's outward appearance and say, nah, nope, not you. Try to prevent them from being able to come in. And Christ's point was, look, you're not going, and you're trying to prevent those who are going from getting in. So he was making that point to them from a hypocritical standpoint, that they would judge someone else, yet they themselves would rob widows.

They would steal from widows, and yet put themselves up and prop themselves up as righteous and as good. In Matthew 6, verses 16 through 18, and we won't turn there. If you want to jot that down in your notes, we won't turn there, because we'll stay here in Matthew 23. But it's another location that discusses what the Pharisees did to be seen. And what they did to be seen. And it talks about how they would blow the trumpet and sound the horn when they did a charitable deed so that other people could see it.

You know, God talks about that. He says, look, what you do, do it in secret, and you'll be rewarded in the open, essentially.

Don't toot your own horn about what you do. Don't make large pretenses out of prayer. You know, you're asked to pray over a meal or something and give this long grandiose flowing prayer, per se, just to kind of get noticed. That's not appropriate. God says, don't do that. Don't disfigure your faces, you know. Somebody comes in on Day of Atonement or something, you know, and they've got... they just look like a wreck, you know, they haven't showered that day or whatever it might be.

And they go, oh, I'm fasting! You kind of go, yes, that's everybody! Look around, we're fine! Don't make huge pretenses out of disfiguring, you know, your faces when it's time to fast. The Pharisees would make a show of it. They would make a show of it. Oh, oh, look at me, you know. Everything was done to be noticed, and appearances were just crucial. Appearances were crucial. In fact, in Matthew 23, verse 23, we'll skip just a little bit here, it says, Once again, Hippocritists, you know, those that wear a mask or act, doing one thing and saying another.

You know, they had a tendency to exact incredible judgment on lighter matters, while leaving these big, weighty matters undone.

Pharisees crafted a religion of do's and don'ts. They really set up a number of what we might refer to as 11th commandments, you know, things that were just as important as the others. And they would set these things up, and they would do these things in order to really make themselves feel righteous when they kept them and others weren't able to.

And brethren, frankly, if we're not careful, we have the ability also to set up and define our own standards and hold other people to those standards that we've set up.

And may not be the standard of Scripture, it may be above and beyond the standard of Scripture, and we have a tendency to do that as humans. We also very easily can create our own man-made traditions that can be placed on the same pedestal as God's law, at least in our eyes.

We do have traditions in the churches of God today. We do. In fact, the blessing of little children is a perfect example. It is a tradition of the worldwide church of God, now United Church of God, and a number of the other churches of God do this as well. And it's a tradition. We've traditionally done it on the second Sabbath after we get back from the Feast of Tabernacles.

Is it commanded by God on that date? No, it's not. It's not.

There's two very different things between law that is commanded by God and traditions that we have set up. Is there anything wrong with it? Of course not. No, of course not. Nothing wrong with it at all. Will we break God's law if we move it from the second Sabbath in October to the third Sabbath in October? Of course not. Of course not. It is a tradition in the church. It's different. But if we're not careful, if we're not careful sometimes, we can elevate tradition to the point of law. And we do need to be very careful about that. We do need to be very wise about that.

The second thing that he really hammered on the Pharisees about was tradition and doctrines of men. If you go ahead and leave a finger or a bookmark or something here, we're going to turn over to Matthew 16. So if you turn back just a few pages to Matthew 16, if you didn't put a bookmark or finger in it, it won't take you long to get back. But still, I always forget to tell people, and then I feel bad because I'm trying to flip to get back. Matthew 16, and we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 1. And we'll see that another of these examples of the leaven of the scribes and Pharisees, or leaven of the Pharisees, or sometimes as it's described, the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees, is this tradition and doctrine of men that we talked about, elevating tradition to the point of law. So Matthew 16, verse 1, says, Then the Pharisees and the Sadducees came and testing him, asked that he would show them a sign from heaven. Jesus here answered and said to them, When it is evening, you say it will be fair weather, for the sky is red, and in the morning it will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening. You know, we have a phrase today, red sky in the morning, sailor's warning, right? You know that there's going to be a storm coming if the sky is red in the morning. Well, at least that's what it says most of the time. So you just be careful, right? Well, he says, hypocrites, you know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the face of the times. A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah, and he left and he departed. What's interesting about this particular passage, the Pharisees and Sadducees were in conflict with one another politically for much of the time that Jesus walked on this earth. They were in conflict. I mean, the closest thing I can give you is Democrats and Republicans. There's the context, okay? So this is Democrats versus Republicans, and one's in charge of the temple, one's in charge of the law, legal, and they're back and forth and back and forth, and vying for power in politics. And look what it says right here in the beginning part of this. The Pharisees and Sadducees came and testing him as that he would show them a sign from heaven. Pharisees and Sadducees just crossed the aisle, as we might say in our political terms today. This is a bipartisan effort, where the Democrats and the Republicans, so to speak, of Jesus Christ's time have come together because there's a new threat to both of their powers. This young upstart from Galilee. And so they show up and honestly represented a threat to their authority, to their power, and they managed to put aside their differences in this bipartisan showing to tack him together. And so this is the new leaf. They're done fighting amongst each other. Now it's, we have to take him down because he's dangerous. He's dangerous. We have to find a way to get rid of this guy because of what he's doing and what he's teaching. So they're now allied in their attempt to bring Christ down. It goes on in verse 5, Matthew 16. Verse 5, now when he and his disciples had come to the other side, they'd forgotten to take bread. So the disciples forgot bread.

Then Jesus said to them, Take heed and beware the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. I love the disciples' response here. And they reasoned among themselves, saying, It's because we've taken no bread. That must be what he said this for, because we forgot the bread. Jesus, being aware of it, said to them, Oh, you of little faith, why do you reason among yourselves because you've brought no bread?

Do you not yet understand or remember the five loaves of the five thousand and how many baskets you took up? Essentially, when it was all over. Nor the seven loaves of the four thousand and how many large baskets that you took up? How is it that you do not understand that I do not speak to you concerning bread? But to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Then they understood that he did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine, the teachings of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

You know, in another moment in Scripture where I kind of envision Christ going, Oh, guys, really? It's not about bread. You know, it's not about bread. Here's what it's about as he explains it. Tells him, look, this isn't about the bread. This isn't about the bread. This isn't about the fact that you forgot the bread. The leaven I'm talking about, he tells him, is metaphorical. Avoid their doctrines. Avoid their teachings that they teach as though it's law. Christ told his disciples, if you're going to be my disciple, follow me. The Sadducees, the Pharisees, don't even go there. Don't even go there. Stay away from their teachings. Stay away from that leavened attitude of self-righteousness and hypocrisy. And don't take a little bit of dough from that batch and weave it into your own. And leaven your lump, leaven your dough. Let's go back to Matthew 23 and we'll finish out Christ's rebuke here. We see that doctrine and teachings of men, of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, is one of these examples of leaven. And we see that hypocrisy is one of these examples of leaven. And we'll go ahead and finish out the rebuke that Christ has here in Matthew 23. Matthew 23, we'll pick it up in verse 25, says, And the reason he lets them have it here is because when you look at what the Pharisees talk about these broad flactories, these big long things, everything was outward appearance. Everything was outward appearance to them. How they looked to others. Those flactories, again, were made to be really big so they'd be seen and noticed. And, you know, kind of the part of the Pharisees' uniform here. Giant flactory, really long tassels, you know, really long flowing robes, making a lot of noise out there while they're doing different things. You can almost kind of get in your mind what this person looks like in those times. Everything was done to be seen, and Christ makes the point, I see you for who you really are. He says, I see you for who you really are. You're like a tomb. You look beautiful on the outside, but you're full of decaying flesh. Full of rotten bodies. He says, you're pretty on the outside, but inside you're unclean. You're full of hypocrisy. You're full of lawlessness. And honestly, he doesn't pull any punches in this assessment of the Pharisees. He really does not provide any redeeming qualities in this.

And as you look through the rest of Scripture where he's referenced Pharisees and he's gone through and referenced those things, there really aren't... I've been unable to come across a place where he's complimenting them and saying, hey, you're doing a great job in this. I've really struggled to find a location. So as disciples of Christ, we can read these words in Matthew 23 and Matthew 16 and some of these other locations, and we can conclude that as disciples of Jesus Christ, we must be the genuine article. We have to be the genuine article. Not say one thing and do the other. Not make a great show of it on the outside, but be full of dead bodies on the inside, decaying flesh on the inside. And it's really important to recognize, and we've said this before, Romans 3, verse 23, all sin and all fall short of the glory of God. We all need the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We all need the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We need His shed blood on our behalf. We need the point of this Passover season that we are a mess, and we need that. We need His sacrifice. And there's a very big difference between someone who recognizes their sin and works to overcome it, repenting before God, drawing near to Him, and really attempting to overcome their shortcomings and a Pharisee. At least in the way that it's been described to us in Scripture. The Pharisee isn't even trying.

In their eyes, they're already perfect. Nothing to improve on. I'm a Pharisee. I've got this broad flattery, these long tassels, flowing robes. I do all these wonderful things. Hey, I just gave this man a dollar. Hey, everybody, look! I just gave this homeless person a dollar. Look at me! Look at me! That's essentially what we're talking about here. The Pharisee doesn't even realize their sin, doesn't realize their issues.

They're prideful. They're self-righteous. And He illustrates this in Luke 18. Let's go over to Luke 18. Luke 18.

And we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 9 of Luke 18. With a parable, and this is the contrast that Christ gave those gathered in parable form. So He gave it to Him in parable form. But He gave them a contrast between a Pharisee and a publican.

The lowest of the low. You scrape the bottom of the barrel, and then what's left is tax collectors. At least so we see in Scripture. I mean, the absolute bottom of the barrel.

So we've got this Pharisee, we've got this publican. And I think sometimes it's really important for us to stop and consider why certain things were recorded. Nothing in Scripture's happenstance. Christ was not walking around like, Well, this is a really interesting story. I'll just tell this. No, these things are here for our understanding, obviously. They're recorded for a reason. And this particular story is there for a reason. Everything, down to the genealogies, down to the histories, they all have a purpose. It's all in there for us to be able to learn and for us to be able to understand. Luke 18, verse 9. We'll go ahead and pick it up midway through the section here.

Luke 18, verse 9. We pick it up with the parable of, I mean, Luke 19. I almost said the minus. That's not what I want. There it is, 18, verse 9. The parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee. It says, also, he spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. And so he's saying this very specifically to the people he needed to say it to in this particular passage. It says, two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

You might imagine the crowd go, boo! Tax collectors! I don't know if they booed or not, but I like to imagine all these things when I... It's like I have the whole... It's like a movie in my head. It's great. Verse 11, the Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself. And I mean, just listen to the pride! Listen to the pride in his words. God, I thank you that I'm not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even this tax collector, as this tax collector's gathered over here. And again, emphasis added, you know, acting added.

But he says, I fast. I fast. I fast. I fast. I fast twice a week. Kind of see who notices. I give tithes of all that I possess. Looks around to see who notices. And then verse 13, we see that example of pride, self-righteousness, etc., contrasted with this tax collector, who really was, in most people's eyes, the lowest of the low.

I mean, it didn't get much lower than hustling your own people out of money for the Romans. I mean, we're talking lowest of the low. And so the tax collector we see in verse 13 says, the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but he beat his breast, saying, God be merciful to me as sinner. And Christ brings it home. He says, I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. You know, when we look at this particular passage, and when we see that God contrasted these two attitudes and these two individuals for us to see later on, and for us to conclude what that leaven of the Pharisees is, and we add in self-righteousness and pride, the publican, who really was, again, lowest of the low, recognized his sin.

He wouldn't even raise his eyes towards heaven. He stood afar off. He beat his breast, begging God for forgiveness, while the Pharisee is touting his own example and shouting all these things, maybe, in the marketplace, kind of saying them loudly so it would be seen. But he begins his prayer to God, thanking God that he's not like other men. It started with a comparison. It started with a comparison. Christ's point here in this parable is there's a very big difference between overcoming our sin and coming out our sin with self-righteousness and pride. A very big difference. And frankly, if you look in this example, it's quite the gulf.

I mean, it really is quite the gulf. The publican who did recognize his sin beat his breast and begged God for forgiveness, whereas the Pharisee, which was full of sin, you know, we look at the example that Christ tells him of the things that the Pharisees were doing. He's making an example of the things that he does. And it's so easy. It is so easy for us to look at examples of scriptures of the Pharisees and point fingers.

It is so easy for us to look at the example of ancient Israel and with the benefit of hindsight say, oh, I wouldn't do anything. Yes, we would. Yeah, we would probably do the same thing. And frankly, we've probably all been Pharisee a time or two. We have probably all been a Pharisee a time or two, a time where we've been overly judgmental, a time where we've been selfish, where we've been unloving, where we've been negative, where we've held someone else up to a standard that we ourselves didn't meet.

And yet we held them up to that standard. We've probably had times where we've done something and then tooted our horn. Hey, by the way, I did this the other day. Oh, I know. Thank you. I appreciate the applause. You know, where we've told someone something maybe in order to receive some sort of an accolade of some kind, times where we've been self-righteous, where we've been hypocritical, where we've been prideful.

I think we're all very honest with ourselves. We've all been there. And in some ways, for us to point our fingers at the Pharisees and say, ah, it's kind of Phariseeical of us, really, in many ways. But it is pride that is dangerous. It's a dangerous, dangerous attitude. Self-righteousness is dangerous. It's a dangerous attitude. When you look at what caused Satan's downfall, it was pride. The root of it was pride. Pride that led to rebellion. And today, it was pride that caused him to think that he was somehow as king, the same as the priests. And he could do whatever he wanted. I'm king. I can offer this incense before God.

Who are you to stop me? And the priests that came against him said, we're the ones that God actually said to do these things, and we are going to withstand you. There's pride that was in the hearts of so many of mankind's leaders throughout the years.

Humility, honestly, when you look at mankind over the years, has been a rare trait. It really has been a rare trait. This attitude of pride comes so easily and naturally to us as humans. And as this age draws to a close, as we get closer and closer to the time of Christ's return, it's prophesied to increase.

It's prophesied to get worse. In fact, let's turn over to 2 Timothy 3. 2 Timothy 3. We'll visit one of our second-to-last scripture here today. 2 Timothy 3. And we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 1. We kind of recognize, our understanding is, that the last days, we're in those last days now. We kind of use the prophecies in Joel, and we use what happened in Acts 2 with the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. And we kind of say, well, it said that in the last days, the Holy Spirit would be poured out upon mankind.

That started on the day of Pentecost in 31 A.D. Therefore, you look at it, the last two thousand years have been the quote-unquote last days. It's been a long set of last days, but it's been the last days. And I think if we look around in society around us, it's ramped up a bit.

I think we can probably all be pretty open about that as we look at these things that are listed in 2 Timothy 3. You know, we read society, and we look at society, and I think even in the last 5 to 6 to 10 years, we've seen an exponential increase in these kinds of behaviors. 2 Timothy 3, verse 1, says, It tells us that in this time, men will be lovers of themselves, they'll be lovers of money, they'll be boastful, proud, disobedient, and the list just goes on.

The list of these characteristics goes on. And frankly, some of the same things that Christ admonished the Pharisees over. In Timothy it's saying, these attitudes will be alive and well in the last days. Not just in society as we take a look around us, but frankly, in the ecclesia as well. We have these kind of attitudes in the ecclesia. Sometimes we have these kind of attitudes in ourselves. I think if we really look at ourselves and we really examine ourselves, we can see these things as well.

You know, church in Laodicea was characterized by its pride. It's characterized by its pride. In fact, turn over just a few pages here to Revelation 3. If you've never done a study on the seven churches, like really dug into the history of some of these different churches and really why they were written to and the way they were written to, it's a fascinating study. It's really a fascinating study. Laodicea in particular, I think, is really interesting.

When you look at Laodicea and you see historic... I don't want to dig into all of it now, but when you look at historically, there was a massive earthquake at one point in time in that part, and Rome offered to help rebuild their city. And the people of Laodicea were so prideful and so just rooted in their own. They said, we don't need your help. We're loaded. We'll take care of it ourselves.

And so the histories record this event between Rome and Laodicea and this idea that they were somehow better off than they really were. And when you look at the church in Laodicea, when you see the rebuke that Jesus Christ gave that church and really the lack of recognition of their true position, it's fascinating to look at. Revelation 3 and verse 17 says, It says, Right? He's saying that to God. I don't need you. Become wealthy. I don't need you at all. And don't know that you're wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you, verse 18, to buy from me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich.

White garments that you may be clothed, at the shame of your nakedness, may not be revealed, and anoint your eyes with eyesave that you may see. It says in verse 19, Therefore be zealous and repent. People of Laodicea believed they were rich. They believed they didn't need God.

And with wealth comes a certain degree of that feeling in people. When you don't even have two nickels to rub together, you've got to rely on God a lot more than rely on your own self. As people begin to get more money and begin to become more wealthy, we've seen it in our own country. The United States is a blessed nation compared to the world around us. And yet we, as a nation, have largely rejected God.

Take care of it ourselves. Pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. That's the American way, right? We don't need God. We've got all this money. We've got all these natural resources. It's interesting, in places where there isn't a lot of things, you go to places in Africa, they're very religious society. Extremely religious society, because they recognize and honor where those blessings come from. You know, Laodicea had this pride over this black wool that they produced. They produced this black wool that was used to make clothing. They were used to make ice baths that people came from miles around to purchase.

They really felt like they were something. And in Revelation 3, Christ hits on each of those points of pride, hammers on them, on each of those places, telling them that He's rebuking them because He loves them and He encourages them to be zealous and to repent. Jesus Christ warned His disciples, those who would follow Him, to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. In Scripture, that's characterized as hypocrisy. It's characterized as doctrines of men that are taught as the law of God. And by way of example, in a couple of parables, pride and self-righteousness. It's these attitudes that Christ admonished His disciples to avoid.

And just as old seor, just as old leaven, just as old batch of sourdough, take a chunk of that and you put it into a new lump and you get sourdough bread, essentially. And you could do that year after year after year after year, take a little of that and put it in here. A new batch, take a little of that and put it in here. And on and on and on it goes. Until you decide to stop, essentially. Just like that could be done, God in His infinite wisdom commanded His people once a year to break that continuous streak.

Once a year to draw a line in the sand and say, that old dough stops today. It's done. It's gone. Throw it out. Purge it. Burn it. To put that leaven out of their lives in order to prevent that contamination. In order to prevent that old leaven from wrecking what God has created in a new lump. For them to be able to then go forward, renewed in that commitment to God with His sacrifice.

Christ's sacrifice applied on our behalf for their sins forgiven. Exhibiting the attitudes of unleavened thought. Being able to think in an unleavened way. Those attitudes, those words, those actions that should result in Christ's Spirit living in us.

When you consider these attitudes that the Pharisees displayed. When you think about hypocrisy, self-righteousness, the doctrine that they taught. All of it is rooted in pride. It's rooted in self-righteousness. They pridefully propped themselves up on a pedestal. They boasted that their deeds before men. And they taught their own commandments as equivalent to the law of God.

If a person is to become a disciple of Jesus Christ, which all of us are here to do. We're all here to become disciples of Jesus Christ. Myself included. I am here to learn to follow my Lord and Master better. That's why I'm here. A prideful heart isn't teachable. It can't be. A prideful heart already has all the answers. It can't teach me anything. I already know everything.

A prideful heart is not teachable. A prideful heart is not malleable. You can't form it. You can't turn it into what Jesus Christ has asked us to become. Because it won't yield itself. A prideful heart won't yield itself. And a prideful heart will not submit itself to its rabbis' teachings. Instead, it believes its own interpretations are more valid. Instead, it believes, or it's not humble, it's not trusting. And that kind of leaven, that kind of dough, can really contaminate a new batch. And it'll take over the new batch with enough time.

The solution that was provided to the Church of Laodicea, and frankly, through us, through history, is to be zealous and to repent. To turn to God, to humble ourselves, and submit ourselves to Him. And to definitely heed and beware the leaven of the Pharisees.