Matthew chapter 16, the part of the chapter that I wanted to focus on, is beginning in verse number 1,
the Pharisees and the Sadducees come to Jesus and they begin to tempt Him,
and they're trying to get Him to show some kind of a sign from heaven,
and He rebukes them right away.
He basically calls them wicked, He calls them adulterers.
And you notice throughout the Bible that Jesus is always rebuking the Pharisees the most harshly of anyone.
I mean, He's got publicans and sinners and harlots and prostitutes,
and all of really what we would term the scum of the earth.
He's got them coming over to His house, He's eating at their house,
and people were criticizing Him for that.
But the one people He seemed to be the most angry with,
and the one people that He seems to rebuke the most, are the Pharisees and the Sadducees,
which were basically those who were preaching and teaching a false religion.
The false religion today, it's continued in today's Judaism,
but it's basically the false religion of working your way to heaven,
of following God's laws in order to somehow earn salvation.
And of course, the Bible says that eternal life is the gift of God.
Now, what I want to talk about this morning, and the title of my sermon is this,
the leaven of the Pharisees.
Jesus talked a lot about the leaven of the Pharisees,
and there were actually three different kinds of leaven that He referred to when He was preaching against them.
Now, first of all, let me explain to you what leaven is.
Leaven, today we would know as yeast.
That's probably the term that we would use.
But leaven or yeast is something that's put into bread.
It's a bacteria.
It's an additive that makes the bread rise because it multiplies and spreads.
Jesus said in many places that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.
And so He uses leaven as a symbol of false doctrine, sin,
because of the way it spreads, because of the way it multiplies,
because of the way it creeps in, and just a little bit of it can leaven the entire lump.
For example, there was a type of bread that my mother used to make,
and also I think my wife has made this one,
and it's this bread that just keeps multiplying.
Basically you start out, what is it called, Jesus?
Friendship bread.
Some kind of friendship bread or something,
but it's this dough that you get,
and then you take a little bit of the dough out and you set it aside,
and then you bake the rest into bread,
and then that one that you've taken out, you just add a few more ingredients,
and it just keeps multiplying.
And so you kind of are using the same dough for years and years because it keeps multiplying,
and then you give a little bit to a friend, and then they do the same thing, and so forth,
because the leaven will just keep multiplying.
You never have to add more leaven. You never have to put in more yeast.
And that's what He was referring to, but first of all,
I want to talk about the leaven that Jesus brings up in Matthew 16,
which is the leaven of false doctrine.
Look what it says in verse 16.
It says,
Then Jesus said unto them, in verse 6,
Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.
And they reasoned among themselves, saying, It is because we have taken no bread.
Which when Jesus perceived, He said unto them,
O ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves, because ye brought no bread?
Do ye not understand neither remember the five loaves of the five thousand,
and how many baskets ye took up?
And then look at verse 11.
How is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread,
that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees?
Then understood they how He bade them not beware of the leaven of bread,
but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.
Number one, the leaven of the Pharisees is false doctrine.
Now, the thing that you have to understand about false doctrine
is that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.
False doctrine creeps into a church, it creeps into a movement,
it creeps into people's lives,
and it will leaven everything about what they see in the Bible.
If you have a false doctrine and you read and study the Bible,
it's going to impact how you look at everything else.
Today people think that they can read books and Christian books
and even Baptist books that are by people who are using, say, the NIV,
a totally different Bible,
or by people who believe that salvation is by works,
and they say, well, but there's a lot of good things in the book,
and so I'm just reading the book to get what good I can out of it
and just kind of throw away the rest.
I'm smart enough to discern between the two.
But what you have to understand is that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.
I walked in one time to a church,
and I was looking for a good church to go to on a Wednesday night
because I was working in the San Francisco Bay Area,
and so I wanted to go to church on Wednesday night.
I was out of town.
This was back before I was a pastor, obviously.
And I walked into this church,
and it was supposed to be independent, fundamental, soul-winning.
I walk in, and all over the foyer they have the New King James,
you know, this messed up version of the Bible,
this twisted new Bible.
And so I basically just walked out.
The pastor chased me in the parking lot
and said, hey, wait, wait, you know, don't you want to come to church?
I said, no.
He said, why not?
I said, you know, you've got the New King James.
And he said, no, no, no.
He's like, I'm preaching out of the King James Bible.
And I said, well, you've got a big stack of New King James on the foyer.
And he said, oh, but, you know, they're both good.
He said, you know, we use three different versions here.
But he said, but don't worry.
He said, don't worry because tonight I'm preaching out of the King James.
And I said, I don't want to hear you preach.
I said, why would I want to listen to somebody who doesn't even know what the Bible is?
Who thinks there's three different Bibles?
There's only one God, one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
one God and Father of all and one Holy Bible.
Not three, not five, not ten.
Not the Bible that calls Joseph Jesus Father.
Not the Bible that takes out the word hell,
that takes out the word damnation to try to, you know, not hurt your eardrums or something when you hear it preached.
Hey, there's only one Bible and therefore I don't want to listen to a guy who's reading three
because that leaven will leaven the whole lump of who he is.
Even if he's preaching out of the King James tonight,
he got leavened back in the study when he was reading out of these other versions.
That's where he picked up all that leaven.
And when you've got a pastor who's preaching out of all these different versions, it's confusion.
And that leaven is going to leaven the whole lump.
Don't think that you can play around with false doctrine
because one false doctrine begets another.
You see, you could trace a lot of today's false doctrine in Baptist churches to just a few basic doctrines.
A few false teachings.
You know, the false teaching of Zionism has basically led to pre-tribulation rapture,
it's led to dispensationalism, it's all tied together.
It's all linked in because a little leaven will leaven that whole lump.
But number two, flip over to Matthew 23.
Matthew 23, and then put your finger in Luke chapter 12.
We're going to look at both places.
You're in Matthew 16, just go a few pages to Matthew 23.
And then a little further to the right, you'll find the book of Luke.
Look at Luke chapter 12, and this is the main thing that Jesus rebuked about the Pharisees the most.
Look at Luke 12, verse 1, it says,
In the meantime, when there were gathered together an innumerable multitude of people,
insomuch that they trode one upon another.
That's a pretty big crowd.
He began to say unto his disciples, first of all,
Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees.
But this time he's not talking about their false doctrine.
He says beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.
So number two, not just false doctrine, but number two, hypocrisy.
Look at Matthew 23.
You see, hypocrisy is also a leaven that spreads.
It's also something that comes in and corrupts.
Do you remember Ananias and Sapphira in Acts chapter 5?
They were two of the biggest hypocrites in the Bible.
They went and sold a piece of land.
They lied about how much they sold it for
because they wanted to pretend that they were giving all the money to church.
And Peter even told them, he said,
You didn't have to give this money to church.
He said, while it was with you, it was in your own power.
You could have spent this money on whatever you wanted.
But they wanted to put on a big show and impress everybody,
and therefore they brought this money down at the apostles' feet.
And of course, God judged them severely because of the fact
that they were bringing hypocrisy into the church,
and God wanted to nip that in the bud right away.
That's why Ananias and Sapphira died,
because they were trying to bring in hypocrisy.
And God does not like hypocrisy.
That's why he was criticizing the Pharisees so harshly.
Look at Matthew 23.
He said in Luke 12.1 that the leaven of the Pharisees was hypocrisy.
Matthew 23.1 says,
Then spake Jesus to the multitude and to his disciples,
saying, The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat.
All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do.
He's saying, when they're preaching to you out of the books of Moses,
when they're preaching to you the Bible, obey the Bible.
But he said, but don't follow their example.
He said in verse number three,
He said,
All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do.
But do not ye after their works.
And this is the key.
This is what a hypocrite is.
For they say and do not.
There's the definition of hypocrisy right there.
Saying one thing and doing another.
He said the Pharisees say and do not.
For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne,
and lay them on men's shoulders,
but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.
Hypocrisy.
It'd be like if I stood up here and said,
Boy, we ought to be out soul winning, we ought to be out knocking doors,
we ought to preach the gospel to every creature,
we ought to go out in the highways and hedge and compel them to command that God's house may be full.
And then I just sat back and said,
Alright guys, report back how it went.
That's hypocrisy.
The pastor who preaches soul winning but isn't out there doing the soul winning is a hypocrite.
He's a hypocrite.
You should lead by example.
Not you go do the work and I'll sit back and it's my job just to study and to read
and I'll sit in my office, my ivory tower somewhere, and send everybody else out to do the work.
No, the pastor should be rolling up his sleeves leading by example out there doing the work.
The Bible says he that desireth the office of a bishop desireth a good work.
Not a good paycheck, not a good office, not a good title, not a good business card.
A good work. It's about the work.
You see, yesterday we went out soul winning.
We knocked doors all day long at that small town soul winning marathon.
And we were out doing the work.
You see, we preached soul winning, we talked the talk,
but then yesterday we all went out and we walked the walk.
And that's what being a hypocrite is.
Saying and then doing not.
Saying something and then not doing it.
You see, it says in verse number 5, it says but all their works, look at verse 5,
he's saying if they do the work, usually they're not even doing it,
but he says all their works they do for to be seen of men.
So the only time they do the work is basically just when they want other people to see them.
When somebody else is watching, when somebody else is going to know about it, that's when they'll do it.
Jesus said in Matthew 6, hey if you do your alms, let not your right hand know what your left hand is doing
if you're going to give to the poor.
He said don't pray out in the corner of the street and make a big show out of it for everybody.
He said no, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door,
pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
He said when you fast, be not as the hypocrites of a sad countenance,
for they disfigure their faces that they may appear unto men to fast.
Be not ye therefore like unto them.
He said don't sit there and fast and oh man I'm so hungry.
He said no, nobody should even know about it.
It should be between you and God.
Praying should be between you and God.
Your alms, when you help somebody out, when you give to the poor, that should be between you and God
because you want God to bless you, not just to be seen of everybody, hey look at me.
But the hypocrite just wants to be seen of men.
He's all talk, and he's all show, but he says and does not.
He wants other people to do it.
He'll make life hard on others.
He'll buy burdens and grieves to be born on others, but he won't lift one of them with one of his fingers.
Look at verse 6.
He says, and they love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues,
and greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, rabbi, rabbi.
He said they love to be, basically he talks about the way that they dress in verse number 5,
that they basically put on a garb.
In another place he says that they love to wear long robes.
They love the flowing garments.
They love to walk into the market place, I mean into Fry's Food, my friend, and have somebody greet them.
Oh, rabbi.
You know, it reminds me of these people who walk through the airport sometimes, you'll see them,
with like a big brown hood, like Friar Tuck or Lord of the Rings or something, or whatever.
And I guess they're like a Catholic monk or whatever they are.
And they wear this big outfit because everybody's supposed to, oh, you know, it's a man of the cloth.
And everybody's supposed to call them father and rabbi.
And yet, look what Jesus says here about these rabbi and these titles.
He said in verse 8, but be not ye called rabbi.
He said, for one is your master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren.
The word rabbi means master.
And he said, and call no man your father upon the earth, for one is your father which is in heaven.
So you shouldn't be calling any man father, father so and so.
Or even the word pope means father.
Papa is what it is in Spanish.
It also means potato and pope, it means the same thing.
I don't know why that is, but in verse number 10, because papa means father, but pope is papa,
which is potato like papas fritas.
Nobody can explain to me why that is.
But it says in verse number 10, it says,
neither be ye called masters, for one is your master, even Christ.
So we shouldn't have these big titles.
Oh, master, oh, father, rabbi.
No, it should be brother Anderson is what you should call the pastor.
Not master, rabbi, father, and all these lofty titles.
Reverend. The Bible says reverend is his name.
Call me reverend. I'm not reverend.
And so I don't want to be called by fancy house.
I don't want to call other men by fancy titles.
Because if we're saved, we're all just brethren.
So we shouldn't be giving people these fancy titles and worshipping a man.
Building a statue of a man. It's not right.
He says in verse 11, but he that is greatest among you shall be your servant,
and whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased,
and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.
Look what he says in verse 13.
Now, from verses 13 all the way down through this chapter,
he calls them hypocrites over and over again.
And this is a pretty harsh sermon that he preaches to them.
He says in verse 13, woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,
for you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men,
for you neither go in yourselves,
neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.
So it's clear the Pharisees were not saved.
They did not believe on God's word.
They claimed to believe in the books of Moses,
just like the Jews today. Hear me now.
The Jews today claim that they believed the Old Testament.
But Jesus said this.
He said, had you believed in Moses,
he said if you believed in Moses, you would have also believed me,
for he spake of me.
He said, but if you don't believe his writings,
how can you believe my words?
You see, Jesus begs to differ with the modern day opinion,
even among Christians who think,
oh, the Jews believe the Old Testament, but they don't believe in him.
Jesus said, you don't believe any of it.
He said, if you believed Moses, you'd believe on me.
That was out of the mouth of Jesus.
He said, if you don't believe his writings,
that's why you don't believe my words,
because it's the same God, the same Holy Spirit,
the same word of God,
and he said they did not believe.
So they were unsaved. They were non-believers.
And he said in verse 13,
woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,
for you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men,
for you neither go in yourselves,
neither suffer ye, that means allow ye,
he says, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.
You see, the Pharisees of this world,
they make salvation difficult.
Did you hear that?
They make it difficult.
It's funny, I was talking to a guy that visited our church recently,
and he was telling me he was at this creation museum
over in Kentucky.
And who's ever heard of this place?
It's some kind of a creation museum.
And he said he really liked it, but he said he didn't like the fact that
all the verses were NIV-type verses.
It wasn't the King James Bible that was being used.
And by the way, let me just put in a quick side note about creation.
See, I'm not one of these that's real big.
I mean, believe me, I believe in creation,
six literal days, 6,000 years ago from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet.
But I think some people get a little too carried away
with the so-called creation-evolution debate.
Because really, the fool that said in his heart,
there is no God, the Bible says,
and most of the time when I'm out talking to people, giving them the Gospel,
I've almost never had that be a hang-up with people.
And you know, most people were unsaved even before evolution even came out.
And so just because somebody doesn't believe in evolution,
that's not going to make them saved on their way to heaven.
And by the way, I think this is the biggest misnomer in the world,
creation versus evolution.
Now that is not a logical argument, and let me tell you why.
Because that's like saying Chevron versus Burger King.
You see, you can't compare the two because one of them is a gas station
and one of them is a restaurant.
Now you might say Chevron versus Shell Gas,
because those are two different gas stations and you can compare and contrast the two.
But creation versus evolution, that's not a congruous argument,
and let me explain to you why.
Because evolution does not explain where things came from.
It doesn't explain where life came from.
It should be called creation versus spontaneous generation.
Because evolution just explains how, you know, supposedly,
and I don't believe in it for one second,
supposedly a simple life form became more complex over time.
That's what evolution explains.
But does it explain where that original animal came from?
Does it explain where the original plant came from?
Does it explain where that so-called single-celled organism came from?
No, it explains nothing.
You see, evolutionists today believe in spontaneous generation,
which has been proven false many times.
Who knows what spontaneous generation is? Raise your hand.
It's when people used to believe that animals just came into existence.
Like, for example, let's say you had a piece of meat
and all of a sudden it developed maggots.
They thought that the maggots originated from inanimate matter.
I mean, the meat is not alive.
And yet they thought that living things came out of something that's not alive.
Well, they proved it false because they really did.
They put the meat in a jar, they put a piece of cloth over it
so that no flies could land on it, and then all of a sudden there were no maggots.
And they realized that it was flies that were planting the eggs and the meat.
But you see, this kind of stupidity is carried on to this day in 2010.
People who believe in evolution literally believe in spontaneous generation.
My wife was at the science center this week with the kids, and my mother was also there.
And this guy's up there, and he's explaining how on this other planet
there are certain chemicals there, and he said,
all the chemicals are there. They could produce life.
And my mother was there, and my mother raised her hand in the science center and said,
wait a minute. Chemicals produce life? Can you explain how that works?
He's like, oh, there's methane, there's this, there's volume.
It could produce life. They have all the chemicals.
She said, well, can you do that? Don't you have all those same chemicals?
Don't you have methane?
Yeah, you've got a lot of methane, buddy.
Basically, hey, don't you have all the instruments in your laboratory?
Don't you have all your test tubes and your beakers and your Bunsen burners?
You can make it whatever temperature you want.
You can use whatever chemicals you want.
You can do whatever you want, but you can't create life.
Because every single thing in this universe that's alive
was begotten by something else that was already alive.
Every plant came from another plant.
Every animal was given birth to or spawned by some other animal.
You see, there's no such thing as creating life.
Only God can create life, and He already created it.
And everything breaks forth after its own kind.
So really it should be creation versus spontaneous generation
versus chemicals all of a sudden came to life.
And instead of showing me a dumb chart of a monkey turning into a human,
I want to see a chart of a nothing turning into a single-celled organism.
Let's go back a little further.
How does nothing turn into a living creature?
How does nothing come to life?
And they said, oh, electricity.
They said there were all these electrical storms.
Now, I saw that on Frankenstein, where electricity breaks down to life.
But the difference, listen, the difference with Frankenstein,
Frankenstein makes more sense, folks.
And here's why.
Because at least Dr. Frankenstein started with a thing that used to be alive.
Like, at least it had all the parts.
You know, he had the brain, the heart.
Remember, he was stealing the brain and all that.
He had the brain, the heart, he had all the different pieces,
and he put all the pieces together,
and then so-called his lightning bolt brought its life.
That makes a lot more sense than the lightning bolt
just struck a bunch of slime or chemicals or methane
and all of a sudden just, boom, something's alive.
But you see, the evolution doesn't want to talk about that.
He wants to talk all about apes and people.
It explains nothing.
It's not an origin.
Spontaneous generation is their origin.
That's what they believe, just, boom, just out of nothing.
Now, look, it should be creation versus spontaneous generation,
and it should be evolution versus bringing after your own kind,
because that's what the Bible says.
Everything brings forth everything.
Now, those are two congruous arguments.
Let's see, things bringing forth after their own kind?
There's a lot of evidence of that.
In fact, it just happened this morning.
Brother Dave and his wife just brought forth after their own kind.
I hope it's a human being.
I hope it doesn't have, like, seven fingers and a tail
or some kind of a new species, my friend.
I don't think so.
I believe it brought forth after its own kind,
but let's get off that sidetrack.
That has nothing to do with the summer.
I don't even know why I'm talking about that.
But he's at this museum, and he's in line.
You know, he's waiting in line,
and this lady is there, and she hands him a tract, okay?
And she was trying to, you know, evangelize him,
so she gives him a tract and starts talking to him,
and he's already saved, you know.
The woman who's talking to him is preaching another gospel, okay?
She hands him this tract, and it was from Ray Comfort.
It was one of this Way of the Master, Ray Comfort thing.
And she starts talking to him, and she says,
now, the most important part of being saved...
And he just acted like he didn't know what was going on
because he just wanted to hear what she was going to say.
And she said, now, the most important part of being saved
is that you have to repent of your sins.
You know, that's the most important part, you know.
You've got to turn from your sins.
And she said, I used to go to this church
that said that you didn't.
You know, you just had to believe, that's all.
But she said, now I'm real.
You've got to turn from your sins, this and that.
And she's giving him all this stuff.
And she said, yeah, and the other church I used to go to,
she said they were really strict, you know.
Like, they would preach against rock and roll and Hollywood
and women wearing pants, and they were just radical.
And then she said, the church I go to now is so much cooler
and this and that, and plus, their teeth are right there.
And this is what he said to me.
I love the way he summed it up in one sentence.
He said, the church she used to go to
made getting saved easy and living the Christian life hard.
He said, the church she goes to now
made getting saved hard and living the Christian life easy.
That sums it up right there.
Let me tell you something.
Getting saved is not hard, it's easy.
The Bible just says, simply believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved.
It says that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish but have eternal life.
It didn't say that you have to turn from your sins.
Let me explain some of you.
If you have to turn from your sins to be saved,
then I'm not saved.
Because I'm still a sinner.
Is there anyone in this room who is truly
repentant of their sins?
That's a daily thing.
Jesus said that you must take up your cross daily
and deny yourself and follow him.
I've got to repent every single day.
But you know what?
Whether I do or not, I'm still saved by the blood of Jesus Christ,
by grace, through faith, not of works as any man should boast.
There's one thing you have to do to be saved, my friend.
Believe.
And there's nothing else.
If there is something else, then John 3.16 is a lie.
If you must do something besides believe,
then why did Jesus say that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish but have everlasting life?
If there was something else.
Why is it that when a guy came to him and said,
Paul, what must I do to be saved?
He just told him, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved.
Why does the Bible say I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ?
For it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth.
To the Jew first and also to the Greek.
You see, everyone who believeth will be saved.
Whosoever believeth.
That's all it is.
It's faith alone, not of works as any man should boast.
Getting saved is easy.
It's not hard.
God wants you to be saved.
But you know what?
Living a good life is hard.
It's impossible to live it up to God's standards.
We do the best we can.
But if that's what you're trusting to get to heaven,
you're going to come short, my friend.
The Bible says for all of sin to come short of the glory of God.
None of us is good enough to go to heaven.
I'm not good enough to go to heaven.
You're not good.
We are only going to heaven because we believe on Jesus Christ
that he forgives us of our sins.
And it's eternal life, by the way.
You can't lose your salvation.
It's everlasting life.
And so once you're saved, you're saved forever.
I was never good enough to get saved in the first place.
How can I be bad enough to where he'll take it away from me?
He already knew I was a sinner when he died on the cross for me.
And so we don't make salvation hard.
The Pharisees, on the other hand, they want to make it hard.
They want to make it very hard and make you jump through these hoops
and shut the door on you and not allow you to be saved.
I've even heard one of them say,
well, I couldn't let him get saved because he wouldn't turn from his sins.
I mean, that's wicked, my friend.
And you can see why Jesus got so mad.
It makes me mad just thinking about it.
And look, if you went to Galatians, chapter 5.
The book of Galatians, about halfway through your New Testament,
Galatians, chapter 5.
Galatians, chapter number 5.
And this is a great chapter.
I'd love to read the whole chapter.
We're just going to read a few verses.
But I love Galatians 5.
It says in Galatians 5, 1.
Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty,
wherewith Christ had made us free,
and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
Behold, I, Paul, say of you, that if you be circumcised,
Christ shall profit you nothing.
For I testify again to every man that is circumcised
that he is a debtor to do the whole law.
He's saying, look, if you believe that you have to be circumcised
and believe on Jesus Christ in order to go to heaven,
he says, you're not saved.
Christ shall profit you nothing.
He said, you're trusting your own works.
It's not faith in Jesus plus baptism.
It's not faith in Jesus plus circumcision.
It's just faith alone in Jesus that saves you.
So he says in verse 4,
Christ has become of no effect unto you,
whosoever of you are justified by the law.
You are fallen from grace.
For we, through the Spirit,
wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.
For in Jesus Christ,
neither circumcision availeth anything,
nor uncircumcision,
but faith which worketh by love.
Ye did run well.
Who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?
This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you.
Here's what he's saying.
You didn't read this in the Bible.
He says, this new doctrine that you're preaching
about people having to be circumcised in order to be saved,
he said, this persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you.
He said, this is not something that you got from the Bible.
You didn't get this from God.
He says, who hath hindered you?
In verse 7.
You did run well.
Who did hinder you?
Somebody came in and correct him with this leaven,
this false teaching.
Who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?
This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you,
a little leaven, leaveneth the whole lump.
You see, people come in,
and all throughout the book of Acts you'll see this.
They came in saying,
you've got to keep the law of Moses to be saved.
You've got to be circumcised to be saved.
And they're adding to the Gospel.
And Paul didn't even know who they were that had come in,
but he said, I know somebody came in and taught you that
because I know that you didn't come up with that on your own.
You're saved.
You have the Holy Spirit inside of you.
You have the Bible.
I preached to you and then I left
and you've been reading the Bible on your own.
You didn't come up with this from the Bible.
Somebody came in and taught you.
Who was it?
You see, there were all kinds of false teachers
you read about in the book of Acts
that would go around after Paul had been into town
and got a bunch of people saved
that would come in and try to confuse them.
He said in Acts 20, he said,
I know that after I depart wolves will come in.
As soon as I'm gone in Acts 20,
he said, remember what I taught you.
Beware of these people.
He said, I've warned you about them.
I've told you often weeping that they're the enemies
at the cross of Christ.
Don't let these people creep in.
Don't let that leaven leaven the whole lump.
And today a lot of these same doctrines are creeping in.
I mean, we were out so many yesterday in Kearney, Arizona
and we were knocking all those doors.
How many people told us you've got to be baptized?
How many people had somebody tell you that
when you were out there?
Because there was a church of Christ in town
and that's what they're teaching.
Look at all the hands that went up.
How many people told you you must be baptized?
I proved this lady from the Bible
that you don't have to be baptized.
I proved that from the Bible.
You just have to believe.
And she just said, well, I hope you're right.
I said, I hope so too because if it's not right
then I'm going to quit going to church altogether.
You know, if what Jesus said a hundred times
isn't really true.
You know, what's the point of it all?
What does it even matter?
But these same doctrines are creeping in.
Doctrines of you must be baptized to be saved.
You must keep the law of Moses to be saved.
Even doctrine that you must be circumcised.
You know, my children, let me tell you something,
my children are not circumcised.
Say woo!
You know, it's only in America, folks,
where everybody circumcises their children
and I don't even know why they do it
because the Bible says,
neither circumcision availeth anything,
neither uncircumcision.
He said it doesn't matter whether you're circumcised or not circumcised.
We're not Jews living in the Old Testament nation of Israel
and so no, I don't believe in circumcision.
I have a whole sermon called Circumcision
where I preach all the different doctrine from the Bible about that.
But the bottom line is that this leaven will creep in.
It's always a false teacher that will creep in,
a wolf in sheep's clothing.
They tried to creep into our church.
How many times?
And they love to take people aside
and get them by themselves
and start filling their mind with all this false teaching,
this false doctrine.
We've got to be aware of it.
And plus, we've got to know the Bible
because if we know the Bible,
we're not going to be easily deceived by these people.
You know, if somebody...
And that's why I'm confident if somebody comes in here
and takes somebody aside and talks to them,
they're not going to get anything done
because the people in our church read the Bible.
Cover to cover.
They know the Bible.
And so therefore, somebody talks to them
and starts giving them these ideas.
Hey, go ahead, talk to them while you want
because they know the Bible.
And nobody in our church says,
well, I don't believe this
because that's what Pastor Anderson says.
But I've been to churches where they said,
well, Pastor so-and-so said,
who cares what Pastor Anderson said?
Who cares what I said?
Who cares what your pastor said?
The only thing that matters is what God said in the Bible.
Thus saith the Lord.
Jesus said, verily, verily, I say unto you.
You see, in the Old Testament, it was thus saith the Lord.
In the New Testament, it was I say unto you
because Jesus Christ is the Lord according to the Bible.
And so don't be deceived by the leaven of the Pharisees.
Number one, it's false doctrine.
And you'll try to think that you can take the good
and throw away the bad.
But no.
That little leaven will leaven the whole lump
of what that false teacher is teaching.
People have said, oh, this guy's not saved
but he's got some really good teaching
on this and that subject of the Bible.
I say to myself, I'm not going to listen to a teacher
that's not saved.
He doesn't even have the basics.
That leaven of false teaching is going to leaven his whole lump.
I say, well, you know, there's good things in this book.
And it's some book that's filled with the NIV
or dispensationalism or whatever.
I'm sorry, I'm not willing to fill my mind with junk.
It's the same thing.
And this is the third leaven
because the first leaven was false doctrine.
The second leaven, what was the second leaven?
Hypocrisy.
What was it?
Hypocrisy.
Making salvation hard.
You know, you're already saved
and you go out and commit adultery
and all these things like that.
The Pharisees were not these clean living people.
And people tried to call people Pharisees
who live a clean life and live by good standards.
You're a Pharisee.
The Pharisees were adulterers.
That's what Jesus accused them of.
And I don't think he was making that up.
Jesus said they were wicked, they were sinful,
that they weren't following the rules that they were preaching,
that they were living a wicked life.
But they tried to make salvation hard for others.
They're not saved
so they don't want anybody else to be saved either.
So they'll do everything they can
to shut up the kingdom of heaven against men.
Hypocrisy.
They're hypocrites.
Don't be guilty of saying one thing and doing another.
Do what you say you will do.
If you say something, if you preach something, do it.
But number three, the third leaven,
look at 1 Corinthians 5.
1 Corinthians 5, Jesus calls the Pharisees adulterers
over and over.
Look at 1 Corinthians 5.
In 1 Corinthians 5, this is the story about the young man
who was actually committing fornication
or sleeping with his stepmother.
And Paul is just enraged when he hears about this.
And the fact that nobody seems to care,
nobody's even worried about it.
And he says in verse number six,
Your glorying is not good.
Know ye not that a little leaveneth the whole lump?
Purge out therefore the old leaven
that ye may be a new lump as ye are unleavened.
For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.
Therefore let us keep the feast,
not with old leaven,
neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness,
but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth,
I wrote unto you in an epistle
not to company with fornicators.
And he explains, you know,
yet not together with the fornicators of this world
or with covetous or extortioners or with idolaters,
but then machines go out of the world.
He said that's pretty much what the world is.
But he says in verse 11,
But now I have written unto you not to keep company
if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator.
He says, look, you're going to be hanging around
with fornicators, covetous, extortioners, idolaters,
realers because you live in the world
and that's what our world is.
You don't have to, you know, shun yourself from society.
Obviously you work with these people.
You know, you want to reach out to them and so forth.
But he says, if somebody's called a brother,
somebody's in your church and they're doing this stuff,
he said, with such and one, at the end of verse 11,
know not to eat.
You know, realers, drunkards, extortioners,
covetous, idolaters, fornicators and so forth.
For what have I to do to judge them also that are without?
Do not ye judge them that are within?
Don't judge.
He said right there, you need to do some judging here.
And then the last verse he says,
but them that are without, God judgeeth,
therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.
The third leaven of the Pharisees
was the leaven of a sinful life.
Their first leaven was the false doctrine that they're teaching.
Wrong salvation, wrong doctrine, wrong teaching.
Number two, the leaven of their hypocrisy.
They were the biggest hypocrites around.
But number three, the leaven of a wicked and sinful life.
The leaven of fornication, the leaven of covetousness,
the leaven of drunkenness.
This leaven in your life, he said, will leaven the whole lump.
You see, so many times people have this idea,
oh, let's go watch this in that movie.
It's a great movie, there's only one part that's pornographic.
And it only lasts for 60 seconds and it's a two-hour movie.
This one part is just total pornography for 60 seconds.
But the rest of the movie is great.
And then you go watch that movie.
Wrong.
A little leaven leavens the whole lump.
You see, when you're looking into what movie you're going to go see
or what music you listen to,
you can't sit there and say, well, it's 99% good and 1% bad.
Therefore, come on, it's okay.
No, a little leaven leavens the whole lump.
You see, if I were to...
Let's see, Angel's here this morning
and she runs a subway restaurant.
And I like to eat at Subway.
In fact, I just ate at Subway a couple of days ago.
I got an Italian BMT on honey oat bread.
And let's say I had a Subway sandwich, okay?
And when it came time to put on the spread at the very end,
you know, we got all the meat, all the cheese, all the vegetables.
What if we just took a dog pile, okay?
And we took that little blunt little knife that they have at Subway
and just kind of spread it on the bread, okay?
And then we basically gave you this sandwich and offered it to you
and said, here, I've made you a sandwich.
Now, let me ask you this.
Would you eat that sandwich?
Who would eat the sandwich?
You picky eater.
It's 99% good.
Why are you so picky?
I mean, the meat's good, the cheese is good,
the vegetable's good, the bread's...
You what, you just don't like the spread?
And you're going to reject the whole sandwich?
Hey, don't throw out the bread.
The whole sandwich?
Hey, don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.
I'm so tired of that stupid expression.
I get that every...
Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.
What a dumb expression is that?
And so they say, oh, you know, the sandwich is 99% good.
Eat it.
No.
And you know what?
Let me tell you something.
I'd rather eat that sandwich, my friend.
Listen to me now.
I'd rather eat that sandwich than to sit in Hollywood's theater
and let them put filth into my mind.
I'd rather eat that sandwich, my friend.
I'd rather feed that sandwich to my children
than to send my children to the schools in Tempe
where they'll be fed a worse poison in their mind.
And by the way, the school lunches are low quality too,
so who knows what they'll be getting there anyway.
So it might be six and one half dozen the other,
you know, with all the garbage that they...
You know, that's a whole other sermon.
Anyway, I read a book about that recently,
about the fast food industry,
and it was explaining how basically the kids at school lunch,
a lot of them are basically eating a fast food quality every day,
you know, and it's really poor quality.
Because the people who are supplying it are in bed with the government
trying to make extra money so the heat costs low,
profits high, and they feed them a bunch of trash.
But I'm going to tell you something.
I'd rather feed them our, you know, hypothetical sandwich
that we made a little bit earlier with the help of Angel with Subway.
Just kidding.
You know, I'd rather feed them that sandwich
than what they're feeding them down there, the lies and filth.
Jesus said, look, what goes into your mouth can't defile you
as what comes into your heart.
That's what defiles you.
He said, out of the heart of man comes fornication, wickedness.
He said, what goes into his mouth can't defile the man.
He said, it's going to go off the draft.
You know, a few days later you'll be fine
after the food poisoning wears off.
But you know what, the poison that's put into your mind
will be there for years.
In fact, it'll be there for the rest of your life.
And so some people I know are really into healthy eating.
You know, I'm pretty healthy about the way I eat, too.
You know, I worry about it.
And I try to be careful to eat the organic and everything like that.
But some people are so careful about what they put in their mouth
that they're not careful about what goes in their eyes or their ears.
They're not careful about what goes in their mind and their heart.
And I'd rather poison the body than to poison the mind
than to poison the heart and the soul and the spirit.
I'd rather poison neither.
But you know what, we need to realize that the same applies
with that sandwich illustration.
That's the way life is.
You know, you might have a movie that seems to be just a fun movie.
But that one homosexual character is the whole reason
that they even made the movie, which is just to expose you to that.
And you think it's just one little part of the movie.
The whole rest of the movie was a vehicle to bring that into your mind.
And the devil's very clever.
And he'll package things up very nicely.
He'll make the sandwich. He'll put banana peppers on your 12-inch BMT.
But it's that spread, my friend, that secret sauce that he's really trying to get.
He's really trying to get into you.
And so, boy, he'll polish the apple, my friend.
He'll make it look great. He'll put in all kinds of good things.
And then it's that one percent poison that's going to get you.
It's that one bad thing that's going to get you.
It's that one little bit of leaven that ends up leavening the whole world.
Keep that in mind.
That goes for every area of life.
Keep yourself pure of these things.
Keep yourself pure doctrinally, spiritually.
Listen to me.
I've been saved since I was a six-year-old boy when I believed on Jesus Christ.
But let me tell you something.
When I was a young teenager and I started really reading the Bible for myself
and started to really grow as a Christian,
and when I got to be about 16, 17 years old and started to read the Bible for myself,
a lot of people tried to give me a lot of Christian books and told me to read them.
They tried to give me commentaries and these different things.
And you know what I decided? I said, you know what?
I said, I'm too young to know what's good and what's bad,
to reject the good and to keep the bad.
I'm too young. I'm too inexperienced.
I've never even read the Bible through cover to cover one time.
You know, that's when I was 16.
I said, I need to read the Bible five times cover to cover
before I even begin to look at what these people are saying.
You know, I went to church and heard God's Word preached from the pulpit.
But I didn't want to just sit and do a bunch of reading and theology and these different things
because I said, you know what?
I need to get it straight from God and let the Holy Spirit be my teacher.
It says in 1 John 2, you have no need that any man teach you.
An anointing that's on the pastor will teach you the same thing, the same Holy Spirit.
Now, going to church is great. You can learn more, grow more, be absorbed and modest.
But there's nothing that I preach that you have to come here to get
because you can get the same thing out of the Bible.
Now, you should be in church because you get the encouragement, the fellowship, the excitement, the motivation.
I mean, you wouldn't have gone to Kearney by yourself yesterday and done that in Mary Potter, right?
You know, the church motivated you. The church motivated me.
And so the bottom line is, I said I'm going to read it five times through before I even read anything else.
And then when I got done with the five times, I said I'm going to read it five more.
And then by then, I didn't care what anybody said.
You know what I mean? After I read it ten times, I'm like, I think I'm doing fine.
Five more. And that's where I'm at right now. Just five more, five more, five more. That's all I do.
You won't go to my office and find a bunch of commentaries.
You won't find all the man's, the oh, oh, oh, you know.
No, you'll find a bunch of Bibles, maybe some Bibles in different languages.
You know, maybe just some other books that have nothing to do with the Bible, like a Firearm book.
But you're not going to find all this theology. I don't need it.
I need God's Word and the Holy Spirit and that's all you need.