January 24

When Faith Gets Corrupted Without You Noticing

When Subtle Teaching Pulls You Away from Christ While Still Sounding Biblical

Matthew 15: 29–16:12 contains an assault that didn’t die in the first century. It lives, breathes, and attends church today.

Crowds have gathered around Jesus once again. Sick people, lame people, blind people, mute people are brought before Jesus and Scripture tells us He healed them all. The people glorified the God of Israel because they knew what they saw was supernatural. Truth always bears fruit that you can’t counterfeit. When God moves mercy comes cascading down and God gets all the glory. But even still, the miracle isn’t the focal point. Miracles aren’t. Jesus didn’t come to impress the crowds. He came to reveal their hearts.

Once again, the crowd grows hungry and Jesus provides for them. This time there are four thousand, not five. Different geographic location, different crowds, same Lord Jesus. Scripture isn’t trying too hard to make a point here. Jesus is not limited by region, ethnicity, or scenery. He is enough every time. Bread from the hands of Jesus will never run out. It’s never about how much you bring. It’s who you bring it to. “I am the bread of life” ~John 6:35 tells us what is taking place underneath the surface. Bread satisfies physical hunger but only Christ can satisfy your spirit.

And then it happens. The Pharisees and Sadducees show up. Two opposing religious groups who could not agree on almost anything in doctrine suddenly agree that Jesus must go. Sound familiar? Today we see false teachers tolerate each other’s sins because of they agree that truth is their enemy. They ask Jesus for a sign from heaven. Mocking as if they want proof. He kindly corrects them. “A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign” ~Matthew 16:4. These people had no shortage of evidence. They were full of resistance.

Jesus highlights how pathetic they are. They can read the sky, know exactly when it will rain, but will not understand what He is doing right before their eyes. This is not an issue of smarts. It’s an issue of the heart. “The light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light” ~John 3:19. When truth comes knocking on the door of control, pride finds a way to excuse it away.

Once He leaves them, Jesus begins to warn His disciples about the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. The disciples misunderstand at first. They think Jesus is still talking about bread. Always gospel truth hidden in the metaphor. The issue with leaven is that it works behind the scenes. It’s gradual. It seeps into the dough and alters everything. Jesus isn’t warning His disciples about doctrine that sounds straight up false. He is warning about teaching that sounds religious but twists truth from the inside out.

The leaven of the Pharisees is legalism. Making up rules God never gave and equating spirituality with external religious performance. Earlier in the chapter, Jesus accused them of nullifying the Word of God by their traditions ~Matthew 15:6. The leaven of the Sadducees was unbelief. They did not believe in resurrection, angels, or God’s power. Religion without submission to Scripture always leads to denying what God has clearly spoken.

Look how Jesus responds to the disciples. They already know enough. They have seen Him feed thousands. They have seen His power firsthand. Forgetfulness of truth is dangerous not because we won’t have evidence, but because we grow complacent in heart. “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God” ~Hebrews 3:12.

Jesus is dropping a warning flare for our day and time with these words. People flock for benefits. Religion will ask God for signs while turning a blind eye to Scripture. False teaching arrives subtle, not by renouncing Jesus like outright opposition does. False teaching redefines obedience, faith, and truth. Some teach extras to the gospel. Others take away from it. Leaven both ways.

Background, experience, and sincerity will not keep a believer safe. But knowing, studying, and obeying Scripture will. Jesus isn’t calling us to run around catching signs from heaven. He is calling us to hear His voice, trust in Him, and obey what He says. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” ~Matthew 4:4.

Between Matthew 15 and 16 we must ask the hard questions. Am I coming to Christ to receive what He offers or who He is? Am I letting the Bible discern truth or just going with what feels comfortable? The warning has been given. Watch out for leaven. Protect the Word. Remain near Christ.

Matthew 15:29-16:12
Genesis 48:1-49:33
Psalm 20:1-9
Proverbs 4:20-27

Read Today’s Scripture – Click Here

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New Testament: Matthew 15:29-16:12

Summary:
Jesus Heals Many
Jesus Feeds the Four Thousand
The Pharisees and Sadducees Demand Signs
The Leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees

Overview: Matthew 14-28 – Click Here

Dealing with Spiritual Blindness, Part 1

Matthew 16:1–4

And then I realized that, of those all of us who are really blind to the reality of the spiritual world, there are two kinds. There are the blind who will never see it, and there are the blind who will be made to see it, and in our passage we meet both kinds. There are the blind who will never see, and there are the blind who are made to see.

And the whole world is made up of those kinds of people, the blind who never see and the blind who do see. And the difference between the two is what a person does with Jesus Christ. Because if you follow Jesus Christ and believe in Him, He makes you to see. If you reject Him, you go through life and eternity blind to spiritual reality. That’s what we’re going to learn as we look at this text.

Now, just to reinforce the fact that spiritual blindness is a worldwide malady, let me share with you some Scriptures, and I’ll run by them rather rapidly. In the first chapter of the Gospel of John, in verse 5, we read, “And the light shines in darkness and the darkness comprehends it not. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. The same came for a witness to bear witness of the light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that light but was sent to bear witness of that light. That was the true light which lights every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, but the world – what? – knew Him not.”

Now, in Romans chapter 1, it says in verse 21, “When men knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became empty in their reasoning, and their foolish heart was darkened.” In 1 Corinthians chapter 2, the familiar fourteenth verse says, “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. They’re foolishness unto him, neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned.”

And verse 8 says, “I hath not seen nor heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that love Him.” John says, “Men are blind.” Paul says, “Men are blind. They can’t see.” In Ephesians 4, there’s a wonderful summation of this truth in verses 17 and following where Paul says, “That men walk in the emptiness of their mind, and their understanding is darkened, and their hearts are blinded.” So men do not see.

The psalmist in Psalm 82:5 says, “They walk on in darkness.” Isaiah said, “They have eyes, but they see not.” And Jeremiah said the same thing. In Exodus chapter 5 and verse 2, Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord? I know not the Lord.” Of course he didn’t. No one does on their own. In fact, the psalmist said in Psalm 73, verse 22, “So foolish was I and so ignorant, I was as a beast.”

The Proverbs tell us in chapter 4, verse 19 that “the way of the wicked is darkness.” In Isaiah 5, the prophet says, “My people are gone into captivity because they have no knowledge.” And then he cries out in chapter 42 and says, “Look, ye blind, that ye may see.” Jeremiah says, “We are a foolish people without understanding. We have eyes, and we do not see.” And Micah says, “They know not the thoughts of the Lord, and they do not understand His counsel.”

Now, men are blind. We are physical creatures, and we are, in a sense, incarcerated in a physical world of perception and unable to get outside of that to really perceive divine reality. The Bible also says that three things contribute to the totality of this blind darkness. One is sin. We are blind because sin has blinded us. Sin is paralleled in the Scripture very often with darkness, and the Bible says that we walk in darkness. “We walk, who walk in sin, also in darkness.” And it says in John 3 that “men love darkness rather than light because” – what? – “their deeds are evil.” And so we are trapped in the darkness of sin.