When Jesus tells us to beware of something,
it's good for us to take heed.
We better beware of it.
You know, things like Jesus said, beware of
false prophets.
A lot of Christians just don't seem to
beware of false prophets.
See, a false prophet in the Old Testament
never came with some heathen religious book.
They came with the Old Testament.
And a false prophet in New Testament times
will come with the Bible.
But that's not what I'm going to speak
about.
There are many things Jesus warned us to
beware of outside of us, like false prophets,
deception, false teaching.
We can speak about that another time.
But then he told us about bewaring of
certain things that are inside us.
And that's what we've got to be more
careful about.
That guy outside of me who is a
false prophet, he can't corrupt me.
He can deceive me if I'm not careful,
but he can't corrupt me.
But there are certain things inside which Jesus
told us to beware of, which can corrupt
us, which can hinder our spiritual growth, which
can prevent us from being all that God
wants us to be.
You've often heard me say, God's not angry
with His people, but He's very sad sometimes
with His people.
The Bible speaks about grieving the Holy Spirit.
It doesn't say the Holy Spirit is angry.
It says the Holy Spirit is sad.
Sad because He thinks of the tremendous potential
there is in a person when he accepts
Christ.
If he will open up his whole being
to be filled with the Holy Spirit, boy,
it will be like a rocket that can
shoot up to the highest heaven.
And instead of that, so many Christians are
earthbound.
They don't even go as far as the
trees, leave alone third heaven.
And there the Holy Spirit is sad.
Just like the sadness a father will feel
for a brilliant son whom God has gifted
with tremendous intelligence, but who plays the fool
in school and fails in almost every subject.
I mean, a loving father would feel sad.
Those of you who have children, how would
you feel if your son was failing in
almost every subject when you know he is
brilliant, when you know he's got the potential
to come first in the class?
I mean, if he doesn't have intelligence, he's
retarded in some way, then okay, we can
understand.
But he's got potential.
And that's the sadness God feels.
So I want to just look with you
at three things today.
Three things that Jesus told us to beware
of.
Which if we, Jesus warned us, some of
these things, all three of them have got
the potential of very quickly destroying us.
It's not a slow process.
Jesus used the word leaven.
Leaven is an old word for what we
today call yeast.
Not E-A-S-T, Y-E-A
-S-T.
That's the thing that you put into flour.
If you don't put it into flour, you
get a chapati.
If you put it into flour, it becomes
bread, a loaf of bread.
The only thing that makes that thing a
loaf of bread instead of a chapati is
yeast.
And you put it in and heat it
up, and all of a sudden it's blown
up.
And do you know that most of bread
is just air?
It's air trapped in between that makes it
look so big.
You can crush it down, it becomes like
a chapati.
The yeast that fools people, blows up that
loaf of wheat flour into something big.
And that's what yeast does.
Makes you big on the outside and got
very little content on the inside and most
of what is in you is hot air.
That's the result of yeast.
It's sad.
When Christians are full of hot air, usually
comes out of their mouth.
All the exalted things they talk about, which
are not true in their life.
Yeast did it.
So Jesus spoke about three types of yeast
or leaven.
I want to talk about them.
First one, we turn to Mark's gospel and
chapter 8.
You see, they had gone across the sea
to the other side, across the lake.
Mark 8 verse 13.
He had fed the multitude there in the
previous verses with a few fish, with seven
loaves and few fish.
In verse 6 and 7 and 8.
And then he left them and went across
the other side.
We read in verse 13.
And they had forgotten to take bread.
And they had only one loaf, verse 14,
in the boat with them.
And he was giving orders to them saying,
watch out, beware of the leaven of the
Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.
And the disciples heard this.
Oh, maybe we didn't bring any bread and
he's complaining about that.
Can you imagine Jesus complaining about bread?
That's the last thing in the world he's
even thinking about.
Their mind was so much on food that
they thought, Jesus, you know, very often we
think the things we complain about is what
other people complain about.
We probably don't realize that other people are
a lot more spiritual than we are.
And they couldn't understand that Jesus wasn't thinking
about bread at all.
He said, don't you understand this?
Verse 18.
Having eyes, don't you see?
Having ears, don't you hear?
You think I'm talking about bread?
No, he said.
I'm not talking about bread.
I can multiply this one loaf and feed
lots of people like you.
You just saw that.
But there's something else.
The leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven
of Herod.
The leaven of the Pharisees, Jesus described it
for us in Matthew chapter 16.
See, these are the three things inside us.
The two here and I'll come to the
third one we read about here in Matthew
chapter 16.
And verse 6.
He said, watch out and beware of the
leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of
the Sadducees.
So there you got three leavens now that
Jesus said, beware of, watch out.
It's a contaminating thing.
It's like, I mean, potassium cyanide.
You know what potassium cyanide does?
One drop on your tongue and it doesn't
take long before you're gone.
We can look at it like that.
The leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees is
contaminating.
It can kill you, corrupt you.
Leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod and
the Sadducees.
Jesus spoke about that and it's very important
when we read something like that.
Jesus said, beware of.
We need to understand.
We should not be like those disciples to
whom Jesus had to say, don't you understand
this?
You've got eyes and you read it and
you don't try to understand it.
You've got ears to hear this and you
don't take it seriously.
I wonder how many of us who read
the Bible for so many years have considered
and studied the scripture to say, Lord, or
ask the Lord to say, Lord, what did
you mean when you said, I have to
beware of the leaven of the Pharisees?
I have to beware of the leaven of
Herod and I have to beware of the
leaven of the Sadducees.
Now lots of things in the Bible, which
even if you don't understand very well, doesn't
matter.
For example, the sacrifices in Leviticus.
Some things you have to add oil and
some things you don't.
And some things you add salt and some
things you don't.
Some things you're permitted to eat and some
things you're not permitted to eat.
No matter how many times I read it,
I can't remember it.
But it's not important because I'm not a
Levitical priest who's got to explain these things.
And the day of sacrifice is over.
I read it and try to get some
spiritual lesson out of it.
I don't need to remember which sacrifice am
I supposed to eat and which sacrifice am
I not supposed to eat?
Where can I eat the fat and where
can I not eat the fat?
Okay, forget that.
They're all spiritual truths which we learn.
But here is something in the New Testament.
Jesus said, beware of the leaven of the
Pharisees, beware of the leaven of Herod, beware
of the leaven of the Sadducees.
Supposing some nominal Christian came to you and
said, you're a believer, right?
You read the Bible regularly.
Could you please explain to me what is
the leaven of the Pharisees and what's the
leaven of Herod and what's the leaven of
the Sadducees?
Would you be able to give an answer?
Well, by the end of this day, you'll
be able to give an answer.
If you listen, don't let your mind wander.
First of all, the leaven of the Pharisees,
Jesus said here in Matthew 16.
He said, don't you understand?
I'm not talking about bread, but I'm talking
about the kind of teaching, verse 12.
He did not talk about the leaven of
bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees
and the Sadducees.
There's a particular type of teaching which characterized
Pharisees, which characterized Sadducees, which characterized King Herod
and his followers.
And Jesus was saying, beware of that type
of teaching.
Now, you can get that teaching from a
pastor, elder, teacher.
You can get that teaching from a book.
You can get that teaching from your own
mind, trying to grasp scripture in a wrong
way.
Now, the interesting thing is, all these people
will have some scriptural basis for what they
teach.
You see, they're not going to teach from
some heathen literature book or religious book.
They're going to teach from the Bible, but
beware of this, some you got to detect.
Hey, this teaching has got a certain element
in it, which I don't want.
And I want to say to you, we're
living in days when this leaven of the
Pharisees and the leaven of Herod and the
leaven of the Sadducees is widespread in Christendom.
So I'm not just giving you a Bible
study.
I'm trying to tell you something which will
benefit you in your daily life.
It will protect you from all this wrong
teaching that's going on in Christendom today.
So we turn to Luke's gospel in chapter
12.
Luke's gospel chapter 12, Jesus explained what the
leaven of the Pharisees was.
He says there in the first verse, the
last part, Beware of the leaven of the
Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.
So there you got it.
It's not being real.
You know, when the New Testament speaks about
truth, Jesus said, I'm the truth.
There are various meanings to truth.
When you say two plus two is four,
that's the truth, but that's not the type
of truth Jesus is speaking about.
There's another meaning to truth.
Truth meanings, you know, like you can say
you're speaking the truth about a certain situation.
But when Jesus said, I am the truth,
what he meant was I am reality.
I am the way, you understand that.
I am the life, the life of God.
What did he mean when I say I
am the truth?
What he meant was, I am reality.
The opposite of truth is hypocrisy, unreality.
I am reality.
That means everything you see in me, outside,
is exactly what is inside.
If you have seen me, you have seen
the Father.
In other words, Jesus was not like frosted
glass.
You know frosted glass, like we have in
these windows, you can't see outside.
And why do we have it?
Because we don't want people from outside to
look inside and see what's going on here.
But we want the light.
And that's unreality.
Plain transparent glass is reality.
Now I am not saying you should have
it all in your houses.
I am saying you should have it in
our life.
That everybody can see through me.
Plain glass.
It says about Jerusalem in Revelation 21, it's
like crystal clear glass.
That's how we are supposed to be.
If you want to be a part of
Jerusalem.
That there is no phoniness, unreality, in any
area of our life.
What we speak is exactly what we are.
We are not saying something to create an
impression.
We are not saying something to make people
think that we are great guys or we
are spiritual or something like that.
No.
We are what we appear to be.
And it's not just in our speech.
We can act in a certain way that
appears spiritual.
Ananias and Sapphira were killed for hypocrisy.
They were not killed because they didn't give
money to the Lord.
You know what Peter told them?
Before you sold your property, the property was
yours and God didn't want it.
After you sold your property and converted it
into cash, the cash was yours.
God didn't want that either.
But why do you come here and pretend
that you are giving everything when you are
giving only 50%?
I am paraphrasing the words.
You know if Ananias and Sapphira were in
a modern church, they would have got an
award because hardly anybody gives 50% to
God.
But the problem with them was they were
in a church where people were giving 100
% and they pretended that they were giving
100%.
It's very dangerous to be in a spiritual
church if you are not spiritual yourself.
If Ananias and Sapphira were in the church
in Corinth, they would have been probably elders.
But unfortunately they decided to join the church
in Jerusalem because Jerusalem was a powerful church.
But when you join a powerful church, you
better be real.
Otherwise God will expose you.
I mean that's my prayer.
My prayer is that we want to be
a powerful church.
We want to be a real church.
We don't want to be a church that's
phony, unreal, talking some things that are not
true, to say we are not perfect.
That's for sure.
That's the reason we have this verse up
here.
Let's press on to perfection.
Telling everybody we are not perfect.
The guy standing behind the pulpit is not
perfect.
Please remember that.
We are still pressing on.
Not being perfect is okay.
But not being real, that we never want.
We don't want anybody in this church to
be unreal.
Not even one.
Boy, that's a high standard.
Supposing I say, which part of your body
would you like to be paralyzed?
Your eye or your finger?
Or maybe your small little toe?
Do you mind if one of your toes
is paralyzed?
You say, no.
I don't want any part of my body
to be paralyzed.
You say, boy, that's high standard.
You don't want any part of your body
to be paralyzed?
That's exactly how the body of Christ should
be.
If you are unreal, you are a paralyzed
member in the body of Christ.
Christ doesn't want it.
He wants every part to be real.
He doesn't have to be big, but you
got to be real.
A baby is not big, but it can
be healthy.
But there are big people, huge people, who
are not real, who are not healthy.
God wants us to be real.
Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which
is hypocrisy, which is being unreal.
Pretending to be something we are not.
The word hypocrite, as you have heard me
say before, is not an English word.
There are a lot of words imported into
the English from other languages like Dobie.
You look up an English dictionary, you'll find
the word Dobie.
Dobie is not an English word.
It's an Indian word, which means washer man.
Hypocrite in the same way.
It's not an English word.
It's a Greek word.
And if you went into Greece 2,000
years ago and talked about, are there any
hypocrites here?
They'll say, sure, we've got plenty.
Just go to the theater and you'll find
all those actors.
The word hypocrite means actor.
Now actor, I mean, when you watch movies,
you see actors.
It's not a sin to be an actor,
is it?
If somebody says, I'm an actor.
In fact, a lot of young people admire
these actors and actresses.
They look at their pictures, they keep pictures
of them in their books and in their
walls and all that.
Here are hypocrite number one and hypocrite number
two.
Lady hypocrite and male hypocrite.
I'm just using the Greek word.
That's all.
I mean, if you go to these Greek
young people 2,000 years ago, they'd show
you.
You want to see hypocrites?
Come to my room.
I'll show you lots of them.
I've got pictures of all of them.
The word just means actor.
And Jesus said, don't be an actor in
church.
Don't be an actor as a Christian.
We know what actors do.
They come on the sets where they're acting
and they've got to dress up and act
like Elijah.
For two hours, I'm Elijah.
Fiery man of God.
Dressed up.
I sound like him.
I look like him.
I act like him.
And then the act is over.
They say, cut, finished.
Okay, I can go home now to my
third wife and get drunk.
That's how actors are.
I mean, at home, they're somebody else.
They're fooling around with women and getting drunk
and cheating the government of taxes and all
types of things.
They're actors.
But at least if you ask them what
they are, they say, I'm a hypocrite.
If you went to Greece and asked an
actor, what are you?
He'd say, I'm a hypocrite.
Oh, you're a hypocrite.
Great.
But you go to Christians and say, are
you a hypocrite?
Oh, no, I'm not a hypocrite.
I'm okay.
But are you?
Really?
In other words, are you exactly the same
when you're two hours in church and at
home?
Do you have the same values that guide
your life in your business as you pretend
to have in church?
Or is this a stage?
I tell you, for many, many Christians, the
church and the worship service is a stage.
How do I know?
Because I've done it myself.
I'm not throwing stones at anybody.
I can't throw stones at anybody if I
did it myself once upon a time.
But God showed it to me.
More than 30 years ago, I cried out
to God and said, Lord, there's one thing
I want to get rid of in my
life.
Unreality.
It's a thing I cried out and cried
out and cried out for months.
I said, I ask you only for one
thing in my life, Lord.
Make my outer life correspond with my inner
life.
And enable me that I will never in
my life speak about anything that I have
not practiced.
I don't want to practice what I preach.
No.
I want to follow Jesus who preached what
he had already practiced.
And I want to be one who preaches
what I've already practiced.
Not going to practice what I preach today.
No.
And I decided that I would never in
my life from then on.
This is way back in 1975 when we
started our church.
I would never speak about anything that I
had not practiced or that I was not
striving with all my heart to attain.
Yeah, you can speak about that.
For example, be anxious for nothing.
I don't think there's a human being in
the world who can say, I've reached that.
I haven't.
Be anxious for nothing.
It's a Mount Everest.
But I'll tell you something.
I'm not at base camp like I was
many years ago.
I've moved up quite a bit on that
mountain.
I haven't reached the peak.
But it's a lot, lot, lot, lot better
than it was a few years ago.
Because I've come to see God as my
father.
So I'm not pretending that I've reached the
peak.
But when anxiety comes, I say, hey, I
shouldn't be.
I want to commit that to the Lord.
I want to do what the Bible says,
be anxious for nothing.
But in everything by prayer and supplication, make
your requests known to God with thanksgiving.
And the peace of God will guard your
heart and mind in Christ Jesus.
And I begin to experience that.
I do what scripture says.
Sometimes it's a battle.
Sometimes it's a period of time before that
anxiety goes.
But I keep battling it.
Anxiety comes about something.
I remember when if our children went off
to some school or some function when they
were small, and they didn't come till late
at night, naturally we'd be a bit concerned.
And that concern, which is good.
Parents should have a concern for their children,
can develop into anxiety.
It should not.
Concern is right, anxiety is wrong.
But sometimes we go over, and that's happened
to me.
I've repented and said, Lord, I want to
have a concern for my children, but not
anxiety.
I want to have a concern for different
things.
I don't want to be an unconcerned type
of person in the world.
I want to have a concern for the
churches I have a responsibility for.
I want to have a concern for the
young people in our churches.
But I don't want to be anxious.
So, you know, to be real doesn't mean
to say, I'm perfect, I've reached up here.
No, to say, well, this is what I
am.
But I'm not a fake.
I'm not counterfeit.
But I know the years when I was
counterfeit, when I was preaching things which was
not true.
And the leaven of the Pharisees was there.
And, you know, leaven, how it blows up.
I told you, if there was no leaven,
it would be like a chapati, this thin.
But you put leaven inside, and it's just
a matter of, I don't know, having baked
bread, is it two, three hours?
Suddenly, becomes so big.
You know how you can press bread?
It goes right down.
You can't press a chapati and make it
thinner.
No.
Because there's no yeast in it.
You press bread, goes down, because there's yeast
in it.
Are you like that, my brother, sister?
It's destroying your life.
Far better to say, listen, I'm not this
great spiritual guy like you are, or like
you pretend to be.
I'm at this level.
I mean, have you ever in your life,
let me ask you, a very simple question.
Have you even once in your life, even
once, asked a little boy, which class are
you in?
And if he's in second standard, he tells
you, I'm in fourth standard.
I have never heard that till today.
Have you?
I mean, I'd have serious concerns for such
a boy if he ever told you that.
I have never.
Even if he failed last year, I mean,
he may be a bit reluctant to say
which class he's in because he failed.
He may avoid the question, but he won't
pretend.
Because he knows you can find out pretty
quickly.
I have never met a boy who says
I'm in fifth standard when he's in third
standard.
But look at the number of Christians there
are.
That is hypocrisy.
Pretending to be somewhere where we're not.
But look at the number of Christians who
act like that.
Who are unwilling to take the low position
and say, I'm not saying we should be
satisfied with that low position, but to acknowledge
where we are.
Do you think it's wrong for a child
to say, I'm in second standard?
What sin is there?
There's a sin if he pretends he's in
third, when he's only in second.
But there's no sin in saying, I'm in
second.
You know, that's honesty.
And for many, many, many years, I've convinced
about one thing.
That the one thing God wants in us
more than anything else is honesty.
You've heard me.
And like Peter said, I'll keep on saying
it till I die.
And Peter said in 2 Peter 1, I'm
going to say it so often that even
after I die, you'll remember Peter.
Oh, he's the guy who talked about that.
And you'll remember me long after I'm gone.
That, oh, he's the guy who talked about
honesty as being the most important thing.
That's right.
I'll never get tired of saying it.
Because so many people think God doesn't take
that seriously.
That is the thing which God takes seriously
most of all.
I want to say, if you start your
Christian life, start with honesty.
If you're in first standard, say you're in
first standard.
If you're in second standard, say you're in
second standard.
Very often we can't gauge what standard we're
in, but at least we need not pretend
to be something we're not.
And you see, these Pharisees had another characteristic,
and that was a very legalistic attitude towards
other people.
I want to show you that in hypocrisy.
You two go together.
You know, legalism and hypocrisy.
What Satan has joined together, we can't put
asunder.
Okay?
Satan has joined legalism and hypocrisy together.
We usually can't separate them.
Matthew chapter 12, we read, this is in
a paraphrase here I'm reading, On the Sabbath,
Jesus was strolling with his disciples through a
field of ripe grain, and the disciples were
pulling out the heads of grain and munching
on them.
You know, this is probably a narrow path
through a field, with stalks of corn or
grain on either side, and the disciples were
probably going in single file, with Jesus in
the front, one or two close to him,
and some others behind.
And the Pharisees were watching.
You know, one mark of a legalist is
that he watches other people very carefully.
Uh-huh, what is he doing?
How is he dressed?
I'm not interested.
I've got enough to worry about watching my
own life, instead of spending my time trying
to watch other people, unless I have a
responsibility for them.
If they are my children, I have a
responsibility for them.
Sure, I've got to watch how they dress
and how they do many things, how they
speak, if their language is not respectful, if
there's foul language.
Sure.
Or if they are members of my church,
and I'm an elder, I have a responsibility
for them.
I have zero responsibility for visitors.
Visitors, I say, glad to see you.
I can see 101 things wrong in their
life, perhaps I won't even speak about one
of them.
God bless you, come again.
But once a person decides to be a
part of this church, and come under the
eldership, I say, boy, then I take over.
Then I'm going to be your father.
I'm not going to be a consultant pediatrician,
who comes and gives you my opinion, and
not bother whether you take the tablets or
not.
If you die, you die.
Consultant pediatricians can't watch all the hundreds of
children they give advice to, to check up
whether they die or not.
But a father, even if one child, leave
alone die, if a child's fever goes up
from 98 to 100, he's concerned.
Now, 100 degrees fever is not serious, but
father gets concerned.
Because he's a father.
I tell you, there are very few fathers
in the church today.
Many teachers, but very few fathers.
What's needed is fathers.
But as I say, I'm not bothered about
judging other people.
The Pharisees used to judge.
And here it says, the Pharisees watched these
people pulling out grain.
Now you were permitted to pull grain.
God had said in the Old Testament, that
anybody walking through a field is permitted to
pluck grain.
That means if you, or grain or anything,
you see somebody's mango hanging there, and you
just pull it out and eat it.
It's great, no?
If you lived in Old Testament times, you
walked through people's fields.
But he said, but the Lord said, don't
bring a basket with you and collect.
That you can't do.
I mean, if you're hungry, you can pluck
it and eat it.
The Lord was teaching something to people to
be generous and large hearted.
Don't be such a miser.
You got 500 mangoes hanging there.
You can't let this fellow take one or
two.
Let him take it.
God was trying to teach his people to
be large hearted and good.
And at the same time, he was also
trying to teach people not to take advantage
of this law and bring a basket along
and say, hey, we can grab.
No.
So they were plucking grain.
It is permitted under the law.
But the Pharisees said, hey, the Bible says
you're not supposed to do any work on
the Sabbath day.
And these guys are plucking it on the
Sabbath day.
So he said, your disciples are breaking the
Sabbath rules.
Verse 2.
And Jesus said, really?
This is a paraphrase by the way.
Really?
Didn't you ever read what David and his
companions did when they were hungry?
How they entered the sanctuary and ate fresh
bread off the altar.
Bread that no one but the priests were
allowed to eat.
And didn't you ever read in God's law
that the priests carrying out their temple duties
break the Sabbath rules on the Sabbath all
the time.
And it's not held against them.
There's one thing I love about Jesus.
He sticks up for me.
Have you got friends who will stick up
for you?
Through thick and thin.
They'll stick up for you when it's thick.
But when it's thin, as the Bible says,
there's a friend who sticks closer than a
brother.
It's a verse in Proverbs.
I think it's the last verse of chapter
16 or something.
There's a friend that sticks closer than a
brother.
That's Jesus.
He'll stick by you through thick and thin.
And see how he sticks by his disciples.
You see, you guys are picking up one
verse in scripture, which says, hey, these guys
are not obeying this verse.
And Jesus says, haven't you read how David
was hungry one day?
You read that in 1 Samuel.
And he came to one place and he
said, hey, I and my friends are all
hungry.
And he asked the priest there, do you
have any bread here?
He said, sorry, we run out of bread,
except the bread which is kept in the,
whatever was the equivalent of the tabernacle those
days.
In the tent, the holy bread on the
table.
There was a table of showbread with 12
loaves.
And nobody was allowed to eat that except
the tribe of Levi, the priests.
It was a law.
The priest said, hey, you guys are not
part of the tribe of Levi.
You can't eat this.
David said, well, I believe God understands.
We're going to die.
Man, what are you going to follow all
these silly rules?
We're dying.
Let's eat it.
And if God kills us, he kills us.
But in any case, we're dying.
So he ate it.
And God didn't kill him.
Wasn't that good of God that a guy
broke his rule and he didn't kill him?
I tell you, there's something that David once
said when he did a sin and the
Lord said to him, okay, I'm going to
punish you for this sin.
Do you want to be punished by God
or punished by man?
And David said, Lord, you please punish me.
Don't let me ever fall into the hands
of man because man is so unmerciful.
He said that in 2 Samuel 24.
I love that statement of his.
Let me fall into your hands, O God.
Don't let me ever fall into the hands
of man because men are so unmerciful.
That song we sing.
Can you pick out that song?
The love of God is broader than the
measure of man's mind.
You know, where it says, But we make
his love so narrow.
it is, yeah, you know, it says, one
of the verses, it says, There is no
place where all your sorrows are felt more
than in heaven.
And, there is no place where all the
stupid blunders you have made are given a
very kind and merciful judgment than in heaven.
That's the place.
Let me read this to you.
It's really great.
No, this is not the one.
There is a whiteness in God's mercy.
You know, it says there that, Heaven is
a place where our mistakes are given a
very kind judgment.
Whereas on earth, we don't get that type
of kind judgment from people.
That's the thing I love about that song.
That's why David said, I want to fall
into God's hands, you know.
Men are so full of rules and legalistic
people, rules and rituals.
You've got to do this, you've got to
do that.
Now, I'm not saying we should lower our
standards.
I've had to face this and try to
get a workout, an answer to this over
a period of 30 years, and I've come
to this conclusion myself.
Do you find it?
I'll read this to you.
It's one of the most beautiful songs I've,
and it was written by a Roman Catholic,
just by the way.
There are some godly people there in that
faith.
There's a wideness in God's mercy, like the
wideness of the sea.
And there's a kindness in His justice, which
is more than liberty.
There is plentiful redemption.
Please put that light on.
Don't turn it off.
There's plentiful redemption in Christ's blood, that has
been shed.
And then it says, there's no place where
all our sorrows are more felt than up
in heaven.
There's no place where all our failings, this
is the line I wanted to show you,
there's no place where all our failings, and
haven't we got failings?
I have such kind judgment given.
See, men don't give us a kind judgment
when we have failed.
God does.
Because His mercy is so wide.
Because the love of God is broader than
the measure of man's mind.
Man's mind is so narrow.
We're so strict.
But the heart of the Eternal is most
wonderfully kind.
But, we make His love so narrow.
With all types of limits of our own.
This rule, and that rule, and this verse,
and that verse, and the other verse, and
you haven't done this, and you haven't done
this, and you're plucking grain on the Sabbath
day, and this woman was caught in adultery,
and goes on, and on, and on, and
on.
All types of limits, and we've got a
verse for it.
And we magnify His strictness.
There's one little verse there, we put it
under a magnifying glass, and that little dot
becomes like a planet.
Boy!
With a zeal to fight for that huge
law, which is like a dot.
A zeal that God will not support.
But if our love were but more simple,
we would take Him at His word, and
our lives would be all sunshine in the
sweetness of our Lord.
I love that song.
I've sung it for many, many years.
And sometimes I sing it to myself.
Just to remind myself what God is like.
His heart is so large.
He's not a stickler for little, little rules.
He's not like a policeman.
Hey, come here, and you know you're caught.
He's not like that.
He's large-hearted.
He understands why you failed.
He makes allowances.
Men will not make allowances.
Men won't make allowances for the stupid things
you said.
You want to see a man in the
Bible who said a multitude of stupid things?
Job.
Read the book of Job sometime.
He said some good things, like I know
my Redeemer lives and all that, but I
think he said about 10% good things
and 90% stupid things in that book.
And at the end of it, he said,
God, what shall I say?
I'm sorry.
One word.
I repent.
And God wiped out that 90%.
And said, everything Job said is right.
Isn't that great?
It's like a teacher who gave you 10
problems to do in mathematics and 9 of
them were wrong.
And you say, well, I'm really sorry for
what I did.
And she rubs out the 9 problems and
says, there was only one question in the
paper.
You got 100%.
Great.
Isn't that great to have a teacher like
that?
You know, God is like that.
And He does not...
You see, if a teacher did that in
a school, she would be violating the rules.
But God can do it.
Because those 9 mistakes you made, Jesus paid
for with His blood.
That's why.
So, He doesn't violate any rule.
The moment you repent, you say, Lord, I'm
sorry.
It's gone.
And the Lord says about Job in the
last chapter, My servant Job has never said
anything wrong.
It's you guys who said something wrong.
And you look at what those 3 fellows
said in the book of Job.
They all said the right things, but with
the wrong spirit.
They were the Pharisees back there in Job's
time, trying to hit out at people.
And I believe Job was the first book
of the Bible written long before Genesis.
Because Job lived before Moses who wrote Genesis.
And the first book of the Bible deals
with Pharisees.
So, legalists, who are out to catch people
for little things.
Now, I'm not saying we should lower our
standard.
But what I've discovered through 30 years, I
keep my standard.
And I'm merciful to other people and say,
Well, maybe they don't have the light I
have.
I'll wait.
God waited for me for many things.
And He's still waiting for me to get
light on probably a thousand things in my
life.
Can't I be a little patient and wait
for that person to get a little light,
which he or she may not have.
I've learned that.
But it's taken me a long time, I'm
sorry to say, to learn it.
I used to be so strict and so
hard on people if they slipped up somewhere.
My standard was right.
But I didn't realize I was a Pharisee.
Those Pharisees never knew they were Pharisees.
One of the terrible things about being a
Pharisee is you don't even realize you're a
Pharisee.
So, there's a lot more to be said
on that.
But we don't have time.
You read Matthew 23 sometime.
Let's go on to the leaven of Herod.
You see, Herod is the type of person
who I would say Herod's leaven is the
opposite of the leaven of the Pharisees.
You know, the narrow way is such a
narrow little thing.
There's a cliff on the left and a
cliff on the right.
And you can back away so much from
the cliff that side that you fall over
the cliff the other side.
I'll give you a little bit of news.
The devil doesn't bother.
He doesn't mind which side of the cliff
you fall over.
So long as you hit bottom.
So, the opposite cliff to the leaven of
the Pharisees, the leaven of Herod is the
leaven of worldliness.
Herod was a worldly man.
He believed in feasting and watching sensuous women
dance like even if it was his second
wife's daughter dancing.
And he enjoyed it.
He was a funny man.
You know, I'll just show you something very
funny about him.
There's something that you see in a lot
of Christians.
Mark chapter 6, we read.
Mark chapter 6.
I want you to see something here.
There were two people whom Herod liked.
One was John the Baptist, the fiery prophet.
And the other was this sensuous belly dancer
called Salome.
He liked to see both of them.
Have you seen Christians who like to hear
God's word from a fiery preacher on Sunday
morning?
And then like to watch something sensuous on
television on Monday evening?
That's Herod.
That is Herod.
See that, it says here in verse 20.
Herod was afraid of John knowing that he
was a righteous and holy man.
And he used to enjoy listening to him.
He enjoyed listening to him.
Of course, he didn't obey anything that John
the Baptist said.
The Lord told Ezekiel that in the Old
Testament.
He said to Ezekiel, don't be fooled by
all these people who come regularly to say,
oh, brother Ezekiel is preaching.
Let's go and listen to him.
Don't be fooled by all that.
You see the crowd sitting there.
You're like a man who's just singing a
nice song to them and they say, yes,
yes.
They nod their heads.
They're not going to do us.
Ok.
So we were talking about Herod.
There are people who like to enjoy fiery
preachers, who are not interested in obeying what
that fiery preacher says.
I mean, it says he was afraid of
John the Baptist.
There are people who are afraid of a
fiery prophet of God.
But that doesn't mean they are spiritual.
This is the one verse in the New
Testament which says, you can enjoy listening to
the most fiery preacher in your generation and
you may not be spiritual.
You may be as carnal as Herod.
That is the leaven of Herod.
You can fool yourself by thinking, oh, I
love that preaching.
It doesn't make you spiritual.
Because it says, at the same time, when
he gave a banquet, verse 21, it says,
verse 22, the daughter of Herodias, her name
was Salome, came in and danced and Herod
was happy with that too.
He also enjoyed, he enjoyed John the Baptist
and he enjoyed, in the Message Bible it
says, she dazzled Herod.
Herod's eyes became wide open when this belly
dancer came before.
A lot of Christians are like that.
They enjoy listening to fiery sermons on Sunday
and watching sensuous things through the week.
That's the leaven of Herod.
They don't have any standards in their life.
and if ever the Holy Spirit tries to
convict them, hey, you know, that's not good
for you to watch that movie.
Hey, get behind me Satan.
That's legalism.
I'm supposed to, I'm not a legalist.
I believe in watching movies and everything else.
You're calling the conviction of the Holy Spirit,
Satan?
No, you haven't committed the sin against the
Holy Spirit because you're doing it in ignorance.
Okay.
You're forgiven.
But, just be careful.
Just be careful that the devil doesn't fool
you with such teaching.
You know, that's the standard answer.
You see, these are people at opposite extremes.
Here are one group of people who are
always picking on rules and rules and rules
and rules and hey, this, this, this, what
about this verse?
What about that verse?
Hey, you're not obeying this.
You're not obeying that.
And then you have the opposite cliff where
people just do what they like and anything
they don't like, it's all legalism.
Fine.
What is going to be the result?
You're going to be more dazzled by the
Salomis than by the powerful, prophetic preaching of
John.
And you know what happened to Herod?
You read that he wanted to see Jesus
once.
He was, he's not only, John the Baptist,
he was excited when he heard that he's
going to get an opportunity to see Jesus.
See Luke chapter 23.
That's another thing we see over here.
Luke's gospel chapter 23.
It says here in Luke's gospel chapter 23
when Pilate, when Jesus was brought before Pilate
for judgment and they said he's stirring up
trouble and Pilate said, oh, he's a Galilean.
You know, Pilate was the type of person
who didn't want to take responsibility.
He knew that Jesus was righteous and the
Pharisees just brought him up because of jealousy.
So he said, if he's a Galilean, I'm
going to wash my hands of him.
Send him to Herod because Galilean is under
Herod's jurisdiction.
It's not mine.
So it says here, in verse 6 and
7 of Luke 23 when Pilate realized he
was a Galilean, he said that comes under
Herod's jurisdiction so he passed the buck to
Herod.
And Herod happened to be in Jerusalem for
a few days at that time.
He said, this is great.
Herod is here.
Let me pass the buck to him.
And then it says in the next verse,
verse 8, Herod was delighted when Jesus showed
up because he had wanted for a long
time to see him.
Now when you think that a person's been
waiting a long time to see Jesus, like
Simeon, the old prophet in the temple who
waited almost all his life to see the
baby Jesus, you think Herod is in the
same category because he also waited a long
time to see Jesus but his intentions were
entirely different.
Because he wanted, he'd heard so much about
him and he said, I heard there's a
magician around in town who does all types
of tricks and I'd like to see some
of these tricks.
Don't we all like to go and see
magicians doing little tricks on the stage?
And he thought of Jesus like some magician
and he said, I hope I can see
him do something spectacular.
And it says he peppered him with questions
but Jesus did not answer one word.
You know what Jesus' silence meant?
You think I'm going to speak to you
who got convicted in your heart by the
preaching of my forerunner John the Baptist and
you just chopped off his head to please
a bunch of sensuous, sex-hungry followers of
yours?
I will not answer you.
And Herod got furious.
He was mightily offended it says.
And he turned on Jesus and he got
all his soldiers joined in they taunted him
and jeered him and dressed him up like
a king and made fun of him because
he was angry that this man wouldn't dare,
wouldn't even bother to reply to him.
Oh, I love Jesus.
The dignity there was in Jesus.
He couldn't care less whether this man was
going to chop off his head as well.
He knew that his father controlled everything including
Herod.
I want to show you something else about
Herod in Acts of the Apostles, chapter 12.
See, this is the leaven of Herod.
You got a little glimpse of it as
you see.
Excited by God's Word and excited by filthy
movies at the same time.
Beware of it.
Don't think just because you are temporarily excited
on Sunday with God's Word and then that
that excuses all the other sensuousness of the
rest of the week.
The type of books you read, the type
of thoughts you indulge in, they can't be
excused just because you like to listen to
John the Baptist on Sunday morning.
Oh, that doesn't excuse anything.
So we read in Acts of the Apostles,
chapter 12 that there was some problem there
between two groups of people in Tyre and
Sidon.
You read about it in verse 20 onwards.
And so they got friendly with the king's
right hand man called Blastus and asked him
to put in a good word for them.
They got a delegation together to iron things
out because they needed food from Judea.
So they couldn't afford to let this problem
go on for long.
So one day they arranged for a meeting
and Herod robed in his pomposity, took his
place on the throne and regaled them.
I like this paraphrase.
He regaled them with a lot of hot
air.
He regaled them with a lot of hot
air.
You know, empty words.
And the people, they played their part.
You know, these people from Tyre and Sidon,
they'd be told, listen, whatever he says, he's
a dumb guy, he's going to say all
types of stupid things, but just say, hey,
this is the voice of a God.
They'd be trained.
And the people heard all these stupid things.
They'd say, ah, this is the voice of
God.
We've never heard anything like this.
And that was the last straw.
God had had enough of Herod's arrogance and
sent an angel to strike him down right
there.
Herod did not give God credit for anything
in his life.
The mark of the leaven of Herod.
We don't humbly acknowledge that everything we have
is from God.
Our intelligence is from God.
If you have spirituality, it's from God.
You don't boast about it.
Your Bible knowledge is from God.
Your gifts of the Holy Spirit are from
God.
Your preaching ability is from God.
If you've done well and successful in business
or in your profession, that was God.
The money you earned is not your money.
It's what God enabled you to earn.
That's giving credit to God.
For everything.
Lord, this is not mine.
This is not mine.
Everything is Yours.
He wasn't a humble man.
People who got the leaven of Herod are
not humble.
And because he didn't give God credit for
anything, down he went.
Rotten to the core.
A maggoty old man, if ever there was
one.
The maggots began to eat him.
And he died.
Don't be a maggoty old man or a
maggoty old woman.
You know, I've had the rare privilege sometimes
of seeing some of God's sweetest saints, 80
years old, 85 years old, serving God from
the time they were 15, 20, sweet, gracious,
godly, humble, separated from the world and living
for God.
And I said, Lord, I want to be
like that when I'm an old man.
Kind, gracious, never complaining about anything.
And then I've seen other people who are
grumpy, sour, demanding when they're in hospital, they
curse the nurses, they want this, they want
that.
Boy, that's another type of warning.
Lord, please don't ever let me grow old
like that.
Watch it.
Look around you at the older people.
You see two types.
There are very few of the godly type.
And if you want to be that godly
type, make sure you're a sweet person today.
That you grow into it.
You know, as we grow older, some of
our ability to control ourselves goes.
You know how people get sick and they
can't control their bladder.
And they have to have bags and things
like that because they can't control their bladder.
There are other things we can't control.
We can't control many things which we can
control when we're 20, 30.
It comes out.
Words come out of our mouth which we
can't control, which we could control earlier.
And I'll tell you that, when you get
old, if you have not cleansed your heart
a lot of things are going to come
out of your mouth which will show what
you really were like all the time.
All that worldliness and filth and sensuousness.
I mean, I know one brother who told
me about an 80 year old man who
was still having a trouble with the lust
of his eyes.
I mean, one would think that by the
time he's 80, even natural desire has died
out.
But he's stoked with the flames of passion.
He wants to watch all this filthy stuff
in movies to provoke his passion.
How is he like that when he was
80?
I don't know, 80 or 85.
And he admitted it.
That's because he was not careful when he
was 25.
He was not careful when he was 35.
He was not careful when he was 45.
He was not careful when he was 55.
You go on like that, like that.
I'll tell you when you're 85, you won't
be able to control it.
You'll just be a lustful, filthy, old sex
maniac.
Because in the days when God gave you
the power to control it and you didn't
seek Him for the power of the Holy
Spirit, you just let go.
There are people like that who get angry,
who are sour and critical.
Yeah, many of them may realize it later.
Some of them may realize, some don't, but
this critical, grumpy spirit.
Watch it.
Worldliness.
Be careful that you are not one of
those who loves to listen to God's prophets
on Sunday and becomes sensuous watching Salome the
rest of the week and seeking glory for
yourself.
You'll become a maggoty old man or woman.
The third.
The third is the 11 of the Sadducees.
Now the Sadducees were the people who didn't
believe in miracles.
Jesus spoke, we read about them in Matthew
chapter 22.
They didn't believe in the resurrection.
And they say there is no resurrection.
And we also read in another passage, they
didn't believe in angels and spirits and all
that.
In other words, these are the Christians who
don't believe in miracles.
You know, the day of miracles is over,
they say.
Well, God doesn't do miracles today.
That was all in the first century.
It's all over.
Speaking in tongues, that was way in the
first century.
It's not today.
God doesn't do miracles today.
There are lots of believers like that.
I mean, they are not legalists.
They are not worldly.
They are good Christians who come to Sunday
morning and listen to God's Word.
But when they have a problem, they don't
have a God who can help them solve
that problem.
They only wonder whether there is a human
being who can help them.
Is there a doctor who can help me
perhaps?
Is there an influential politician or police officer
who can help me solve this problem?
But God, God doesn't help people in any
way these days.
That's the leaven of the Sadducees.
No belief in miracles.
They don't believe in angels, spirits.
Anybody talks about some mighty thing God did,
they take it with a pinch of salt.
You've got explanations for that.
Christians like that.
You know, all types of funny things they
say.
I've heard people say, how did Jesus feed
the 5,000?
Well, somebody said, it's not the ordinary size
loaves that we see these days.
You know, when he speaks about 5 loaves,
it doesn't tell us the size of the
loaves.
Oh, I see.
That's how he fed the 5,000.
Can you imagine this little boy carrying this
huge loaves, massive fish.
I mean, anything to explain away the miracles.
And there's another explanation for that.
Somebody said, well, you know, when all these
selfish miserly 5,000 people saw this little
boy unselfishly opening his packet, they took out
their secret packets from there.
They all had secret packets.
And that's how they were all fed.
Don't be a person who doesn't believe in
miracles.
I believe there are things in your life
that God could have solved perhaps, if you
have trusted him a little more.
This 11.
You know, you gradually hear, nothing happens, nothing
happens, God doesn't do anything, God doesn't do
anything.
And gradually, you begin to feel that, well,
we got to just take, watch out for
ourselves.
There isn't anybody else watching out for us.
I tell you, there is a God in
heaven who never slumbers or sleeps.
I thank God for that.
I thank God for the angels who protect
me when I'm on the roads, especially the
roads of Bangalore.
I thank God.
Multiple angels, not just one.
I mean, as the traffic increases, I think
more angels are required on the streets in
Bangalore than in the villages.
Sure.
To keep that other car and get that
fellow to brake, because otherwise you'll have a
collision.
Oh, it's happened to me numerous times.
I believe in miracles.
I remember when my children were growing up
in our home and there would be problems,
physical problems, school problems.
Boy, I said, God can solve that problem.
My wife and I would kneel down and
we've always done it.
Whenever we've had a...
Whenever our children had a problem or a
sickness, if they were ever sick, I'd lay
my hands on them and say, in Jesus'
name, they've got to be healed.
Not because I'm not a healer, I don't
have any healing gift, but I'm a father.
And you're fathers.
God tells you to lay your hand on
your child and pray for that child in
the name of Jesus that that problem will
be solved.
Do you think God gives sicknesses to people?
I ask this question.
Which father will give sickness to his children?
I've never met a father like that.
I say, can you say that at least
God is a better father than you?
Don't ever say when a sickness comes to
you, it's from God.
There can be other causes, but it's not
from God.
It's because we live in a sin-cursed
earth.
It's probably from the devil.
But whatever it is, it's not from God.
And so, therefore, I've got God on my
side against it.
That's the thing that encourages me.
We keep praying.
Are you facing a difficult problem?
Don't have the leaven of the Sadducees in
you that says, Oh, what's going to happen?
Poor me.
What do you mean poor me?
Have you got a father in heaven?
Or not?
I love that story of the two little
birds.
You've often heard me say it.
One bird telling the other, Why are these
human beings always so worried with their brow
furrowed like that, anxious?
Birds are watching us, you know.
And the other bird says, Well, I think
probably they don't have a heavenly father like
you and I have.
That's why we can sing and we're happy.
They can sing and they're happy because have
you ever seen a bird going around like
this?
Particularly the larks and the nightingales, they sing.
They wake you up in the morning sometimes
with these sweet little songs.
They're happy.
They don't know where they get the food
from for the day.
They don't have a bank account, but they're
happy because they've got a father in heaven
who cares for them.
What about you and me?
Aren't we better than the birds?
God is a God who does miracles.
There's a resurrection.
I believe in a resurrection of the righteous
and of the wicked.
That's why I want to live a holy
life.
Paul said, I have hope that there will
be a resurrection of the wicked and the
righteous.
Therefore I keep my conscience clear.
I'll show you that verse in closing.
Acts of the Apostles.
Chapter 23 Sorry, 22.
Sorry, 24.
Right.
Acts of the Apostles, chapter 24.
In verse 15 and 16.
I have a hope which these people also
cherish.
There will certainly be, verse 15 of Acts
24.
There will certainly be a resurrection of the
righteous and the wicked.
Sadducees didn't believe that.
Now, if you say you believe that, therefore,
I do my best to keep my conscience
absolutely clear before God and before men.
If I hurt somebody, I go and immediately
ask an apology.
You ask me why?
Because I believe there's going to be a
resurrection of the righteous.
I want to be in that crowd.
That's why I'm apologizing right now.
When husbands and wives have problems, I ask
them one question.
I've asked some of you that question.
Does your wife ever apologize to you?
Does your husband ever apologize to you?
Okay, mistakes all of us do.
But do they ever apologize?
And sadly, in many cases, the answer is
yes.
They sometimes feel sorry and they ask forgiveness.
But sadly, sometimes the answer is no, brother.
I have never once heard her saying I'm
sorry.
That was my mistake.
Please forgive me.
I say, like the doctors say, call the
relatives.
Inform everybody.
There's no hope.
Well, you don't have to be like that.
You don't have to be like that.
God can do a wonderful work in you.
Believe in the resurrection.
There's going to be a resurrection.
Keep your conscience clear.
Believe that God can do a miracle for
you.
Don't let this leaven of unbelief spread and
destroy your life.
Shall we bow our heads for a moment?
Think of the things that Jesus told us
to beware of.
Your particular problem may be one of these
three areas and not all three.
And whichever thing God has spoken to you
about, very often we think, oh, that's not
my problem.
Maybe it isn't.
But maybe the other two are your problem.
You need to identify the leaven which is
in your life.
You don't have to worry about the leaven
in somebody else's life.
Leave them to God.
God is able to deal with them.
Find out what's the leaven in your life.
And deal with that.
Say, Lord, I don't want any of these
three leavens in my life.
Heavenly Father, help us each one.
In Jesus' name.