"Beware of the leaven {teaching} of the Pharisees"- Jesus is speaking against the main religious establishment of that day. There are many followers of Christ allowing those of the religious establishment to define what following God should look like in terms of deeds, perspectives, convictions, disciplines, and routines. The system has failed. It hasn't produced in us the capacity to be disciples that effectively live as the Lord wills. And many do not hear the voice of God in trueness.
As God tears down the walls of spiritual idolatry, the worshippers of this counterfeit system will argue and justify themselves using scripture. It will not go quietly. But it seeks its own. Look around... are needs getting met?
It isn't enough to float along stroking our spiritual ideas. That doesn't demonstrate the extent of God's Kingdom. Jesus wept for people. But today, if He came to our churches, much of the words He would say would be dismissed. Because they've already been replaced by man's ideas of what Christianity should be like!
Religious people in Jesus' day shook their scrolls of truth in the face of the One who was the Truth. And then... they killed Him.
This proves that no matter how cleverly cloaked SELF is, it cannot co-exist with real true spirituality. We have set up a graven image before God, and dressed it in religious clothing- and God is about to bring it all down.
John 5:39-44
John 8:37-47
John 9:39-41
John 10:1-9
