The Anti-Model of Spiritual Leadership B

When you look at your ministry as a servant of God, you look not only at the positive, but you look at the negative. The positive model as we've seen Paul, Timothy, Epaphroditus, the negative as we've seen these men. We are reminded that God has called us to authenticity, simplicity, all those good things. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. It would be nice if there were no need for laws, courts, peace officers, if everyone on the planet did to others as they'd have others do to them. Unfortunately, that's not the case here this side of heaven, and even among those who should mostly resemble heaven on earth, the church. So today, John MacArthur looks to the standards Christ established for policing the church, if you will. It's a message about the lessons you can learn from the anti-models of spiritual leadership.

The title of John's current series, Heaven's Heroes. So take your Bible. If you're able, turn to Matthew chapter 23 and follow along with John MacArthur. There have always been false shepherds. There have always been those who are of great danger to the people of God. Jesus said, beware of the wolves in sheep's clothing. But of all of the portions of Scripture that deal with these false teachers, none is more poignant, none is more direct, none puts them in clearer focus, and none is more penetratingly full of judgment than Matthew 23. It is the Passover season.

Jesus will soon be at the cross in just a matter of days. He has gone into the temple. In the temple, He has entered into conflict with the religious leaders, namely the scribes and the Pharisees. The Pharisees were the legalistic sect of Jews who believed in salvation by works. I'll give you six marks of false spiritual leaders that will be a guide for you today as much as they were then. Number one, false spiritual leaders, false preachers and teachers lack authenticity.

They lack authenticity. Verse 2 says, the scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the seat of Moses or the chair of Moses. The point is, they put themselves there.

There's no call of God here. Secondly, they are indicted in regard to their character not only because they lacked authenticity, but they lacked simplicity. And this is alluded to in verse 3. It says, therefore, all that they tell you do and observe. Third thing that they lacked, they lacked integrity.

Please note verse 3 again. Do not do according to their deeds, for they say and do not do. They lack integrity. They say, but they don't do. Fourthly, they lack sympathy.

Please notice verse 4. They tie up heavy loads and lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger. They load up the burdens.

The picture here is of a man who has unmercifully loaded his beast of burden with assorted loads on his back. Number five, they lack spirituality. Verse 5 says, they do all their deeds to be noticed by men, for they broaden their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments.

This was sheer external show. They had no spirituality. You know what it says in Jude 19? They were devoid of the Holy Spirit. And one more virtue they lacked. Number six, they lack humility. They lack humility. Verse 6, they love the place of honor at banquets and the chief seats in the synagogues.

Now, what have we seen? Six characteristics of a false spiritual leader. He lacks authenticity, simplicity, integrity, sympathy, spirituality and humility. And all you have to do to find out what a spiritual leader should be is flip that over. What should be the characteristic of a true spiritual leader? Authenticity.

What does that mean? Called by God. Strong sense of divine call. Confirmation by the church. Affirmation by the church of his giftedness and of his moral character and virtue and godliness.

Secondly, simplicity. We should be characterized as those who are totally committed to and bound by the parameters of the revealed Word of the living God. That is the beginning and the end of our message. Integrity.

What does that mean? That the true spiritual leader will live what he preaches, live what he says. That's integrity. Integrity means wholeness. An integer is a whole number. That's where that word comes from. It's not a fraction. Wholeness.

All the parts are touching. No inconsistencies. Integrity. We are also to be marked by sympathy. Those of us who serve Jesus Christ with authenticity, those who serve in simplicity with integrity are to be also sympathetic. We are to be like Jesus of whom it is so wonderfully said by the prophet and then quoted again in Matthew 12 that a bruised reed he will not break and smoking flax he will not extinguish.

Do you understand the beauty of that statement? A shepherd would take a little reed and he would use it to play a little tune. But because he would use it over and over again, his saliva would eventually weaken it and it would get soft and it would begin to kind of be crushed and it wouldn't blow the tune properly. And so, he would break it and throw it away.

And there was very often a wick that would be burning in an oil lamp and the wick would get down to the very end and it wouldn't burn with a flame that would light. It would just smolder with smoke. And the bruised reed would be thrown away and the smoking flax would be thrown away. It's discarding the frail things. Jesus comes along and it is said of him, the bruised reed he will not break and the smoking flax he will not extinguish.

Just the opposite. He will strengthen the bruised and he will give light back to the flickering. That's the ministry of compassion, the ministry of sympathy, the ministry of gentleness that characterizes the true shepherd. And then, fifthly, we are to be marked by spirituality. Our life is not a life of outward show, but our life is a life of inward power. It is not that we enlarge the outward stuff. It is not what we look like on the outside.

It is not a pious appearance. It is a heart controlled by the Spirit of God, basic things. And finally, humility. As opposed to the ugly pride of the false preachers and teachers, we are to have an evident inward manifest meekness, meekness.

That's it. We who are those that God has called are to be the gifted, the ones set apart by God, not self-appointed, the ones who seek to serve, not to be served, the ones who are faithful in the stewardship of our life and ministry to the sacred trust of Scripture, the ones who are not inventing their own ideas or giving their own opinions, the ones who are faithful to feed the flock, not fleece the flock, the ones who seek by the manifest meekness and gentleness of Christ not to abuse the flock but to comfort and encourage the flock, the ones who seek no honor for self but honor only for Christ, the ones who do not preach what they will not live but the ones who live what they preach, shepherds who know their humility will make them useful, and shepherds who understand that neither they nor their flock are their own but God's. Then, verse 13, we come to the break. And from here on, we have not the character of these spiritual leaders but the condemnation.

And I'm just going to touch on this lightly, but listen very carefully, for the power of this is great. Jesus condemns them, and He condemns them for eight sins that they perpetrate because of this kind of character. Character cannot be isolated from conduct. And this is their conduct which leads to their condemnation. The first thing to note is they are cursed. Each of those curses begins with the word woe. In the Greek, that's an interesting word. It's got all vowels in it.

It's wai. It's onomatopoeic. It's a groan at best. It expresses grief, sorrow, pain, despair, and that's its point.

It's as if Christ is saying wah in sadness and despair as He thinks about their imminent judgment. And what is the false teacher going to be judged for? First, exclusion. Exclusion. Exclusion. Verse 13, but woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from men, for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. Exclusion.

What do I mean? They keep people out of the kingdom. That is the damning heresies that they propagate. They bar the gates of heaven and open wide the mouth of hell, do they not?

They are guilty of the sin of exclusion. They keep people out of the kingdom. A frightening contradiction in spiritual service, for we are they who are to lead people into the kingdom. That's why Jesus in all the ministry that He had with His disciples and in the 40 days after His resurrection, Acts 1 says, spoke to them of things pertaining to the kingdom.

Why? Because theirs was a kingdom gathering ministry. These false teachers exclude people from the kingdom.

They aren't in it and they bar the gates to those they influence. Secondly, they're guilty of the sin of exploitation. While there is some discussion about verse 14's inclusion in the text, we'll look at it and accept it as being here. It says, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you devour widows' houses even while for a pretense you make long prayers.

Therefore you shall receive greater condemnation. You come off as this pious, long praying, spiritual person and you take advantage of widows. You are an exploiting person. Exploitation. Taking advantage of poor people, taking advantage of people in need, taking money from widows. Would you say that's still characteristic of false teachers?

You better believe it. According to the statistics that I have seen, and I forget the exact figure, the majority of dollars being sent to the typical false teachers that are moving around this country are coming from older women, many of them over 60 years of age, many of them in a widowed situation. And that is a vile sin for one who offers himself as the servant of God come to meet people's needs, to exploit them for personal vice sake. Thirdly, they're guilty of the sin of perversion, not only exclusion and exploitation, but perversion.

Verse 15, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel about on sea and land to make one proselyte, or one convert. And when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves. He comes in as a convert and becomes a pervert. The point is this, you corrupt everybody that comes to you. Yours is not a proper ministry of conversion, it's a ministry of perversion.

You don't make converts, you make perverts. Somebody who comes to you, and let's face it, false teachers attract the broken, the hurting, the suffering, the questioning, the doubting, the struggling people, the weak-willed people, the people who have all kinds of problems they can't solve, who are struggling with the exigencies of life, and they bring them in and instead of bringing them to the true God, they make them perverts twice as much the children of hell as they themselves are. What is a child of hell?

One whose character and deeds cause him to deserve hell. Fourthly, they're guilty of subversion. Verse 16 and following simply describes how they had invented this system of swearing, you know, and they wanted to lie is basically the bottom line. They wanted to lie, but they knew but they knew it was a very serious thing to lie.

So they developed a subversive system of lying based upon oaths. And it got as complex as this, verse 16, you say whoever swears by the temple, that's nothing, but whoever swears by the gold of the temple, he's obligated. So let's say a guy wants you to make him a promise and you don't want to keep the promise. So you say, I swear by the temple to keep that promise. Well, you don't have to keep that because according to the system, swearing by the temple, you don't have to keep, it's like having your fingers crossed behind your back when you're six years old and you tell your friend you'll do something you know you're not going to do.

And when he says you didn't do it, you said, yeah, but I have my fingers crossed. It's the same kind of system. So they had some things that were binding to swear by, some things that were not binding, and you could lie through your teeth all you wanted and as long as you were swearing by something that was non-binding, it was okay. So what they had done was subverted God's truth by developing a system that permitted them to live in sin and not violate categorically their defined moral code. So they're condemned for exclusion, exploitation, perversion, subversion. Number five, inversion.

Turning something inside out, that's inversion. Look at verse 23. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. You tithe mint and dill and cumin. You say, what's that? Herbs. You know what a mint leaf is? They said if we have ten mint leaves, we give one to the temple. Good for you. If we have ten dill seeds, we give one to the temple. Oh, that's good.

Wonderful. But the problem is you have neglected the weightier provisions of the law, justice and mercy and faithfulness. I mean, those are the big things. You've turned it all inside out. You pay no attention to justice, mercy and faithfulness, but you're counting seeds of kitchen herbs used to spice your dinner.

Ludicrous. Making little things big and big things insignificant. Reversing the divine patterns, the divine priorities.

Really a sad thing to think about. They neglected the things that really mattered, paid attention to the things that didn't matter at all. He says you should take care of the little things, but not neglect the other things. They don't matter morally.

They're not even an issue. That really showed up in the incident in the book of Matthew where Jesus says, you're supposed to take care of your parents, the Sermon on the Mount. But when it comes time to give to your parents, you say, oh, it's carbon. It's carbon.

Sorry. What does that mean? Carbon means devoted to God.

What do they say that for? Oh, I've already pledged it to God. I've already pledged it to God. I can't give it to them.

You heartless, merciless person. You won't even meet your parents' needs and you piously say, oh, I've devoted it to God. I've devoted it to God. And the implication is, in so saying, you devoted it to God, swore you'd give it to God, only you swore by the temple, which didn't count. So you have no intention of giving it to God, you phony. But that's what they were into. Inversion of the divine priority. He says, you blind guides who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel. Do you know they literally did that?

Not the second half, but the first half? Do you know that some of them were so afraid of taking in a dead insect into their body because of the law that they had prescribed that there is evidence to indicate that when they drank wine, they would suck it through their teeth like this so they could strain off on their teeth the gnats. Now there were gnats in wine because there were gnats on grapes, and when they made the grapes and things like that, they might get crushed in there. So they would suck it like this and they'd pick the gnats off their teeth. So the Lord says, you strain out the gnats and then you swallow a camel.

Very vivid. Then verse 25, extortion. Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.

You clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of robbery and self-indulgence. Would you please note that is so characteristic of false teachers, they are robbers. The Greek word is arpage. It means rapists, plunderers. It's the word for pillaging, raping, plundering. It's not a term for, you know, the stealthy thief who comes in the night and takes something out you don't know he's been. It's the marauder, the plunderer, the rapist, the brigand.

So they look so scrupulous and clean on the outside. They are rapers. They are robbers. They are plunderers. And because of your extortion, because you've done so much harm to others for the sake of self-indulgence, you are robbers for self-indulgence sake. Verse 26 says, you blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish so the outside of it may become clean also.

Start from the inside out. Number seven, they are condemned for deception. Verse 27, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you're like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Even so, you too outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

This is very vivid. There are tombs all over Jerusalem. This is Passover.

Lots of people in the city, very crowded, very pressed together. Lots of strangers in the city who might not know where the tombs were. So typically, each year before Passover, they went through the city and whitewashed all the tombs because to touch a tomb was to become unclean.

You didn't want to become unclean at Passover, obviously. So they would go around and whitewash all the tombs at the Passover time so that the people coming into the city would be able to see them and not touch them. And so, he is looking at that very moment in the temple, perhaps, and he can see the tomb.

Certainly, if he was able to see out the backside of the Temple Mount, he could see that the Mount of Olives would be a place where there were tombs. We know that. But, nonetheless, he is simply saying, you look white and shiny and bright and pure and clean on the outside. The fact is, on the inside, you are full of dead men's bones, rotten, vile, decaying flesh. Deception. You will be condemned for your deception. You have deceived people. You have deluded people and then, lastly, pretension. They are guilty of deception, as well as extortion, as well as inversion, subversion, perversion, exploitation, exclusion.

The last word, pretension. Verse 29, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. You build the tombs of the prophets.

You adorn the monuments of the righteous. And you say, if we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets. We're not like them. Oh, we're much better than our forefathers. They pretend to be better than they are.

They pretend to be so holy, so sanctimonious, better than their fathers. You can trust us. Oh, there have been false leaders in the past, false prophets in the past. You can trust us. We represent God. Listen, don't believe it.

They aren't better than the past. Evil men, says Paul to Timothy, will grow worse and worse. And how does Jesus respond to that?

He responds like this. Verse 31, you bear witness against yourselves that you are the sons of those who murdered the prophets. How did they do that? How did they give testimony that they were worse than their forefathers?

I'll tell you why. Their forefathers killed the servants of God. These guys were about to kill whom? The Son of God. And so in 32, he says, fill up then the measure of the guilt of your fathers. Complete it.

Go ahead. And he's really saying, take my life. Take my life. And then he closes our little section. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how shall you escape the sentence of hell?

Very serious. Now, let me conclude very quickly. When you look at your ministry as a servant of God, you look not only at the positive, but you look at the negative. The positive model as we've seen Paul, Timothy, Epaphroditus, the negative as we've seen these men. We are reminded that God has called us to authenticity, simplicity, all those good things that we noted. We are reminded that God has called us not to keep people out of the kingdom, but to bring them in.

He has called us not to be abusive and debilitating and cruel to people, but to care for the poor and needy. Not to contaminate our followers, but to make them pure and holy as they follow our pattern. Not to create a subversive kind of religious code that undermines biblical truth, but to uphold biblical truth. Not to reverse the divine order of priority, but to emphasize the weightier matters of God's law, not the minute things.

Not to extort and use and abuse people, not to extort and use and abuse people, but to give our life in their behalf. Not to contaminate everybody who touches us with the putridness of our own life, but to make those holy who come near and certainly not to pretend to be something that we're not. May God make us faithful, one, to recognize the false and to respect the true and to help us through this particular portion to see what we should be. Let's bow together in prayer.

Father, we do ask that you would move in us. Help us to say yes to your Holy Spirit as He calls us to a life of faithful service. Whether we be pastors, lay leaders, deacons, workers in the church, faithful Christians, Lord, help us. Help us to be all that you wanted us to be. When you gave this message and no doubt, by contrast, we're showing the disciples what we've seen today. Don't be like this.

On the other hand, be the opposite. Help us to be faithful so that you might use us to your glory. In Jesus' name, amen.

You're listening to John MacArthur, chancellor of the Master's University and Seminary, showing you the anti-model of spiritual leadership. Today's lesson on grace to you is from the series Heaven's Heroes. John, as you consider Jesus' judgment of the scribes and Pharisees, you made a point near the end that we don't want listeners to overlook, and it's this. We actually should be learning from bad examples. That is to say, we need to take away lessons from the exemplary lives in the Bible and also from the lives that aren't so exemplary. Well, of course, yes, we learn the danger and the disaster of sin and its consequence. I mean, you can go through the Old Testament and you can find story after story after story of the anti-heroes and what fell on them by way of judgment because of their sinfulness. But as we draw a conclusion today to our series, we have been looking at the positive examples. We've been looking at Heaven's heroes. And God not only provides us with instruction for living, principles for living, but in the Scripture, He's given us living examples and models that we can follow. This study points us to those examples that lead us to be what God wants us to be, lead us, for example, to be a more godly mother, a more joyful and sacrificial friend, a more focused and sympathetic spouse, more willing to take risks for the kingdom. You need to know who to follow, who to imitate, and that's why we've done this study.

It gives you some examples that you can genuinely follow. Let me remind you, you can download the series for free from gty.org, or a five-CD album is also available. If that works best for you to have the CDs, you can order them today. Also, remember the books we've mentioned through the series, Twelve Extraordinary Women, One Faithful Life, and Twelve Unlikely Heroes. The books are reasonably priced. Order yours today and be sure to download the Heaven's Heroes study from our website.

Thanks, Jon. And friend, you can order a copy of the books Jon mentioned, One Faithful Life and Twelve Unlikely Heroes. And by the way, these might make great Christmas gifts. To download the entire Heaven's Heroes series, contact us today. Or to order the books, contact us. You can call us at 855-GRACE, 730 to 4 o'clock Pacific Time, or you can shop online at gty.org.

One Faithful Life costs $17, and Twelve Unlikely Heroes is $10. Again, to place your order, call 855-GRACE or visit our website at gty.org. And remember, you can download all five sermons from the Heaven's Heroes series free of charge in MP3 and transcript format at gty.org. And thanks for remembering that this broadcast is here each day because of faithful friends like you, listeners who are benefiting from this daily Bible teaching. If that describes you, let us know that you're praying and listening. And if you'd like to partner with us financially, which is very important at year's end, mail your tax-deductible donation to Grace To You, Post Office Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412. Or call 800-55-GRACE or donate online at gty.org. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Be sure to watch Grace To You television this Sunday, DirecTV channel 378, and be here on Monday when John starts a series of some of his most popular Christmas sermons. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time on Grace To You.