You strain out a gnat and swallow a camel (Mt 23:24) Jesus used this proverb in His last sermon while rebuking the hypocritical religion of His day which emphasized the externals and evaded the essentials. Gnats were perhaps smallest among flies. The camel was the largest land animal in Palestine and ritually unclean. Jesus is seen terribly angry in the entire 23rd chapter of Matthew. He pronounces woe atleast eight times. He addressed the religious leaders as hypocrites, blind guides and fools. Todays Christianity is not much different from the Jewish religion of Christs day. We can only follow what our leaders preach and not what they practise (Mt 23:3). The leaders are hard on people but soft on themselves (v4). They wear special dresses for recognition (v5). They are after titles and positions (vv 6-12). When the leaders stop growing in the things of God, they would block the growth of the people also (v13). Preachers rob widows and the suffering using their prayers (v14). Pastors are more anxious about the numerical growth of their congregations than the spiritual health of the members (v15). Rituals and traditions are more important than realities and truth (vv 16-22). Pastors will be displeased with believers who dont pay tithes, but they will not motivate them for social work and charity (v23). And so on. If Jesus were here to preach in our Churches, I imagine He would say something like this: Woe to you hypocrites! You think that flash photography and video-shooting inside the Church building will desecrate it, but seek police protection for your committee meetings! ... Woe to you hypocrites! You preach against wearing of jewels, but hoard money in banks for three generations!... The touch-not...taste-not...handle-not religion is alien to New Testament Christianity (Col 2:21). Eventhough the Israelites had come out of Egypt, Egypt had not come out of them. So it is with us. Christ has delivered us from the Law and brought us into His glorious liberty through His death (Gal 5:1). But we are still embracing legalism and living the Old Testament life in the New Testament era. Legalism blinds us so much that we cannot see even a big animal like camel! We would be living in self-deception that we are so strict even about a matter so small as a gnat! More purity give me, more strength to oercome; More freedom from earth-stains, more longings for Home; More fit for the Kingdom, more used would I be, More blessed and holy, more, Saviour, like Thee! (Philip P. Bliss, 1838-1876, an associate of D.L. Moody) stanleyonbible/dd/10/1021.htm
Posted on: Mon, 21 Oct 2013 05:23:48 +0000
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