March 5 2025

Wednesday March 05

Religious Deception

Luke 11:37-44

37 And as He spoke, a certain Pharisee asked Him to dine with him. So He went in and sat down to eat. 38 When the Pharisee saw it, he marveled that He had not first washed before dinner. 39 Then the Lord said to him, "Now you Pharisees make the outside of the cup and dish clean, but your inward part is full of greed and wickedness. 40 Foolish ones! Did not He who made the outside make the inside also? 41 But rather give alms of such things as you have; then indeed all things are clean to you. 42 But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass by justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. 43 Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. 44 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like graves which are not seen, and the men who walk over them are not aware of them."

As we look at this passage in Luke 11:37-54, we need to remember the setting Jesus was in where He is declaring judgment, the six “woes”, upon the Pharisees and religious lawyers, who are also called scribes. In verse 35, Jesus had just made the public statement, “Therefore take heed that the light which is in you is not darkness.” It was then that a Pharisee invited Jesus to come into his house and dine with him. He was hoping to catch Jesus saying or doing something so that he could accuse Him of breaking the Law of Moses and then he could expose Jesus as a false prophet or teacher.

This morning, I couldn’t help but think how that Jesus not only accepted the invitation, but when He is in this Pharisee’s house sitting at this meal with him that Jesus pronounces these stinging words of judgment upon all the Pharisees. When Jesus didn’t wash His hands before He ate, the Pharisee immediately was thinking that if Jesus was a true prophet he would not have broken the Law of Moses and traditional teaching of the lawyers.

It is then that the Lord gives this message exposing the hypocrisy of the religious leaders of His day. The religious Pharisees and lawyers claimed to have the truth and the light of God because of their “knowledge” of the Old Testament Scriptures. But they needed to “take heed” that the light they have is not darkness”. In Jesus first recorded message in Matthew 6:23, He said, “But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” 

We should take heed also! The greatest darkness is a “religious” darkness. To be deceived into thinking and believing that our religion of good deeds of “righteousness” that we can do, will save us. Remember what Paul wrote in Romans 10:1-4: “Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”

Religion and Bible knowledge without Jesus Christ is what the Pharisees of both Jesus’ and Paul’s day had as they sought “to establish their own righteousness”.  What a powerful message for us today! We can know the Bible forward and backward and attempt to keep it in our own way and strength, and think we are “right” with God. Paul would also write in 2 Corinthians 3:6: “Who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” Yes, trying to keep “letter of the Law” in our own strength brings both deception and death.

There is no greater deception than religious and self-deception! In James 1, we are warned about this kind of deception in several verses. James says this kind of religion is empty, vain, useless! This is basically a warning to believers who have the Bible but are not practicing the love of God in caring for the poor, helpless, widows and orphans. We look into the mirror of God’s Word, but we refuse to clean up the inside and we become hypocrites and at the same time think that we are “right” with God.

A good verse to end with today is found in 2 Corinthians 5:21: “For He (God) made Him (Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” Let’s make sure we are trusting in a personal relationship with Jesus and His salvation and His imputed righteousness and not an outward religion of “right” deeds and good works!

God bless!