The Feasts which God has ordained for us to keep are times which are very significant in the plan of God (Exodus 23:14–17). We read that the first Passover of the Old Testament came right on schedule. Exodus 12:41 says, “Right to the day, after four hundred and thirty years, it came to pass.” The crucifixion of Christ occurred at the time of the Passover; and we realize that Christ, our Passover Lamb, had to be crucified on that occasion (I Corinthians 5:7; Romans 5:6). But note also that the preparation for that event had gone on for some time before. The Scriptures tell us that when the day of Pentecost was fully come, the blessing fell (Acts 2:1–4). But again, the preparation for that event had gone on for some time before. God has a set schedule, but He prepares the hearts of His people ahead of time so that those who experience it are ready for it.
When God does move, there are always those whom He has tried to prepare, and they see Him weeping: “Oh, how often I would have gathered you together, but you did not know the day of your visitation” (Matthew 23:37–38; Luke 19:41–44). We are witnessing one of the most disastrous things that could ever happen to anyone. This has happened to many people. They love God in a sense, but they have been caught and sucked into the persecution, and a root of pharisaism has sprung up within them which has lent itself to their condemning the Living Word. This is very important to us right now, for there has never been a time in which the line has been so clearly drawn between those who have a revelation of the Living Word, and those who do not.
The period between the Feast of Passover and the Feast of Pentecost has been significant to us for a number of years. I was reminded recently that since the beginning of this walk in the Spirit, the Lord has consistently met me between Passover and Pentecost. When we look into the Scriptures, we see that this is a true principle: The time between Passover and Pentecost generally begins with a positioning of God’s people to walk in what was provided for them at Passover. In this way, we have been prepared by the Passover teachings that have come to us. One significant series of messages we have called “The Search for Leaven”*; and that is what it has really become for us. The message was, “Get rid of the leaven. Get rid of the leaven!” Now we are seeing that God has begun to deal with those who did not respond to the Word; and the pharisee leaven in our midst is very definitely being judged (Matthew 16:6). This line of demarcation is drawn. We do not understand the full extent of it yet, but we will see it unfold.
The Pentecost at the beginning of the Kingdom Age initiates our proclaiming of the Gospel of the Kingdom to the ends of the world (Acts 1:8), just as it did at the Pentecost in Acts 2. It also marks an end of the Judas spirit. It is time for the anointing to fall upon the Matthias in our midst. Matthias was with Jesus and the disciples from the beginning (Acts 1:15–26); but he was just one of the little “Timothys” who had walked unnoticed until the moment that he had to step into the shoes of the arrogant Judas who had carried the money bag and controlled the commercial interests of the disciples (John 13:29).
How Judas would have loved to make Christ’s ministry a very commercial religion! The Word says that Judas was a thief (John 12:6). Are not all religious leaders tempted to be thieves? It is easy for a person who is a religious leader to become a thief, because he either touches the gold or he touches the glory. He takes it away from what God wants.
If any trace of the pharisees’ leaven remains in you, get rid of it! Heed this carefully, because nothing can be more disastrous to walking with God than pharisaism. Pharisaism can hold to the letter of religion, with the insistence upon tradition and the honoring of all the great leaders and prophets who have gone before (Matthew 23:29); yet pharisees absolutely refuse either to walk in the truth themselves, or to let anyone else walk in it (Matthew 23:13). They shut the door to others. Most likely, Christ would have ignored the Pharisees if they had not been so vehement in shutting the door to the little sheep who wanted the Word. This, of course, is the leaven of the pharisees. It is a leaven, a thing that spoils.
The Pharisees had a way of shutting people out. But they did more than that; they poisoned them with that leaven of self-righteousness, religious arrogance, and position. It is significant that we have gone through a period in which the Lord has dealt with the leaven. We have also experienced a time when He has dealt with position. The truth is that the two are tied together; for wherever you find the leaven of pharisaism, you also find the arrogance of position that does not humble itself.
There are none in this world so deaf to the voice of God as those who are arrogant. It takes a lot of humility to hear. A man cannot always tell what is coming if he stands on a high peak. But the Indians knew how to hear: They put their ear to the ground and then they could hear the sound of coming things. This is a truth that applies today. The arrogant who stand upon the high mountain are not able to hear the Word of God. But those who humble themselves and have their ear to the ground are hearing something.
How easy it is for a pharisee to become disturbed over the trivialities! On one occasion, the Pharisees approached the Lord and told Him that His disciples were breaking the Law (Matthew 12). Jesus and His disciples had passed through a grainfield, and because they were hungry the disciples picked some of the wheat, rubbed it between their hands to remove the chaff, and ate the fresh, soft grain. The Pharisees accused them of threshing on the Sabbath. It was a trivial act: taking a handful of wheat to chew on in a moment of hunger. Jesus reminded the Pharisees that if one of the priests broke the Sabbath, he was considered blameless. He also pointed out that when David and his men were hungry, they ate the showbread; yet it was not counted as an offense against them (I Samuel 21:1–6). As you read about this, you feel within your own heart the truth that Jesus pointed out: Man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was made for man (Mark 2:27). All things that God has given us are to be a blessing. They are not to provide some rigid code by which people shall be accepted or rejected by a human religious system.
The Word of the Lord has come, saying, “Search out the leaven.” To those who have responded and prepared their hearts, God is now saying, “I have brought the hour of decision concerning the leaven of the pharisees. Because you have listened to the Word and humbled yourself before Me, searching your heart that there be no leaven, now comes the hour when you will have the anointing of the Spirit. You may not be nearly as worthy as the pharisees think they are, but they will not even hear the Word. Upon you will rest the anointing to take this Word and go to Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth” (Acts 1:8). And this we know in our hearts.
Let us put a solid scriptural foundation under all of this. The book of Matthew is very interesting, because in it some of the greatest truths of the Kingdom are proclaimed. Moreover, several of the chapters begin by telling about an encounter between Jesus and the Pharisees. We will look at selected passages in several chapters, not to expound them, but simply to see how the chapters begin, and how those encounters always resulted in an opening up of the Gospel of the Kingdom in a beautiful way.
Matthew is more dedicated to the Kingdom than any other Gospel. The Kingdom is mentioned often in Luke also, but from another viewpoint completely. Each time the Kingdom is mentioned in Luke, it is usually in relation to the inclusion of the little flock into the Kingdom, rather than the exclusion of the “big shots” which Matthew emphasizes.
In Matthew 3 we read about the confrontation John the Baptist had with the Pharisees while preaching in the wilderness. Early in the chapter it says, But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them (“Oh, how wonderful it is to have all of you eminent people from Jerusalem here today!” No, he said), “You brood of vipers … bring forth fruit in keeping with your repentance.” Matthew 3:7–8. The New Testament certainly is not easy on pharisees! It is not easy on the religious arrogance of people. That third chapter continues with fantastic teaching on how Christ will thoroughly purge His floor, gathering the wheat into the garner and burning the chaff with fire (verse 12).
Matthew chapter 12 begins with an encounter between Jesus and the Pharisees. At that time Jesus went on the Sabbath through the grainfields, and His disciples became hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, “Behold, Your disciples do what is not lawful to do on a Sabbath.” Verses 1–2. Jesus expounded to the Pharisees what David had done in eating the showbread.
And departing from there, He went into their synagogue. And behold, there was a man with a withered hand. And they questioned Him, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”—in order that they might accuse Him. And He said to them, “What man shall there be among you, who shall have one sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will he not take hold of it, and lift it out? Of how much more value then is a man than a sheep! So then, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” Then He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand!” And he stretched it out, and it was restored to normal, like the other. Verses 9–13. Jesus certainly gave the Pharisees a real occasion to reveal their hostility against Him.
What was the result? Verse 14: But the Pharisees went out, and counseled together against Him, as to how they might destroy Him. Why? First of all, the Pharisees were simply in the mood. Then, too, we must realize that Jesus had set them up. They had been critical of a trivial act when the disciples “threshed” a few heads of grain and ate them. So now Jesus gave them a real reason to be critical; He went into the synagogue on a Sabbath day and healed a man. The Scripture says that from that time on, the Pharisees sought to destroy Him. This is characteristic of the arrogance of religion. It is impossible for one who is caught in it to evaluate what is really significant and what is not. The religious always magnify insignificant things so that they seem important. They always strain at a gnat and swallow a camel (Matthew 23:24).
When the Pharisees saw the few heads of grain that the disciples were eating, they exclaimed, “Oh, they are not keeping the Sabbath!” Then when Jesus healed a man He told them, “If a sheep fell in the ditch on the Sabbath, you would pull it out” (Matthew 12:11). From that moment on, the Pharisees conspired to kill Him. We must face the fact that there is no hostility in this world so great as that of the carnal mind which is set against God, except the hostility that is found in the religious carnal mind; that is deadly (Romans 8:7). The religious carnal mind always tried to crucify Christ, and it conspired until it accomplished it.
This teaching is the prelude to our Pentecost. With this Word we will remove from ourselves the leaven of pharisaism. That leaven makes us tend to be critical. It causes us to explode over a trivial matter, magnifying it all out of proportion. Satan uses that religious root within us to cause the very great works that God is doing to be obscured in our vision. As a result, we are not able to see what is really important. When we remove the leaven, we will reduce the little down to be little, and we will magnify the great to be great. We will magnify the Lord in what He is doing and what He is saying. We will not be caught in what the leaven of the pharisees produces!
Leaven is an insidious poison that slowly but surely will permeate the whole of the product of a person’s life. John the Baptist told the Pharisees to bring forth fruit in keeping with their repentance (Matthew 3:8), but they could not do it; the whole of their life had been corrupted. They could not even go through the motions and be acceptable. Therefore John called them a brood of vipers.
Early in the fifteenth chapter of Matthew, we find another reference to the Pharisees which opens up a great truth to us. In this passage, notice how the Pharisees and the scribes approached Jesus. It is typical of the way the religious always confront with a challenge. Then some Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem, saying, “Why do Your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders?” (In other words, “Why don’t You settle down and be religious?”) “For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.” Verses 1–2. They were looking to find something trivial to quibble about, some little thing which they could magnify to a place of importance. Jesus exposed this perfectly when He said, “You deal with all of these issues, but you miss the weightier matters of the Law that really count, such as mercy and compassion” (Matthew 23:23). How could the Pharisees even be concerned about compassion? They did not know what it meant!
Jesus went on, pointing out to the Pharisees how they dishonored the Word by building up a tradition which eliminated their responsibility for taking care of their father and mother (Matthew 15:3–6). Their parents could die of starvation for all the Pharisees were concerned. It is amazing what can be done by religion in the name of exclusiveness. Jesus declared, “You hypocrites!” Then He went on to talk about what does defile a man. He said that a man is not defiled by what goes into his mouth, but by what comes out of his mouth (Matthew 15:11).
The sixteenth chapter of Matthew also opens with a confrontation. And the Pharisees and Sadducees came up, and testing Him asked Him to show them a sign from heaven. Verse 1. In verse 6 of this same chapter Jesus warns, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees.”
As we read these Scriptures, remember that our objective is not to expound them. Notice just one basic thought: How many chapters in the book of Matthew begin with an encounter between Jesus and the Pharisees, and how that encounter opened the door for the truth to really come forth. Nothing has established the Living Word in our midst as much as the uprooting and exposure of the leaven of the pharisees within our own ranks. And nothing will release us more into a pure Kingdom Pentecost than for God to curse the leaven of the pharisees and loose us from it. However, He will not loose us from it until we see the insidious nature of it and turn away from it. Actually, we must repent of it!
Near the beginning of the nineteenth chapter of Matthew, we see another encounter between Jesus and the Pharisees. Verse 3: And some Pharisees came to Him, testing Him (again, “testing Him”), and saying, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause at all?” As always, they were trying to bring the discussion down to some technical hairsplitting.
The Lord is revealing some of the most fantastic truths we have ever received. These truths concern the kind of things involved in the doctrines of pharisees. First, their teaching is very commercial. This is particularly true in the Bible Belt, and is clearly seen in their television programs. The teachings come across with a sanctimonious, pharisaic approach; and the next thing you know, they have come up with some of the most commercial schemes you have ever seen. If they did not have an antichrist to preach about, some of the preachers on television would surely go broke! They start with a scriptural truth, and then they blow it all out of proportion and make it commercial. Every doctrine that has become commercial has become pharisaic and dead. Turn away from it! If the Word is not living, it is dead; and if it is dead, turn away from it.
Second, the pharisees’ doctrine is divisive. That is because pharisees are always looking for some reason to exclude you. Paul told the Galatians, “They exclude you so that you will make much of them” (Galatians 4:17). This is also what is behind the snobbishness of a sorority or a fraternity. They make it very hard for you to get in; they impose difficult initiations. Why? They do this to cover up the fact that they are insecure nobodies and they want you to join them. Don’t you hate that kind of snob system? Jesus hated it. It is divisive because they pick at little things. It is divisive because of their exclusiveness.
Third, doctrines can be a support of false standards. A false standard is one that may be based on a valid point; but because it magnifies minor things to the exclusion of major things, it is false. For instance, most would agree that it is not good for a person to chew gum.
You can preach the greatest sermon, relate to the people perfectly, but the Pharisee will always find something wrong.
When the pharisee sees you chewing gum, he will snarl, “You’re chewing gum! What a filthy habit!” His rebuke may leave you stunned.
It is true that gum probably is not very good for you. However, what do you think would happen if a minister brought up that fact before a congregation of people? Many who were chewing gum would suddenly stop. Yet if they were not caught in the leaven of the pharisees, they would continue chewing as before, without condemnation! It is when they are caught in that leaven of the pharisees that they react: “Oh! It is wrong!”
Oh, how easily I could become a pharisee and put you under bondage. This is why, as much as I try, I do not find myself eliminating some of the little offensive mannerisms and habits out of my life. I have sought the Lord about this, and I have come to the conclusion (which may or may not be right) that a few little problem areas will have to remain in my life; otherwise, people will reverence me as a religious leader, and I will turn them into a bunch of pharisees. I must offend the religious flesh in people, just as Christ and the disciples did. I cannot let the people become religious or walk like pharisees. We will all miss the Kingdom of God if we go the way of the pharisees.
A fourth truth concerning doctrines is that they do not demand experience, but only a mental assent. You can be a pharisee simply by saying, “Yes, yes. Where do I sign?” But in order to walk with God, you must have a living experience of the Word. Whenever a doctrine becomes dead, it is still easy to assent to it; and you will be in fine company: The demons also believe—and tremble (James 2:19).
We are breaking through to the Pentecost that gives us total, complete release. We are waiting for the fire of God to fall (Acts 2:3). However, the fire does not fall upon the deadness and the leaven of the pharisees. That is why God has given us the Passover teachings on eliminating the leaven. The great truth of the Passover is the necessity of searching out the leaven in our lives and getting rid of it. We will never exhaust the significance of that teaching; it continually deals with our hearts.
On the surface, pharisees also emphasize the search for the leaven. They say, “Let us find the little thing that is wrong.” Yet the Lord warned, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees” (Matthew 16:6). They made a search for the leaven in the corners. In fact, they even made it a part of their religion. As part of their Passover observance, they would take a little hyssop broom and sweep out the corners of their house, in order to remove any “leaven” that might be on the floor. And all the time, they forgot that they themselves were the leaven that should be swept out!
We must grasp this truth! Strangely enough, we can hear it; yet when the fulfillment of it comes and God begins to search our heart, we will wonder if we understood it at all.
In the twenty-third chapter of Matthew, Jesus again denounced the Pharisees. Verse 1: Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples, saying, “The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses.” They did not pick just any chair; they picked the chair of Moses, because the authority was there. Their attitude was, “We are assuming authority. We are assuming that we are the sons of wisdom.”
“Therefore all that they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds; for they say things, and do not do them. And 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. But they do all their deeds to be noticed by men.” Verses 3–5a.
The twenty-third chapter of Matthew deals more with God’s opinion of religious position than any other chapter in the Bible. Position is deadly. Are you aware of how God has eliminated position in favor of commission? This has become a revelation that is moving over everyone. It has brought a great humbling, and we are relating more because we are no longer divided by the various levels and castes of position. By humbling ourselves together and renouncing position, we are beginning to see that the only thing which counts is that we have heard His voice, that He has sent us, and that He has created a commission for us to love one another; and we are to be very much given to that.
Matthew 23:6: “And they love the place of honor at banquets, and the chief seats in the synagogues.” This is still done in the synagogues and temples. Pews are rented for the feast days. You must pay for a certain seat if you are going to the feast. Anytime I have to pay for a seat, I would rather stand! They also love “respectful greetings in the market places, and being called by men, Rabbi (teacher). But do not be called Rabbi; for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven.” Verses 7–9.
People often call me their spiritual father. I study very carefully what they are doing, because if they tend to exalt me in some way that they should not, I must rebuke them. Paul did use the term “father” in reference to himself, saying, “You may have ten thousand tutors in Christ, yet you have not many fathers” (I Corinthians 4:15). Thus he indicated that there are spiritual fathers; and he did refer to Timothy as his spiritual son (I Timothy 1:2). However, he never did this with the sense of a position being involved with it, but only the tender relationship that comes by obeying the commission together and producing in one another that walk with God. If such a relationship is on that basis, then it is all right.
Matthew 23:10–13: “And do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ. But the greatest among you shall be your servant. And whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted. 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.” This is the first of seven woes that are proclaimed in the twenty-third chapter of Matthew. This is the best chapter to read concerning what the Pharisees were, and concerning their position.
Jesus warned, “Woe to you, for you will not enter in.” That is the danger facing the eminent religious leaders of today. They will not open up to the Kingdom because they do not want to go into it themselves. Discipleship and dedication are not the strong points of pharisaism; pharisees are thieves. They were the ones who were driven out of the Temple, both at the beginning and at the conclusion of Christ’s earthly ministry (John 2:13–16; Matthew 21:12–13).
Matthew 23:14 records the second woe: “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.” Woe number three: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel about on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.” Verse 15. The fourth woe begins, “Woe to you, blind guides …” Then Jesus goes on to tell about all the stupid things the Pharisees did in their blindness (verses 16–22).
The fifth woe is found in verses 23–24: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!” The Pharisees were always picking at the trivial, little thing that was not really significant. Usually they were guilty themselves of the same offense that they accused others of.
The same is true of some religious leaders today. They stand up and preach against many things: “Oh, leave this sin!” Often they preach against the movies; yet they seem to know the status of almost every actor and actress in Hollywood. It seems they know a little too much about the very sins they are denouncing! They strain at the gnat and swallow the camel. They are the ones who magnify the little offenses. They are the ones who say, “We have a little mint bush out there by the water faucet. Let us carefully count the leaves and give one out of every ten to the Lord. And be sure not to forget the dill bush!”
The last two woes are found in Matthew 23:27–32: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are 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. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and 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.’ Consequently you bear witness against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up then the measure of the guilt of your fathers.”
While we can become very vehement in denouncing the leaven of the pharisees, we must face something in our own hearts. Let us remember that the key for us now is not in denouncing the pharisees, but in looking to our own hearts. In Matthew 16:6, the Lord did not denounce the Pharisees themselves; He just turned to the disciples and said, “Beware of the Pharisees’ leaven.” The disciples replied, “We did not bring any bread,” but that was not what the Lord was talking about. He was saying, “Do not let that leaven creep into your own spirit.”
Today, in a time when religion has become so commercial, and the religious world has become such a dominant force to mold people’s opinions, it will be difficult for us to really walk in a Living Word from God. It will mean turning away from any traditions and false concepts that have crept into the church and into our thinking. No wonder we are despised and rejected, as Christ was, even by the religious world. From the very beginning, we have tried to avoid the legalism of religion in favor of the transformation by grace. We have believed to become new creatures, born by a Living Word from God, created in Him (II Corinthians 5:17; I Peter 1:23).
I have found myself opening my heart to my brothers more now than I ever have before. This is not to say that I did not want to before; however, I am seeing how easy it is for us to take on some form of pharisaism without even knowing it. And what seemed to plague me the most was something that I did not realize was affecting me. I could hear His call, “Come and follow Me. Be willing to take up the cross and follow Me. Lay down your life for Me, if it needs be.” And I said, “Yes.” The Lord said to me, “Serve the brethren”; and I have spent a lifetime doing it. But it is a two-way street. I must also accept my brothers’ love, and the fact that they will lay down their lives for me also.
When persecutions start up against us, I cannot say you do not have to defend me, or even be a partner with me in this persecution. We must share this hour together. If you see your leaders as exalted positions, you will forsake them in the hour when God wants all to stand together in oneness and in victory. If we are isolated from one another, we will fail.
The great tragedy in the early Church was the sifting that occurred when the persecutions began. Paul wrote, “At my first hearing, no one stood with me” (II Timothy 4:16). It had been reduced right down to one humble disciple, standing ready to give his life for Christ; the rest would not stand up to be counted. Paul said, “All who are in Asia have turned away from me” (II Timothy 1:15). It was easy to do that. By that time, Christianity had become almost religious. Who wanted to be a part of those who were a spectacle, both to men and to angels, who had become as the offscouring of all things? (I Corinthians 4:9, 13.) No one wanted to be identified with them.
I would like to have a good reputation and a good image—if God would give it to me. But if God did not give it, I would not want it, because that would be the desire of a pharisee. The pharisee loves to sit in the seat of Moses and be a preeminent one. He loves to be the great scholar, the great teacher, the rabbi. I would not want that, if God did not give it. This is what Jesus was teaching us in the parable found in Luke 14:7–11. He said, “When you are invited to a feast, do not take the place of honor. Take the lower seat. Then the master of the feast will say, ‘Come on up higher.’ But if you take the high seat, the master will say, ‘You move down, for there is another one who is to have that seat.’ ” How many times the Lord tries to teach us that: “Keep yourselves humble.”
We have to face the fact that we are all different. For one thing, God did not make two of us look alike. (And for this we are very grateful!) However, that is not what we are talking about. In our thinking about one another, there should be only one difference we see: We differ by virtue of a commission and an anointing that gives each one a distinct ministry. This makes possible the oneness of the whole Body. As an individual, you ask, “How am I different?” You may be a finger, a thumb, a toe, an ear. He has anointed you and set you in the Body as it pleases Him (I Corinthians 12:18–20). You are a distinct member, but you are still a part of that Body; there is no distinction in that. Why is each one different? Because we need thumbs, we need fingers, we need toes. We need one another very, very much. And because of our need of one another, He gives each of us throughout the Body a distinct commission and says, “You function in this way.” That is how we differ.
We may also wonder about the different levels we are on, asking, “Which one of us is more important?” But when it comes right down to what the Scriptures say, we realize that no one can say to his brother, “I have no need of you” (I Corinthians 12:21–22). You do not know how much you need even those who are the lowliest by human evaluation.
Let us open our hearts to this. We are preparing our hearts, as the one hundred and twenty did before the day of Pentecost. We have all been devastated. We will not point our finger at one another now and say, “You denied Him. You betrayed Him. You ran too. You are not worthy either.” Instead, we think of those on the day of Pentecost: How recent were their devastations at the moment of that great anointing which came down and filled the place where they were gathered. It came like wind and like flames of fire sitting on each one of them; they began to speak forth with other tongues. What a wonderful miracle! But recognize that this miracle came upon one hundred and twenty devastated people. It came upon those who had been witnesses of the somber spectacle of the cross and had failed in that hour. They were devastated by the realization of their own inadequacy. Yet because He was alive, and because they loved Him and were obedient, they were there. The book of Acts does not say that the flames on one were bigger than those on another. It simply says that flames of fire sat on them all. There was just one big meeting with God.
As we study this Word, we will find that it is the greatest insurance policy we can obtain to insure success in our humble, miracle walk with God into the Kingdom. Let us determine that we will not have that leaven of the pharisees. And this is not just a matter of old-order legalism; it is a matter of the grace of God. We refuse to be hindered by the carnality of religious flesh. We do away with it! We reach into the grace of God.
We tend to put ourselves down because of our problems and offenses, not realizing that those problems are no greater in the sight of God than this pharisaism. What is significant about this is that the Pharisees could not make it into the Kingdom, but the harlots and publicans went on in ahead of them (Matthew 21:31). We must not think that now we have to get out all the leaven and be absolutely perfect. That is not what God is saying. What we must do is be without that exaltation of flesh whereby we make excuses for it, always trying to dress it up. Instead, we must humble ourselves before God and say, “God, You can change the things that are within us. We will not be a bunch of hypocrites or phonies. When we stand before You, we will be Your new creation in the earth. We will be the true sons of the Kingdom.” We determine to be the sons of God who come forth with a reality, walking in the truth with all of our heart.
It is a day of the grace of God. Moreover, it is a day of diligence; for we must enter in ourselves, and then hold the door open for others. That is the opposite of the leaven of the pharisees.