When Rules Replace Grace

Now, I believe self-righteousness has one end result which it produces in people. And I’m going to read from Matthew chapter 23, just some verses from Jesus’ indictment of the self-righteous religious leaders of His day.

Matthew 23, I’m going to read portions of five verses. And as I read them, I want you to pick out one word that recurs.

“Woe unto you, ‘ye’ blind guides.”

“‘Ye’ fools and blind.”

“‘Ye’ fools and blind.”

“‘Ye’ blind guides.”

“‘Thou’ blind Pharisee.”

I’m sure you all picked out the keyword. What is it? Blind. That’s right.

And I do believe that self-righteousness inevitably produces spiritual blindness. Also, you don’t need to turn there, but in summing up Israel’s mistake, Paul says in Romans 11:25,

“Blindness in part is happened unto Israel.”

The Greek word is not the same. It means hardness of heart, but the two are closely related because it’s with our hearts that we perceive spiritually.

And I believe that self-righteousness today still has the same inevitable results. It produces spiritual blindness. And this has enabled me to understand some of the things that I see happening around me, because I see God moving sovereignly in many mighty ways. And I see some people who are religious, churchgoers, Christians, baptized in the Holy Spirit, who apparently are almost totally blind to what God is doing and cannot see.

And I have really been concerned and agonized over this problem. And I found that talking to them doesn’t change them. And I’ve come to the conclusion the root of their problem is self-righteousness, and its inevitable consequence is spiritual blindness.

Now, in our present cultural situation where we are, we don’t deal mostly with people who are still seriously seeking to observe the Law of Moses. There are such people in Orthodox Judaism, although I would have to say from my standpoint, Judaism and the Law of Moses are two entirely different things.

But I do believe we have amongst us in the Christian church multitudes of people who’ve got their own little list of rules, which they use basically the same way that the Jews use Judaism or the Pharisee used his little set of rules. And it leads to the same problem.

So I’m going to give to you, out of my experience and observation, five different kinds of people that I think are all commonly found amongst us, who’ve all got their particular little set of rules.

At this point, I always wish I were Bob Mumford because it really needs to be presented in a way that he can do it and I can’t. But I’ll just do it my flat, prosaic way and do my best. I say that sincerely. I’m not making fun of anybody. I really mean that.

I preached this message in a congregation where one of my grandsons is one of the elders. Makes me rather important to feel I have a grandson who’s an elder. And there was one lady who went to the pastor afterwards and she said, “I’m in every one of the five categories that he named.”