13
And he left them, and entering into the ship again departed to the other side.
14 Now the disciples had forgotten to take bread, neither had they in the ship
with them more than one loaf. 15 And he charged them, saying, Take heed, beware
of the leaven of the Pharisees, and of the leaven of Herod. 16 And they
reasoned among themselves, saying, It is because we have no bread. 17 And when
Jesus knew it, he saith unto them, Why reason ye, because ye have no bread?
perceive ye not yet, neither understand? have ye your heart yet hardened? 18
Having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not? and do ye not remember?
It’s
important to understand that leaven in the Bible is not likened to a good
thing. There is the Feast of Unleavened Bread in Exodus 12.
Exodus
12:19 Seven days shall there be no leaven found in your houses: for whosoever
eateth that which is leavened, even that soul shall be cut off* from the
congregation of Israel, whether he be a stranger, or born in the land. 20 Ye
shall eat nothing leavened; in all your habitations shall ye eat unleavened
bread.
*To
be cut off means to perish or die – examples below
Amos
1:8 And I will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod, and him that holdeth the
sceptre from Ashkelon, and I will turn mine hand against Ekron: and the remnant
of the Philistines shall perish, saith the Lord GOD.
Zechariah
13:8 And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith the LORD, two parts
therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein.
Leaven
is a type of corruption.
Leviticus
10:12 ¶ And Moses spake unto Aaron, and unto Eleazar and unto Ithamar, his sons
that were left, Take the meat offering that remaineth of the offerings of the
LORD made by fire, and eat it without leaven beside the altar: for it is most
holy:
So,
unlike what some religious traditions proclaim this woman in the following
verse, who may be the false goddess Ishtar, Asthoreth, Diana, Isis, or any
number of feminine manifestations of Satan, is not enriching or making perfect
what may very well be Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Protestantism
but is responsible for polluting all three.
Matthew
13:33 Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto
leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole
was leavened.
The
doctrine or leaven of these Christian churches is no better than the leaven of
the Pharisees.
Matthew
16:12 Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of
bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.
This
is the natural outcome of following the heresy of the three main branches of
Christianity is apparent;
Luke
18:8 I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of
man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?
The
Scriptures tell us of a great “falling away” at the end of history.
2Thessalonians
2:3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except
there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of
perdition;
To
fall away is to betray Christ, to join the enemy.
Jeremiah
37:13 And when he was in the gate of Benjamin, a captain of the ward was there,
whose name was Irijah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Hananiah; and he took
Jeremiah the prophet, saying, Thou fallest away to the Chaldeans.
The
lukewarm church of the end times, the Laodicean church, from Lao-the people,
dike-judge or the people’s rights, the human rights church, not God’s rights,
is rejected by God;
Revelation
3:14 ¶ And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things
saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of
God; 15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert
cold or hot. 16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I
will spue thee out of my mouth. 17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and
increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art
wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: 18 I counsel thee to
buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment,
that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear;
and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. 19 As many as I
love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. 20 Behold, I
stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I
will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. 21 To him that overcometh
will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set
down with my Father in his throne. 22 He that hath an ear, let him hear what
the Spirit saith unto the churches.
The
many “progressive” movements in the United States in the 18th century were
essentially Christian based, founded by diehard, postmillennial, and
evangelical Christians. By placing government in the place of God and civil law
in the place of moral courage these pious Christians who meant well eventually
consigned their spiritual offspring to unbelief and faithlessness. Government,
whom they could see, became the God whom they could not see previously. The
destruction of the Biblical view of Christians in America and the authority of
the Scriptures was abandoned. Neo-orthodoxy and eventually Neo-evangelicalism
reduced the Bible to a quaint mythology whose authority was based on original
manuscripts that no one on earth has seen for thousands of years, the doctrine
of the Scriptures “given by inspiration” as the Bible states was reduced to the
original manuscripts only being inspired, and finally the error of calling them
even “God-breathed” in defiance of Jeremiah, chapter 36, Job 32:8; and 2 Peter
3:15. As pre-President Obama lamented in his 2006 Call for Renewal speech the
abandonment of the liberal of his or her religious faith is ironic considering
that liberal political ideas were rooted originally in Christian beliefs and
voiced by evangelical Christians in the 1800’s. To the American Christian,
government became God’s agent on earth, and eventually took God’s place.
Postmillennial
belief, that mankind would create God’s perfect kingdom on earth by legislating
it into existence led to disbelief and apostasy and the eventual disappointment
of World War One led to a new kind of Christianity, not moored to the Bible at all,
but geared to a rewriting of it, without God’s hand in it.
As
one example, a mentor of President Woodrow Wilson, Richard Ely of Johns-Hopkins
University said it most clearly.
“An
obstacle [to the expansion of the State’s role] in economic activity has been
found in the low view that men have too frequently taken of its [the State’s]
nature. Calling it [the State] an atomistic collection of units, some have gone
so far as to speak of the support for public schools as robbery of the
propertied class. Now, it may rationally be maintained that, if there is
anything divine on earth, it is the State, the product of the same God-given
instincts which led to the establishment of the Church and of the Family. It
was once held that kings ruled by right divine, and in any widely accepted
belief, though it be afterwards discredited, there is generally found a kernel
of truth. In this case it was the divine right of the state.”
(Gary
M. Pequet and Clifford M. Thies, “The Shaping of a Future President’s Economic
Thought: Richard T. Ely and Woodrow Wilson at “The Hopkins,” The Independent
Review: A Journal of Political Economy 15, no. 2 (Fall 2010): 262. Academic
Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed August 2, 2011).)
A
hardened heart has to do with not understanding or being willing to understand
what God is showing you or teaching you. A hardened heart keeps you from
hearing what is being said;
Exodus
7:13 And he hardened Pharaoh’s heart, that he hearkened not unto them; as the
LORD had said.
In
verse 17 it is clear that a hardened heart keeps you from understanding what is
obvious. A hardened heart keeps you from doing what you should do;
Exodus
7:14 And the LORD said unto Moses, Pharaoh’s heart is hardened, he refuseth to
let the people go.
The
consequences of a hardened heart become worse and worse sin. Read Romans
1:16-32.
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