September 3, 2007

Modern Scribes and Pharisees 
by Walter Martin

"Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees hypocrites, you devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers, therefore you receive the greater judgment."

They love to pray in the streets. They love everybody to see that they were praying and pretended to be the spiritual fathers and caretakers of everything. And yet Jesus said while you’re pretending to take care of the people, you’re robbing them blind. And you won’t even lift your pinkie finger to take one burden off their backs. And I think of all the televangelists that I have become almost nauseous watching on television over the last few years, constantly using every Madison Avenue device imaginable to get money out of the public -- every angle, every detail, every crooked perverse method -- how they were going to help everybody, just send your money to them, and Matthew 23 comes to life.

What happened to that money? We now know it was mismanaged in portions unbelievable, all the way to air-conditioned doghouses. . . Has anything really changed? Just because it’s baptized with Christian principles and Christian terminology and they say all the right words, does that make it Christianity? No, because the Scribes and the Pharisees were scholars of the scriptures. They spoke biblical language. They lived biblical language. . . Listen to Him. He puts it in words you cannot misunderstand. "You eat up widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers"

The worst possible thing that can be hurled at you is ‘Touch not the anointed of the Lord.’ The anointing of the Lord is upon people who are faithful to the Lord. If you’re not being faithful to God, who says you’re anointed? . . . They were misinterpreting God’s words so that they could enrich themselves. If I had a dime for every time I’ve seen that on television or heard that on radio or read that in print over the last fifteen years from so-called televangelists, I could retire. And you know that’s true.

These guys who are doing these things are every bit as the Scribes and the Pharisees were and nobody wants to say it. I stood up at National Religious Broadcasters a month ago and said ‘expel the Trinity Broadcasting Network from National Religious Broadcasters, they are teaching counterfeit doctrine, false teaching, contrary to our own doctrinal statement, contrary to our own code of ethics we publish. Expel them!

Everybody came up and shook my hand afterwards, ‘Oh, praise the Lord, somebody said that. Hallelujah, glory to God.’ I haven’t heard a word since. ‘We’re right behind you, Walter.’ And I looked around and they were -- far, far, far, far behind me. Now if what I say becomes popular, you see, and if somehow the Holy Spirit manages to penetrate the bureaucracy that rules Christian organizations, then everybody will jump on the bandwagon and nobody will remember I told them so. That’s part of the problems you have to face in life, don’t be too early in the game. Nobody remembers it.

The modern Scribes and Pharisees are with us right now and if we don’t recognize that, we’re asleep. They’re here, only with different names, but the same con game -- blind guides, fools. ‘You fools and blinds, for whether is greater the gift or the altar that sanctifies the gift?’ That’s a misappropriation of biblical terms, twisting scripture around in order to get the people to do what they wanted them to do. . .

Jesus said, that’s wonderful. And while you’re busy cleaning the outside of yourselves, inside you is excess and extortion. Modern translation: You’re crooks! You’re thieves. Now we don’t say that today publicly, we just don’t. We just ignore it because we want to be, well, so Christian. Can you be more Christian than the Son of God? If that’s evil, point at it. If that’s extortion, point at it. If that’s deception, point at it. Somebody that tells you they’ve got to have their eight million dollars for God and they’re going to be held hostage on top of a prayer tower until God comes through with the money is extorting money. . . That’s extortion. Or, ‘I’m gonna die if I don’t get four and a half million. You don’t want me to die, do you?’ Yeah, yes, if it’s necessary, yes. There are worse things than death, you know -- like stealing from God -- there’s worse things than death.

Look out for the white-washed sepulchers, look out for the long prayer robes, look out for all the religious language and all the God talk, and instead look underneath and find out whether mercy, and judgment, and faith are the core of the testimony.

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