"Why False Teachers Mock the Truth, Part 2" Excerpts

False Teachers (those who teach another gospel other than the one presented in Scripture) are detestable to God and I will be posting excerpts from various John MacArthur sermons concerning the evils of these workers of Satan.

Excerpts from "Why False Teachers Mock the Truth, Part 2" from http://www.gty.org/Resources/Sermons/42-210

We all understand that the highest obligation of man is to honor God.

In the 20th chapter of Jeremiah, Jeremiah is faithfully preaching the Word of God to the people of Israel and they don't want to hear it. He says in verse 7, "I have become a laughingstock. All day long they all mock me." They mocked Elisha. They mocked Jeremiah. "Each time I speak, I cry aloud. I proclaim violence and destruction because for me the Word of the Lord has resulted in reproach and derision all day long." All I ever get is reproach and scorn. "But if I say I will not remember Him or speak any more in His name...I'll just be silent because I don't want anymore of this scorn...then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire shut up in my bones and I am weary of holding it in and I cannot endure it." Even though I would like to silence myself and not bring upon myself this scorn, I can't keep the message in. "I have heard the whispering of many, terror on every side, 'Denounce Him. Yes, let us denounce Him.' All my trusted friends watching for my fall say, 'Perhaps he will be deceived so that we may prevail against him and take our revenge on him.'" They wanted him dead. "But the Lord is with me like a dread champion. Therefore my persecutors will stumble and not prevail."

The messengers of God were hated. The messengers of God were tortured. The messengers of God were killed and the messengers of God were put out of reach, Jeremiah himself being thrown in a pit. Disdain for the messenger because of the message is disdain for God who is the source of the message and, finally, when the Lord Jesus Christ arrives, Isaiah 53, the prophet Isaiah says twice in that wonderful chapter that the Lord Jesus Christ would be despised...despised by His own people, Israel. The psalmist David in Psalm 22 foresaw the disdain and the hatred when he wrote of Christ, "All who see me sneer at me." In fact, he went on to say, "They separate the lip." That's literal. "They make faces of disgust and contempt and they wag their heads back and forth in acts of ridicule and mockery. So said Isaiah of how people would treat the Lord Jesus Christ." Now there were many Old Testament saints, according to Hebrews 11:36, who were literally treated with "cruel mockings." That's the phrase in 11:36. "And our Lord, most cruel of all," says Hebrews 12, "endured despisings and hostilities by sinners."

"Not only do you not know how to get into the kingdom of God, you don't know how to let anybody else in. In fact, you who are sons of hell make your proselytes or your converts twice the sons of hell that you are." You're on your way to hell and you're taking everybody with you that you influence.

The truth is always a threat to false religion and the reason the Pharisees pressed the issue and finally brought about the death of Christ was because they hated what He said and it was no different than the way the young men treated Elisha or the way the people treated Jeremiah or any of the other prophets which they killed. They hated the message of God; therefore, they hated God. Thus the conflict and the conflict throughout the life of Jesus as it escalates is who speaks for God. That's the whole issue here, folks, and that's the issue today. Who speaks for God?

False religion is always like this and we talked about it last time...that was just a review...corrupt motives, antagonistic to God's demands, self-justifying, seeking human approval. That brings us to No. 5. This is key. They were evil at heart...they were evil at heart. God knows your hearts...God knows your hearts. Boy, what a simple and direct hit that is. God knows your hearts. All that stuff on the outside and God omniscient, knowing all things, knows the truth. Jesus said, "Outside, you're painted white. Inside, you're full of stinking, dead bones," Matthew 23. "You are wretched on the inside." Proverbs or Psalm, rather, 44:21, "Would not God find this out? For He knows the secrets of the heart." Matthew 6:18, "God sees in secret. God knows in secret." Psalm 139:2, "You understand my thought," says the psalmist, "far off." Deuteronomy 29:29, "The secret things belong to the Lord." 1 Samuel 16:7, "Man looks at the outward appearance. God looks at the heart." 1 Kings 8:39, "You alone know the hearts of all the sons of men." Jeremiah 17:10, "I, the Lord, search the heart." And Jesus in John 2, "Of Him it is said no man needed to tell Him anything for He knew what was in the heart of man."

God knows the heart. That's why in chapter 12 of Luke and verse 1, Jesus told the disciples, "Beware of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. They are hypocrites. I know their hearts." They're phony and so are all these religious people. They're frauds. They're God mockers. They're sneering at the true and living God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and anyone who doesn't acknowledge Christ and the gospel is a God mocker of the highest rank who has substituted some other God for the true God and thus violated the first and greatest commandment and the people, of course, revered these Pharisees for their external religion and they revered them for their superficial piety. But go back to verse 15 for a moment, "That which is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the sight of God...that which is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the sight of God." Boy, that would make a great series, just to do a whole series on what is highly esteemed among men. That is such a general statement. That covers sweeping, sweeping denunciation. Just take everything in the realm of human opinion, everything in the realm of human honor, everything in the realm of human esteem. Take all the prizes, all the rewards, all the honors, all the achievements, in all the fields of human effort...physical, intellectual, all of them. Just take everything that is esteemed among men and it is all...what?...detestable in the sight of God.