NOTES ON AMERICA’S NEW PHARISEES: EYES WIDE OPEN VS. WRETCHED, MISERABLE, POOR, BLIND, AND NAKED
SCRIPTURE. “Then the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and testing Him asked that He would show them a sign from heaven. He answered and said to them, ‘When it is evening you say, “It will be fair weather, for the sky is red;” and in the morning, “It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.”
Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times. A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.’ And He left them and departed.” – MATTHEW 16:1-4, NKJV
QUOTATION. “I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of the Land … I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels. Never was there a clearer case of ‘stealing the livery of the Court of Heaven to serve the Devil in.’” – FREDERICK DOUGLASS, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, 1845; edited
I. FIRST THOUGHTS
Every now and then, God directly breaks into my daily routine in very special ways. Today (Mon. Sep. 11), I was deciding where to have breakfast among three favorite places. While I don’t often do this, this morning I said a little prayer, “Lord, where would You prefer to eat today?” Only half expecting a reply, I sensed that still, small Voice whisper, “Omelette Parlor.”
Fascinating history behind this popular Colorado Springs eatery.
“The story dates back to 1893 when it was built and then purchased to be the retirement home of famous movie star Ruth Etting and her husband. The pair later turned it into a restaurant known as the T-Bone Club, which eventually became the Hackney House. In the early ’80s, the building became the Omelette Parlor, which at the time was an old Western chain.
Well, in 1993, this Omelette Parlor became independently owned. Today, it’s the only remaining Omelette Parlor in the nation. They haven’t even changed the hardwood floors, the booths, or the service.” – CAROLINE PETERS, “The Story Behind the Omelette Parlor,” koaa.com, Nov. 15, 2021; edited
Sorry; writers love details. Anyway, I sat down about the time I was prompted to ask for a particular lady to serve my table. Turns out that she has six kids, partnered with an alcoholic just out of jail for a DUI, and she had been praying I would show up. As we chatted about all this, she disclosed her partner’s addiction, and was surprised to learn of my similar past. Next thing I know, I planned to meet with him a few days later to discuss the Lord’s power to deliver from the iron grip of alcohol addiction.
CHURCH HYPOCRISY. She had somehow remembered my first visit and I learned that they watched one of my YouTube videos, and told me that they strongly agreed with what I was teaching about the Church’s departure from integrity. And that was the reason she left Church some years back – it smelled of pretty stories and rank hypocrisy. So she began to go to “Church Online” by searching for credible sermons wherever she could find them.
One more detail. This same morning, I had frankly been tearful in my morning devotion about my seeming inability to reach hardly anyone with my Commentaries about Church treachery. I had asked for encouragement but had no idea it would come by the lovely testimony of my server. And that it was God’s indelible Command to me to do one thing, regardless of what it looks like:
“Keep going! Your work is not in vain.”
THESIS. Beloved, I wrote this essay around my deepening conviction that a new generation of ‘American Pharisees’ has risen up from the dark quagmire of MAGA Christian Nationalism, and that it has already leavened pretty much the entire Evangelical-Charismatic-Pentecostal ‘loaf’ throughout the Nation (Gal. 5:9).
So, before we deep-dive into this vital controversy from a new perspective, let me first define our central term.
- PHARISEES. “The Pharisees were one of the three main groups within Judaism in New Testament times, of which the Sadducees and the Essenes were the others. Pharisees were the most numerous, distinguished, and popular sect among the Jews; The three principal sects are supposed to have originated about 150 years before Christ, and nothing is said of them in the Old Testament. They derived their name from the Hebrew word ‘pharash,’ which signifies ‘separated,’ or ‘set apart;’because they separated themselves from the rest of the Jews to superior strictness in religious observances. ‘They boasted’ that, from their accurate knowledge of religion, they were the favorites of Heaven; and thus, ‘trusting in themselves’ that they were righteous, despised others Luke 11:52; Luke 18:9; Luke 18:11.” – EDITORS, “Who Were the Pharisees?” Bible Portal, Nov. 29, 2022; edited
- SIGNIFICANCE. “Hypocrisy, ‘twisting of Scripture’ for their own traditions, self-aggrandizement, and rejection or obfuscation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ are the markings of a Pharisee, or the sin of being Pharisaical. These are strong accusations. The rebukes levied against the Pharisees were of the strongest that Jesus uttered. We should be very careful to flippantly toss out such accusations at a brother or sister who is trying to point to the Word of God. Are there present-day Pharisees? Sure. However, I’d wager that they aren’t the ones commonly being labeled Pharisaical. ‘Someone who preaches himself, or preaches only Law without Gospel, who weighs a man’s tithing before serving as his shepherd’ … These are the indicators of a Pharisee, not the one who is exercising Biblical discernment, objects to questionable teaching and insists on sound doctrine.” – JORGE, “The Pharisee – An Honest Look at Their Sin,” Faithful Stewardship, Apr. 10, 2014; edited
Now let’s take a closer look to see if ancient history is reemerging inside the pristine, alabaster walls of the American Church.
II. THE NEW AMERICAN PHARISEES
As I have said before, part of the joy of this job is to go in search of those priceless “Golden Nuggets” found in the online published literature that on occasion reveal Divine wisdom that relates to our topic under discussion.
J.B. SHREVE. With that being said, let me go on the record as having found an absolute treasure chest of insight and courage and biblical wisdom in the writing of this young man. He is the author of a Blog by his same name, does not list his academic credentials, but only that he desires to mine the Truth out of the labyrinth of festering Lies that permeate American culture and, most especially:
The American Church!
In just one essay published four years ago, he rips open what every Christian leader, pastor, teacher and disciple should have known and proclaimed since that time, if not before. That Truth that comparatively no one, I say, no one, has had the temerity or fear of God sufficiently to proclaim. No one from the so-called Christian Elites, the cream of the current Postmodern, impotent American Church.
Hear this bold voice in the midst of our abysmal Silence of the Lambs. From his essay, “The Party of the Pharisees – Christians and Politics,” January 21, 2019 (edited). Quoted at length for its terrible importance and stunning accuracy.
- “Throughout the ministry of Jesus, He consistently confronted and voiced His displeasure with a certain political and religious class within first-century Palestine. They were called ‘the Pharisees.’ The Pharisees did not hold all the political power of the day. Another religious group, the Sadducees, actually held the highest offices within Jewish religious society such as high priest. But it was the Pharisees who the people looked to as the moral guides of the times. Their misuse of this influence of the moral high ground is why Jesus frequently confronted them.”
- “The entire chapter of Matthew 23 is a message delivered by Jesus in which He rebukes and warns about these religious leaders. Here is a list of His complaints with the Pharisees whom He rebuked as hypocrites and blind guides to the people [cf. ‘the Seven Woes’] … This is not the touchy, feely, ‘Jesus is only about love’ that a lot of Christians reference today. It is an explicit rebuke toward a system of leadership that has obstructed spiritual growth and development among the people. This obstruction was brought about for the sake of the Pharisees’ own power, influence and gains within the society and generation in which they lived.”
- “Conservative Republican Christianity, the ‘Religious Right,’ has become the Party of the Pharisees. It is a Party that has placed personal power and achievement ahead of spiritual priorities and values, and its leaders have led millions of followers within the Church today to do the same – effectively blocking their spiritual growth and pursuit of Truth. This rebuke to our Modern Pharisees is not aimed at the political leaders of our day, from which little more than this should be expected. It is aimed at ‘those who, in the name of God, lead believers toward beliefs and outrages that support their personal power and influence rather than the Kingdom of God.’”
- “JERRY FALWELL was a pioneer in the Religious Right movement. He has since passed away, but his son presumably carries on the tradition and standard. FALWELL [JR.] remain[ed] the leader of Liberty University in Virginia and a vocal proponent of the agenda of the Religious Right and Donald Trump [until his resignation in August 2020 over a perverse sexual scandal concocted by him and his wife, Becki Falwell]. The two ha[d] become nearly synonymous in Falwell’s speeches and endorsements. In the runup to the 2018 Congressional elections he tweeted: ‘Conservatives & Christians need to stop electing nice guys!’”
- “ROBERT JEFFRESS has been among the most vocal and consistent supporters for President Trump since the 2016 campaign. Jeffress is the leader of a 13,000-member congregation at First Baptist Church in Dallas, TX. He also hosts a daily radio program that is broadcast on more than 900 radio stations. Following the Inauguration of the new President, Jeffress preached a sermon in Washington DC with Trump and much of the new leadership establishment looking on in which he explained that God was not against building walls [‘Even Heaven has walls!’]. He went on to compare Donald Trump to Nehemiah in the Old Testament.” [BULLETIN: This just in – Zealous QAnon promoter JIM CAVIEZEL of ‘The Passion of the Christ’ (2004) and more recently, ‘Sound of Freedom’ (2023) notoriety just declared that ‘Donald Trump is like King David.’ I will be doing an in depth Special Commentary on this soon].
- “RALPH REED was among the early and most influential leaders of the Religious Right in the 1980s and 90s. He served as the first Executive Director of the Christian Coalition and currently leads a very influential organization known as the Faith and Freedom Coalition [Revenue for 2021: $29,681,130]. In the mid-90s, he was featured on the cover of Time Magazine as part of the surging Religious Right and its opposition to Bill Clinton. It was around this same time period that ‘Character Matters’ out of a concern that the immorality of our nation’s leadership was leading the young people of America down a dark path. It was due to this belief that Reed and his peers fired up the Religious Right in the late 1990s to push for the impeachment of President Clinton after the discovery of his lies and adultery with Monica Lewinsky. Less than two decades later …Reed was the head of candidate Trump’s Religious Advisory Board when a video surfaced of his bragging about sexually assaulting married women.”
- “The issue is not simply about supporting or not supporting Trump. President Trump and his endorsement among the Modern-day Pharisees simply provide the clearest examples of the violation of Biblically based values and priorities for the sake of power and influence in Washington D.C. The Movement of the Modern-day Pharisees, however, goes far beyond this and is shaping the way Christians see the world today. From the debate over the National Anthem at NFL games to treaties with Iran; immigration policy to saying Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas; ‘There has been a loss of faith, compassion, and sound reason’ when it comes to Christians interfacing with the issues of our day. The vacuum left by these former convictions and priorities has been filled with anger and in many instances a blind loyalty. This is what it looks like for the blind to be led by the blind!”
- “The only reason the Church and its leaders are listened to in the political arena is due to their status as possessors of the Moral High Ground. They are [presumed to be] ‘the salt of the earth.’ They inform society when something is right and when something is wrong. They may also be experts on international relations, domestic politics, or immigration policy, but their status and influence is not linked to this expertise. It is linked to their knowledge of right and wrong. “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot” (Matthew 5:13). When believers sell their standards and commitment to what is right and what is wrong, they lose something far more significant than elections. They lose the value they bring within the systems of society to keep it safe from injustice, immorality, and darkness.
CONCLUSION. Shreve was roundly criticized for what others claimed was a false prophecy concerning the end of the Religious Right. What he meant in a rejoinder was, “I was referencing the loss of its original values and mission,” not the end of its predicable destructive impact on America and the Church, which remains strong.
Little could even he realize that just two years later those same Trump Domestic Terrorists [his terminology] would try to violently undermine a federal presidential election and attempt a political coup d’etat at the Nation’s Capital on January 6th, 2021. Or that Trump was likely to be reelected in November 2024, despite over 90 felony charges filed against him for what could ultimately constitute, “High Crimes and Misdemeanors” (U.S. Constitution, Section 4, Article two).
III. THE TEACHING
SCRIPTURE. “Then the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and testing Him asked that He would show them a sign from heaven. He answered and said to them, ‘When it is evening you say, “It will be fair weather, for the sky is red;” and in the morning, “It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.”
Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times. A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.’ And He left them and departed.” – MATTHEW 16:1-4, NKJV
KEY TERM – HYPOCRITE! ‘Hupokrités’ [ὑποκριτής]: “An actor, stage-player, dissembler; a pretender; one who answers [falsely]; a ‘two-faced person whose profession does not match their practice’ – i.e., someone who ‘says one thing but does another;’ one who has the form of godliness without the power, or who assumes an appearance of piety and virtue, while factually destitute of True Religion.”
COMMENTARY. “‘You can,’ saith our Saviour, ‘make observations upon the works of God in Nature and common Providence.’ And from such observations you can make conclusions. If you see the sky red in the evening, you can conclude from thence that the morrow will be fair, because you think that the redness of the sky at night speaks the clouds thin and the air pure; and on the other side, the redness of it in the morning speaks the clouds thick, so as the sun cannot disperse them; or because you observe that generally it so proveth, though nothing be more mutable than the air.
But you cannot:
‘Discern the Signs of the Times.’ You are only dull at making observations upon the Scriptures, and the will of God revealed in them concerning Me. You might observe that all the signs of the Messias are fulfilled in Me: I was born of a Virgin, as was prophesied by Isaiah, Isaiah 7:14; in Bethlehem Judah, as was prophesied by Micah, Micah 5:2; at a time when the Sceptre was departed from Judah, and the Lawgiver from His feet, as was prophesied by Jacob, Genesis 49:10: That John the Baptist is come in the power and spirit of Elias, to prepare My Way before Me, as was prophesied by Malachi, Malachi 4:5; that there is One come, who openeth the eyes of the blind, and unstops the ears of the deaf, and maketh the lame to leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb to sing, according to the Prophecy, Isaiah 35:5,6.
All these are the ‘Signs of the Time’ when the Messiah was to Come; but these things you cannot discern, but, like a company of Hypocrites, who pretend one thing and do another, you come and ask a sign, that you might believe in Me, when you have so many, and yet will not believe.” – MATTHEW POOLE, Annotations on the Holy Bible, 1685 (posthumously); edited
DK. Let me first point out that the selection of FREDERICK DOUGLASS’ quotation was extremely purposeful. I have argued and will continue to do so that the very same ugly ‘Spirit of Slavery and Bigotry’ is still in the American bloodstream. We see it more every day in the vicious rise of the Christian Nationalism Movement spawned by the clearly racist DONALD JOHN TRUMP.
Further, if the American Church does not awaken very soon to take its position against these virulent streams of demonic philosophies and false ideas, America is very likely headed toward a Second Civil War. The seeds are already planted deep in bloody soil first shed on January 6th at the Nation’s Capital. It was only the first shot fired, unless we turn around, and very soon.
IV. LAST THOUGHTS
Beloved, I must tell you the truth that after researching and writing and reflecting on this piece, I was left nearly breathless and without any words to conclude it properly. Which reminds of an article by the late abortionist physician turned Christian, DR. BERNARD NATHANSON in a piece he wrote using a very special term to try to grasp the enormity of the American Abortion Holocaust.
I deploy the same term here to try and wrap my own mind and heart around what has happened to the American Church and the Nation in 2023.
‘MYSTERIUM TREMENDUM.’ “Lit., ‘A Terrible Mystery;’ a sense of something mysterious, overwhelming, and daunting which elicits from us a sense of diminution, humility, submission, and creatureliness; the feeling of the uncanny, the thrill of awe or reverence, the sense of dependence, of impotence, or of nothingness, or the feelings of religious rapture and exultation; the sense of the tremendous, the awful, the mysterious, or, in a word, ‘The Numinous.’” – from RUDOLF OTTO, The Idea of The Holy, 1917; edited
We are talking here of the very End of History, the End of Reality as we have indeed known it for some 6,000 years. The catastrophic, thunderous Return of Messiah to the earth after an absence of two millennia. And then, the stupendous Rapture of the True Church, and the Rise of Antichrist and the subsequent carnage of the Great and Terrible Tribulation that becomes nearly impossible to adequately describe in human language. Followed by a Thousand Year Millennium and then:
Eternity!
CODA. My dear friends, I can simply add very little to all of this ‘Overwhelm,’ except to quote the Great Apostle as he pondered similar matters.
“But, on the contrary, as the Scripture says, ‘What eye has not seen and ear has not heard and has not entered into the heart of man, [all that] God has prepared (made and keeps ready) for those who love Him [who hold Him in affectionate reverence, promptly obeying Him and gratefully recognizing the benefits He has bestowed].’” – 1 CORINTHIANS 2:8-9, AMPC
Even the Words of the Lord beggar a fuller, richer ‘Reveal,’ because we are limited to human language’s severely restricted grasp of The Divine, or in Dr. Otto’s brilliant efforts, ‘The Holy.’
I must simply and most profoundly, bow down very low, and leave it all right there. Selah.
PRÉCIS ON LAST MINUTE HOUSEKEEPING: EXAMINE ME THOROUGHLY LORD, TO MAKE ME READY FOR LAST THINGS
PRÉCIS ON THE HEART OF THE FATHER: EVEN NOW HE DESIRES TO RAISE UP THE LEAST OF US!
