When Religion Is Twisted and Deceitful

I’m not a big fan of some of the institutional religions I see in 2022, but the true church of God is alive and well.

In Matthew 15, we have a record of Jesus’ encounter with the Pharisees. If you aren’t familiar with this particular group of people, just think of them as the pastors of Jesus’ day. They, along with another group called the Sadducees, were in charge of the Temple of God in Jerusalem.

But before I get into the meeting that they had with Jesus, let me give you a short list of the miracles that Jesus had performed just before they came to accuse him of wrongdoing. Beginning in chapter 8, he performed the following signs and wonders.

• Jesus heals a man with leprosy

• Jesus heals the centurion’s servant’s paralysis

• Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law

• Jesus heals a demon-possessed, the sick

• He calmed the storm

• He healed two demon-possessed men in the cemetery

• He also drove the demons into a herd of pigs and the entire herd went over a cliff and drowned in the ocean

• Jesus healed a paralyzed man

• Jesus raised a ruler’s daughter from the dead

• He healed a woman who had bled continuously for twelve years

• He healed two blind men

• Then he healed another demon-possessed man

• Jesus healed a man’s shriveled hand

• He healed a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute

• Jesus fed 5,000 men (and who knows how many women and kids) with two fish and five loaves of bread

• Then he walked on the water

Most of these miracles were done in the presence of many witnesses.

So, it’s interesting to me that when the Pharisees came to rebuke Jesus, after all of the miracles he had performed in their presence, here’s what they had to say:

“Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”

—Matthew 15:2

If Jesus had lived in 2022, he might have responded with, “Seriously? After all of the miracles you’ve seen me perform and this is what you come to me with? I mean, I might have been able to perform a “magic” trick or two, but this list is too impressive for even you to ignore. You guys really need to get a life!”

But Jesus was in the first century. Plus, he wasn’t you and me. So, he responded differently. But the response of the Pharisees is so ridiculous that we can’t ignore it. It’s preposterous to think that you could be a firsthand witness to the mind-blowing way that Jesus manipulated nature in order to accomplish his task and still worry about clean hands. 

Yep! These guys were firm supporters of the hand-washing mandate. But to tell you the truth, I don’t think they cared one bit about clean hands. What they did care about was their position of power within the Jewish community.

The Pharisees were men who rose up two centuries earlier to call Israel back to the worship of God and obedience to his law. That’s a noble ambition if you ask me. But like all spiritual movements, they became corrupted by the time Christ came along.

Some of them were good men, like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea who took the lifeless body of Jesus and gave him a proper burial. But the majority were driven by their thirst for power. The religion of Israel had become more important than the God of Israel’s religion. 

The truth is, Jesus never had a kind word for them. You can read Matthew 23 if you want to see how viciously he scalded them with his rebuke. There he called them “white-washed tombs,” a “brood of vipers,” and “sons of hell.” He wasn’t exactly complimentary in his view of them.

My point is that religion can be a deceitful thing when the practice of it is rooted in a person’s desire for power and control.

The truth is, God loves religion. James wrote, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world” (1:27).

Godly religion has one purpose: to rescue the powerless and broken from the clutches of the Evil One. People who practice godly religion can be found snatching women and children from the dens of sex traffickers. Or you’ll find truly religious people leading addicts into Christ-centered recovery. They’ll help the poor find ways to support their families. 

What you will not find honest religious people doing is using others for their own selfish gain. You won’t find them using the broken and hurting people of the world as examples of how righteous the religious are while pouring more shame on those who have enough shame hanging around their necks. You won’t see them using them as projects as if to say, “Look at me! I just gave a few bucks to that poverty-stricken family over there.”

Here's the biblical warning about religion that I have gleaned from my years of Bible study: Be careful! Be careful that you don’t twist the will of God to suit your own agenda to “build a ministry” that brings praise to you. And be careful that you aren’t drawn to follow men and women who don’t really have in mind the things of God.

I’m not a big fan of some of the institutional religions I see in 2022. On the other hand, I’m not discouraged about church. Not the true church of God. You know, the one that belongs to him. That’s because I see a mighty throng of small groups and individuals rising up around the world to proclaim the name that is above all names, the name of Jesus.

In fact, from what I hear, there are millions of believers, many living in places where following Jesus is against the law, independently spreading the gospel in places where we would least expect it. Places like China, Iran, and other totalitarian nations are witnessing an underground movement of God’s church against all odds. 

I don’t want to stand in the way of God’s worldwide revival. I don’t want to be found to be like the Pharisees, ignoring the true work of God by making my traditions more important than God’s will or the people his Son came to die for. Anyone who is telling others the truth about Jesus is a friend of mine. Anyone standing in the way of that is not. 

I encourage you to get your Bible out, dust it off, and read it for yourself while praying for God to give you wisdom to understand. The culture around us is not getting better. In fact, it’s only growing darker and more ungodly with every passing day. But once again, I am not discouraged. Those of us who follow Jesus have a life-altering religion that has turned the world upside down before. In fact, it's going on right now in some parts of the world.

I’m just hoping that I live long enough to see true religion burst forth in America once again. Who knows, we might just see a few of those Pharisees join in with us.