While talking about the seeking church sounds so negative to many, it is not. If we accept as fact that the Lord has turned His face from the professing Church, then all that is needed to seek Him in order for Him to turn His face toward us and shine His glory in us is positive. Repentance sounds so negative to people, but it is the heart being turned from sin and toward God. There has been and continues to be a massive problem with liberalism in the professing Church in our day, but there has been and continues to be some of the same problems in our day that the Pharisees had when Jesus dealt with them in His day. Sure we call them by other names, but the principle is the same. It is not even that one has to be a Pharisee to imbibe some of the principles of the Pharisees. But one can certainly take on one or more of the principles of the Pharisees by reacting to liberalism and simply by trying to be conservative rather than biblical. We must always be on the alert to the dangers from both sides of issues if we truly desire to seek and worship the Lord in spirit and truth.
Matthew 23:13 – “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. 14 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense you make long prayers; therefore you will receive greater condemnation. 15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.”
In this passage we see some great dangers. In verse 13 (above) we see the terrible danger of adding to the Gospel and of subtracting as well. In one sense the Pharisees added to the Gospel by giving people many things they needed to do to be saved, but in another sense they subtracted from the Gospel by not telling the people that their hearts needed to be changed by God Himself. Whenever a person arrives at some sense of self-assurance about his or her state of conversion that person has shut him or herself off from the kingdom and then begins to teach on that experience. When a false experience is taken to be the standard for conversion, then the kingdom is in one sense shut off from others. A person that has assurance in some way and yet is not converted will be teaching other people the way of salvation and yet be seeking for more confirmation of his or her own. If a person began to seek a true conversion according to Scripture the one that is trusting in a false conversion would try to change the other person back to the false view since it is the way s/he trusts in for conversion.
The scribes and the Pharisees came up with their own ways of interpreting Scripture and their own ways of seeking salvation. Indeed they had plenty of academic and biblical support, but they were lambasted by Jesus on their approach to virtually everything. They had developed a view and they had their verses, their academics, and then they had their experiences to back them up. But all of these things came together and kept the scribes and the Pharisees from entering in and a zeal for those things kept others from entering in. We must not separate the zeal of the scribes and the Pharisees for their positions from their pride and their own way of salvation. It is hard for people to admit that they are wrong and unconverted when they have some verses of Scripture, many academics, and their own experience on their side. It is hard for people to admit that their hearts are not changed when they have changed their opinions on so many things and they have made many moral changes. The human heart is more deceitful than all things (Jeremiah 17:9) and it wants to deceive itself about its own salvation. When it has the support of others, it will leap at the opportunity to deceive itself.
Could it be that there are many in our churches today that are deceived? Could it be that there are many conservative people trusting in their conservatism to be saved? Could it be that there are many who are trusting in their Reformed theology as an evidence of their salvation? Could it be that there are preachers who are trusting in their own preaching to be saved? Could it be that there are many academics that are trusting in their academic qualifications to be saved? Could it be that there are many who are trusting in a false gospel to be saved that has been argued well by the academics and is supported with verses of Scripture? These things happened to the Pharisees and they have happened throughout the history of the Church as well. Are we so arrogant to think that we cannot be deceived as well? We can trust in so many things without having a new heart and convince ourselves that we believe in Christ. What if what we think about what it means to believe is wrong? The Lord has turned His face we must begin to search our hearts and the churches with broken hearts desiring Him no matter where it leads.
The scribes and the Pharisees were united together in their thinking in what it meant to be saved. The Pharisees then went out (see Mat 23:15, quoted above) and traveled across the land and sea to make one convert. Their zeal in their evangelism was very impressive. They were “soul winners” and perhaps missionaries of sorts. The problem, however, is that they were also unconverted and going about with great zeal with a false gospel. When their great efforts were rewarded with a proselyte all that happened was that the person became a son of hell. That may sound harsh to our ears, but they are the words of Jesus. Great attention has been and is still given to evangelism and missions. Would Jesus say the same things about our efforts as He did about the efforts of the Pharisees? Could it be that He would tell us that we are going across land and sea to make converts but all we are doing is turning others into sons of hell? While we look down our noses at the Pharisees are we similar to them in that we are doing the same things though perhaps in a different way? How can it be that our church buildings can have people coming in and yet the power and presence of God not be among us? How can it be that we have so much of our own planning and activity and yet we do not see the activity of God? How can it be that we are so eager to tell others of the Gospel and yet we don’t see the power of the Gospel? It is explained by the fact that God has turned His face and has withdrawn His presence from us leaving us to our own wisdom and efforts.
If God has withdrawn understanding from us, then we may have wrong ideas of what sin really is. The Pharisees, who were very conservative, were also very wrong on the nature of sin. Could it be that we have turned from what true repentance is. After all, if we have been led astray on the nature of sin we will not understand what it means to turn from sin either. If we are wrong on the nature of sin and true repentance, then we might also be wrong on the nature of true conversion from sin to Christ. The Pharisees had their Bibles, the academic opinions, the correct doctrines (they thought), evangelistic experiences and were admired by the people. But they did not know the way of salvation and God was fighting them rather than giving them Himself. They had converts, though they were not converted to Christ.
The modern professing Church needs to go back to its very foundations and do that from the heart. Prayer meetings are few and far between and do not seem to be marked by a seeking of the Lord Himself with the desires of the heart. The gospel that is going out is an intellectual message that depends on the power of man to respond. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the Gospel of God and it is the power of God for salvation to all who believe. We have turned from God as being our focus in worship and in evangelism and instead have resorted to a man-centered focus using man-centered means. Men and women must know what their sin is in order to seek God who alone can turn them from their sin and give them new hearts. The churches must seek the Lord from the heart and yet in true evangelism the hearts of the people must be changed. We must deal with God in the churches and we must teach others in our evangelism that they must deal with God too.
In a theoretical world we can imagine what would happen if no one had Bibles. People would be blind to the true nature of sin and they would be blind to the Gospel. Yet in the real world the Pharisees were blinded by God in His judgment on them to the true nature of sin and to the Gospel. They read their Bibles (so to speak) and studied them with great diligence, but they were blinded to it. Perhaps they were blinded to the words of God by their own conservatism (pride in not being liberal) and their own scholars. Perhaps they were blinded by their own outward morality. But they were deceived and they were blinded. Let us not assume that God cannot blind us today as well. Let us seek the Lord to give us the light of His glory in the face of Christ and to show us where we are blinded. We also can be deceived by our conservatism, our morality, and our scholars. Having a gospel in name is not the same thing as having the true Gospel. Having the true Gospel in theory is also not the same thing as having the true Gospel change our hearts. For churches that want God in truth it will require a lot of seeking from the heart. It might even require a change of heart. Jesus was severe in His denunciations of the Pharisees. If we have their principles as ours even though in a different name, His denunciation of us is fact. We must learn that our views of conservatism, our evangelism, our morality, our view of sin, and our Reformed theology may not be biblical in truth and will not save. Perhaps even what we think is the gospel will not save. Only the true God working through the true Gospel of Jesus Christ can save. People must be converted by God and not just change themselves. The light of truth must break through our sacred cows and our deceitful hearts. We are truly in the hands of God whether we hate it as the Pharisees did or not. We must bow in utter submission to the true and only Sovereign.
God Loves... Himself 
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