Dangers of False Security

MEMORY VERSE: “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man.” —Psalm 118:8

JEREMIAH 7:4-12; MICAH 6:6-8

IN MATTHEW 23:23 Jesus said, “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.” In other words, Jesus admonished those Jews who were under the law that it was proper for them to tithe of their worldly possessions, but that they had missed the whole point of what obedience to the ordinances of the law was designed to teach them. These things were judgment, mercy, and faith. If these principles were loved and practiced, the Jews would find favor with the Lord. This is so because if followed to their logical conclusion these precepts express the eternal law of God, spoken by Jesus, which is, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind,” and “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”—Matt. 22:37-39

All of the ceremonies and all of the outward show of piety and all of the oblations will not engender favor from God unless these things are accompanied by a proper heart attitude.

In Isaiah 1:11,14,16,17 the Lord, speaking through the prophet, shows how necessary a proper heart condition is: “To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. … Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them…. Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.”

It is the spirit of righteousness and the love of righteousness which finds expression from the heart in acts of mercy, justice, love, and faith that pleases God. Jesus said, “The true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.”—John 4:23

What is meant by worshiping God in spirit? To understand what Jesus meant we must first understand that God is a great spirit being. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. The Apostle Paul, in I Corinthians 2:11, states, “For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.” The point is that two men can understand each other—their reasonings, their aims, their purposes—because they are both human beings. But since God is a spirit being we as men are hindered from having communication with him without the benefit of the Holy Spirit. And so the footstep followers of Jesus during the Gospel Age are endowed with the Holy Spirit for the very purpose of enabling them to know something of God and his plans and purposes. In verse 12 the apostle states, “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.”

To worship God in truth requires that we see in his revealed purpose the manifestation of his character. And seeing his justice, love, wisdom, and power being directed only toward beneficent purposes for all of his creation, we are for the first time able truly to love and worship our Heavenly Father. “Praise ye the Lord. O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: for his mercy endureth forever. Who can utter the mighty acts of the Lord? Who can show forth his praise?”—Psalm 106:1,2

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