Advent-ure 2021 December 10: Rejected by Religious Leaders (Corrupt)

Jesus was certainly not about appearances; that would have been the religious leaders of the day, with their false piety and seemingly double lives.  In Matthew 23, in a series of statements beginning with the word, "woe," Jesus said this:
25 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence.
26 Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also.

It's really easy to point at those who challenged Jesus and decry their course of action against our Savior. But, the truth is, they had corrupt hearts, and as recipients of God's grace, we can consider how we would have reacted in His day, and how we might reject Him now with our thoughts and actions. We have to take bold steps to root out the corruption in our hearts, corruption for which Jesus died, for which there is a solution - the saving, healing, restoring power of the Holy Spirit.

+++++

In this broken world, there is so much corruption.  Why? Because people do not follow the ways of God, or in so many cases, do not even acknowledge Him, much less surrender their lives to His Son, who came at Christmas to be our Redeemer, the One who would take away our sins through His triumph over the enemy.  Jesus encountered corruption at every turn, it seems - the religious leaders, who had mishandled God's Word for their own purposes, opposed Him and eventually put Him to death.  The early church, including the apostles and the colleagues of Paul, faced opposition, as well.  But, as we find on Day 10 of "25: A Christmas Advent-ure," the Faith Radio Advent Guide, we find that the prophesied Messiah would be rejected by the religious leaders.  Psalm 118 states:

22 The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief cornerstone.
23 This was the Lord's doing; It is marvelous in our eyes.

In the books of Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus recited that passage. In Matthew 21, He goes on to say:
43 "Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it.
44 And whoever falls on this stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder."
45 Now when the chief priests and Pharisees heard His parables, they perceived that He was speaking of them.
46 But when they sought to lay hands on Him, they feared the multitudes, because they took Him for a prophet.

Jesus is called the Chief Cornerstone, and He is the One on whom we can build our lives. 

I've mentioned Joshua Broome before - he has been an actor in pornographic films.  A recent Faithwire story quotes Joshua: “I was in the adult film industry … for almost 6 years. It took a large portion of my 20s. It impacts my life today,” he said. “I achieved a lot of success. I made a lot of money. And I found out the very hard way that the industry caused me a lot of strife in my life.”

Jesus spoke to the religious leaders about the corruption of their hearts.  Broome is taking aim at the corrupting influence that pornography represents, not only to individuals who consume it, but to society at large.  The article relates that Broome...

...said he’s launching his “Counterfeit Culture” podcast as a way to share his journey and to help those struggling with porn. Among the revelations offered, he dove into some of the shocking statistics surrounding porn use among Christians.

The article reports:

Broome cited a past Barna Group study that found 64% of Christian men and 15% of Christian women have said they watch porn at least monthly.

But it’s not only parishioners, as Broome also highlighted research showing pastors and youth preachers specifically struggle with regular porn use.

He says that 1 out of 5 youth pastors and 1 out of 7 senior pastors "use porn on a regular basis."

Highlighting the destructive nature of pornography, the article states:

Among the many problems porn perpetuates, Broome said, is isolation and disconnection from intimacy. Another is the formation of false expectations about what should unfold within romantic relationships.

“What happens is people create these false expectations of intimacy [and] relationships,” he said. “What a woman should look like, what a woman should do … because they’re learning this from a fictitious representation of engagement.”

Jesus took the Pharisees to task for essentially living a double life.  And, that applies to each of us today - on the outside, people may profess that everything is fine, yet on the inside, things are a mess; corruption has set in.  But, in a sense, we all have a lifelong struggle against corrupting influences, and when, as 2nd Corinthians 10 says, strongholds are built, we have to use the resources God has provided, the spiritual weapons, in order to bring them down.  The enemy seeks to destroy our lives: pornography is one example of a component that he uses to do so, but as Jesus taught, He has come to bring us an "abundant" life. 

One could say the Pharisees were the worst of the worst, pretending to be spiritual, to have it all together, to be the shining examples; yet Jesus called them out and exposed their hypocrisy - they didn't like it.  They didn't like that He trampled on their own kingdom in the name of the true Kingdom of God. He claimed to be the Son of God and He had the proof to back it up, the "receipts," if you will, that were consistent with the Word of God spoken about him through the ages. His incorruptible truth was an affront to the misguided leadership of the day - and for that, He had to be eliminated from the scene.