The Pharisees Made Converts to Hell

Imagine being given a key by a trusted religious leader. You put the key in a door labeled “destiny,” and when you open it you find yourself looking into the flames of hell. The Pharisees were setting up their converts for that kind of terrible surprise. In a passage very similar to Luke 11, Jesus said: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.” (Matthew 23:15)

Jesus may have called the religious converts “twice as much a son of hell” because converts are often more zealous for their faith than those who have come to take their faith for granted. Proselytes have made a major change of life and are ready to defend and promote it with fresh enthusiasm. They know they don’t have all the answers, but they are trusting their leaders, who supposedly know much more than they do.

This trust would put the Pharisees’ converts in real jeopardy. Since Jesus called the Pharisees “blind leaders of the blind” (Matthew 15:14), their followers would be doubly bound. Not only is the new convert still spiritually blind, but he has unknowingly placed himself in the trust of a religious teacher who cannot see where either one of them is going.

The problem with religion is that, in matters of ultimate and most extreme importance, it offers hope where there is no hope. For that reason, an atheist or agnostic is probably in a safer place than the person who has been converted to religion. He is not apt to assume that he has made peace with God. The religious person, however, wrongly thinks he knows what he has to do to make it to heaven, or to walk with God — even if he is not sure that he’s “quite there” yet.

The implications are stunningly severe. Religionists like the Pharisees and their converts are headed for a terrible awakening. Jesus assured us of this on another occasion when He said: “I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20).

Put yourself in the place of a misguided religious convert. You think you have chosen to be a good person. You recognize the wrongness of those who have no place in their heart for God. You feel pity for those who show by their behavior and associations that they are willing to risk eternity for a few more hours of forbidden pleasure. You think you’ve chosen better. You’ve found a pastor, a priest, or a rabbi that you like. You trust him/her, and are confident that he/she is a good person who would never be an enemy of God. You like it when they lead you in religious ceremony that helps you feel closer to God and better about yourself. But once you put the key he gives you in a door marked “destiny,” it’s too late.
Tomorrow, what lessons can we learn?