It is hard to heartedness that makes us so slow to grasp spiritual things. ‘Perceive ye not yet?’ There are vital words here.
It is the same in society today. In New Testament churches, in obedience to Scripture we have, or we try to have a regenerate church membership. Before a person joins the church we ask, are they really converted? Do they have a testimony of having come to Christ and found him, and received forgiveness and new life? Are they really walking after Christ, or are they just nominal Christians who believe some things, but don't live as Christians? We need to find that out, because if the leaven, the yeast, of the Pharisees and Sadducees gets in, it will spread throughout the whole church and ultimately ruin it. You see this in church history. Two centuries ago Baptist churches in this country were all soundly biblical and evangelical. Then in the latter part of the 19th century unbelief came in among them, and it was like the yeast of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. It took over most of the churches, and the denominational Baptist churches in the so-called Baptist Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is ninety five percent liberal today.
You want to be a true Christian, if the Lord has saved you, and to live for him, to keep your life pure, to be separate from worldliness, to win souls, to steward to him, to put him first. It is an awful thing, when somebody visits a Christian home and there permanently on is the television. Even during godly discussion, it is blaring away. The world has come into that home and it has come into hearts.