STUDY TO LEARN OBEDIENCE
It is well understood that God places high priority on obedience. He puts the consequences of disobedience in terms of death and curses. When Goid talks about death he is not talking about physical death of the physical  body. Rather he uses death to symbolically represent spiritual death that we experience when we are separated from God.

Separation from God is the essence of the concept of being sent into exile to religion as symbolically represented in the exiles to Egypt, Babylon and Assyria discussed earlier. While exile does not necessarily mean immediate, physical death, it may also be associated with be decline and decay in several different life aspects: physical health, emotional health, financial health, relationship health, spiritual health, etc. Whether it  is fast or slow, whether it is immediate or imminent, it is still death and it the consequence of being separated from God.

Since God is omnipresent, however, we are never really totally separated from God. Even when we are exiled because of disobedience he is available and ready to hear our cries for help so that we can be delivered from religion. It can be said, therefore, that even when we are exiled, we are still in a covenant relationship with God. It is not the New Covenant which is the better covenant, but it is the Old/First Covenant which is a covenant of death that is obsolete and passing away. This is not good news for religious people. But there is good news nonetheless. And that is that even when we are disobedient in our Old/First Covenant religion, God is faithful and will rescue us when we repent and cry out for deliverance.

He wants to rescue us from religion and will rescue us because What we do, or do not do, matters to God. He loves obedience because obedient people listen to his voice. And he hates disobedience because disobedient people listen to false prophets and serve other gods. This is a point on which God is very particular, but it is also a point which Old/First Covenant religionists do not take seriously.

Curiously, religionists are perfectly willing to be legalistic about religious rules made by men, but they are not willing to obey laws, commandments and precepts made by God. And they practice this double-mindedness while passionately claiming that they love God. God calls such people hypocrites who give honor to him with their mouth while their hearts are far from him.

Through parables and other symbolic language, the Bible informs us about ungodly legalism which is obedience to ungodly rulers (e.g. pastors, rabbis, teachers, etc.) who create and administer religious rules. We see in these stories that people who follow such leaders and the people who follow them come to a bad end at the hands of their enemies. This stands in stark contrast with Godly legalism which exists when God’s spiritual law is written on the human heart. People who listen to God live in peace with their enemies.

God looks at the condition of man’s heart to see if his law is written there. He does not look at exterior, religious activities like people do. Religious people do religious things in order to be seen by others so they can receive praise for what they do. Because religious people don’t know the difference between Old/First Covenant and New Covenant, they give God a bad name through their legalistic religious activity. God is justified, therefore in calling those activities an abomination.

Religious abominations are always done under the leadership of men — not God. God says that religious people love the pleasure of their religion more than they love God and that their activities have only an appearance of godliness and lack spiritual power.  He also says that they worship with their mouths while their hearts are far from him. They are grossly deceived about their righteousness and disobedient. When studying, therefore, we must learn to identify with religious characters in their disobedience. If we do not recognize ourselves in scripture that punishes religious behavior, we read for the wrong reasons and are blind to the spiritual truth that God wants to reveal to us about our religious life.

Doing religious things to be noticed is a key feature of Pharisee-ism. Thus anyone who participates in religious activities with the motive of being noticed and commended for practicing their religion may be rightly called a Pharisee. Pharisees find justification for their religious behaviors in strict observance of the literal law of Moses. Since no one wants to be called a Pharisee, we should avoid literal interpretations and legalistic enforcement of rules based on those interpretations. We should avoid, therefore, reading and memorizing scripture so that we can quote it at an opportune time to show off our Bible knowledge and to somehow use that knowledge to influence others. These are wrong motives which God is able to discern because he knows what is in our hearts. Thus it can be said that earning the praise of men through religious activity — including Bible study and quoting scripture — is not the right motive to learn. And it can also be said that we miss the message of scripture regarding Phariseeism if we do not recognize our own tendencies to think and behave like Pharisees for the purpose of earning the praise of men.