Who are the modern-day Pharisees who prevent people from entering the Kingdom of Heaven?

Here is a description of one modern-day group and I leave it up to you to consider whether the particular doctrines detailed fit the bill or not.

They came out with a new doctrine in the mid 1930s that taught entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven was limited to 144,000 people, from the time of Christ. There were supposedly about 90,000 of this heavenly class in 1925, but within three years that number had plummeted to 20,000 and that was prior to the new doctrine! Many of them had left because their leaders had predicted Armageddon, first for 1914, then 1918, then 1925.

Well, the new light about the 144,000 included the idea that as the heavenly calling was virtually closed (Armageddon still being expected at any moment), new converts to their faith would comprise a new class of Christians who could not expect to go to heaven, but who might survive Armageddon and live forever on a paradise earth. This new class of recruits (initially called 'the Jonadabs', later known as 'the other sheep' and 'the great crowd') was told that Jesus was not their Mediator or their High Priest. Salvation for them would have to come by their obedience to anointed leaders, those with the heavenly calling in their midst.

Today we see that those leaders are no longer comprised of anointed ones. Yet still, unquestioning obedience to them is required! So those leaders are not, themselves, going to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, and they keep telling all the others that they cannot hope to go there either. They try to make a distinction between the Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom on earth. If that does not amount to shutting the Kingdom of Heaven in men's faces, by those who, themselves, are not entering it, I don't know what is.

Those leaders have told their millions of followers that even though they profess to have received Jesus and have believed in His name, they do NOT have the right to be born again of God, as is stated in John 1:12-13. They are actively stopping such professed believers from exercising their right to be born again.

Perhaps the more important question is why people insist on judging others in this way. The Pharisees' 'hypocritical' act was the refusal to allow Roman 'pagan' practices such as emperor worship into Judaism.

The harder you insist on repeating these very old untruths, rooted in 1st century political propaganda, the more you weaken the entire case for Christianity. The texts aren't accurate in their depictions of the Pharisees. It's time to stop repeating them.

It would have to be a group of people who denied Jesus as Lord and Savior, which the Pharisees of old did. Jehovah Witnesses deny Jesus as Lord, but I assume they recognize him as Savior, dying for our sins, even though JW's have a limited atonement of works combined with faith. I believe JW's can have a genuine relationship with God even though they have some bad theology.

As far as groups that accept Jesus as their Savior, including Mormons, even though they have bad theology salvation is a faith relationship. The Pharisees in Christiandom would probably be liberal Christian scholars who take more of an academic approach to scripture, not a faith based approach, and their doubts on the veracity of scripture leads weak Christians away from the kingdom of God.

One example of a Pharisee is someone who proclaims that one can become a Christian without repenting. Those who bypass repentance are substituting their plan for God's plan.

Jesus proclaimed, "I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish" (Luke 13:3, 5). Paul told the Athenians, "And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent" (Acts 17:30).

Mormons, JW's, RCC, Christian Scientists, Seventh Day Adventists just to name a few.

Peace.

An increasing number of Christian scholars have concluded that the root of anti-Semitism in the Christian world community is ultimately found within the New Testament. In his book, Elder and Younger Brothers, the late Prof. A. Roy Eckardt [former Professor of Religion at both Lehigh University (PA) and Oxford University (UK), and an ordained minister], asserted that the foundation of anti-Semitism, and the responsibility for the Holocaust lie ultimately in the New Testament. In another book, Your People, My People, Eckardt insisted that Christian repentance must include a reexamination of basic theological attitudes toward Jewry and the New Testament in order to deal effectively with the problem of anti-Semitism and its prevention. The general message scholars such as Eckardt are trying to convey is that, using the New Testament as its authoritative source, "The Church" has stereotyped the Jewish people as an icon of unredeemed humanity; they became an image of a blind, stubborn, carnal, and perverse people. This dehumanization is the vehicle that formed the psychological prerequisite to the atrocities that followed.

http://www.messiahtruth.com/anti.html

they lay out a nice works based theology that no man can acheive and sell it with legalism and self righteousness ..the honest flee it and in the meanwhile flee from anything that names the name of christ because they know it can't be achieved ..Works works works works look at how good we all are ...if you wanna have any chance of going to heaven ...Join today ..

The Roman Catholics! Without a doubt! Clear resemblance in doctrine and garb to the Pharisees.

well, what i do is read read read read read read the Bible. I know it's a thick book and it looks like you'll never find your answer but you don't know how many times God hasspoken to me through the Bible. first pray to God to help you see if your priest or pastor or reverend or whatever is bad. then read the Bible cause it is the ONLY book that will successfully tell you the truth :)

pray and believe my friend :)

Freemasons.