Wherewithal shall a young man
cleanse his way, by taking heed thereto according to thy word. With my whole heart have I sought
thee, O let me not wander from thy commandments. Thy word have
I hid in my heart that I might not sin against Thee. Blessed
art Thou, O Lord, teach me Thy statutes. With my lips have I
declared all the judgments of Thy mouth. I have rejoiced in
the way of Thy testimonies as much as in all riches. I will
meditate in Thy precepts. and have respect unto thy ways. I will delight myself in thy
statutes. I will not forget thy word. All right, Craig O'Leason singing. Number 28. I praise you. Please stand if
you would. Holy God, we praise thy name. we pray thy name. Lord of all, we bow before thee. All on earth thy scepter claim. All in heaven above adore Thee,
infinite Thy vast domain, everlasting is Thy reign. Hark, the loud
celestial hymn Choirs above are raising Cherubim
and seraphim In unceasing chorus praising Fill the heavens with
sweet Oh, the apostolic train Joins
thy sacred name to hallow Prophets with a glad refrain Thy true partners follow, and
from morn to set of sun, through the church the song goes on. Oh Two hundred and ninety three. Ninety three. There's three? The Lord's my ship. My shepherd I'll not haunt, he
makes me down to lie. He leadeth me the quiet waters
by, My soul He doth restore again, And me to walk doth make within
the past, of righteousness before His own name's sake. Yea, though I walk through death's
dark vale, yet will I fear no ill for Thou me and thy rod and
set me comfort still. My table thou hast furnished
in bread In the presence of my ghost, I hate thou dust, which
oil anoints, and my cup overflows. Goodness and mercy all my life
shall surely follow me, and in God's house forevermore my dwelling
place shall be. Turn to Matthew chapter 15. Matthew chapter 15. Let me read the first 20 verses. Then came to Jesus scribes and
Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying, Why do thy disciples
transgress the tradition of the elders? For they wash not their
hands when they eat bread. But he answered and said unto
them, Why do you also transgress the commandment of God by your
tradition? For God commanded, saying, Honor
thy father and mother, and he that curseth father or mother,
let him die the death. But ye say, Whosoever shall say
to his father or his mother, It is a gift, or whatsoever thou
mightest be profited by me, and honor not his father or his mother,
he shall be free. Thus have you made the commandment
of God of non-effect by your tradition. Ye hypocrites, well
did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto
me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips, but their
heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me,
teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. And He called the multitude. He's speaking to us now. He's
speaking to us. He's called us together here.
And He said to them, Hear and understand. Not that which goeth
into the mouth defileth a man, but that which cometh out of
the mouth, this defileth a man. Then came His disciples and said
unto Him, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended after
they heard this saying? But he answered and said, Every
plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted
up. Let them alone, they be blind,
leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind,
both shall fall into the ditch. Then answered Peter and said
unto him, Declare unto us this parable. And Jesus said, Are
ye also yet without understanding? Do not ye yet understand that
whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly and
cast out into the draft? But those things which proceed
out of the mouth come forth from the heart, and they defile the
man. For out of the heart proceed
evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness,
blasphemies. These are the things which defile
a man, but to eat with unwashed hands defiles not a man." Let's
pray. Our Father, once again we ask that You bless
Your Word, that You make Your presence known here this morning,
that You enable me to rightly divide the Word of Truth, that
you send forth your word and power. Comfort the heart of those
that need comfort. Pray for those here, Father,
that are sick, those who are under heavy trials. Lord, you
know, you know every problem we have. We look to thee for
the ability to handle what you send our way. And we know that
our Father does all things well. Help us to trust you. Help us
to look to you at all times. But especially this morning,
this hour, help us to give unto you the glory and honor that's
due unto your name. In the name of Christ, we pray
and amen. The title of the message is Truth
or tradition. Truth or tradition. Our Lord exposes false religion for what
it is. In verse 9 he calls it vain. It's empty. It's useless is what
it is. True worship And we are going
to see this as we go along. True worship comes from the heart. It's God doing business in the
heart. It's the inner man engaged in worship. It's an act of faith. True worship
is an act of faith. He that cometh to God must believe
that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek
Him. If I'm going to seek God for
mercy, I must believe that He's going
to give it to me, that He delights to show mercy. He's a rewarder
of them that diligently seek Him. True worship is done with understanding. The Son of God hath come, it
says, and given us an understanding. Do you understand what you're
doing this morning? Do you understand what's going
on? Why do you understand that? God gave it to you. That understanding
came from God. It came from God. Now I'm not
saying that outward worship has no significance. We gather together
here this morning to worship. We pray publicly. We sing praises
as we have this morning. They have their importance. But
every bit of what we have done here this morning can be done
accurately and worship never happens. and God never be worshipped. That's scary to me. I don't want to meet here because
it's Sunday and this is what we do. I want to meet here to
worship God. To worship Him, to bow down to Him,
to acknowledge Him, to give unto Him the glory due unto His name. The outside of the cup can be
clean, while the inside is filthy. Without the heart, worship is
an abomination to God. Scripture says bodily exercise
profits little, and that is the bodily exercise of religion.
That's what he's talking about. The real profit is done in the
heart. God is worshipped from the heart.
Now it says in verse 1, the Pharisees and the scribes, they came to
Jesus. These guys were like flies at
a picnic. That's what they're like. Just
pesty. Pesty. But they came for this
purpose, to find fault. They came to find fault with
the Lord's disciples and to find fault with the Lord Himself.
A fault that was not a fault. It was not a fault what they
were doing. But they made it a fault by their traditions. False religion always binds its
captives with man-made laws and rules and regulation that has
nothing to do with God. You know that this thing of washing
the hands that they are talking about here had a death penalty attached
to it? That's how serious it was. And
the reason being, they made this. Here's the doctrinal value of
what they attached to it. They made this thing of washing
the hands many, many times. as part of righteousness, as
part of acceptance with God. That's the value they attach
to this thing of washing hands. You and I could wash our hands
till they bleed and it will not affect our hearts. It won't affect
my heart. I can wash my hands till they're
raw and it will not affect my standing with God. It will not
make me any more accepted of God. Now after you hear and understand
the gospel, you really see the foolishness of this. But it was
dead serious with them. It was very serious with them. They came to correct the Lord
concerning His disciples, not washing their hands. It was just
unheard of for them to do this. We must be very careful in worship. We gotta be careful in worship.
We must never introduce our tradition This is the way we've always
done it. Well, you know, you might have been wrong all that
time. We must never introduce our tradition
in place of or alongside of God's revealed way and word. One time, me and Henry was talking. It's been
several years ago. This is why when you get older,
you preach longer. You tell too many stories. But
we were talking, and the men would always meet back in the
study like I was talking to you about earlier. And we'd read
the Word of God. Someone would read and pray,
and then we'd come out. After everybody went out, I was going
to read. I always had somebody to read in the evening service.
Usually one of us elders, he'd have to read. And he said to
me, after everybody had gone, he said, you know, John, he said,
I think it would be so much better. We come here Sunday morning,
we have the Bible class. He said, we preach the message. He said to me, it'd be so much
better just to go home and rest. and not come back in the evening.
He said, just go home and rest. He said, we don't know how to
rest. He said, but it's such a tradition here, they'd probably
have mutiny. He said, it'd probably be mutiny
if I did that. We get bogged down with this is the way we
do it. And we have no scriptural reference
for it at all. At all. And here's what happened
though. The elders set aside God's command
in order to set up their tradition. That's what they did. They took
God's command to honor your mother and father and they set that
aside. And they said, They said to Jesus,
why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders in
not washing their hands? You know, He doesn't answer their
question. I noticed He didn't answer. He asked them a question.
He asked them a question. See, He's the Sovereign. He's
the Sovereign. Job said, it's written in the
book of Job, He gives no account of any of His matters. The Lord asked them a question.
Why do you transgress the commandment of God? Someone I was reading
said this. What is a tradition compared
to a commandment from God? And what is an elder compared
to God? And who gave you the right, who gave you the right,
the authority to set aside God's Word? We don't have that right. I'm not going to take the Word
of God and pick and choose what I like and what I don't like. God's children love His Word.
That's why I read Psalm 119. David said, I love Your Word. I meditate in it day and night.
He said, it's better to me than all the riches I've got. God gave the command for children
to honor their parents, to speak well of them, to treat them right. And when they get old, take care
of them. That's part of that command.
When they get old, take care of them. Take care of them. Help them in their old age. Help
supply their need. Take care of them. This is a
command of God. But the elders found they made
a way around this. They made a way around this command.
Just say, we got a good idea. They probably had a little meeting
and all of a sudden came up with a good idea on how to make more
money for the temple and how to make more money for them to
get hold of. This is what they did. Just say that the gift,
they're in verse 5. Just say that the gift that would
have been profitable to you, mom and dad, that would have
helped you, I dedicated it to the temple.
I dedicated it to God. I dedicated that to God. Now that
sounds real spiritual, doesn't it? That just sounds so spiritual. Christ said, that does not nullify
the Word of God. You didn't set aside everything
you have. No, but what I was going to use
to help you all with, we dedicated it to God. They found a way to raise more
money for themselves, what they did. We can never nullify God's
Word by man-made laws and rights.
Can't do it. Even, listen, even if we make
it look godly, Even if we make it look godly. By tradition, they made the commandment
of God, here in verse six, of non-effect. Nothing. That's what that is,
nothing. Empty. The command that God gave
to honor your mother and your father, And I tell you what,
the Scripture says, he that curses them, let him die of the dead.
There was a death penalty attached to that. So they just removed the command
and left the death penalty. This way they got the money.
Scare them to death. Not to care for father and mother? The Lord said, that's not going
to happen. No, He said, you take care of them. You take care of
them. Now, the Lord uses the Word to
reveal their true character. He said, well, did Isaiah write
of you? Well, did Isaiah write of you
hypocrites? Hypocrites. You know what the hypocrites
were back in that day? Actors. That's what we call actors
today. They called hypocrites back then. Hypocrites. No heart. All pretense. All outward show. No hard conviction of sin. No
love for Christ. No faith in Christ. It's all
pretense. It's all show. Salvation is Jesus
Christ enthroned in the heart. That's what it is. It's Christ
in you, the hope of glory. That's salvation. Salvation is
not me believing some things about Christ. It's not me believing
some facts about God. It's God in me. It's Christ in
you. That's salvation. Christ enthroned in the heart,
and that's no pretense. It's no pretense. And the Lord
said, they're vain. Verse 9, vain, empty religion. They deny with their lips. They would stand out there on
the streets and they would make their long prayers to be heard
of men. Christ said, you're a bunch of
hypocrites. That's all you are. Because there's no heart in it.
Your hearts, he said, are far from God. God said in Proverbs,
Son, give me thine heart, for out of it are the issues of life. If God has my heart, He has me. Whatever has your heart has you.
That's what has you. Salvation is an inward work Grace
of God in the heart look over in Ezekiel chapter 36 Ezekiel
36 Let me read two or three verses
here in verse 24 Ezekiel 36 24 For I will take you from among
the heathen and and gather you out of all countries,
and will bring you into your own land. Then will I sprinkle
clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your
filthiness, and from all your idols will I cleanse you. A new
heart, this happens in the new birth, a new heart also will
I give you. I heard someone on TV the other
day They said, would you give Jesus
your heart? What's He going to do with it? What's He going to do with it?
What does He want my heart for? I'm telling you the truth. What I
need is for Him to give me a heart. To create within me a clean heart
and a right spirit, David said. A new heart also will I give
you, listen, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I'll
take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give
you a heart of flesh. And I'll put my spirit within
you and cause you to walk in my statues. You shall keep my
judgments and do them." But that's not going to happen until He
gives you a new heart. A heart to love God. A heart
to receive the truth. Until that happens, I don't have
anything to receive the truth in. Now in verse 10, the Lord passes
by the learned and He calls the multitude of sinners to Himself. Those Pharisees and Sadducees,
they were so learned they couldn't even be taught. Pray we never
get to that place. Here's the real problem. Here
it is. Verse 11. The problem's not dirty
hands. It's not me eating with dirty
hands. The problem is a dirty heart. Look over in Luke chapter
11. The Lord offended these guys,
but they needed to be offended. Let me tell you something. A
gospel that does not offend is not the gospel of God. You mark
that down. If it doesn't offend human nature,
it's not of God. Luke 11, look in verse 37. And as he spake, a certain Pharisee
besought him to dine with him. And he went in and sat down to
meet. When the Pharisee saw it, he marveled that he had not first
washed before dinner. Now first of all, I know he did
that on purpose because he's going to address this issue.
And that Pharisee noticed that the Lord did not wash his hands
before dinner. And the Lord said unto him, Now
do you Pharisees... This is kind of a tough way to
have a dinner. Now do you Pharisees make clean
the outside of the cup and the platter, but your inward part
is full of ravening, and wickedness. These are the most moral people
in town. Are you serious? These are all the church goers.
These are the first ones that show up at every conference.
They're it. They are the in crowd in church.
And he says this, you're full of wickedness, you're fools,
did not he that made that which is without make that which is
within also? But rather give alms of such
things as you have, and behold, all things are clean to you.
Give it from the heart. But woe to you Pharisees! For
ye tithe, mint, and rue, and all manner of herbs, and ye pass
over judgment and the love of God. These ought to be done,
and not leave the other undone. Woe to you Pharisees! For you
love the uppermost seats in the synagogue. He's reading them
their heart. He's reading them their heart. That's what's going
on. He's telling them exactly what's going on on the inside.
God looks on the heart. And he said, you love the uppermost
seats in the synagogues and greetings in the markets. Woe to you, scribes
and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are as graves. I was out
here looking at these graves yesterday. which appear not,
and the men that walk over them are not aware of them. Then answered one of the lawyers,
said to him, Master, thus saying, you reproach us also, you reckon? And he said, Woe to you also,
you lawyers! For you lay men with burdens
grievous to be born, and you yourselves touch not the burdens
with one of your fingers. Woe to you, for ye build the
sepulchres of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. Truly
you bear witness that you allow the deeds of your fathers, for
they indeed killed them, and you build their sepulchres, you
praise them, make monuments to them. Therefore also said the
wisdom of God, I'll send them prophets and apostles, and some
of them they'll slay and persecute, that the blood of all the prophets
which was shed from the foundation of the world may be required
of this generation. From the blood of what we just
studied this morning, Abel. From the blood of Abel until
the blood of Zacharias was perished between the altar and the temple.
Verily I say unto you, it shall be required of this generation.
Woe to you lawyers, for you have taken away the key of knowledge."
You know what the key of knowledge is? Jesus Christ Himself. He said back there in 49, therefore
also said the wisdom of God. Speaking to them. You enter not
in yourselves, and them that were entering in, you hindered
them, you stopped them. Boy, you can imagine that dinner. He read them their heart. He
said, this is who you are. You got the people fooled, but
you don't have God fooled. That's why you say, you don't
have God fooled. And the disciples, if you go back to verse chapter
15, Then came his disciples and said unto him, Knowest thou not
that the Pharisees were offended? Yeah, I know it. Truth always
offends liars. It'll always offend a liar. I'll tell you what, listen. They
were born offended, they're going to live offended, and they're
going to die offended. And we're not going to change the truth
to keep offending somebody. The Gospel is offensive. And
He says, My Heavenly Father will root out all false pretenders
with the truth. He's going to root them all out. Don't get caught up in fighting
false religion. It's never going to change. It's
never going to change. He said in verse 14, and this
is one thing you never want to happen. I never want this to
happen to me. Christ said, God said, leave
them alone. You never want God to leave you
alone. Let him alone. There's a place
in the Old Testament that says, Ephraim is joined to his idols.
Leave him alone. Lord, don't leave me alone. Trouble
me. Trouble me where I need to be
troubled. Trouble me when I need to be troubled. And comfort me
when I need to be comforted. There's a time to just let them
alone, not court their approval, not tolerate it. We have to tolerate a lot of
things, don't we? We have to tolerate because of sin and because
of our nature, because of who and what we are. We tolerate. You have to tolerate me. You're
going to find that out. You're going to have to tolerate
me. But there is a point, there is a point where tolerance becomes
approval. And wisdom is knowing when to
stop that tolerance and take a stand. He said, if the blind lead the
blind, they'll both fall in the ditch, that is a ditch of lies,
ditch of errors. How important, now you think
about this, how important, how important is it the person you're following.
I stand here preaching every week. Take the Word of God and
make sure of what I'm saying is the truth. And I do the same
thing. Never blindly follow somebody.
You both might fall in the ditch. Here's the truth of the matter,
alright? Here's the truth of the matter. 15 through 20, well,
wind this up. Nothing, absolutely nothing that I eat,
even if I do it with the dirtiest hands, if I haven't been out
in the field all day, or out working, or out in the shop,
and I come home and my hands are dirty, and I pick a sandwich
up, and I eat that, whatever dirt is on my hands never enters
my soul. It can't enter my soul. I might
get salmonella from something I eat, but I ain't gonna get
sin from it. I'm not gonna get sin from it.
Sin is not in a bottle. I had someone talk to me, probably
a few weeks ago, they was troubled about drinking wine. And they
wanted to know what I thought about it. They said, I want to
talk to you about it. I said, okay. And so we sat down
and talked about it. And to keep it short, I said,
there's one thing you've got to understand. First of all,
if it bothers you to do it, don't do it. I said, don't do it. That's
what Paul said. If it bothers my brother to eat
meat, then I just eat meat, but that's not my problem. But that
doesn't mean it's my problem. It's the weaker brother. I said,
but here's what I want you to understand. Sin is not in this
glass. Sin is not in drugs. There's
no sin in drugs. Sin is in me. It's what I do
with it. It's what I do with it. It's
my motive for why I do what I do. There's no sin in a glass of
wine. But if I sit down to get drunk,
I'm telling you, if I sit down to get drunk, the sin of drunkenness
is me. It's me. Now the scripture condemns
drunkenness, but I don't find anywhere where it condemns drinking
wine. I don't. I'll be honest with
you. I don't. It's not in things. And we need
to make sure we don't put it in things. If we think we don't
eat certain meat, certain this, certain that. You remember whenever
in the book of Acts, the Lord was going to send Peter to Cornelius.
And he made this sheep come down and it had all these animals,
all this meat and stuff on it. And Peter said, no, not so Lord. He said, I've never eaten anything
unclean. And the Lord said, don't you
call anything unclean that I have cleansed. And he said, now eat. Eat. We have to understand what sin
is. Sin is a nature. Sins, plural,
is what I do because of what I am. You know, lying doesn't make
me a liar. Being a liar makes me lie. That's the truth. Because I steal
something didn't make me a thief. I stole it because I am a thief.
There's a difference. And religion always gets it twisted.
Just like Satan in the garden takes the word and twists it.
I know a man that I'm telling you, if he took a drink, you'd
have to put him in a straitjacket and take him to the hospital.
It's just that way to him. But he'd take the last shirt
off your back. I know the guy. He'd take that shirt off your
back and boast about it. Sin's in the heart. It's like, did you hear what so-and-so did? That came out of the heart. That
came out of the heart. You can't wash that away with
soap and water. That's out of the heart. The tongue, James said, is set
on fire of hell. Nothing. And this is what the
Lord is getting across to them. Don't ever, ever think that you
have come up with a righteousness or an acceptance with God because
of something you do or don't do, or you clean hands. I don't
know whoever came up with the statement, cleanliness is next
to godliness. Where'd that ever come from?
You didn't get it from the Word of God. You didn't get that from the
Word of God. He said food, now the Lord has
given us a lesson here. Food goes into the stomach and
then it goes out into the waste. It doesn't touch my soul through
the process. And it doesn't make me righteous
or unrighteous. There's no spiritual significance
in clean hands, in washing my hands, or in what I eat or don't
eat. There's no spiritual significance
in it. None. Isn't it amazing how religion
binds you? A false religion, a religion
without Christ just absolutely puts you under bondage. But whom the Son sets free, He's
free indeed. He's free indeed. That which
he says in verse 19, that which defiles a man is what's in his
heart. What's going on in here? How
do I feel about you? And you about me, and us about
God? It's amazing what's in here. And you really don't realize
it until God puts you through a certain trial. And you realize
what's still in there. That's why Job said, at the end
of it all, oh, he said, I abhor myself. I abhor myself. He didn't realize that all that
was still there. I'm sure he didn't. That which
defiles a man, what's in his heart? Evil thoughts. Doesn't
the Scripture tell us that love thinks the best of one another?
But you know we just naturally do the other. We naturally think
the worst. Murder, adulteries, all this
is in the heart. Scripture says, as a man thinketh
in his heart, so is he. It's not what I say I am, it's
what my heart is. That's what I am. What does this show us? And I'll
quit. What does this show us? Our need of a new heart. Our
need of a new heart. This shows me I need the atonement.
What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood. There's nothing more deceitful
than my heart. My natural heart. The heart is
desperately wicked and who can know it? Desperately wicked.
And who can know it? Our only hope is for Christ to
save us from our sins and give us a new heart. Salvation is heart work. God
doing business in the heart. That's what it is. The heart
right with God. And that's what I need. I don't
need tradition. Don't give me tradition. I don't want tradition. Lord give me a clean heart and
a right spirit.