looking in the book of Mark.
I appreciate the word Brother Thomas brought to us reminding
us of the love that is of God. Love of God is a choice. He chose
to love us. He was not compelled in any way.
Sometimes people when they read that passage of scripture that
says God is love they read it in fashion as though God had
no choice but to love because he's love and after all if he's
love then he's just got to love everybody and that's just kind
of you know the way it is but the truth is that the Lord didn't
have to love anybody there's no compulsion in him except by
his own choice. He determined that he would love
the people which he gave to Christ before the foundation of the
world. What a glorious thing it is when we consider the great
love wherewith he has loved us. And we, by his example, are to
choose to love one another. It's not something that's natural,
is it? Because we come, we do things
all the time that aggravate one another and cause us heartache
and this, that, and the other. But love is, as that love to
God does, is His choice to love us. By the grace of God, we choose
to love one another. And we love the brethren. And
even though we may be unlovable, Yet, that doesn't have any bearing
on it. You know, sometimes people say,
well, it's hard to love so-and-so. Well, it is. I mean, if you think it was hard,
think of the Lord as He hated sin, and yet He loved His people
in the midst of such. What a glorious and gracious
God He is. All right, we're coming to Mark chapter seven. Mark chapter seven. It says,
then came together unto him the Pharisees and certain of the
scribes which came from Jerusalem. And when they saw some of his
disciples eat bread with defiled, that is to say with unwashing
hands, they found fault. For the Pharisees, "'And all
the Jews, except they wash their hands off, "'eat not, holding
the tradition of the elders. "'And when they come from the
market, "'except they wash, they eat not. "'And many other things
there be, "'which they have received to hold, "'as the washing of
cups and pots, "'braising vessels and of tables. "'Then the Pharisees
and the scribes asked him, "'Why walk not thy disciples, "'according
to the tradition of the elders, "'but eat bread with unwashing
hands? He answered and said unto them,
well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written,
this people honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is
far from me. Howbeit in vain do they worship
me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. For laying
aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men,
as the washing of pots and cups and many other such like things
ye do. And he said unto them, For well
ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own
tradition. For Moses said, Honour thy father
and thy mother, and whoso curseth father or mother, let him die
the death. But ye say, if a man shall say
to his father or mother, it is korban, that is it to say a gift,
by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me, then he shall
be free. And ye suffer him no more to
do aught for his father or his mother, making the word of God
of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered, and
many such like things do ye. And when he had called all the
people unto him, he said unto them, hearken unto me, every
one of you, and understand, there is nothing from within a man
that entering into him can defile him. But the things which come
out of him, those are they that defile the man. If any man have
ears to hear, let him hear. And when he was entered into
the house from the people, his disciples asked him concerning
the parable. And he saith unto them, Are ye
also without understanding? Or are ye so without understanding
also? Do ye not perceive that whatsoever
thing from without entereth into the man, it cannot defile him?
Because it entereth not into his heart, but into the belly,
and goeth out into the draft, purging all meats. And he said,
that which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man. For
from within, out of the evil heart of men proceed evil thoughts,
adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness,
deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from
within and defile the man. And from thence he arose and
went into the borders of Tyre and Sidon, and entered into a
house, and would have no man know it, but he could not be
hid. For a certain woman, whose young daughter had an unclean
spirit, heard of him, and came and fell at his feet. The woman
was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by nation, and she besought him
that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter. But
Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled, for
it is not meat to take the children's bread and cast it unto the dogs. And she answered and said unto
him, yes, Lord. Yet the dogs under the table
eat of the children's crumbs. And he said unto her, for this
saying, go thy way. The devil is gone out of thy
daughter. And when she was come to her house, she found the devil
gone out, and her daughter laid upon the bed. And again, departing
from the coast of Tyre and Sidon, he came into the Sea of Galilee
through the midst of the coast of Decapolis. And they bring
unto him one that was deaf and had an impediment in his speech,
and they beseech him to put his hand upon him. And he took him
aside from the multitude and put his fingers into his ears,
and he spit and touched his tongue. And looking up into heaven, he
sighed and said unto him, Ephthathah, that is, be open. And straightway
his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed,
and he spake plain. And he charged them that they
should tell no man. But the more he charged them,
so much the more a great deal they published it, and were beyond
measure astonished, saying, he hath done all things well. He
maketh both the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak. Now the Pharisees, as we know,
were the religious leaders of the day. And they pretty much
had control over the Jewish nation. Whatever they said, the Jewish
people pretty much followed along. We see that pretty much duplicated
in our day, as you have You know a lot of religious shamans in
the world today who go about bestowing their power and people
like sheep follow them without consideration of the things that
they are saying. And such was the case with the
Jews as they had departed from the law of God and had more or
less been led by these blind guides, the Pharisees and those
leaders of their day, they had been led away from the law of
God and in adding to it. Now see, the law of God is pure. It's without any fault. Nothing can be said against it.
And the law of God is disregarded not only when men pay no attention
to it, but it's disregarded even more when they would add to it
and put things in the law or say, lay burdens on men that
they cannot bear, that the Lord never laid upon them. And this
was the idea that the Pharisees had and had many traditions that
they had added to the law of God. And in doing so, they actually
overturned the law of God. They actually disregarded it.
They actually made it to be secondary. That it was not a thing that
the people were delighted in, but they were supposed to follow
after these various traditions. And so these Pharisees saw the
disciples of the Lord eating with unwashed hands and they
found fault. Now the Lord never said in the
law, that men had to wash their hands in this ritualistic fashion. These things were added in later
times and became in the minds of people a thing needed to be
done. And such is the way religious
traditions are. We've talked about some of them.
One of them that is a very prominent thing is funerals. Now, funerals
have taken on a life of their own. A lot of it put into place
by people who are in the funeral business. Because, you know,
if you can get people thinking that this is the way that a funeral
has to be, and then you can gussy it up in all kinds of ways and
everybody can make some money. Now, I don't want to get off
into that, but that's just an illustration of traditions that
get ingrained in the minds of people so that sometimes people
would think, well, if you don't have a funeral, well, that's
just unchristian. Well, you know, show me in the
scriptures where anybody who was a believer in Christ ever
promoted such a thing. You know, I mean, you read what
the disciples did when somebody died. What'd they do? They buried
them. I mean, that's what they did. That doesn't mean they didn't
have regard to them or they weren't sad. I mean, think about the
people mourning Lazarus' death. They mourned his death, but they
put him in the tomb because that's where, that's the place, the
residing place of the flesh. And so the Lord, they said, well,
why don't your disciples walk according to the tradition of
the elders? Because you see, in their mind,
their tradition was equal with what God had said. The Lord said,
well, hath Esaias, or Isaiah, the prophesied of you hypocrites. As it's written, this people
honors me with their lips, but their hearts fall from me. You
know, men like their traditions better than they do the truth
of God. And they will hold on to these
things ofttimes and disregard the truth of God. How be it in
vain do they worship me? In vain. Now, can a man worship
God in vain? Well, sure he can. How do men
worship God in vain? They worship God in vain when
they go about to establish their own righteousness, to go about
to do things that God never told them to do, but that they think
they ought to do. And so it is. In vain do they
worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. No man
can lay a burden upon another man and tell him how he ought
to worship God. We're not here telling you how
you ought to worship God. We say this book tells you how
to worship God. The Lord Jesus came and he told
Nicodemus how men must worship God. A man must worship God in
spirit and in truth. There's no other kind of worship
that's acceptable in the sight of Almighty God. The ways of
men, the rituals of men, and the pomp and circumstance and
all the things that men attach to religion are nothing. They're
useless. They're vain. And men in vanity
go through these motions as if God is pleased with it. For laying aside the commandment
of God, Ye hold the tradition of men as the washing of pots
and cups and many other such like things ye do. And he said,
full well, you reject the commandment of God that you may keep your
own tradition. And then he gives an example
to them. He said, Moses said, honor thy father and thy mother. And whosoever curses his father
or mother, let him die the death. In other words, if a man will
not honor his mother and father, If he would reject them and curse
his mother and father and have no concern for them, then he's
worthy of death. But he said, what you do is you
say, well, if a man say to his father, I'll give you a gift. then it's okay, even though in
his heart and mind, he has no concern for them. Now, I think
of an example of that is off times when men and women get
old and they get infirm and unable to take care of their self. And sometimes their children,
for convenience sake and because they don't want to be bothered,
they say, well, we'll put old or daddy or mama over here in
the nursing home. Now, I'm not against nursing
home, because sometimes that's the best solution. But sometimes
people put their mom and dad in the nursing home not so they
can be taken care of, but so they won't have to bother with
them. Now, there's a big difference. You know, if you put your mother
and your father in a nursing home so that they can be taken
care of in a way that you are unable to do it, that's one thing. But if you put them in there
so you can, you know, go on about your life and not worry about
them, then that's basically what the Lord's describing here. He's
saying you say, eh, it's all right, you know, we did our duty. But he said that's not the way
that it is. You suffer him no more to do all for his father
or his mother. He doesn't have really a desire
to honor his mother or father, he just desires to be done with
them. making the word of God of none
effect through your tradition, which he have delivered in many
such things like such things you do. And when he had called
all the people unto them, he said, hearken unto me every one
of you and understand, there is nothing without a man that
entering into him can defile him. Now, that's a hard thing to take for
some people. See, there's no substance in
the earth that a man can take into his body that will defile
him. Now, there are some things that
are harmful to the body. There are some things that you
would be better off if you did not partake of. But these things
do not defile you. They do not make you unacceptable
in the sight of God. It is your regard unto these
things And you, as a person in the world, if you partake of
certain substances that are not good for your body, then you
will reap what you have sown. That's just a natural law. I mean, you know, if you eat
Twinkies every day, and who doesn't like Twinkies? But I mean, if
you eat Twinkies every time you have opportunity, or go to Dunkin'
Donuts every day, that's gonna catch up with you. It's not good
for you. But it doesn't defile you. You
see a person who's, by the size of their body, don't look at
me, but by the size of their body, you can tell that they've
been eating a lot of stuff they probably shouldn't be eating. But they're not defiled because
of those things that they have taken into their body. Now they
may be a gluttonous person, and to be a gluttonous person is
certainly to be defiled, but you see the gluttony comes from
the heart, it doesn't come from the mouth. And so that's a completely different
thing. And that's what the Lord went on to tell them. There's
nothing that can defile a man that he takes in, if any man
have ears. Now his disciples said, well,
we don't completely understand what you're saying. And the Lord
said, well, you know, don't you perceive that whatsoever thing
a man enters into the man, it can't defile him because it just
goes into his body and it goes out. It's the way the Lord designed
us. It's just a natural thing. purging
all meats eventually you know even the person who's taken the
worst of substances into his body by the grace of God and
if the Lord causes his body to overcome these things these things
can be purged out of his body and so it is but he said that
which cometh out of the man he said there's where the defilement
is he said what's in a man's heart is where the corruption
is. Now, I've said this before, but
it bears repeating again, I believe. Oftentimes, you hear people say,
well, I'm doing okay because you know the Lord looks on my
heart. Well, I've never heard of a more
confused view of things. A man ought to tremble when he
considers that the Lord looks upon his heart. Because I'm telling
you, when the Lord looks upon your heart, he doesn't see anything
good in there. You know, people say, well, I'm
gonna give the Lord my heart. Well, I understand what they
mean, and maybe there's an essence, a speck of truth in that. But the Lord looketh on the heart. And he sees what it is, and he
describes it right here. He said, for out of the heart
of men proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,
thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil
eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. Now, I don't know if that's a
comprehensive list of all the things that, evil that could
come out of the heart of man, but it's a pretty good start
on it. He probably stopped at that because he didn't want to
overwhelm his disciples. But he told them, you know, all
of the wickedness that is in the world has come out of the
heart of men. Now, Flip Wilson became famous,
and these kids, most of them, a lot of y'all don't even know
who he is, but he became famous with a statement, he said, the
devil made me do it. And people want to say, well,
you know, so-and-so made me do this, or, well, if you hadn't
have said that, I wouldn't have done this. No. What other people do does not
make you do anything. That's a hard pill to swallow,
isn't it? Because we want to be justified in our own mind
with the things that we, how we react. Every one of us do
it, we all do it. We always say, well, you know,
it's their fault. If it hadn't been like this,
I wouldn't have been like that. No, out of the heart proceed
evil thoughts. See, we wouldn't have an evil
thought toward someone if it wasn't in our heart to have evil
thoughts. And so the Lord, he sets us forth.
Unevil things come from within. And he said, that's where the
defilement of man is. Is because the wickedness of
his heart. And from thence he arose and went to the borders
of Tyre and Sidon and entered into a house and would have no
man know it. And a certain woman, whose daughter
had an unclean spirit heard of him and came and fell at his
feet. Now Matthew gives a little more fuller description of this
instance. And what happened here was this
woman came to his disciples. And they said, I've got to have
some help. You know, you've got to get your
master to help me. And they kept putting the woman
off. And they came to the Lord and
they said, Lord, you've got to do something. You need to get
rid of this woman. She keeps coming in here and
won't leave us alone. He said, well, don't you know,
he says, I'm sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
Basically, he told them, I don't have anything to do with her.
Now, he's teaching them a lesson here. He said, I'm sent to the
lost sheep of the house of Israel. What's that to me? But this woman
was persistent. And I don't know if the disciples
finally just broke down and they said, look, we're going to bring
you to him. And they brought her. But anyway,
she came here. The scripture says, she came
and fell at his feet. Because you see, she was in need. That's the only kind of people
that come to the Lord. You know, a man that's satisfied,
he won't seek the Lord. I mean, if everything's going
great, and you know, he's happy, I mean, what does he need but
the Lord? He's going along his way. We talked about that this
morning. I mean, multitudes of people just go through their
life and they just pass on through their life and they don't have
any need of Christ. They don't have any need of the
word of God. They don't have any need of singing
the praises of God. They don't have any desire to
do it. There's nothing to them. And the proverb says, the simple
pass on and are punished. They go on in their darkness. But you see the Lord in his mercy
and in his kindness, he visits people and shows them their need. And he showed this woman her
need because he gave her a daughter that was vexed with the devil. And she was a Gentile on top
of that. That was one of the reasons that
the disciples were amazed here. The woman was a Greek, Syrophoenician. She besought him that he would
cast forth the devil out of her. And the Lord said, what do you
mean? What are you coming to me here?
You're a Gentile. Don't you know that the Jews
are God's chosen people? Is it right to take the bread
that's for the children and give it to dogs? You know, a lot of
people would have been offended at that. See, a man that's seeking
religion, he'll be offended if you preach to him that the Lord
chooses whom he wills and he rejects whom he wills. See, a man would get mad about
that if he's religious. He won't like that at all. He'll
get mad. Well, who's God think he is? But see, if a man has a need
and he knows that only the Lord can supply it, He doesn't really care if the
Lord chooses people or not. He's just seeking help. I mean,
what did you know about election when the Lord awakens you to
know yourself to be a sinner? See, you don't have to know the doctrines of grace in order
to know that you have a need of Christ. She said, look, this is the children's
meet. What are you doing coming around
here getting it? He was discouraging to her. Now, you know, a lot
of people, they get worried. you know that somebody might
be discouraging. So they wanna make salvation,
what they call it, to be a thing that doesn't offend anybody,
and it doesn't cause people to have the wrong idea. And they
wanna be sure nobody gets offended. Well, the cross is offensive.
The gospel is offensive. It doesn't suit people. The only
people that the gospel suits is sinners. That's the only people
that the gospel suits. And they're so happy to hear
about it. You know, when a man knows himself to be a sinner,
he's happy to hear about it. And he can't be discouraged because
he knows that the Lord is the one that has the help that he
needs. And so even if the Lord says, well, buddy, you've got
to go over here and sit a while, he's going to sit a while, but
he's going to keep coming back. See, you can't do anything else.
He's like Peter, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou shalt words
of eternal life. Lord, we're gonna perish if you
don't help us. I mean, it's not enough we can
go over here and find somebody else that'll meet our need. She
didn't have anybody else that would help her. And she knew
that this man could help her. And she wasn't gonna be denied.
See, the Lord said that the kingdom of heaven is taken by the violent. Those that just won't be turned
aside. And here's her words. She said,
you're right. I don't have one reason to think
that you should give me anything. I've never done anything that
would cause you to help me. And I certainly have no reason
to think I'm of the chosen people of God. But she said, Lord, even the
dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from the master's table. Oh,
she said, I'll be satisfied with a crumb. I'll be satisfied to
eat with the dogs. Because I know myself to be unworthy. But Lord, I need mercy. I need
you to help me. And the Lord said, for this saying,
go thy way. For the devil is gone out of
thy daughter. He said in another place, I have
not found so great faith in all of Israel. Here was a Canaanite
woman, a Gentile, and she came seeking the Lord. The Lord said, I haven't found
this kind of faith in Israel. But you see, He gives faith such
as that. This woman, she didn't know it,
but when the Lord gave her this child, And this child was vexed
with the devil. She didn't know it, that it was
a great blessing, but it was a blessing sent by the Lord to
cause her to come unto Him. See, the troubles and trials
that would come upon us in this life are designed for that reason,
to bring us to Christ. It's like the law was a schoolmaster
to bring us to Christ. The law can't help you. You can go read the law all day
long and you'll come away sad if you know yourself to be a
sinner. Now, if you think yourself to be righteous, you'll look
at it and say, well, I'm doing pretty good. I mean, the rich
young ruler, he said, man, I'm keeping the law. What else do
I need to be doing? Lord said, you don't know how
far you are from keeping the law. Oh, she said, and the Lord said, that the devil
had gone out of her daughter. When she was come to her house,
she found the devil gone out. The Lord didn't do any fantastic
thing, did he? He just spoke and the devils
were gone. Now, you know, the Lord's able to direct and control
all things according to his good pleasure. And again, departing from the
coast of Tyre, he came into Decapolis, and there was a man who was deaf
and could not speak. And he put his fingers in his
ears. You remember one time the Lord,
when He healed a blind man, He spat on the clay and He, on the
ground, He made a moist clay and He put it on the man's eyes.
I'm sure there was some standing by that thought that was kind
of gross. I mean, the scripture says here, He spit and touched
his tongue. Evidently, He spit on his hand
and touched the man's tongue. That was offensive to some, I'm
sure. I mean, you know, especially those, like if it was any of
the Pharisees, they would have just been worried about somebody
washing their hands to eat. What would they think of that? You see, he who formed and fashioned
the body of men, created them out of the dust of the ground,
is able to do what he wills. And so he put his fingers in
this man's ears And he spat in his hand and touched his tongue.
And he said, be opened. And they were opened. Oh, that the Lord might come
among us today. That he might put his fingers
in our ears. that He might spit upon our tongue
that we might both hear the Word of God and praise Him for what
He's given us. And such is that which He's come to give us here today. I tell you, a place of remembrance
to rejoice in that which the Lord has done, a place of solemnity
You know, this is a place of great sadness on the one hand,
and if we have no sense of shame or sadness as we consider that
the Lord did the things that he did, then we have missed what
this is. But yet, it's not directly meant
to cause us sadness, but it's meant to cause us to remember.
what Christ did. And in the remembrance of what
Christ did, to remember that he took our sins away as far
as east is from the west. And we remember his death until
he comes. May the Lord help us today to
take this bread and this wine as he sees fit to give it to
us. Nothing really special about
this bread. It is sort of special to us. We don't normally eat unleavened
bread, but we believe that was the bread that he gave them. While I believe that was the
bread they used, we don't have any real direction in the scripture
that says when you do this, you must use unleavened bread. We
do it because we think that that's probably what he used since it
was the Passover supper. Same way with the wine. Now we
believe it's wine, fermented wine of grapes. uh... but it does not the scripture
doesn't say you must use fermented wine and grapes it says the cup
because the lord uh... knowing the ways of men and the
traditions of men that men get all caught up in these things
i've been among people that they wouldn't take wine because it's
wine i mean you can't take any wine well that would cause you
to be defiled And then I've been among some that the other way,
oh man, we wouldn't use grape juice because, I mean, grape
juice, why? Why, that's not what the Lord
used. Well now, we don't really know,
do we? We believe we know. I mean, I
don't have any problem believing or thinking or I think pretty
good indication that what they used was actual fermented Why? But the point I'm making here
is all these traditions, just like those of the Pharisees,
they don't make any difference. Because it's not what the substance
is. It's the fruit of the vine, and
it's bread. And he said, as often as you
eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death
till he comes. And that's why we come here,
is to remember the Lord's death, the breaking of his body and
the pouring out of his blood. So may we take this and as he
gave it with examination, let a man examine himself. And so
let him eat of this bread and drink of this cup. What is the
examination? The examination is how do you regard this? I
mean, do you have regard to it? If you do, then eat. If you don't,
don't eat it. You know, if you just think it's
some ritual that you're gonna go through, don't do it. But
if you desire a part in the kingdom of God and you want to remember
the Lord's death in the fashion which he told us to do it, then
by all means, this is the table of the Lord's people. He said,
come and dine.