Good morning. You would open
your Bibles with me to Matthew chapter 15. Matthew chapter 15. Before we
begin, let's go to our Lord in prayer. Our Father, how thankful we are
that you've given us this another opportunity to meet together
and worship your matchless name. And Father, I pray that you would
enable us by your spirit to do that, to worship you in spirit
and in truth. Father, I pray that you would
enable me to rightly divide the word of truth, to clearly and
simply with a heart of compassion for your people, for sinners,
to preach the gospel in clear and simple terms, to point people
to look to, trust in, and rest in our Lord Jesus Christ. And
Father, give us an ear to hear, a heart that would believe the
Lord Jesus Christ as we hear Him preach, to enable us to rest
in Him, to not be so worked up about the goings on of this life
and the events of this world, and to rest in our Lord Jesus
Christ, knowing that our God doeth all things well. Lord,
bless us this morning. our children's classes, be with
our children, our teachers, use this time as a time where you
might plant the seeds of faith in the hearts of our young ones.
We ask that same blessing on our Bible school this week that,
Father, that you'd bless in a mighty and a special way. Father, we
pray for those who are hurting and sick. We continue to hold
them up to thee. We pray for Novi that you'd ease
her pain. We pray that you'd be with Barb
in her recovery. We pray you'd be with Aaron as
he's going through these treatments. Father, be with your people.
We hold them up to thee. We pray that you'd heal, that
you'd deliver. And above all, Father, we pray
you'd comfort the hearts of your people with your presence. And
all these things we ask in that great name, the name which is
above every name, the name of our Lord Jesus for his sake and
his glory, we pray, amen. Now in our text this morning,
we'll read this in a few minutes, our Lord has a conversation with
the Pharisees. Now the Pharisees died out hundreds
and hundreds of years ago, thousands of years ago, but the spirit
of the Pharisee is alive and well in our day. And I'll tell
you why that's true. Because the spirit of the Pharisees
is the spirit of all mankind. It's the spirit of the fallen
nature of man. The fallen nature of man, which
is the nature of the Pharisees, thinks this, thinks that a person
can make themselves righteous, or maybe they can make themselves
more righteous by what they do or what they don't do. It'll
enable them to think that God's more happy with them than other
folks, and it'll enable them to look down their nose and be
the judge of other people. They think that obeying the law
of God or obeying certain religious rules and regulations that men
have made up over time somehow make them holy because they do
those things. They think that they can make
themselves righteous by what they do. That's the bottom line
of it. And because they think that,
they think that religion, they think that righteousness and
holiness, all these things, they think those are outward things
of the flesh. because that's all that they
know. If you look back at Matthew chapter six, hold your place
there, we'll come back to Matthew 14 in just a moment, or 15, excuse
me. Our Lord condemns that kind of
thinking so plainly and tells us, warns us, don't make an outward
show of religion so that other people can see it. Matthew six,
verse one. Take heed that you do not your
alms, your righteousnesses, your good deeds before men to be seen
of them. Otherwise, you have no reward
of your father, which is in heaven. Therefore, when thou doest thine
alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites
do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory
of men. Verily I say unto you, they have
their reward. But when thou doest alms, let
not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth, that thine
alms may be in secret, that thy father, which seeth in secret
himself, shall reward thee openly. And when thou prayest, thou shalt
not be as the hypocrites are, for they love to pray standing
in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets that they
may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, they have
their reward. But thou, when thou prayest,
enter into thy closet. And when thou shalt thy door,
pray to thy father, which is in secret. And thy father, which
seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly. Now skip down to
verse 16. Moreover, when you fast, be not as the hypocrites
of a sad countenance, for they disfigure their faces that they
may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, they have
their reward. But thou, when thou fastest,
anoint thine head and wash thy face, that thou appear not unto
men to fast, but unto thy father, which is in secret. And thy father,
which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly." We can't
mistake what the Lord is saying there. Don't do these, these
religious things to be seen of men. Now there's a fine line
there. There's a fine line. But if we're
honest, it's a distinct line, isn't it? You know, you've heard
people say, well, you know, I want to do this, that, or the other.
So people will know that I'm a Christian. I want them to see
Christ in me. Well, by the way they said that,
they just told you they're making a show of religion in the flesh
so that other people see them. I've told you this before and
I'll tell you again. Remember, people didn't see Christ in Christ.
They're sure not going to see Him in you and me. That doesn't relieve the believer
from living right in this world. The believers live honestly,
kindly, meekly, faithfully in this world, but not so that we
get any praise from anybody, from men or God. Believers are
to adorn the gospel of our Savior. Why? So that our Savior will
be glorified. Not so that we are, so that He
is. We are to serve the Lord out
of a spirit of thanksgiving Not because we're trying to gain
favor with God, but out of the spirit of thanksgiving. See,
doing these things to be seen of men, to try to gain favor
of God, that's going about to establish your own righteousness
and not submitting yourself to the righteousness of God. I'll
give you an example of this, Brother Fortner told in his commentary
on this passage. He told a story about a group
of preachers, true story, these preachers, group of preachers,
must have been at a conference or something. They were all together.
They all went out to eat together and they had ordered their food
and one of them wanted to pray publicly. Now the other pastors,
they were kind of uncomfortable with that because of what we
just read. They didn't want to appear like a Pharisee, you know,
praying. So everybody think, you know, look at these good
pastors. And so they said, we don't want to do that. But this
man who wanted to pray said, but I want people to know that I'm
a Christian. Now, the oldest pastor there
spoke up and he said, if you want people to know that you're
a good Christian, leave the waitress a big tip. Don't do it to be
seen. That's doing it secretly, not
to be seen of men. And that's very good advice.
And I tell you, we have to be careful about making a show of
religion. You know, the people took note
of the disciples that they had been with Jesus and that's good,
but we have to be very careful about making a show of religion
so that other people see us, because when we do that, we almost
always follow the commandments of men that have absolutely no
foundation in scripture. And our text this morning gives
us an example of that. Matthew 15, verse one. 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 ye 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 by whatsoever thou
mightest be profited by me, and honor not his father or his mother,
he should be free. Have you made the commandment
of God of none effect by your tradition, ye hypocrites? Well, did Isaiah prophesy of
you saying this people draw nine to me with their mouth and honored
me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. But in
vain do they worship me teaching for doctrines, the commandments
of men. Now explain to you what the Lord
is talking about here. The Pharisees had a commandment
made up probably by some old elder or rabbi, that a person
must wash their hands before they eat. And if they wash their
hands before they eat, they'll be holy. They'll be undefiled.
Now, washing your hands before you eat is a real good idea. It'll keep you from certain diseases
and so forth. Our daughter Savannah used to,
her mother was adamant that you wash your hands before she would
eat. And she'd say, well, why? I mean, she said, well, you got
dirt on your hands. And she'd say, well, we're made of dirt.
You know, she's just trying not to wash her hands. It's a good
idea not to eat dirt. I mean, you wash your hands for
you. That's a good idea. It's a good idea just because
of general hygiene, but not for religion, not for righteousness
sake. These Pharisees actually thought
if they washed their hands before they ate, they'd be more holy.
They'd be more acceptable. before God, and that's a bad
idea. And I'll tell you why that's
a bad idea, look at verse 10. Our Lord called the multitude
and said unto them, hear and understand, not that which goeth
into the mouth defiled the man, but that which cometh out of
the mouth, this defileth the man. Now this was a old commandment
of some elder that they really, really, really respected. They
really loved this man, I'm guessing. That's how it became such a tradition. But what this man said had absolutely
no scriptural foundation under it whatsoever. What does scripture
say? You and I are defiled with sin
long before we eat anything. Long before we do anything, as
soon as we're conceived in our mother's belly, we're a sinner.
We were made a sinner in Adam. before we did anything. Our nature
is a nature of sin. So we're defiled long before
we do or don't do anything. We're already defiled by sin.
Now, I want to give you three lessons from our text. We would
do well to learn these lessons and to remember them because
the subtlety of this spirit of the Pharisees, I'm telling you,
it's alive and well, and it's dangerous. It's dangerous to
the souls of God's people, to anybody. Number one, the first
lesson is this. Religion and worship are heart
matters. They're heart matters, not fleshly,
heart matters. Now our worship services should
be solemn occasions. We should treat these very, very
seriously. These times we have to gather
together and publicly worship our God. We're coming into the
presence of God Almighty. Now that ought to be a solemn
occasion, shouldn't it? But it doesn't have to be so
solemn that we're frowning and down in the mouth like the old
Puritans either. That's not right either. That's
one extreme or the other. There's joy in the Lord, isn't
there? And we should be able to have
joy without being irreverent. And we have a tradition. We have
traditions. Here at Hurricane Road, we have
traditions. We have a tradition of our order
of service. Our order of service goes like
this. Everybody here knows it real well. Terry Cano says we're
all trained monkeys. We know, you know, to stand up
on the last song. We all know this. This is because
this is our tradition. We open the service having a
scripture reading. Then we sing a couple of songs. We have another
scripture reading. We have prayer. We have a special
in song. Then we have the message. And
then we have a prayer and a closing song. Traditionally, that's the
way our services go in. But you know what? You can change
that order up. You sure can. And still worship
God. You absolutely can. God is worshiped
as long as Christ is praised. I remember Brother Henry telling
this story on Luke. Luke was a little guy. They got
together all for dinner. We pray before we eat, don't
we? That's our tradition. And somehow it was busy, and
they just started, you know, eating. And Luke said, wait a
minute. Halfway through the meal, we
haven't prayed. And Henry said, well, that's all right. We'll
pray when we get done. Luke said, we can't do that. We can't do
that. That's not our tradition. But you know what you can? You
can pray to God any time. Any time. Now remember this. I'm not talking about everybody
out there. I'm talking to you and me right here. We can have
the right form of a service and not worship God. That's exactly
right. We can read God's word. We can
make comments on God's word that are true. We can have the right
form of words. We can have the right Calvinistic
doctrine and still not worship God. Look what our Lord says.
Verse seven is what he says. He said, you hypocrites, Well
did Isaiah prophesy of you saying, this people draweth nigh unto
me with their mouth. They say a lot of the right words,
and they honor and honoreth me with their lips, but their heart
is far from me. And our Lord says, in vain do
they worship me. When you do that, in vain do
they worship me. That's not worship. Look back
at Isaiah chapter one. There's been a problem a long
time. It was a problem a long time
in Israel because this is the problem of the nature of man.
We think everything's got to do with the flesh, but the true
worship of God is a heart matter. It's a matter of the spirit and
God looks on the heart, not on the flesh, not on what we do
in the flesh, not on what we say with these lips. God looks
on the heart. Isaiah 1 verse 10. Hear ye the word of the Lord,
you rulers of Sodom. Give ear under the law of our
God, you people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude
of your sacrifices unto me, saith the Lord? I'm full of the burnt
offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts. I delight not
in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats. When
you come to appear before me, who hath required this at your
hand, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations.
Incense is an abomination unto me. The new moons and Sabbaths,
the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with. its iniquity, even
the solemn meeting, your new moons and your appointed feast,
my soul hates. There are trouble unto me. I'm
weary to bear them. And when you spread forth your
hands, I'll hide my eyes from you. Yea, when you make many
prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood."
Now here, the rulers here of Israel, they had the right form
of worship. They had the right words. They
had the animal sacrifices, which were required by the law. They
had the incense they put on the golden altar. They did all the
right steps, A, B, C, D. They did all the right steps
that God had given them. They had the right words. They
read from the Old Testament scriptures. But God says, and he's the one
that would know, that he's not being worshiped. I tell you how
evil this is to God. Well, he's not speaking to Sodom
and Gomorrah. Sodom and Gomorrah had been destroyed
a long time ago. He's speaking to the rulers of Israel, the
rabbis, the Pharisees, the scribes, the leaders in Israel. And he
says, what you're doing is just as evil as what was going on
in Sodom and Gomorrah. That empty worship that's just
a show in the flesh is evil to God. So you and I need to pray
we don't fall into the same trap. We can have the right form of
religion, the right form of a service that impresses men, makes men
feel good, makes the flesh feel good, but makes God angry. God calls it an abomination in
his sight. God can only be worshiped from
the heart, from the heart. Solomon said, my son, give me
thine heart. Give me your heart. and let thine
eyes observe my ways. First, give me your heart. Then
let your eyes observe my ways. We need for God to give us a
new heart. God can only be believed, God
can only be worshiped from the heart. And let me show you why
that's true. Look at Romans chapter two. You
know the history of the Jews, the Jews and those old Pharisees,
oh my goodness, they loved circumcision, didn't they? They loved circumcision. It was something that only the
Jews had. And to them, it was a sign in
the flesh, something they could see in the flesh, that they were
the people of God, that they were righteous. And the Gentile
nations, which run circumcised, were unrighteous. They saw this
as a point of pride in their flesh. But what is circumcision
really? What is true circumcision? Well,
God's word says it's a new heart. Look at Romans 2 verse 28. For he is not a Jew, which is
one outwardly, neither is that circumcision, which is outward
in the flesh, but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly. And circumcision
is that of the heart in the spirit and not in the letter, whose
praise is not of men, but of God. I'll show you that again
in Galatians chapter six. True circumcision is the giving
of a new heart. It's a new creature, a new heart
that's been born of God. Galatians 6 verse 15. For in
Christ Jesus, neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision. Nothing in the flesh that you
do or that you don't do avails anything but a new creature,
a new heart. That is the new heart. That heart
worships God. That heart is the heart that
pleases God. God can only be worshiped from the heart. In
all matters of religion, righteousness and worship, their heart matters,
not something outward in the flesh. All right, here's the
second lesson. Our entire rule of faith, our
entire rule of conduct, our rule of worship is the word of God
alone. Look again, our text here, Matthew
15, verse nine. But in vain do they worship me,
teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. Now, like I say, this
attitude, the spirit of the Pharisees has not died out. Religious things
that people do, they're the traditions of men. They're things that men
just think are religious, are righteous. Those things are very
ingrained, deeply ingrained in our society, and whether we like
it or not, in us, because of the society in which we live.
And we just have to be very careful about those things. Maybe there's
some sort of good reason that people think that those things
should be. I think all of them, since I can't really exactly
think of all of them, I'll say most, if not all of them, have
absolutely no foundation in the word of God. I'll give you a
few examples. Baptismal salvation, either of
infants or of adults. You know why people They don't
baptize them and dunk them under the water, but they, you know
why they sprinkle their babies and call that baptism? Because
they think it saves them. And then, you know, somebody
gets to be an adult and they're baptized, they think that saves,
that's baptismal salvation. They think, they actually think
that the waters of baptism cleanse your soul, save your soul. You
know, we have a baptismal service here. Let me tell you something.
I fill that pool up from a water hose. I mean, it's not even good
drinking water after you run through that water hose, is it?
Remember in the summertime, you'd give your kids, you'd drink water
out of the water hose. Woo, you gotta be mighty thirsty
to drink. That's all that water in the
baptismal pool is. Now listen, baptism is very important,
very important. Our Lord commanded it for his
people. But scripture says that baptism is a confession. It's
a confession of what God has already done. It's not a saving
sacrament. It doesn't save anybody's soul.
But that's deeply ingrained in our society, isn't it? I'll give
you another one. In order to be saved, a person's
got to walk the aisle and come down and shake the preacher's
hand down in front of the whole congregation while everybody's
singing the 62nd verse of Just As I Am. But you know, people
think that you've got to make that decision for Jesus and walk
the aisle like that. And that belief leads to altar
calls, leads to that. So many verses of a song, the
preacher just begging people that somebody make a decision.
And I reckon if that's the way somebody's saved, we ought to
be doing it, shouldn't we? If that's what it takes. But
that's not what scripture says. That is a tradition of men. You won't find that one time
in the word of God. Not one. It's a tradition of
men. I'll tell you another one. Very
close to washing your hands before you eat. Drinking alcohol. People
think, oh, you're lost if you drink alcohol. And if you abstain,
well, then you must be saved. I want to tell you something.
Drinking alcohol does not make you sinful. Not at all. You hear
people say, alcohol's never touched these lips. And it probably hadn't.
Probably hadn't. But I'll tell you what. Alcohol
may not have touched your lips, but taking the Lord's name in
vain has. That's exactly right. free will religion that declares
a savior that wants to and can. That's taking the Lord's name
in vain. That's taking his precious name on your lips and attributing
something to him that scripture says is not true. That's taking
the Lord's name in vain. And to people who think that,
oh, you know, if you drink alcohol, that's sinful, you're a sinner.
I want to remind you what the Lord says in verse 11. Not that
which goeth into the mouth defileth a man. but that which cometh
out of the mouth and out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth
speaketh. That's what defiles a man. Now, let me say this about
alcohol. I'm guessing I know where this
thing about alcohol came from, attaching a religious meaning
to it. Women in the church were trying
to get their husbands to quit drinking. They drink away their
paycheck, all these awful things. And I tell you, be very, very,
very careful now with alcohol. If you drink too much of it,
it can make you stupid. You're probably already stupid,
but it'll make us do stupid things, dangerous things. But it won't
make you a sinner. It won't make you a sinner. We
were sinners long before we ever opened that bottle, long before.
I'll give you another one. We don't hear that much about
this around here, but I've seen it. People will only sing the
Psalms. They say, oh, well, you can only
sing the words of God and never sing the words of men. I don't think I even have to
tell you how haughty and self-righteous that that is. If that's true,
that you can only sing the Psalms, you're just not going to have
very many songs to sing because it's very hard to take the Psalms
and put them to music. And if you change one word to
make it fit the melody, you take a psalm and you just change one
word of it, you don't have the word of God anymore at all. Plus,
if that's what you're doing, you do cut yourself off of singing
some real good songs of praise, don't you? We could never sing
Amazing Grace. We could never sing How Great
Thou Art. It's just a tradition of men.
It's a show in the flesh to make this congregation look better
than this one over here. I could just go on and on and
on with these examples, but you see what I mean. These things
that impress the flesh, I know they're deeply ingrained in us,
but just be real careful of them. Let's find out, do these things
have any basis, any foundation in the word of God at all? Because
look what our Lord says in verse three, talking about these traditions
of men that are so deeply ingrained in us. He answered and said unto
them, why do ye also, transgress the commandment of God by your
tradition. Now, all these commandments of
men that we're talking about, and you can think of other examples,
they're things that depend on the flesh. There's things, something
that can be done in the flesh and anything that depends upon
what we do or what we don't do violates the word of God. And
it's offensive to God. God's not worshiped by it. And
all that can be, all that show in the flesh, all it can be,
is empty, vain religion. It might make the flesh feel
good, but God's not pleased. It's not the worship of God.
If we're gonna worship God, don't you think God should be the one
to tell us how he's to be worshiped? Let's be sure what we're following
is the word of God and not these deeply ingrained, longstanding
traditions of men. All right, here's the third lesson. True religion and true faith
never relieves us from our earthly responsibilities. Verse four,
for God commanded, saying, honor thy father and mother, and he
that curseth father or mother, let him die the death. But you
say, whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, it's a
gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me, and honor
not his father or his mother, he should be free. Thus have
you made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition. Now, the law of God says this,
honor thy father and thy mother. And that has a lot of meaning
to it. It means when we're children,
we're young, we're in our parents' home, we're to obey our parents,
we're to obey them. And when we're a little older,
we're out of the home, we're still to respect our parents.
You don't have to obey your parents anymore, you're not under their
rule anymore, but we're to respect them. And, you know, when you
think about it, if they've raised the likes of us, We ought to
give them respect, shouldn't we? They didn't kill us when
we were rebels and heartache to them. We ought to give them
some respect. And when our parents are older,
and this is specifically what the Lord's talking about here,
our parents are older, they're not able to care for themselves
anymore, then we're to care for them. And especially at that
time, there was no social security, there was none of these kinds
of things. We're to care for our parents when they get older.
That's what the law of God means when it says, honor thy father
and thy mother. But now, remember, since there isn't any social
security at that time, but that can cost you some money. It can
cost you. And some rabbi came up with this
commandment of men, this new tradition they came up with.
He did it to help his rich friends. This is what he told them. Now,
if you tell your parents, your parents are older, they can't
care for themselves anymore. If you tell them the money I
have in the bank, that's earmarked for me to give to the church
someday. If you say that, if you say that's earmarked for
God, then you don't have to give it to your parents to use it
to pay for their care. It doesn't matter if you ever
really give it in the offering or not. This was just their tradition,
if you say that. And our Lord condemns that teaching,
that teaching, that commandment of men, this tradition of men
is completely contrary to the word of God. Trusting Christ. never means that we're to ignore
our earthly responsibilities, any of them. Trusting Christ
never allows us to be selfish. Can anything be more contrary
to the teaching of scripture? Parents are to be faithful to
their children, faithful to love them, faithful to care for them,
faithful to teach them. faithful to discipline them so
they know how to behave when they're out of the house and
out from under our thumb. You know, we worship God here
in this service. We worship God. You, parents,
you serve the Lord when you're wiping dirty bottoms. That's
right, Tracy's got a funny story about that. You do, when you're
taking care of your children like that, you're wiping dirty
bottoms, you're wiping runny noses, you're teaching them,
you're taking care of them, you're disciplining them, you're bringing
them to the services. That's serving the Lord. Husbands
are to be faithful, loving husbands to our wives who put the needs
of our wife first. I know how this happened. It's
because of our sinful, sinful, selfish flesh. Somehow men latch
on to the fact that men are the head of the home. We order our
wife around. But scripture says, husbands love your wives as Christ
loved the church. How did Christ love the church?
He gave himself Husbands were to love our wives the same way,
put her needs ahead of ours. And we're not worshiping God
on Sunday if we're not taking care of our wife that way on
Monday. That's so. Wives are to be submissive, loving,
help needs to their husbands. And we're just not worshiping
God on Sunday if we're not doing that on Monday. Believers are
to be the best employee at the plant or the office or wherever
you work because we're working to serve the Lord. Not an earthly
master, but to serve the Lord. And reading your Bible on company
time, it's not holy, it's not righteous, it's not right. It's
lazy and it's stealing. That's exactly what it is. It's
just using scripture as an excuse to be lazy and to steal company
time. I could go on and on and on about
that, but you see the point. True faith, true religion is
a heart matter, not what we do in the flesh. But what's in the
heart, or control the flesh. True faith and true religion
will guide our actions. It will, according to scripture. Not the commandments of men,
according to scripture. It'll be an act out of a heart
that loves, out of a heart that's thankful to God for his purely
undeserved mercy to the likes of me. I love him for it, I thank
him for it. If God put that in my heart,
that ought to direct My actions shouldn't. Not to try to impress
somebody with a show of religion, but because I'm serving a new
master. I hope that'll be a blessing and help to you.