Useless Religion

Q: What does the Bible say about useless religion?

The Bible condemns useless religion, emphasizing that worship must come from the heart and align with God's commandments. In Matthew 15, Jesus confronts the Pharisees for their vain worship, which involves teaching human traditions as if they were divine commandments. He quotes Isaiah, saying, 'This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me' (Matthew 15:8). This highlights that mere outward expressions of faith, without a heart genuinely devoted to God, are empty and unacceptable. True religion is defined by a heart transformed by God's grace, not by adherence to man-made rules that obscure the truth of the gospel.

Q: How do we know false religion is dangerous?

False religion leads people away from the truth of God's Word and provides no genuine comfort for the soul. False religion is inherently dangerous because it can blind individuals to the true nature of God and His gospel. As seen in Matthew 15, Jesus warns that those who adhere to the traditions of men, while neglecting the commandments of God, fall into hypocrisy. Such teachings offer no real solace to seeking sinners, as they are void of the power to transform lives or provide true comfort. The Pharisees, in their legalistic practices, taught for doctrines the commandments of men, thus rendering themselves blind to God's truth (Matthew 15:14). This is a stark reminder that any religion lacking a foundation in Scripture and grace is ultimately useless.

Q: Why is the heart important in worship?

True worship is rooted in the heart that understands and loves God, not merely in outward rituals. The heart is crucial in worship because it reflects our true relationship with God. In Matthew 15:8, Jesus reveals that the people honor Him with their lips, but their hearts are far from Him. This emphasizes that external compliance to rituals or traditions—such as fancy prayers or music—without genuine devotion is inadequate. Worship must spring from a heart transformed by God's grace that understands the depth of His love and mercy. Only such a heart can truly appreciate and engage in worship that pleases God. Moreover, when our hearts are aligned with God's truth, our lives naturally express that worship in faithful obedience and love for others, fulfilling the great commandment.

Q: How can we identify the commandments of men?

Commandments of men can be identified as teachings that go beyond or contradict the Scripture. In identifying the commandments of men, one must look for teachings that extend beyond what is written in Scripture or that impose human traditions on the faith. As Jesus pointed out in Matthew 15, the Pharisees were guilty of teaching their rituals as if they were commandments of God, thus nullifying God's Word with their traditions (Matthew 15:6). In today’s context, many church practices, such as infant baptism or forms of worship that are not biblical, may fall under this category if they are taught as essential to salvation or true worship. The only authority we should recognize is the Word of God, which is sufficient for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16-17). We must evaluate teachings against Scripture to discern their divine or human origin.

Our lesson this morning is in
Matthew chapter 15. And the lesson will cover the
first 20 verses of Matthew chapter 15, but I'm only going to read
to you the first 14 verses. Matthew 15 beginning with verse
1. Then came to Jesus, scribes and
Pharisees which were of Jerusalem." Now that's important. These weren't
just the run-of-the-mill Pharisees and scribes. These were Pharisees
and scribes from Jerusalem. Saying, why do thy disciples
transgress the tradition of the elders? They came out there and
now they're going to question what this man's teaching. They're
going to expose him. And they just blatantly come
up in front of everybody and publicly challenged him. And they said, 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 curses father or mother,
let him die the death. But you 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 shall be free." Now here's what that means. Man is obligated. to his parents
for his parents' welfare. He's obligated to them under
the law of God. He's to see to their needs. In
their old age or should they become sick and dying, they're
obligated when they can't help themselves to help them. Because
their parents pretty much raised them for nothing their whole
lifetime. And what these Pharisees did
with that is switch that around. And because they were Pharisees,
they said it doesn't apply to us. It is our gift to God. In other words, we can't support
you. We can't give you what you're asking us to give. We can't give
you these things because it is a gift. It's a gift. It's a gift to God. And it's a gift by whatsoever
thou mightest be profited by me. And you honor not your father
or your mother. He should be free. In other words,
he'll be free from that commandment. Thus have you made the commandment
of God of none effect by your tradition. You hypocrite, well
did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, this people draweth nigh unto
me with their mouth, and honoreth 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. And he called the multitude,
and he said unto 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 not thou that the Pharisees were offended after
they heard this say? Did you know that? But he answered
and said, every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted
shall be rooted up. Leave them alone. They be blind,
leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind,
both shall fall into the ditch. Now, the scribes and Pharisees,
being from Jerusalem, that designated them as spokesmen. as spokesmen
or representatives of the Jewish faith. These were not just your
run-of-the-mill men out here offering their opinions and offering
their ideas and their speculations about the law. These were the
very spokesmen. This was the Sanhedrin. And they
sent them out there and they were representatives of what
the Jewish faith was all about. So their words were not just
opinions and beliefs, but the convictions of the whole of their
faith. And so it is today. We hear men
and some women on TV preaching and said, well, that's their
opinion. That's their opinion. And they
say that of me. That's your opinion. No, it's
not my opinion. And it's not just their opinion
either. Most of these people who are on here are being supported
by and promoted by religious denominations. And as long as
they continue to promote them, they're behind them. And what
they're saying, they're saying as ambassadors of that faith.
And they're exposing what that faith is all about. These leading
men, they brought into the forefront and publicized and promoted and
followed. He said their words are not just
ideas, they are not just opinions, but the very heart of what their
religion is all about. And then in these several verses
here in Matthew chapter 15, the Lord confronts the religion of
His day. Now, I'm going to keep going
over and over this because I want you to understand what I'm saying.
I'm talking about that which men and women had given credence
to. Credence to. say that's okay,
that's all right, I believe that. I believe that. I believe what
that man's saying is the truth. They gave credence to it. That
which they brought their children to hear. Well, I don't really
believe what the man says, but I believe man ought to go to
church every Sunday, so I take my kids down there. That which they believe and trusted
to be the truth, and that which they placed their hopes in. And
then he made serious charges against them, exposing both them
and their doctrine publicly, and denounced them. He denounced
them before the people and denounced their teaching as vanity. That
word means useless. J.C. Rouse said one time, there
are three ways that a man can lose his soul. First, by doing
nothing at all. He don't have to do anything.
He can just live out His days like the heathen He is. Go with
the flow. Just wherever the stream flows,
I'll float there in the middle of it. He can just live out His
days doing absolutely nothing. Or secondly, He can deny the
one true and living God. And He can denounce that there
is a God. He can denounce all that the
Father stands for and the Son and the Holy Ghost and live out
His days attempting to be an atheist. Or thirdly, he can lose
his soul by taking up some kind of useless religion. Useless
religion. And that's the title of the message
this morning, a useless religion. Worldly religion, by whatever
name it bears, is absolutely and positively useless. It's
useless. It serves no purpose except to
slander the name of God and blind men from the truth of the gospel.
Well, it teaches men how to live moral life. No, it teaches men
how to live what they call a moral life in a hope of a self-righteousness. Now, that's what they teach,
and that's useless. False religion cannot comfort
the hearts of seeking sinners. They don't know what to tell
them because it's never been told themselves. They don't know
what it is. I remember when I was seeking
the Lord. I remember the first time I ever
read the Word of God and was convicted by the truth of the
Scriptures. I remember that. And I remember
going to them and saying, what does this mean? I need help here. I need some light here. And they
didn't know anything at all about it. And what little bit of light
I had, they tried to put out. It cannot give vital instruction
to the lost. They'd be blind leaders of the
blind. It cannot apply the ointment
of grace upon that which God has wounded. They can't pour
that grace there. It can't direct the blind. It
has nothing to offer up to God, but it's hypocrisy. That's what
Christ said to them here in Matthew 15, you hypocrites and blind. Hypocrites. There's nothing to offer up to
God, but it's hypocrisies which are an abomination to God. Isaiah
describes their worship this way, and I'm not quoting this
word for word, but I'm giving you bits and pieces from it. He said that their worship was
like, he that killeth an ox as if he had slew a man, as he that
sacrifices a lamb as if he had cut off a dog's neck, and he
that offered an oblation as if he had offered swine's blood. They've chosen their own ways,
he said, and their soul delighteth in their abominations. I also
will choose their delusions." I, God said, will choose their
delusions. I'm going to give you several
things that I believe are taught in these verses that mark a useless
and a false religion. That's what Christ said of it.
It's all in vain. They teach in vain. That's what
he said. It's all in vain. It's a vain
worship. It's a vain teaching. It's a
vain end. Everything about it is totally
and absolutely useless. All right, here's the first one.
They teach for doctrines, he said, the commandments of men. Now, like the Jews of old, they
go beyond the Word of God. That's what they do. They go
beyond the Word of God to make up their own instructions and
statutes and then impose them on men and women as though they
were the commandments of God. In the text, it was the washing
of hands. This is just a simple point they
picked out. But they had a lot of different
points, like picking corn and eating it on the Sabbath day.
And they had all kinds of things that they came out and accused
him of. But in the text this morning, it has to do with the
washing of hands. And then over in Mark's account
of this same confrontation, he goes on to tell about a lot of
things, like the washing of pots, and cups and brazen vessels and
tables and all sorts of things. And then in our days, our Pharisees
have instituted all sorts of rites and rituals. Let me give
you just a few of them. Infant baptism. It's not in the
Scripture. You can't find it anywhere in
here. Infant baptism. Sprinkling instead of immersion.
Holy water in the entrance of a church. confessionals, catechisms,
walking down aisles, grape juice instead of wine at the Lord's
table, soda crackers in the place of unleavened bread, women preachers. the wearing of clergy clothes,
of robes and gowns, and titles like father and reverend and
master, duties like tithing and Sabbath days and holy days, denominational
government, and a New Testament priesthood. You can't find any
of those things in the Word of God. And that would even begin
the list of things that this generation is teaching, calling
them commandments of God. This is what God says. This is
what God teaches. And yet you look in here for
it and it's nowhere in here. You can't find it. Paul said
they teach things like this, forbidding to marry. Not allowed
to marry. You're in the clergy, you're
in the priesthood, you can't marry. You're going to serve
God, you can't marry. Forbidding to marry. Abstaining
from meats. Can't eat meat on this day. You
reckon the Lord of glory really cares whether or not you eat
meat on Friday or fish. Teaching for commandments, these
traditions, they're traditions of men. I don't deny that these
are powerful institutions. I don't deny that their intimidation
is worldwide. They cover huge areas. We're
talking about masses and multitudes of men. But my friend, the Word of God
does not include any of these things in the doctrines given
to the church. Every one of them that I mentioned
are all the commandments of men being taught as commandments
of God. And all the while they're enforcing and insisting on all
these false self-proclaimed doctrines, they're all in full denial and
rebellion to the commandments of God. They're practicing rebellion. against the commandment. He commands
us to preach the gospel. Preach the gospel. Do they preach the gospel? No. No, they preach another gospel.
Isn't that rebellion against the commandment of God? Sure
it is. God commands us to assemble together
and worship Him with our hearts in true repentance and faith
by the reading of the Word, the prayer of the saints, their songs
of praise, their free and uncoerced offerings, and the preaching
of the Gospel. And the Word of God is our only
rule of faith and practice. We've got the Word of God, and
that's it. That's it. It's not just the
Word of God. It's the Word of God alone. That's
the rule. All Scripture is given by inspiration
of God. Well, if it's given of God, inspired
of God, then let's follow it. If it's the opinion of a translator,
then let's get together and have a council and try to figure it
out. But if it's given by inspiration of God, that ought to be sufficient,
shouldn't it? That ought to be the final say
on it. Well, what's it profitable for? Paul said it's profitable
for doctrine. for doctrine. How do I know that
these things are the commandments of men and not the commandments
of God? Because I have the Word of God, and it teaches me the
truth concerning the doctrines of the church. What else is it
profitable for? Well, the Word of God is profitable
for reproof. Our Lord didn't just stand up
and say, now, I don't think you're doing right. That ain't what
He told them. He went straight to the Word of God, didn't He?
And He reproved them. It's profitable for correction
and for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect,
truly furnished unto all good works. Preach the word was Paul's
instruction to young Timothy. Be instant in season, out of
season. Reprove, rebuke, and exhort with
all long-suffering and doctrine. Now listen. Listen to what he
tells him after that. For the time will come when they
will not endure sound doctrine. They won't endure it. They won't
sit under it. They won't listen to it. They
won't be reproved by it. They won't be instructed by it.
But after their own lush shall they heap to themselves teachers
having itching ears. And they shall turn away their
ears from the truth and be turned unto fables. All right, the second
mark. The second mark of a false religion,
hypocritical religion, the second mark is that they do what they
do to be seen of men. Everything is geared to man. The number of the beast, the
beast has to do with false religion, the number of the beast is what?
Six, six, six. Six is the number of man. It's
all man, man, man. It's all man's glory and man's
works, man's ways, man's ideas, man's approval. It's men's persons. That's what motivates them. It's
men's applause, men's approval, men's honors and awards, men's
titles and documents. First thing you see when you
walk in a pastor's study is this great big old thing framed up
here, big old diploma up there. with all these letters after
his name. Man's titles and man's documents. The man of faith and
his teacher both seek the presence and approval of God. And if nobody
else shows up, he has real worries about whether or not God is going
to show up. You know, a lot of times when we were gathering
here on Wednesdays, it would just be me and Winston and Kathy
for a long time, and then pretty soon three or four or five would
come in. But I'll be honest with you, I'm more afraid God's not
going to show up than I am the people. What happens if He don't show
up? I'd rather have His approval
than the people's. And this man's heart is a new
heart. It's a tender and a broken heart,
a mourning heart over his sins, a believing heart, trusting Christ
that put his sins away. and a joyful heart that Christ
ever liveth to make intercession for. And I don't know if you've
ever noticed or not, but over in Philippians chapter 3, when
Paul said, we are the circumcision which worship God in the Spirit,
the Spirit there don't have a capital S. He's not talking there about
the Holy Spirit. He's talking there about the
teaching and the understanding given to us by the Holy Spirit.
We are the true circumcision which worship God with a right
understanding of who God is. It's a spiritual revelation.
God Himself has taught you. That's what John said. You have an unction of the Spirit. And because it has to do with
the revelation and teaching of the Spirit and not directly to
His person, He uses that small s on there. And to be in the
Spirit is an awareness of His presence by the things of Christ
which flood our soul and enable us to worship God. We come in
and worship Him. We don't worship Him over some
experience we had 20 years ago. We worship Him with a full knowledge
of what He's doing for us, what He's done for us, what He's doing
for us, and what He yet shall do for us. And the only place
you can find that is in the Gospel. And if you're just ringing bells
and swaying with the music, you're not worshiping God. If you just
come in and sit in a pew and sing the hymns, you're not worshiping
God. You've got no idea who God is.
And then in 1 Corinthians 2, verse 12, he said, now we have
received not the spirit of the world, small s, but the spirit
which is of God. That is the spiritual understanding
that we might know the things that are freely given to us of
God. That all true worship is through
a heart understanding of God and our Savior, Jesus Christ.
And a heart void of this understanding is left to its natural senses
and feeds on those things of the world and calls it worship.
You can turn on any TV show on Sunday morning and it shows thousands
of people out there in the audience. You'll look at them out there,
and there are tears in their eyes, and they're singing, and
they're swaying, and they're praying, and they're going through
all these things. But you can't worship God without
an understanding of who He is. All true worship is through a
hard understanding of God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. And
if you're void of that, you're void of true worship. You worship,
our Lord said to the woman at the well. She said, you worship
in Jerusalem. We worship in the mountains.
He said, you don't know what you worship. That's where you're
at. You don't know what you worship.
And then the third mark of false religion is an improper attitude. Religion, worldly religion, is
cold and judgmental. It lacks the fruit of the Spirit
and the attitude of a reverend heart. They need laws and punishments
to motivate them because there's no real love for Christ. They
need threatened often and even disciplined because they have
no real gratitude in their hearts. They need ceremonial tradition
because they've never truly experienced the grace of God and salvation
in their own soul. And they have to have these things
to pump them up. They have to have these things
to cause some emotion or feeling within them. And he said, it's
all vanity. It's all vanity. Religion is
empty-headed and empty-hearted. They built for themselves, the
prophet said, cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.
True religion is a heart religion. A heart religion. Fix the heart,
you fix the man. You fix the man. Fix the heart. Every other part of his life
will fall into place. Fix the heart. And the man who's
experienced the grace of God in regeneration is a man of peace. He's a merciful, a patient man. And he wants men to be saved.
He's not lofty and high-minded, but he's humble. And he does
not talk down to his hearers, but is one who is in the same
condition they are. And then the fourth thing our
Lord points out about false religion is their pretense. He says in
Matthew 15, 8, this people draws nigh unto me with their mouth.
They honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. They talk about repentance, but
they never really truly repent. They talk about worship, but
they never enter in. They talk about giving, but they
don't give. They talk about service, but
they don't serve. He said in another place, he
said, for a pretense. He said they make long prayers
for a pretense. Over in 2 Samuel chapter 6, the
ark of God was being brought back. You remember the story. The Philistines had got the ark. And it had been nothing to them
but a curse. It caused old Dagon to fall on his face. Old Fish
God caused him to fall on his face. And they stood him back
up, and the next morning he was laying there and he didn't have
no arms. It just totally destroyed their idols, which is what the
gospel does. But David went down to get the
ark and bring it back up. And lots of things happened. This is where old Uzzah reached
up to touch the ark and God killed him. And you remember the story. But finally, David's coming back
into Jerusalem before the ark and David's dancing before the
ark with nothing on but a linen apron. I read the old writers
and they've got him covered in layers of linen and all this,
but if you read the story, he didn't have anything on but a
single linen gown. That's what David had on. You
could see through it and see under it. You could see him.
He was naked before that ark, dancing in that linen gown. And
Michael, Saul's daughter, his wife, was up in the palace looking
out the window. And here comes the king of Israel,
dancing naked before the ark. And all these young women were
out there, and all these young men, and they were all singing,
and going on, and doing all these things. And here comes David.
Well, all this subsided, and later on that evening, David
comes home. And when he came home, he walked
through the door, and she said, ain't you something. Ain't you
something? Danced out there naked before
the ark in front of all those young maidens. Ain't you something?
David said, I danced before the Lord. I danced before the Lord. I was
worshiping God. And I'll yet be more vile than
I was before Him. When we serve God and worship
God, we worship Him naked. Did you know that? Our souls,
our minds, our thoughts are naked before Him. He sees us as we
are. And that's how we, when we come
in here, we don't come in here in pretense. We don't come in
here pretending to be something we're not. We come in here naked
before God, confessing who we are, confessing what we are,
and we worship Him for His grace and for His mercy on sinners
like us. That's what David was doing.
Before that, I'll keep doing it in type and picture. We do
it in spirit and truth.

Useless Religion

What does the Bible say about useless religion?

How do we know false religion is dangerous?

Why is the heart important in worship?

How can we identify the commandments of men?

Sermon Transcript

About Darvin Pruitt

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Useless Religion

What does the Bible say about useless religion?

How do we know false religion is dangerous?

Why is the heart important in worship?

How can we identify the commandments of men?

Sermon Transcript

About Darvin Pruitt

Comments

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