today to Mark chapter 7. Mark chapter 7, beginning with
verse 1, reading through verse 23. 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 washed their hands off to eat not, holding
the tradition of the elders. When they come from the market,
except they wash, they eat not. Many other things there be which
they have received to hold, as the washing of cups and pots,
brazen vessels, and of tables. Then the Pharisees and scribes
ask 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
honoureth 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, you hold the tradition of men
as the washing of pots and cups and many other such like things
you do. And he said unto them, full well
you reject the commandment of God that you may keep your own
tradition. For Moses said, honor thy father
and thy mother, and whosoever curseth father or mother, let
him die the death. But you say, if a man shall say
to his father or mother, it is Corban, that is to say a gift,
by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me, he shall be free. And you 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 you have delivered, and
many such like things do you. And when he had called all the
people unto him, he said unto them, hearken unto me, every
one of you, and understand. There's nothing from without
a man that entering into him can defile him. But the things
which come out of him, those are they that defile the man.
And if any man have ears to hear, let him hear. When he was entered
into the house from the people, his disciples asked him concerning
the parable. And he saith unto them, are you
without understanding also? Do you 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 drought,
purging all meats. And he said, that which cometh
out of the man, that defileth the man. For from within, out
of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications,
murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness
and evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these things
come from within and defile the man. I want this morning to speak
to us especially about two truths that we have in these verses
that I've just finished reading. And we're going to look at the
witness of the Lord Jesus Christ to these two truths. First, the witness of the Lord
Jesus Christ to God's written word. God's written word, his
witness, his testimony to God's written word. The word that you
have in your hands today, the word that you're holding before
you, the word from which we've just read, the Lord Jesus Christ,
his witness concerning God's written word. Now we know this
morning, those of us here today, we know that this is the living
word made flesh, that is Jesus Christ our Lord. He is the eternal
word of God, the second person in the Godhead who was made flesh. This is the living word who is
witnessing to the written word, his written word, the word of
God. And I want you to notice if you
compare verse 8, what we read in verse 8, and what we see in
verse 13, that he calls the commandment of God the word of God. In verse 8, he says, for laying
aside the commandment of God. And then in verse 13, he says,
making the word of God of none effect. There's a psalm in our
Bible that is the longest chapter in the Bible, Psalm 119. I believe
there's 165 verses, something like that. And it's all about
the word of God, God's written word. And yet the written word
of God is referred to by various words such as word, commandment,
statues, judgments, and so we see here our Lord refers to the
commandment of God and the Word of God as being the same. That's
the point I want to make. He's speaking of the written
Word of God and we see the commandment of God is the same as the Word
of God. You see that? That's very clear,
isn't it? No question about it. Now, As we begin, I want to consider
what prompted our Lord's witness to the written word of God. I
want to remind us that the nation of Israel, the nation of Israel,
the Israelites, the Jews, they were blessed in a way and above
every other nation of the world. They were blessed. God singled
them out. God raised that nation up from
one man, Abraham. Made a covenant with him and
blessed that nation above and in a way that he had not blessed
any other nation of the world. In Romans chapter 9, the apostle
Paul refers to some of these blessings when he says, the adoption,
the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service
of God, and the promises. They were given to the nation
of Israel. And before that, in Romans, in
the letter of Romans, before that, he asked, or he answered,
Paul answered a question that he knew the Jews were bound to
raise when they understood what he was saying, what he was teaching.
what the Word of God teaches, that all men are sinners. Whether
you're Jew or Gentile, all men are sinners, and there's only
one way of reconciliation, there's only one way of justification,
and that is through the person and work of Jesus Christ our
Lord. And he knew that the Jews would
ask this question, what advantage then hath the Jews? What advantage
is there? I said that God had blessed this
nation above all the nations of the world. Then a Jew, a proud
Jew would naturally ask that question. Well, then what advantage
is there to be a Jew, being born a Jew? And Paul answered that
question like this, much in every way, chiefly. Get that word,
chiefly. This is the way the Jews had
an advantage over every other nation, the Gentile nations of
the world, chiefly, that unto them, that is the Jews, were
committed the oracles of God. That is the written word of God. But you notice here in our text,
in our passage this morning, that these Jewish religious leaders,
and that's who they were, they came from Jerusalem. These were
not country Pharisees, people in the small towns. These were
the who's who in the Jewish religion of that day. These leaders who
came, and they do not, I want you to notice, they do not ask
our Lord about the conduct of his disciples concerning the
written word of God, but they ask him about his disciples'
conduct concerning the tradition of the elders. You see that in
verse 5. Then the Pharisees and scribes
ask him, now notice, why walk not thy disciples, it's not Why
walk not thy disciples according to the written word of God, is
it? No. Why walk not thy disciples according
to the tradition of the elders? What is meant here by the tradition
of the elders? A simple answer would be the
tradition of the elders is what is contained in the Talmuds,
the Jewish Talmuds. The Jews over time came to teach
that when Moses went up onto the mountain and God gave him
the law, that God gave him two sets of law. One set was written. And one set was only spoken,
the spoken part of the law. The unwritten part, they believed
that Moses committed to Joshua, who took his place as the leader
of the nation of Israel. And then Joshua committed those
unwritten traditions and customs to the judges of Israel. And
eventually the judges of Israel, they committed those unwritten
traditions and words to the prophets, the unwritten, that which Moses
had received from God. It wasn't written as we have
in the Old Testament part of our Bible, but it was unwritten
and that had been passed down and eventually written down by
the Jews, and those books are called the Talmuds, T-A-L-M-U-D-S. You've probably seen that name
before in reading. That's what it refers to, these
unwritten laws according to them. Well, I want us to look in this
text here, this passage, at what we're told about these traditions,
the traditions of the elders. And I want you to follow with
me as I point out seven things about these traditions of the
elders that we see here in this passage. First of all, in verse
three, we see many of them, that is many of the Jews, or many
of the unwritten laws were accepted by all the Jews. It says here,
for the Pharisees and all the Jews. except they wash their
hands off, eat not, holding the tradition of the elders. Many of these rules were accepted
by all the Jews. That's the point I want to make.
You know, there was these three groups when our Lord was here
in the flesh, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Herodians. Now, There were things that the
Sadducees did not accept. They did not believe there were
angels. They did not believe there were spirits. They did
not believe in a resurrection. They didn't believe these things.
But the point here is the scripture says there were some things in
which they all believed. There are many things the scripture
says here. You see that? In verse three. for the Pharisees and all the
Jews, except they wash their hands off, eat not, holding the
tradition of the elders. And verse four, here's the second
thing I would point out. They concern many things, these
traditions. And when they come from the market,
except they wash, they eat not, and many See, there weren't many,
and many other things there be which they have received to hold. And third, they concerned frivolous,
frivolous and trifling matters, such as washing the hands. Some argued that you had to wash
the hands up to the wrist, some up to the elbow. There was trifling
things, traditions that they had received and they held these
things as all important. Frivolous things. How to wash
pots and pans. How deep the water had to be
in which the pot was baptized. That's the word that's used here.
How deep the water had to be. How often the water had to be
changed. foolish, frivolous things were
contained in these traditions of the elders. Still are contained
in the traditions of the elders. And the fourth thing that I see
here is, these things promoted self-righteousness. And I see
that in the words in verse four, when we read and when they come
from the market. Oh, I've been to the market and
just maybe I touched someone who was defiled. Or maybe someone
brushed up against me who was defiled. Let me say this, works
religion. always promotes self-righteousness. They just go hand and glove. Works religion, and there's only
two religions in this world, grace and works. That's it. And works religion
always promotes self-righteousness. These Pharisees and Jews, just
in case they touch somebody, as if that person's defiled and
I'm not defiled. That person's a sinner and I'm
not a sinner. That's always the case with works
religion. We set ourselves apart, men set
themselves apart somehow by what we do and what we don't do. And somehow, and listen, did
you know the word holier holier. In the King James translation,
it's only found one time. One time. And God says He hates
those that claim to be holier than others. No, the Word of
God says, Be ye holy, for I am holy. How is it then that a man
is going to be made holy? And notice that word made holy.
He's not going to make himself holy. But works religion always promotes
self-righteousness. Grace, let me tell you something
about grace. If it's real grace, if it's God's
grace. It promotes humility. It promotes humility. What did Paul say? Here's the
chief of sinners right here. He didn't say, here's your holiness.
Here I am, right, Reverend Apostle Paul. Oh, no. Here I am, the
chief of sinners, and thank God God sent his son into this world
to die for sinners. Grace always promotes, if it's
God's grace, always promotes humility. Now here's the fifth
thing. I notice this resulted in them
teaching the doctrines or teaching four doctrines, the commandments
of men. Notice that in verse seven, our
Lord said, how be it in vain do they worship me teaching four
doctrines? Here's your doctrine. Here's
what you are to believe. Here's what you must believe.
Here's your doctrine. What is it? Does it come from
the word of God, the written word of God? Oh, no. It comes
rather from the tradition of the elders. And over time, as
would only be natural, these traditions come to be placed
on the same level with the written word of God. And then the sixth
thing, the natural result is the word of God laid over here. The word of God is laid aside.
Now what do we have? Just the tradition of the elders. And then the seventh thing, they
rejected the Word of God. They've got their traditions,
they hold to, and they read something in the Word of God, which is
clearly contradictory. What do they reject? The Word
of God, the written Word of God, and hold on to their traditions. The Lord illustrated this to
these that day, As to how they rejected the written word of
God, by their doctrine, I'm going to call Corbin. I'm not sure
that's what they called it, but that's what our Lord said. The
word of God, the written word of God, commanded man to reverence,
to respect their parents, and if a person didn't, the penalty
in the word of God, the written word of God, was death. If a
man cursed his father or his mother, That child, that son
or daughter was to be put to death. Well, what did these people
do? Well, they rejected the word
of God, which told them to take care of their parents if they
needed them when they were older or in dire circumstances or something,
you know, to take care of them. But no, this is the way we will
do it. We'll just say Corbett. Corbett. And however, you might have been
helped by me, and maybe the law, the written word of God taught
me that I should help you. Well, that's all dedicated now
to God. Don't expect that. That's dedicated
to God. Surely you wouldn't want us to
take the things that are dedicated to God and spend those and use
them on you. It wasn't that they desire to give
things to God, it was they were covetous and had no desire to
honor, to treat their parents as the Word of God clearly taught.
They excused themselves in regard to their parents and what was
written in the Word of God, and they followed the traditions
of men. Our Lord certainly was not teaching
against giving. He wasn't teaching here against
giving. We know that God's people, we
do give. But we give not because the law
commands us, you give this percent. Here it is. Tithe, which means
10%, right? But you study the law and the
word of God, and you see they had to give. They didn't give,
they had to pay. Someone said, do you teach tithing
over there? No, not at all. Not at all. Why? Because tithing went with
that old dispensation. That's why. What do we teach? We teach what the New Testament
teaches. Our Lord has taught us to give. As the Lord has prospered you,
give. And God loves a cheerful giver.
Not out of compulsion. Not because if you don't give,
God's going to Cause your refrigerator to go out? If you don't tithe,
God's going to destroy your car? Some of us sat under that kind
of teaching when we were younger. I did. That has nothing to do
with God's people. God's people give because we
love him because he first loved us. The Lord's witness to the written
word of God tells us that our doctrine, that is our teaching,
as well as our practice, must be always based upon His written
word, to the law and to the testimony. This is what we read in Isaiah
concerning prophets, concerning those who would speak for God,
to the law, And to the testimony, if they speak not according to
this word, it is because there is no light in them. If they do not speak according
to this word, the written word. And Jeremiah, the prophecy of
Jeremiah, God asked this question. He said, what is the chaff to
the wheat? The chaff, you know, the chaff
is that, that, uh, outside the wheat, the grain is on the inside
and, and the wheat has to be winnowed, doesn't it? So you
get the, the wheat out that you can grind and make into bread. But if you just took that whole
kernel and ground it up, you'd have all that rough stuff in
there. What God asked what's chaff to the wheat. So my word. God's word is wheat. The traditions
of man, chaff. Chaff. What are they worth in
comparison to the word of God? Zero. Zero. That's what they're worth. We have a more sure word of prophecy
that is the written word of God. And our Lord Jesus Christ said,
heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. Now, when you study church history,
I want you to turn to a passage and we'll come back here, but
look with me in 2 Thessalonians chapter two and verse 15, 2 Thessalonians
chapter two. When you study church history,
you learn that the harlot church, that is the false church called
the Christian church, the harlot church, taught something very
much like the Jews. Here in this verse, we read,
therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which
you have been taught. Now notice, whether by word or
our epistle. And so the false church, the
harlot church, seized upon this text to answer to some of the
practices that she taught, praying to the saints. Where do you find
that? In the word of God, in the written
word of, you don't find it in the written word of God. When
thou prayest, who do we pray to? We pray to our Father who's
in heaven, not to Saint Matthew or Saint Luke or Saint anybody. Where did that teaching come
from? Well, according to the false church, these were traditions
that were not in the written word of God, but were communicated
to them. And so they just bring them out
as it serves their purpose. praying to the saints and, you
know, the worship of Mary. And did you see this last Wednesday? Did you see this last Wednesday?
And I happened to see this on the news. This priest, this priest, he was explaining how that it
was legitimate to put these sacred ashes, and I couldn't help but
laugh, sacred. The only ashes I've seen, you
burn wood or burn limbs and they turn to ashes. What makes them
sacred? How'd they become sacred? But
this priest was saying, because of the COVID, we're not allowed
now to put the mark of the cross on people because of social distancing
or whatever, but that's okay. That's okay. That's covered. That's covered. We'll give you
a package of these sacred ashes and you can just put them on
yourself. It'll serve the purpose. What purpose? What purpose? This whole idea of Lent. Where
did that, where does that come from? It doesn't come out of
the written word of God. These are, just like the Jews
that we're reading about here, they had the tradition of the
elders. So today, people in so-called
Christian churches have the traditions of the elders. And I tell you
what, when it comes to a choice between the written word of God
and the traditions, Always they go with the tradition, always. This truth has never been more
needed than it is now. The truth about the sovereignty
of God, the truth about man's fall in the garden, the truth
about Christ effectual redemption. It is ridiculed and rejected
by the false church. Satan's great lie of evolution
is held and embraced by so many who should be defenders of the
Word of God, the written Word of God. I read this past week of a well-known
so-called Christian pastor who wrote a letter of apology. And
he apologized over a sermon that he had preached sometime back
in which he said that marriage, marriage as God ordained is between
one man and one woman. Well, he apologized for that
message because he realized that he had not been sensitive to
some people, especially named the LGBTQ. He had not been sensitive
to them, and I could not help but think Are you concerned about
the sensitivity of men and women, fallen men and women like yourself? Are you concerned about the fact
that one day you're going to stand before Almighty God? We may offend some people, but
it's not us. It's God. Their problem is not
with me. It's with God, the God of the
Bible. We love men and women. A person
may be one of those, whatever those things are, I don't even
know what they stand for. I don't care to know. But I know
this, that none of those things is an unpardonable sin. God can
save people out of stuff like that, just like he saves people
who have lived in adultery, or drunkenness, or idolatry, or
any sin. The blood of Jesus Christ has
power to save. Amen? We don't hate people, we
love people. Our desire is to preach the gospel
and make it as clear and plain as we possibly can. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
I don't care what your past is. Really, I'd rather not hear a
lot of it. I know how bad mine was. I don't see how it does a whole
lot of good to stand up and talk about how wicked a person was. We all are wicked. Maybe God's
restraining grace kept some and no doubt did keep some from a
lot of things that others were not kept from. But it was still
God's grace. And all of us by nature are God
haters when we come into this world. Now, the second truth. Let me say something else about
the Word of God. Women preachers. You say, well,
are you gonna get on that too? I'm gonna stay with the Word
of God. And as far as I see in the Word
of God, God calls men to preach and to pastor, not women. Now, if you don't agree with,
I know most everyone here will agree with that, but anyone who
doesn't agree with that, your problem is not with me, it's
with the word of God, the written word of God. Now the second truth, and I'll
just take a few minutes here. Our Lord witnesses to man's evil
heart. Man is not defiled by things
from without. Man is defiled from that which
is within. There are two parts. We know this. And as I looked at this this
past week, I could not help but think, here is the eternal Son
of God who created man. And He knows all about the digestive
system. And it's marvelous, isn't it?
The way God has created man, fearfully and wonderfully made.
He knows all about how you take things in and how the body subtracts
the things that are good and eliminates the things that are
not good. But those things from without
do, and you might take something into your body that will hurt
your body. I'm not, the Lord's not saying that. But that which
you take into your body doesn't go into your heart. Man has a
soul as well as a body. And these things that the Pharisees
were concentrating upon, basing their hope of eternal life upon,
all dealt with the body. The washing of the hands, the
washing of pots and pans. What about the washing of the
heart? What about that? Our Lord taught
that the things that defile a man come from within, and he points
out that these things come out of, and he names a whole list
of them, come out of an evil heart, a fallen heart. The Lord testified to this truth
that man comes into this world, he's depraved, she's depraved. We've got a wicked heart. In
fact, God said the heart is desperately wicked and deceitful above all
things. The fountain, the fountain from
which all these evil proceed come forth, it's polluted. Man's polluted at the fountain
and so naturally the streams going to be polluted. And all
the ceremonies, I don't care how old they are and how impressive
they are, all the ceremonies, all the religious rites, all
the traditions that men can or will ever invent can never cure
man's problem. Man's problem is his heart. That's
his problem. And thank God, God has a covenant
in which he has promised, a new heart also will I give you, and
a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the
stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of
flesh. Man cannot give himself a new
heart, and yet that's exactly what man needs. Only God can
give a person a new heart. Someone might say, well, how
do you know if God's given you a new heart? If you trust in
the Lord Jesus Christ, you've got a new heart. You see, false
religion's been teaching in this country for a long time now that
you exercise faith and then you receive a new heart. Oh, no.
No, faith is the result of God giving you a new heart. Love
for Christ. Do you love Christ? Is Christ
precious to you? To them that believe, He is precious. Is He precious to you? Do you
have a desire to live for Him and His glory and serve Him? You know you have a new heart
by the result of a new heart. Not by some experience of the
hair standing up on the back of your neck and all of those
things, seeing lights and people in a dream and people appearing
to you and all these things that people come up with, religious
experiences. No, no. You know you have a new
heart by your new life, the desire you have to live for Him. and
to honor Him. God's written His law, His gospel
upon your heart. And you love the gospel. It's
not something you can take or leave. It's something that is
all important to you, to hear the gospel, to obey the gospel, to honor
God Almighty. I pray that the Lord would bless
this word, all of us here this morning. We're going to sing
hymn number 340 before we are dismissed. And I want to make
this announcement before we sing the hymn that Brother Streeter
has some preliminary drawings of a building that the architect
has been working on, the drawings, and they're in the fellowship
hall, and Brother Schrader's going to be back there, and if
you have any questions, I hope you'll go by and look at