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Let us turn now in the scriptures
to the Gospel of Mark, chapter number 7, where we have read
the Word of God already. Mark, chapter 7. And let me begin by simply giving
you a little overview of what we're going to be doing this
morning. Hopefully it will follow the word we give and it will
be clear. First of all, I want to focus
on the problem that we're looking at today. And then second, focus
on a few illustrations, examples of that problem among the Church
of Christ today. And then third, deal with a solution
to that problem, how to approach and deal with that problem. And so to consider the problem,
let's go to the scripture where it is set very clearly before
us in Mark chapter seven. You can find the same account
in Matthew's gospel as well. And then the first verse of chapter
seven, I'm just going to read through the verses and kind of
comment on them as we go through with regard to what is happening
here. Chapter 1, chapter 7, verse 1, then came together unto him
the Pharisees and certain of the scribes. Now we pause there
for a minute to make this observation. The Pharisees were the very strict
appliers of the Old Testament law plus all of the rules they
had established to support the law, to see to it that the law
of God, the word of God, was being held to, upheld. And so
they had countless rules, as we see in this passage, by which
they sought to urge and require, demand the subservience of the
people. The scribes named here, on the
other hand, were a different group. The scribes and the Pharisees
didn't always get along. The scribes were the scholars,
the copiers of the scripture. They had to copy it by hand and
they were very, very meticulous, very conscientious in doing so.
So much so that they would count the letters in an entire book
of scripture to make sure they hadn't left one out or added
one too many. And they had a vast, vast knowledge
of the Old Testament scriptures. Whether that knowledge was truly
a useful understanding is another question. But suffice it to say,
they were the scholars and the Pharisees were the ones who cracked
the whip, so to speak. They were separate groups. Ah,
but we find them together in this first verse. And the picture
being drawn, I believe, by Mark is this. These various separate,
distinct, and at times rivaling departments of religion had found
one thing to bring them together, and that's what's happening here.
They've come together in order with united force to go after
Jesus of Nazareth. And that's further established
when in verse 1 it says they came from Jerusalem. Now Jerusalem was 70 to 80 miles
removed from where the Lord Jesus was at this time in his teaching.
And so what you have is the scribes and the Pharisees from the capital
of religion, Jerusalem, from the very heart of Israel's religious
customs, joining together and making this lengthy trip, as
was mentioned in Sunday school, 100 mile transit for us isn't
that bad. We can hop in a car and in an
hour and a half, hour and 50 minutes, be there. 80 miles,
likewise. Some of you make that an hour
trip. I don't, or maybe in the past I have, but we can hop in
a vehicle and be where we want to go. These people had to either
walk or ride some kind of an animal. And to make a 70 to 80
mile trip for the sole purpose of finding fault with the Lord
Jesus Christ These people literally went out of their way to fault
the Lord Jesus. There they come. And verse two
is the fault that they find. 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. 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,
brazen vessels, and of tables. And so this is a tradition of
the Pharisees of the Jews. Had nothing to do with sanitation.
Germ theory was utterly unknown in that historical era. It had everything to do with
religious custom, with tradition, which Jesus shows them their
tradition is preempting, usurping, yay, contradicting the scripture. And that's the danger of tradition
that we need to recognize today. When Diane and I visited Israel,
thanks to the generosity and kindness of this congregation,
we purchased a souvenir over there, which is a beautiful little
handmade cup, if you will. China and that type of stuff.
And you might call it a dust catcher,
you know, one of those things that sits on a shelf. You don't
dare use it, because if you use it, you will. I will invariably
break it so it is there protected on a shelf. Beautiful little
piece of art is what it is. But it has two handles on it.
Like your coffee cup that has one handle, this one has two.
But they are not on opposite sides of the cup. If you can
imagine looking at that cup from the top as if you're looking
at a clock. and where four o'clock and eight
o'clock are, that's where the handles are. And it is made specifically
for the use of purifying among the Jews. You see, though their
hands may have gotten dirty and grubby and whatever they were
doing, acting at during the day, that really didn't matter. What
mattered is that they go through the proper religious ritual before
they eat, before they do this, before they do that, and so that
cup is made so that with one defiled hand, a man or woman
may take one handle, get water in it, and pour it over the left
hand. Now the left hand is purified. They can set the cup down and
now with a purified hand, take it by the other handle and pour
it on this hand and now they're both purified, let's go eat. That's what it amounted to. And
the disciples of Christ didn't do that. And how wrong they were
as per the Pharisees because they were not observing the tradition
of the elders. Now indeed, in the book of Leviticus
and Numbers, there were instructions about using water for purification. Moses was to sprinkle the people
with water. At Sinai, when the law would
be given through Moses to the people of Israel the evening
before he was to ascend, the people were to wash their clothing. There was to be that cleansing.
But a universal everyday purifying with water was not something
that was included in those commands of scripture. That was something
that had been invented by zealous religious teachers of the Jews
in the effort to make sure the scripture was being followed.
And doubtless in making those rules, they were very sincere,
genuine, and earnest. But what one generation had done
and their sincerity was passed to another generation, which
passed it to another generation, and in the course of three generations
or more, the whole original significance would be lost and it would become
simply a tradition. And Christ's disciples, and indirectly,
Christ was here, Assaulted by the Pharisees for not heeding
the law of God. What was Christ's response? That
should always be our greatest interest. How did he respond? Well, verse number five, the
Pharisees and scribes asked him, why walk not thy disciples according
to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashing
hands? And he answered and said unto them, well hath Isaiah prophesied
of you hypocrites. Christ went straight to the scriptures. And it is always and only to
the word of God which we must resort. And he says, Isaiah the
prophet, in fact, prophesied concerning you. Verse six, well
hath Isaiah's prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written,
this people honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is
far from me. How be it 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. He quotes Isaiah chapter 29.
And although Isaiah was not necessarily speaking directly of these people,
he was speaking of the people in his own age who honored God
with their lips, but their heart was far from them. Yet when he
said that, unbeknownst to him, it was foretelling exactly what
would be happening this day as these Pharisees and scribes came
against Christ. And Christ refers them to that
text of scripture which surely they knew but had never contemplated
was speaking of them. And it spoke of them at various
levels. He said, Isaiah prophesied of
you. Don't just proclaim the prophet
Isaiah and the law of God. See how he speaks to you when
he does so. This must always be the heart
of the preacher. As he preaches the word of God,
it must first be preached to himself and to his own heart. And as we read the scriptures,
and I trust that you are reading them, it must always be not with,
boy, that sure applies to so and so on thus and thus, But
no, it's written for me, and how, Lord, show me, does it apply
to me? He points out that the prophet,
in his utterance of denunciation, was speaking, yes, both of the
people in his own day, but of these people, and we can, I believe,
by extension, apply it thus, of every people, who will have
their religious ritual, their system, their traditions, but
never know God. And possibly not know God because
he is obscured by their religion itself and their traditions. Not only did Jesus say Isaiah
spoke of them, but in verse number six, called them hypocrites. They were professing to be something
and perhaps had deceived themselves into thinking they were something,
that they weren't. And their whole life was like
the acting of a player on a stage. Yes, it was full of sound and
fury, but signifying nothing. All kinds of activity religiously,
but a heart that was dark and defiled and deceived by their
own traditions. In addition to that, he says,
verse seven, this religion is vain, empty, hollow, and it does
you no good at all. Better, it would seem, to have
no religion at all than to have one that binds you in self-righteous
blindness, that makes you deaf to God and His Word. You see, religion is not good. God alone is good, and religion
can be the greatest deceiver and blinder, the case before
us being but one example. And these Pharisees who've joined
now with the scribes and made the long, arduous journey from
Jerusalem, 70 to 80 miles up to Galilee, all in the application
of their religious zeal, the outworking of their religious
thoughts, in fact, Jesus says, blind, you don't see, you don't
know, thus tradition and its vile disservice to humanity. Well Jesus goes on to really
then rebuke them in verse number nine by saying what you are doing
is in fact rejecting the commandment of God. And while you commend
yourselves that you are keeping God's commandments, your actions
in fact are a rejection of the commandments of God. What a warning
that should be to every one of us. And he proceeds to give an
example of how they reject the commandment of God. Verse number
10. Moses said, honor thy father
and thy mother. And whoso curseth father or mother,
let him die the death. Now it was very clear the Ten
Commandments said to honor your father and your mother. It's
the first commandment with promise that your days may be long upon
the earth. And elsewhere in the Old Testament, there's the instruction
to the people of God to consider and honor their parents. They
lived in a day when there was no such thing as social security
or retirement accounts. where parents might be very likely
destitute at the end of their life, having spent everything
that they had to maintain their family, and now unable to work,
how will they survive the remaining days of their lives? They're
dependent upon their children, no doubt, to come along and help
out. Yes, the scripture commanded, honor your father and mother.
Were these Pharisees, were these scribes doing that? Jesus says
in verse 11, but ye say, if a man shall say to his father or mother,
it is Corbin that is to say a gift by whatsoever thou mightest be
profited by me, he shall be free and ye suffer him no more to
do ought for his father or mother. What a scandal this was. If one
had funds whereby he may help his father and mother in time
of need, he had also the commandment of the law to honor his parents,
to be helpful to them. But they had developed a system
whereby that person could say of their monies, this is set
aside as a gift, a gift for Jehovah. It's his, I can't do that. And
thereby escape their proper duty before God and men of caring
for their declining parents. And by doing so, verse number
15, they were making the word of God of none effect through
their tradition. And Christ blasts them with the
obvious violation of the word of God and the spirit of the
law with this example, this illustration. That's the problem. The problem
is that religious traditions develop. And if allowed to develop
and rule, they will usurp and contradict and violate the word
of God. and it is not an intentional
thing that's done. I can't imagine many human beings
who would get up one morning and say, hmm, I think today I
will invent a false religion to deceive many people and make
sure many more of them wind up in hell. No. False religions originate As
people sincerely try to apply the scripture, but perhaps through
pride think they've come on a new take, and they set that forth
and get their system going. It's a sincere effort. And when it comes to the matter
of tradition, this is something that all of us should consider. Number one. We are all creatures of habit. Chances are people here got out
of their bed this morning and for the next hour did the
same thing they have done every morning for the past 40 years.
I'm glad they did. You need to brush your teeth
and you need to wash your face, yeah. But you get what I'm saying. We're creatures of habit. We're
creatures of religious habit. We can get into the habit of
going to church and going through this and that in order of service.
There, check it off my list, I've done that. Creatures of
habit, and habit very quickly develops deep, deep roots and
becomes quite difficult to extricate. Not only are we creatures of
habit, but we are also Sense-oriented. Sense not in the sense of good
sense here, but in the sense of having five senses. We are
sensory creatures. Everything we know has come to
us by means of hearing, seeing, tasting, touching. The senses are what enable us
to live and survive. and we are given unto that sensory
orientation in life. But when it comes to the things
of God, the things of the word of God, We do not see him with
our eyes. We do not hear an audible voice.
We are not handling him as John the Apostle wrote of in 1 John
chapter one. Rather, we worship him in spirit
and in truth. But because we are so sensory
oriented, we are ready to accept images, pictures, Rituals? I've told you before, I believe,
of the wooden cross that was given to me by one of the teachers
in the school many years ago, now deceased. His father was
a pastor, and a missionary had given it to his father, and it
had been given to the missionary by a native craftsman who, with
very, very hardened wood and sharpened tools, had made a beautiful
little cross. And 25 or more years ago, I placed
the cross here on the communion table, thinking to myself, before
I had thought through what I'm preaching to you this morning,
that having the cross before us is a good thing. There was
a man who was attending at that time on Sunday evenings only. He was from a Roman Catholic
background and was troubled by some of the things in the Church
of Rome but very much yet connected to the formalism, the ritual,
the images, the physical, for in fact the Roman system materializes
that which is spiritual in so many ways. which is why there
are the statues and the pictures and the crosses and all the rest.
And the man said to me one day he was so glad to see the cross
at the front as he had begun coming on Sunday evening and
that indeed he felt a sense of identity with God by seeing that
cross, so much so that he was convinced to go back into the
Church of Rome full force. tradition, sensory experience. That is what we are innately
prone to. We are creatures of habit. We
are sensory creatures. We are also, may I call it, turf
jealous creatures. Once we've established a habit,
don't try to change it. This is the way I worship God.
How dare you suggest anything else? And we get very turfy to
protect our own ways. We're all prone to that. And
in addition, we're also very creative. Humans are inventive creatures. and how many great new ideas
have dawned in the minds of people ruled by sensory experience,
by habit, and consequently, a tradition comes out of it. The religious
teachers of Israel were very zealous to protect the law of
God. When Jerusalem was overtaken
by her enemies in 586 and fell, There was a small remnant of
true believers, Daniel was among them, Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abednego, and as they were in captivity, they began to recognize
that indeed the captivity was because their people had abandoned
the law of God, so they were determined to uphold it, and
they began a system which eventually became a collection of traditions,
of sayings of the elders, and that's what was ruling the Jewish
people when Christ came, and it included such things as the
washing of hands in order to guard the scriptures. And what
had begun as a sincere effort because of these four characteristics
of humanity I've cited became an obstacle obscuring the truth. Christ came. He fulfilled all
the precepts of the divine law. He atoned for the sins of all
of his people. He sent his disciples forth And
the Church of Christ came into being at Pentecost in great power. And within two centuries, the
same thing that had happened to the people of Israel and their
religious actions had begun happening to the Christians and their religious
actions. And there began to develop a
body of tradition and sincere, earnest people seeking to do
what was right, in fact, were adding their own ideas to the
Word of God. And by the 1500s, God moved among
various unconnected, unacquainted men in Europe, men who were priests
and had studied the system of Rome, but began to recognize
that Rome was being run by traditions rather than by the Word of God. and the Protestant Reformation
came about. Have you ever looked seriously
at a Presbyterian cemetery? Probably not. They're not necessarily
fascination points for most of us. The next time you go past
a truly Presbyterian cemetery, look for crosses on the tombstones. I don't think you'll find one.
And it's not because they've forgotten about the cross, but
rather, at the time of the Reformation, John Knox leading the Reformation
in Scotland, which was so influential over the development of the American
colonies later, was against anything that smacked of Roman Catholic
imagery. And you drive past a Roman Catholic
cemetery and you will see it's filled with crosses. And there's
a reason behind that. Tradition, images, sensory experience,
what can I see, feel, hear? Now, what does that have to do
with us today? Well, I trust that we have set
forth a pattern among humanity that you recognize and will remember.
What are some examples of this? A number of years ago, this congregation
hosted the annual convention of the American Council of Christian
Churches. A pastor in that organization, a dear brother in Christ, a good
friend of mine, now with the Lord, entered into our sanctuary,
which at that time had just been remodeled. I think it was 2003. We had the remodeling. And he
looked at it and suddenly said, where are the flags? What flags? We don't have an American flag.
We don't have a Christian flag. Why don't we? Now my point is not to argue
for or against flags, that's another discussion. My point
is this, the presence of flags in a sanctuary that is dedicated
to the exclusive worship of God himself had become an expectation
to that brother. And in many churches that you
enter today, I'm not saying this to be critical of them, I'm simply
giving an illustration The presence of flags in the sanctuary has
become a tradition. So much so that in his mind,
there was a fault in not having them. Other examples could be given. Back in the 1800s, as the camp
meeting revivals were taking place across this country, And
a preacher by the name of Finney, Reverend Finney, was preaching
and inventing some new ideas in theology. In Zeal to See Souls
Saved, they introduced a brand new concept which had never been
used in the history of Christ's church, and that was to ask people
in the congregation, as they would hear the Word of God preached
and be impressed by it, ask them to come out of their seat. and
come to a special room, a mourner's room or a mourner's bench, an
altar rail where they could kneel and pray and confess their sins. And this became very prominent
in American evangelicalism. Charles Spurgeon, the great British
Baptist preacher during the Victorian era was highly suspicious of
that practice. and others from the European
scene likewise questioned the judgment behind telling a person
that because they had performed a certain religious action, namely
walking from their seat to the front of the church, that they
were saved. As I began in the ministry, I
certainly was giving altar calls. But more and more, I was meeting
people to whom I would endeavor to share the gospel, and they
would say, oh, I already did that. I went forward in Otto
Green's tent meeting in Bel Air back in 19-whatever. And yet there was no fear of
God evident in their lives. There was no sense that they
were walking with the Lord or that they had any idea of what
the grace of God or repentance or saving faith was. And I came
to recognize that a certain tradition had arisen within American evangelicalism,
the effect of which was not necessarily to save souls. God is going to
save souls, and he will. But rather, it was to offer a
religious action that you can take with the assurance that
when you take that action, you therefore are saved. And hosts of people, I fear,
have been inoculated against the gospel because there has
been substituted in its place, sincerely substituted in its
place, a certain religious ritual. If you do this, this is what
getting saved is all about. But it's not what getting saved
is all about. Now, having said that, whether
one gives an altar call or not, I will when I believe I should,
but I have not in a number of years because I have a concern
that souls truly know what they're doing and truly know Christ,
and it is a very dangerous thing for us to suggest to anyone that
if they follow a certain ritual, that will secure them salvation. But I have no problem with brethren
who do that. And I would not speak against
them. This is the point I'm making. There are many in evangelicalism
who would dismiss our legitimacy. Surely they can't really be concerned
about souls because they don't give an altar call. In a method
that is not in scripture, that didn't exist until the middle
1800s has now become a tradition so firmly entrenched that one's
orthodoxy is judged on the basis of whether they heed that tradition
or not. And possibly, to my view, that
tradition has brought many people into religion who have not entered Christ.
and thus inoculated them against the gospel in its purest presentation. Other examples could be given. The area of prophecy, the Bible
makes it very clear to us, Christ will return. He will return in
a visible, literal, actual form. We are to look for his coming
and anticipate his coming. But around those simple biblical
truths, one of which is no man knows when, has arisen a host
of various interpretations about when he might come, about a timeline
that God has set. And within that world, there
are some who, if you don't subscribe to that timeline, which is of
human invention, interpreting the scripture then you are not
right with God. Another of my brethren, now deceased
as well, the longer I live, the more my brethren are on the other
side, wrote a monthly newsletter, and in one of them, he made the
comment that amillennialism, a prophetic scheme of interpretation,
is a liberal theology. And I read it and I thought to
myself, John Wesley wasn't a liberal. Charles Spurgeon wasn't a liberal.
The great names of Christian history who lived before the
system that man embraces had even been invented. They were
God-fearing people. That's but a third illustration
of how a tradition gets elevated to the place above scripture. I must conclude. And so third,
what are we to do about this? How do we approach the matter
of tradition and find protection from being swept away into it
so blind and gullible as we are? First, Jesus said, ye must be
born again. Have you been born again? Being born again is not walking
up an aisle. Being born again is not entering
into an ultra-religious system such as the Pharisees and scribes
were in the midst of. Being born again is a work of
God in your own heart. Just as your first birth came
as God gave conception to your parents, so your new birth comes
as God with the seed of the word gives conception in your heart.
Do you know God? I do not ask if you know about
him. I do not ask if you know something about religion or if
you've been reared in a religious climate. I ask, have you been
born again? If you've not been born again,
then you are open prey to traditionalism, to being swept away by the religious
ideas of men, however sincere they may have been at their origin,
but have become for many simply a ritual of life that they live
and imagine themselves to be safe. Jesus said, ye must be
born again. And if you have any questions
about that, go to the word of God and search the scriptures. For indeed, we are born again,
not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word
of God. And if I or Pastor Eshelman can
be of any help in that matter at all, that's what we exist
to be. Second thing. Look with me at
the wall right over here. When the Protestant Reformers,
I mean the front section of the wall, underneath the first sconce,
where we have the sign sola fide, which means faith alone. When
the Reformers recognized how the Church of Rome had become
dominated by traditionalism, and they rose up to proclaim
the truth. Their proclamation of truth ultimately
settled on what we call the five solas. One of them, sola fide,
faith alone. You are saved by believing on
the Lord Jesus Christ. You are saved by believing the
word of God. You will not be saved if you
must have something to look at, or to feel, or to hear. You will not be saved by reliance
upon the fleshly senses. You will be saved only by beholding
by faith the one who is unseen, faith alone. That is what the
reformers proclaimed. Therefore, being justified by
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
You fight traditionalism with the new birth with faith alone. Look at the second one, sola
gratia. Grace alone. We are not saved
by doing the actions the church prescribes. We are saved by the
favor of God alone. That's what grace is. He gives
us that which we cannot earn, which we could never merit, of
which we would be in utter darkness and ignorance had he not revealed
it to us. And we believe that by grace
alone Christ saves the sinner. And then you see the third under
the next sconce, sola scriptura, scripture alone. How do I know
that my salvation is by means of faith alone and grace alone? I know it because I go to scripture
alone. And the scripture alone proclaims
to me that salvation is a gracious gift from God given to everyone
who believes. I do not need the traditions
of a church. I do not need anything except
the scripture that tells me of the grace of God and of the faith
by which I lay hold of that grace. And then we come to this side,
where we have solus Christus, Christ alone. Neither is thou
their salvation in any other. For there is none other name
under heaven given among men whereby ye must be saved. I'm not saved by a church. I'm
lost by a church. I'm not saved by its ritual. or by its sacraments and saved
by Christ alone. And as the reformers recognized
these truths, revival came by God's grace through the scriptures
and the Protestant Reformation came to pass. And then, Beneath
the second sconce, the fifth sola, sola de gloria, for the
glory of God alone. That's what it's all about. And
the glory of God alone will be served as we put aside all human
inventions, trinkets, images, pictures, religious emblems,
you name it, And we come to the simplicity
of the gospel. And indeed, the simplicity of
the gospel is its most becoming garb. It can stand naked and
unadorned and be of greatest beauty to the believing heart. And because we as human beings
are creatures of habit live a sensory existence, want to defend our
turf, and want something tangible to connect us to our religion
and our God. Recognizing the biblical reality
of these five solas is the defense from traditionalism
provided for those who are born again. Those who are born again are
outside of scripture alone, grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone,
the glory of God alone. Where are you found this morning? Do you know that you've experienced
the new birth, that you're truly born again? And may every believing soul
here be cautioned against the damning habits of religion, tradition,
which will always ultimately preempt and contradict the scriptures,
even as Christ proclaimed to the scribes and the Pharisees
that day. Let us bow together as we pray. We confess, Almighty God, that
all we like sheep have gone astray and that we are prone to wander. And our sights are so quickly
dazzled by the latest religious inventions that come along perhaps
sincerely intended to advance and substantiate truth, but prone
because of our weakness to hide Christ, deliver us from this against
which our Savior so firmly and clearly warned in his day. And
may his warning this day be applied by your spirit to our own hearts. And for any soul that is here
today that does not know Christ, knows only religion, but has
never been born again, may this be the day of that glorious birth. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.
An Age-Long Battle: Tradition vs. Truth
| Sermon ID | 62425149256817 |
| Duration | 47:47 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Bible Text | Mark 7:1-23 |
| Language | English |
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