Defilement comes from within

As we had distinguished last week of the true reason for the season and how mark continues to portray Jesus as the coming messiah for the works in which he had performed. We celebrate Christmas not just because Jesus came but because of why He came. It was with a purpose and by no means was by accident. He had a mission which he fulfilled on calvary. His birth points to his death where he atoned for the sins of man. When we see the Jesus on the cross as the one in the manager we are able to see the full picture. This brings in the reality of sin and our accountability to God for it. It must be answered for. God in his holy righteous wrath must deal with sin. This is why we celebrate Christmas because one has been sent to redeem the unredeemable from the grips of sin by the grace of God.

This week Jesus brings out a truth that our culture would disagree with and as well as these religious leaders of the day. He gives us insight so that we may not carried about by every wind of doctrine but rather steadfast in truth. So that we may not be led astray by the traditions of our culture and be confused on the truth, and that we may also not be misguided by the traditions of churches but bold in the truth of Gods word.

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Pray.

The Mishnah, a compilation of Jewish oral laws made at the end of the second century a.d., says, “Tradition is a fence around the law.” Tradition, as the Jews saw it, protected God’s Holy Word and assisted his people in keeping it.

This fencing of the Law probably began well enough, but as the years passed it produced some famous absurdities. For example, in an effort to protect the Sabbath from being broken through inadvertent labor, the devout were given an amazing list of prohibitions—fences. For example, looking in the mirror was forbidden, because if you looked into the mirror on the Sabbath day and saw a gray hair, you might be tempted to pull it out and thus perform work on the Sabbath. You also could not wear your false teeth; if they fell out, you would have to pick them up and you would be working. In regard to carrying a burden, you could not carry a handkerchief on the Sabbath, but you could wear a handkerchief. That meant if you were upstairs and wanted to take the handkerchief downstairs, you would have to tie it around your neck, walk downstairs, and untie it. Then you could blow your nose downstairs!

The rabbis debated about a man with a wooden leg: if his home caught on fire, could he carry his wooden leg out of the house on the Sabbath? One could spit on the Sabbath, but you had to be careful where. If it landed on the dirt and you scuffed it with your sandal, you would be cultivating the soil and thus performing work.

The Sabbath, of course, was just one concern of those who would fence the Law. The biggest concern of the Mishnah (some 186 pages) was “cleannesses,” and much of the concern here was with ritual washing. This originally rose from the Biblical command that all priests must wash their hands (; ). Though this was only a priestly requirement, all pious Jews began to do it about 200 years before Christ. By Jesus’ day, it was firmly entrenched as a requirement for those who wanted to be “clean.”

Hughes, R. K. (1989). Mark: Jesus, servant and savior (Vol. 1, pp. 162–164). Westchester, IL: Crossway Books.

These things may have begun with good intentions in seeking to interpret and protect the practice of the law. Having a zeal for it to being lived out. Then became over time the ultimate authority.

Tradition. Respect for oral tradition was particularly strong among Jews during the period at the beginning of the Christian era. Among these traditions the most important collection was Pirke Aboth (traditions of the fathers). This consisted of comments by famous rabbis in explanation of the written law. This and a growing collection of other rabbinic traditions interpreting the Law became an authoritative commentary on the written code. This movement rapidly led to a position in which the oral law and the written code were virtually of equal standing.

Tradition. Respect for oral tradition was particularly strong among Jews during the period at the beginning of the Christian era. Among these traditions the most important collection was Pirke Aboth (traditions of the fathers). This consisted of comments by famous rabbis in explanation of the written law. This and a growing collection of other rabbinic traditions interpreting the Law became an authoritative commentary on the written code. This movement rapidly led to a position in which the oral law and the written code were virtually of equal standing.

Elwell, W. A., & Beitzel, B. J. (1988). Tradition. In Baker encyclopedia of the Bible (Vol. 2, p. 2093). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.

1 Peter 1:18 NKJV

knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers,

Galatians 1:14 NKJV

And I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers.

So what we have is an offense against Jesus and his disciples from the religious leaders of that time.

They came forward and said why do your disciples eat with unwashed hands?

Why are they defiling themselves?

Defilement is a pretty serious offense. They were to abstain from all uncleaness. God had said be Holy for I am Holy.

This certainly is a noble and worthy cause to confront people on. They had a zeal for purity. Probably had good intentions.

The fault came not with them standing for purity but rather how they defined it. Where their source of came from.

Jesus rightly acknowledge the source of their authority and it was a faulty one. One that carried no weight. So He was setting them straight.

They said why do you not follow the traditions of the elders…Jesus said in V.8 you lay aside the commandment of God, for the “tradition of men.”

V.6-7. Where Jesus finds fault.

As the prophet Isaiah had prophesied about this people.

Honor me with your lips

Yet your heart is far from me.

They worship in vain

Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.

Jesus begins to draw a distinction between the lip service and the heart service of those who proclaim to worship God. As we will see in the later end of this passage.

Wow that is a pretty powerful statement. No wonder why Jesus was persecuted and sought to be put to death by them. He was taking what was dear to them and throwing it in the septic tank where it belonged.

Gives us an example to what extreme this has happened.

Honor your father and mother.

Just quickly acknowledge this truth and how severely God thinks this commandment to be. It was a crime punishable by death.

This is something we all desire from our children but to often lack towards our own parents.

Anything you would have received from me is Corban.

Whether they said this in a time of prospering and health or in a fit of anger.

The pharisees held them bound to it.

For it you make an oath you cannot turn back.

So the commandments of men gave them the avenue to be relieved from their duty that God has commanded in honoring their father and mother.

“They were indeed far from God if they thought that God would be pleased with such gifts at the expense of duty to ones parents.” word pictures in the new testament. .

This is often how a legalistic mindset takes over. Has a commandment of man that then gets bound by a principle of God. Instead of giving way to repentance and realigning with truth that they may honor the Lord with what He has commanded.

Many have been bound in their lives because they wrestle and are confused to be able to distinguish between the commandment of God and of man.

The legalistic mindset that was engrained int he Jewish culture was so deep to point that many of us cannot even relate.

Even post Christ peter struggle with this reality. God had confronted him on it in a trance in joppa.

Why peter had to write against those who were teaching that law and grace were necessary for salvation. Why circumcision plus Jesus was needed.

We must not be niave to think that we cannot fall by the same way that the early church did so many times.

Charles Spurgeon..

“My love of consistency with my own doctrinal views, is not great enough to allow me to knowingly alter a single text of Scripture. I have great respect for orthodoxy, but my reverence for inspiration is far greater. I would sooner a hundred times over, appear to be inconsistent with myself, than be inconsistent with the Word of God.

Word Pictures in the New Testament Matthew 15:7

Well did Isaiah prophesy of you (καλως ἐπροφητευσεν περι ὑμων Ἐσαιας [kalōs eprophēteusen peri hūmōn Esaias]). There is sarcasm in this pointed application of Isaiah’s words (Is. 29:13) to these rabbis. He “beautifully pictured” them. The portrait was to the very life, “teaching as their doctrines the commandments of men.” They were indeed far from God if they imagined that God would be pleased with such gifts at the expense of duty to one’s parents.

If your creed and Scripture do not agree, then cut your creed to pieces and make it agree with this Book. The Word of God is the infallible chart of faith. Follow it closely, for this Book cannot lead you astray.

Some want to shape the Scriptures to fit their creed, and they get a very nice square creed too, and trim the Bible most dexterously. It is astonishing how they do it, but I would rather have a crooked creed and a straight Bible, than I would try to twist the Bible to suit what I believe.

Those who will only believe what they can reconcile in their own minds, will necessarily disbelieve much of divine revelation.

Those who receive by faith everything which they find in Scripture, will receive many things which they can never harmonize into a definitive creed.”

This is why at the beginning of the Baptist Faith and Message we have written…pg.16

This makes scripture supercede everything. Even our Baptist Tradition.

V. 14-23.

This is what proceeds from within a man.

Word Pictures in the New Testament Mark 7:21

Evil thoughts (οἱ διαλογισμοι οἱ κακοι [hoi dialogismoi hoi kakoi]). These come out of the heart (ἐκ της καρδιας [ek tēs kardias]), the inner man, and lead to the dreadful list here given like the crimes of a modern police court: fornications (πορνειαι [porneiai], usually of the unmarried), adulteries (μοιχαιαι [moichaiai], of the married), thefts (κλοπαι [klopai], stealings), covetings (πλεονεξιαι [pleonexiai], craze for more and more), murders (φονοι [phonoi], growing out of the others often), wickednesses (πονηριαι [ponēriai], from πονος [ponos], toil, then drudge, bad like our knave, serving boy like German Knabe, and then criminal), deceit (δολος [dolos], lure or snare with bait), lasciviousness (ἀσελγεια [aselgeia], unrestrained sex instinct), evil eye (ὀφθαλμος πονηρος [ophthalmos ponēros]) or eye that works evil and that haunts one with its gloating stare, railing (βλασφημια [blasphēmia], blasphemy, hurtful speech), pride (ὑπερηφανια [huperēphania], holding oneself above others, stuck up), foolishness (ἀφροσυνη [aphrosunē], lack of sense), a fitting close to it all

Fornication: porneiai (where we would get out word porn or pornography.

Usually the sin of the unmarried.

Adultery: Sexual sins of the married

Thefts: Stealings

Thefts: Stealings

Covetous: Crave for more and more

deceit: lure or snare with bait

Lasciviousness: unretrained sex instinct

Evil eye: An eye that works evil and haunts one with its gloating stare

Pride: holding oneself above others,

Foolishness: lack of sense (a fitting close to it all.)

These are not things you have to go looking for but rather are born out of the heart of men. This is the natural outpouring of a man left to himself. Not good but rather foolishness.

We have a bend to evil not to good. Man is not intrinsically good. We are not born innocent and then ruined by our parents and our culture.

They can certainly speed the process up a little but never the less these things are born out of our hearts.

This is why this time of year their will be more songs played like rocking around the christmas tree, rather than silent night.

This is why there will be more talk of Santa Clause and his miraculous run in one night to all the houses rather than the amazing work of God incarnate in human flesh.

Can i just call it like it is…Santa Clause has become the false god, the engraven image that men bow down and worship, the Balaam of our day that robs God of his glory and the truth of his coming.

Have you ever noticed how similar the traits between santa clause (satan rearrangement of santas name) and God.

He sees you when your sleeping

He knows when your awake

He knows if youve been bad or good

He travels the world.

He gives us good gifts unless we have been bad, then its coal.

Yet he is not real just a fairy tell for kicks and giggles, and then our culture attributes the same characteristics to Jesus as well.

Right along there with mother nature and the tooth fairy.

They have taken attributes of God and attributed them to him.

The reason for this season is because of the coming messiah yet overwhelming santa clause takes the spot light.

Why? Because the natual inclination of man is to sin and wauller in it…and we love it. If santa becomes our focus we are no longer accountable to God, but if Jesus is what we celebrate then we must give account for our sin, who came in the likeness of man and bore our sin upon the cross literally taking our place, atoning for our sins, that we might be saved.

Now sin must be answered for. I am accountable to God if Jesus truly came and is real.

This is the reality of what Jesus is revealing to the pharisees and scribes. That we need to do some serious examinations upon our lives for what springs forth from man is not good but rather evil thoughts.

This being so when we develop commandments of men they will be prone to failure because of our inclination to put ourselves above God.

Then we follow headlong for the same purposes.

This passage teaches you how to think and filter everything in your life that you may not fall by the same pattern in our lives.

Know your heart will lead you astray. Even in the traditions that have been passed down for generations. Just because it has longevity does not mean it carries truth.

Knowing that tradition can be prone to failure because of the sinfulness of man, we then filter everything through the word of God. That we may align our lives to it rather than to popular opinion or self indulgences.

This is what will enlighten a man to see through the fog of confusion in our day to the false theology that our young people are hammered with.

There is arising in this a day a zeal and passion for that which is false and a lack of desire for that which is true.

When it comes to our sexuality, when it comes to abortion, when it comes to global warming.

There is a young girl that was on the cover of time magazine for her voice on global warming and her powerful speeches against world leaders and is being applauded for it.

Yet if you took a same young female who had a zeal not for the insects killed by floodings and the people killed by hunger and fought for the life of the unborn, she would be hung out to dry not brought out on the Ellen Degenerate show.

This is war people. This is war parents. If there is ever a time to begin to equip your kids in truth and righteousness it is now.

Take the word of God hold it high and allow all traditions to filter through and be submitted unto it that your life may not be blinded by the deceitfullness of sin and the powerful lure of our culture.

1 Peter 1:13-

1 Peter 1:18 NKJV

knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers,

1 Peter 1:18

1 Peter 1:13–20 NKJV

Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance; but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, “Be holy, for I am holy.” And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear; knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you