Commandments of Men or Words From God

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseburg. The Holy Gospel according to St.

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Mark chapter 7 verses 1 through 13. The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were unclean, that is unwashed.

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The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders.

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When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions such as the washing of cups, pitchers, and kettles.

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So the Pharisees and the teachers of the law asked Jesus, why don't your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with unclean hands?

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He replied, Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites. As it is written, these people honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me.

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They worship me in vain. Their teachings are but rules taught by men. You have let go of the commandments of God and are holding to the traditions of men.

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And he said to them, you have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions.

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For Moses said, honor your father and your mother and anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.

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But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is korban, that is a gift devoted to God.

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Then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. Thus you nullify the Word of God by your tradition that you have handed down.

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And you do many things like that. In the name of Jesus, I've got to tell you this is going to be a little bit of a ride today.

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Jesus is not mixing words and there's something really important that we need to see in this text and it's going to require us to do a little bit of historical background.

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So let's go back to our text. I'm going to actually be preaching from the ESV but you should be able to follow along in the

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NIV. Here's what it says, now when the Pharisees gathered to Jesus with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is unwashed.

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Now we're going to pause there for a second and let's do a little bit of confession. I grew up in a home where I was not allowed to eat dinner until I had first visited either the bathroom sink or the kitchen sink and washed with soap.

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My mom made it very clear that just sticking your hands in and baptizing them was not going to work, although I did try to bend that rule every now and then if she wasn't looking.

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I didn't understand the importance of soap. This is not what this is about. It's important for us to know something.

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The Pharisees are usurpers. I've said that many times and I'll say it again. They are usurpers.

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Some of their earliest documents, there's a question in one of their catechisms if you can call it that, and the question put before the

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Pharisees is how many Torahs do you have? Answer from the Pharisees' rabbis, we have two.

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We have two Torahs. Now you know what the Torah is. The Torah is the five books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.

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According to the Pharisees, there are two Torahs. There's the written Torah and there's the oral

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Torah. Their claim is that when Moses went up on Mount Sinai, God gave him the written

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Torah and the oral Torah. In their way of thinking, the written Torah is like the bones.

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The written Torah is the bones. The oral Torah is the flesh. This is what they think about it.

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And so they have two sources of divine authority. And what's going on here is

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Jesus completely trashing, and I mean this, trashing their secondary source of authority.

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If you don't understand what's going on with that, the two Torahs, the oral tradition, and which by the way, when you read in your

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Bible where it says Tradition of the Elders, that's a formal title. It'd be like the name of the book,

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Moby Dick, right? Capital M, capital D, right? Tradition of the Elders should be capital

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T, capital E. It's a formal title. Now eventually this gets written down, this so -called oral tradition, and it takes on several different volumes.

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You've got the Midrash, you have the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds, and then, oh I forget the name of the last one.

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It'll come to me later. You know, I'm getting old. It's been a while since I've read some of these, but they're fascinating reads if you want to ever read them.

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So this is a showdown about where we can go to know that God has spoken.

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And Jesus definitively answers this question, because if you think about it, here's the setup. Jesus is out teaching, in come the scribes and Pharisees from Jerusalem, which means they're from headquarters.

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These are not just your everyday run -of -the -mill Pharisees. These are the cream of the crop. These are the ones who count.

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These are the ones who sit around, debate ideas, and make decisions for people. They have authority.

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They've got pull. And they come to check out Jesus, and this is the thing they decide to go to war with Jesus over.

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So here's the scenario. They're out listening to Jesus. They listen to his... They're taking notes, taking notes, taking notes. Hey, let's go inside and eat.

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And of course, when you walk in, there's a little basin, and there's a little pitcher. And all of the

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Pharisees stop by the pitcher, and they have this ceremony that they do. And the ceremony, basically, you take the pitcher, put your left hand in, palm down, pour water, switch over, right hand in, palm down, pour water, switch again, open up, left hand, pour water, take it again, switch over, pour water, and then you pray a prayer to this effect,

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Lord God, maker of heaven and earth, and king of the universe, we thank you that you have given us the command to wash our hands.

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And voila, you've done it. It's ceremonial. It's not about soap and cleanliness.

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It's a ceremonial wash, and getting the sin and the icky -gooky stuff that you were exposed to out in the marketplace off of you before you eat.

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And if you think about it, I mean, all we're talking about here is a simple little hand -washing ceremony.

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This should be considered a secondary doctrinal matter, should it not? I mean, do people go to heaven or go to hell if they don't do this little thing?

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Well, Jesus exalts this, not from a secondary matter, but to a primary matter. So here's what happens.

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They go in, oh, there's the line of the Pharisees, no, no, no, no, no, thank you God, next one, no, no, no, no, no, thank you

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God, right? And the disciples, they go straight from the door to the table, hey, Peter, pass a chicken wing.

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How's that potato salad, Andrew? They didn't even stop and wash their hands.

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Why? Because Jesus told them not to. They don't respect this secondary source of authority, because you're gonna look long and hard in the written

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Torah for a command that says, thou shalt wash your hands before you eat.

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It's not there, but it's in bold print in the oral

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Torah. So that's the thing. This is about who do we go to for words from God that we are to obey.

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With that, let's go back. So when the Pharisees gathered him with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed.

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So the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to capital

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T, the tradition of the elders. And when they come in from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash.

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And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots, copper vessels, and dining couches.

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By the way, the word wash there is a derivative of the word baptize, so they baptize cups and they baptize entire couches, which, by the way, rules out that interpretation of the word baptizo that says baptism in the

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Greek means to immerse fully. No, it actually doesn't mean that at all, and I'd like to see somebody fully immerse and baptize a couch.

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That doesn't make any sense. So the Pharisees and the scribes, they asked Jesus, why do your disciples not walk according to the

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Tradition of the Elders, capital T, but they eat with defiled hands.

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So there it is. Don't you recognize the Tradition of the Elders as authoritative, as binding on these men's consciences?

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These men are sinning against God because they're not following the Tradition of the Elders. Jesus turns on them hard.

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Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, you hypocrites? For it is written, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

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In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. Boom.

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Drop the mic. Walk off stage. What Jesus is literally saying, yeah, that whole

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Tradition of the Elders thing, it's doo -doo. It's garbage.

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It's not binding. And notice his words from Isaiah the prophet. In vain do they worship me.

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These are not people worshiping Baal. These are not people out there sacrificing their children to Molech.

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They're claiming to worship the Lord. And Jesus says, through the words of the prophet

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Isaiah, they're doing this in vain. That means it's of no effect. It's not going to benefit them at all.

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Why? Because they're teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. So Jesus wasn't willing to compromise and say, oh, this is a secondary matter.

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Boys, go ahead and wash before you get in. It doesn't really mean anything, but we don't want to upset the

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Pharisees. Instead, Jesus' disciples were told, you skip that. The Tradition of the

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Elders is not the Word of God. Do not observe this. And if they get upset, don't worry, I'll take care of it.

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And he does. So Jesus says to the Pharisees, they are worshiping him in vain, teaching as commandments the doctrines of men.

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And then Jesus says this, you leave the commandment of God and you hold to the tradition of men.

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Now this is where it's going to get a little rough. Christians of all stripes do this.

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Don't think that the differences between Protestants and Catholics is that Protestants, oh, they're sola scriptura and Roman Catholics, you know, they follow the traditions of men.

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Well, nowadays Protestants have their own traditions that are every bit as dubious as some of the crazy practices of the

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Roman Catholics. So let's just get this out there. Every Christian of every stripe is guilty of this.

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So we can point to the obvious. Nowhere in Scripture are we told to pray, to marry to the saints, to pay the

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Roman Catholic Church money for indulgences, to spring our dead relatives out of purgatory. Nowhere in Scripture does it say that the

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Pope is the Vicar of Christ. We can all point to the obvious and say, well, yeah, those are traditions of men.

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And in Roman Catholic circles, some of these things, refusing to do them is considered a mortal sin.

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And if you die apparently with, you know, having committed a mortal sin and not confessed it and been absolved, well then you go to hell.

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These are commandments of men. But don't think that we Protestants are off the hook here.

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I've grown up in Protestantism. Y 'all remember the movie Footloose? Remember that movie?

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It hit way too close to home for me. You know, I grew up in churches similar to what was going on in that story

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Footloose. Remember John Lithgow's character? He was a preacher. And of course it was a small town.

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And this guy ruled this small town with an iron fist. So much so that the local public school couldn't even have a dance because apparently that was forbidden by God.

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But you're going to look long and hard in the Scriptures to find a commandment that says thou shalt not dance. And yet I grew up under that.

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I attended a school where I was not allowed to have a dance. And you know what we did? Senior year, parents got together and we found a location and just didn't let the faculty know we had our dance.

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And it felt good. Felt good. Why? Because it's oppressive.

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It's absolutely oppressive to be told with the authority of God that somehow

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I'm sinning when there's no commandment that says I can't do that.

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Now I understand Norwegians don't dance just because it's a cultural thing. But that's a different thing altogether when you put

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God behind it. But we also do the same thing when we say well if you're truly a

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Christian you would never drink alcohol. Now you have the freedom to drink or to not drink.

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What you do not have the freedom to do is abuse this good gift of God and get drunk. That's the one thing you do not have the freedom to do.

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And if you're not convinced, Scripture makes it very clear, read the letter to the church in Corinth, the first one, that they were getting drunk on the communion wine.

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It's tough to get drunk on communion wine if it's grape juice. You have to drink a lot of it to even approach inebriation and you'll probably blow up first.

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So nowhere in Scripture is there a prohibition that says if you're truly a

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Christian you would never drink. Now if you don't want to drink you are free to. And if you want to drink you are free to.

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What you're not free to do is abuse this. Scripture is clear, Romans 4 .15, where there is no law there is no sin.

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Where there is no law there is no sin. But see I am convinced that the reason why people make up their own commandments is because they, when they read the written law of God, they realize that's really hard.

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Because God's law not only nails us regarding the things we do, it nails us regarding the things we don't do.

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It regards us regarding not only our deeds but also our thoughts. And so it's a lot easier to make up your own law and say well

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I'm a Christian because I don't do this that or I do this or that and it has nothing to do with what's in God's law because then that becomes keepable.

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Whereas God's law, man, when I read it nails me every time.

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And let's call this what it is. When you make up your own commandments and tax

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God's name on it there are two commandments being broken. Two.

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The first commandment is you shall have no other gods before me. You've created your own

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God. That's called idolatry. And it doesn't matter if the name of your God is Jesus. Now, I don't know if we have this at our mall but have you all seen those shops, the

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Build -A -Bear shops? Okay, have you heard of, this is like a scam, like you wouldn't believe. If your daughter ever gets a gift certificate to like Build -A -Bear and you have to travel to go to a

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Build -A -Bear shop, get ready to drop some major cash because that little $25 gift certificate, that's called a down payment.

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Alright. But the way this works, the way this works is you go in and you get to pick all the different little things that you want to have for your bear.

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You know, it has a heart and you get to pick the fur and the face and then the clothing and the accessories and at the end you need financing.

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Right? Now, that's the metaphor. Here's how people do this nowadays when it comes to their religions.

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It's called the Build -A -God shop. You walk into the Build -A -God shop and you have this smorgasbord of options.

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The God I believe in, well God is love, so my God is love. The God I believe in, well he'd be gay affirming.

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Well maybe he wouldn't even be a he, he might be a she or an it. The God I believe in would be

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Republican or Democrat. The God I believe in would be this, that or the other thing. And at the end of it all, you get to name, remember you get to name your bear in the

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Build -A -Bear shop. At the end of it, well at the end of this little thing at the Build -A -God shop, you get to name your

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God. And you know what people do? They always name their God Jesus. Whether it's male or female.

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Whether it sounds like or reflects the real God at all. So the two commandments being broken, you shall have no other gods before me, it's idolatry.

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Second commandments being broken, you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. When you take your commandments, your ideas, your doctrines, and you slap

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God's name on it and put his authority behind it, you are blaspheming God. You are stealing his name to deceive people.

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It's exactly what you're doing. It is a horrendous sin. One that lands people in hell.

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And you think about this, read the Gospels. Jesus reserves his harshest criticisms for the

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Pharisees. Those who worship God in vain, teaching his commandments, the commandments of men.

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And here's the thing, we've all done this. None of us is free from guilt on this.

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We all have this sin on our hands. When you come to the

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Scriptures and the Scriptures say something, you say, yeah I don't know if I can believe that.

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Or you find a way to philosophically work your way around it so that it doesn't mean what it says.

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Or you don't bend the knee, you don't believe. We're all guilty of this. And this is a terrible sin.

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Because it's a sin against the first table. Think about that. First table of the law has to do with our relationship with God.

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Second table has to do with our relationship with others. When you sin in this category, first table, you are sinning against God himself.

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And you are treading on thin ice. History, as well as Scripture, is full of examples of men whom

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God has hardened their hearts because of these sins. And they go to their grave in penitent, which means they go to their grave and the next thing that they do, as soon as their eyes close here, they find themselves in the flames of hell.

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And they will never get out of it. Grievous sins.

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Let's continue with our text. Verses 9 to 13. I'm going to point something out.

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I'm going to read it and I want you to pay attention to the interplay here because we learned something about the doctrine of inspiration of Scripture.

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And here's what I mean. Jesus is going to use two terms interchangeably. He's going to talk about commandment of God, and then he's going to say

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Moses, and then he's going to say word of God. Watch how he does this. Verse 9.

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Jesus said to them, you have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God. Notice, commandment of God, in order to establish your own tradition.

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For Moses said, so notice, commandment of God, Moses said, honor your father and mother, but whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.

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Actually, Greek there is wonderful. Die the death. But you say, if a man tells his father or mother, notice it says you say, tells his father or mother what you would have gained from me as Corban, that is a gift given to God, then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God.

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So notice, commandment of God, Moses said, word of God. See what

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Jesus did there? Who wrote the Torah? Moses. Moses wrote the

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Torah. But Jesus is saying, even though Moses wrote this, these are not Moses's words, these are

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God's word. And that's the idea. 2nd Peter, chapter 1, verses 16 through 21, kind of fleshes this out, and Jesus does this masterfully, pointing out what we understand about Scripture.

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We know, for we did not follow cleverly devised myths, 2nd Peter 1, 16, when we made known to you the power and the coming of our

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Lord Jesus Christ. But we were eyewitnesses of his majesty, for when he received honor and glory from God the

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Father, and the voice was born to him by the majestic glory, this is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.

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We ourselves heard this very voice, born from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain, and we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention, as a lamp shining in a dark place.

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Notice he's pointing people to the Scriptures. Until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this, first of all, no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation.

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No prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the

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Spirit. The written word of God, despite the fact it has human authors who penned these things, they're not writing their own words.

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They're writing the very words of God. This is why Paul writes in 2nd

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Timothy chapter 3, all Scripture is theionoustos, God - breathed.

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The only place you can go today, and I mean this, and know with any certainty that you are hearing words from God, is the written text, period.

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Now let me show you some of the warnings in Scripture about adding to God's words. Proverbs 30, verses 5 through 6, every word of God proves true.

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He is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar.

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Deuteronomy 4, verses 1 through 2, and now Israel, listen to the statutes and the rules that I'm teaching you, and do them that you may live and go in and take possession of the land that the

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Lord your God, the Lord your God of your fathers, is giving you. You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the

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Lord your God that I have commanded you. The Pharisees disobeyed God and they added to the

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Scriptures. Many people do this to their own demise and to the demise of their followers. Everything that I command you,

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Deuteronomy 12, 32, everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take away from it.

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Scripture is clear on this. And now let me remind you of what our Old Testament text said.

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Isaiah chapter 29, verses 12 through 14, and then 18 through 19. The predicament in Israel at the time in our

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Old Testament text was this. Because of this, the people draw near to me with their mouth and they honor me with their lips, while their heart is far from me.

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Their fear of me is a commandment taught by men. Therefore, behold, I will again do wonderful things.

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Now watch what happens. Here's the turn. So the Lord, speaking to Israel through the prophet, says that these people honor me with their lips and they're being taught commandments that are the commandments of men.

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And here's what God's going to do to solve the problem. He says, I will do wonderful things with this people.

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With wonder upon wonder and the wisdom of their wise man shall perish and the discernment of their discerning man shall be hidden.

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Verse 18, in that day the deaf shall hear the words of a book and out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind shall see.

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What's the solution to the commandments of men according to the prophet Isaiah is that God's gonna do a wonderful thing and he's gonna open the eyes of the blind through the words of a what?

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A book. And we have that book. And at the very end of that book, in the book of Revelation, chapter 22, verses 18 and 19, it says this,

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I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book. If anyone adds to them, God will add to them him, the plagues described in this book.

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If anyone takes away from the words of the book of the prophecy of God, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city which are described in this book.

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The solution to the commandments of men is found in a book. That book is called the Bible.

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It is the only place you can go today with certainty and hear the words of God.

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If you want to hear God speak to you, read it. If you want to hear him audibly speak to you, read it out loud.

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Don't be going to the crackpots claiming to be prophets. Don't be going to those who claim, oh we have an oral tradition, oh we got the other teachings of the

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Apostles that were not written down. Hogwash. Jesus is clear on this.

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We are to go to the written word. Trust and believe it. And those who are speaking to us and telling us these other doctrines that we cannot find in our

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Bible, they are liars, they are deceivers, they are blasphemers. God will deal with them.

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Listen to the words of the book. Study the book. I guarantee you if you apply yourself to trying to master that book, it will master you and that's a good thing.

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You will never be able to master it. A lifetime of study is just not enough time to master this book.

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But you can know with every turn of the page that every word was breathed by God the

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Holy Spirit and it's there for your edification, for your instruction, and those are the things that God wills for you to believe, teach, confess, and hang on to.

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All that other stuff you are not bound to keep it. In fact, when somebody comes along and says, oh we've got this oral tradition that says you have to do this if you're a

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Christian. Pastor, prophet, so -and -so said you've got to do this. You know what you have to do as a

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Christian? You have to do the same thing the disciples did. Don't obey it. For their own sake.

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A lot of law here. We've dealt with two very serious sins. I know this from the book of Hebrews.

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Long ago, many times, in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days,

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God has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed to be the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

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And here's the good news, that despite the fact that these sins, idolatry and the blaspheming of God's name, are sins against God himself,

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God is rich in mercy. Christ has bled and died even for these sins.

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God placed these sins that you and I have committed against the first table of God. He's placed them on Christ.

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And Christ has bled, died, suffered, down to the dregs, the wrath of God in your place, for all of your blasphemies and for all of your idolatry.

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And God wants you to repent. To change your mind. Stop exalting your ideas over his word.

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You are the clay. He is the potter. Clay will not say to the potter, yeah,

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I'll believe what I want to. I'll be what I want to be. Silly clay. So repent.

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Believe that God is right and that you are wrong. Trust him.

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Believe what he says. Start with the words of the gospel. Christ bleeding, dying for your sins.

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Do not believe the lies of the devil, the world, or even your sinful flesh that say, yeah, I don't think

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God can forgive that. That's a lie. Christ bled and died for that sin. Believe the forgiveness of sins.

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Believe what Scripture says regarding your baptism. That you were, when you were baptized, you were buried with Christ.

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You were raised with Christ. Your heart was circumcised by Christ. Your sins were washed away.

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And this happened to you. Believe those words. Believe the words that you hear in the

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Lord's Supper. When I speak Jesus's words on the night that he was betrayed, when he took bread and said, take, eat, this is my body.

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Take, drink, this is my blood. Shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins. Believe those words.

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I tell you a reason to be silent. Stop listening to philosophers. Believe what

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Scripture says. This is what we're called to do. So repent. Be forgiven.

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Christ has bled and died for these sins. And then bear fruit in keeping with repentance by only listening to the written

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Word of God. That's the only place you can go today to find the words of God.

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Trust them. Believe them. Cherish them. Write them on the doors, posts of your house.

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Scribble them on the walls. Put them on your mirror. Meditate on them. These are the words of eternal life.

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In the name of Jesus, amen. If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue NW, Oslo, Minnesota, 56744. And again that address is

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Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue NW, Oslo, Minnesota, 56744. We thank you for your support.

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