F4F | The Truth About the Pharisees

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Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the Faith. My name is Chris Roseborough. I am your servant in Jesus Christ, and this is the channel that compares what people are saying in the name of God to the

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Word of God. So, from time to time, I have to do this teaching. And so, this is a teaching

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I've done in the past, but we've updated it just a little bit. Pay attention to the update, because it's kind of interesting.

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And the teaching has to do with who are or who were the Pharisees. And the reason why it needs to come up is because what ends up happening is that so many of you in the audience of Fighting for the

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Faith, as well as myself included, that we get accused of being Pharisees.

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Pharisee equals somebody who's critical. Pharisee equals somebody who's taking the

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Bible too seriously and things like this. That's not true at all. In fact, if you know your

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Bible, then you will never, ever accuse somebody who is rightly understanding

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God's Word, pointing people back to the scriptures and correcting false teachers, which were commanded to do.

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You would never accuse them of being a Pharisee, because Pharisees are not Orthodox. They're far from it.

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So, today we're going to do a little bit of a study. We're going to add a little bit more to this teaching, though, by the way. So, if you've heard it in the past, good for the review, worth the review, because there's a little feature from God's Word that I'm going to bring in that you probably have never made this connection, and it'll actually be helpful to you.

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So, all that being said, let me whirl up the desktop. And this particular composition, by the way, that was an experimental composition

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I took at the Sydney Opera House back about a month ago now. And let me do this.

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I'm going to whirl up the web browser. And again, if you would like to follow me on Instagram, I don't do any theology, apologetics, or anything there.

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It's just dedicated to my photography. There's the whole composition itself. I think it's kind of interesting.

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I was playing with shapes and lights and stuff like that. And anyway, my Instagram is at piratechristian, at piratechristian.

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And again, it's only for my photography. So, let me close this up. And here's what we're going to do.

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We're going to use a prophet, Jeremiah Gibson, to help us out a little bit here, because Jeremiah Gibson is going to claim that this is something that God has given him and God is against you being

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Pharisees, and he's going to explain what he thinks being a Pharisee is, and he's going to get it completely wrong.

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This is kind of a quintessential example or the common example of how people pull the

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Pharisee card in order to stop thinking. This is a thought -stopping technique.

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Shout out to Steve Kozar in his, you know, pointing this out. This is all designed to shut down thinking and to basically deflect against anybody who would say,

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Jeremiah Gibson isn't really a true prophet. He's a false prophet and a false teacher and stuff like that, which he is, by the way.

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But listen to how he talks about the Pharisees, and then we will demonstrate how this is totally wrong.

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Here we go. Well, hello, everybody. I have a word for you guys today. A word. So, he's claiming direct revelation from God.

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Again, we got to test the prophets. This guy doesn't pass the test, by the way. The Lord dropped into my heart. And some of you have seen the title of this already, but it's called, well,

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I'm calling it tonight, Stop Being a Pharisee. Stop Being a Pharisee. Pharisee bad. Stop being a

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Pharisee. Hallelujah. I think a lot of people, especially in the

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American body of Christ, and, you know, we've adopted a pharisaical spirit. A pharisaical spirit.

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Oh, that sounds terrible. Do you even know what a Pharisee is, Jeremiah? Just ask him. We have adopted a spirit of the

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Pharisee, in a sense, and I'm going to give you some examples in just a bit on what the Pharisees were about and why Jesus was so angry at them.

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Okay, okay. By the way, I'm drinking chai tonight. There's nothing nefarious in this cup. I have to say that every week, because I know some people have gotten smart, and they've bought clear cups, but I like to keep my cups,

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I like my, what do you call it, the, what do you call these things? They're like the thermal cups.

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They keep things hot or cold. I like them too. I keep one myself, and usually

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I'm drinking decaf coffee. I can't even drink caffeinated coffee anymore. I can't find that clear yet. So let's put that disclaimer.

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It's only cold chai tea in here. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Thank you,

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Lord. Anyway, a lot of us have adopted a pharisaical spirit. We see it in the So what does that mean?

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Church often. And what I mean by pharisaical, I mean it's very judgmental. So pharisaical means judgmental.

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That is the main characteristic of the Pharisees. No, it's not. You don't know what you're talking about.

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The reason why Jesus had opposition, you can say, as the kids say today, the Pharisees were his main ops.

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That's true. Okay. The Pharisees were Jesus' main ops, and that's for a reason. Judgmentalism.

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Judgmentalism. That's the problem. No, it's not. You could say judgmentalism is a symptom, but it's a symptom of the root cause, and the root cause is way worse than judgmentalism.

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And so this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. It's the spirit that actually works hand in hand with pharisaicalism.

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Oh, yeah. It's just pharisaicalism is rooted in, of course, churchiness, right? Churchiness. Oh, yeah.

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So if you attend a church that's churchy, that's the pharisaical spirit.

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You need to get out of that church. You need to go to a church where they have no churchiness, where it's just a free -for -all bonanza of the

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Holy Spirit just flowing and stuff and things. And so judgmentalism can encompass all kinds of things, but being a

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Pharisee is mainly being a church person who's judgmental. I see. So there it is.

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So being a Pharisee is mainly being a church person who's judgmental. Wrong.

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This is not at all a correct understanding of the Pharisees. Here's where we're going to jump off.

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And so goodbye, Jeremiah Gibson, you don't know what you're talking about. Oh, and by the way, you're a false prophet. But let's take a look at some biblical texts.

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Now, my go -to text on this is always Mark chapter 7. But today I'm going to expand upon my normal teaching by pointing some things out.

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So for instance, okay, point number one is how many Pharisees are mentioned in the

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Old Testament? Answer, zero. There are no

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Pharisees mentioned in the Old Testament at all. So, and the time span from the finishing of the last of the

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Old Testament prophets, which is Malachi, until the ministry of John the Baptist, roughly a 400 -year period.

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And so here's the thing. In order for you to orient yourself on the ground, if you would, with the opening of the

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New Testament, you have to know your Old Testament very well, okay?

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Because there are some details that are prophesied as curses from God in Deuteronomy 28 that are fulfilled at the opening of the

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New Testament that you have to pay attention to. So if you know the history of Israel, okay, quick flight over the battlefield, you got

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Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and then Joseph is the son of Jacob who ends up in Egypt, and then all of Israel ends up in Egypt for 400 years.

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They are enslaved there eventually. And then God, through a mighty hand, he delivers them from slavery in Egypt, and then you have the whole period of the

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Exodus, okay? Then once they finish the Exodus period, which takes an additional 40 years because of their unbelief, and they finally enter into the promised land, then you come into the time of the judges.

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And it's a story, it's a sad story of the children of Israel wandering off into idolatry,

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God punishing them, putting them under some other tribe, and under, you know, out of their own control, and then, and then them repenting, and then

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God sending a savior or a judge who then saves them, and then the story repeats, the cycle repeats.

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They go into idolatry, God puts them under the affliction of a different nation, like the

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Midianites, and then the Philistines, and you get the idea, right? Okay, like for the story of Gideon, okay?

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Israel was under the thumb of the Midianites. When it comes to this time of Samson, Israel was under the thumb of the

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Philistines. So, when they rebel against God, God is the, God then punishes them with one of the curses from the

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Mosaic Covenant, and puts, then takes away their ability to be the determiners of their own fate, and they are put under the rough, the rough dominion of a different nation, okay?

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Then eventually, they have kings, and there are some good kings and a lot of bad kings, the nation is split in two, the northern kingdom goes into rank idolatry, and God scrapes them out of the northern kingdom and scatters them in the

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Diaspora into the nations, and the 10 lost tribes of Israel, they're gone, goodbye, right?

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The lower tribes of Benjamin and Judah, they continue on along with some

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Levites, which are serving in the temple, but eventually Judah goes into full -blown apostasy, and then

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God puts them under the thumb of Nebuchadnezzar by taking them out of Israel, throwing them into Babylon for 70 years, they are in Babylon under the dominion of the

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Babylonians, and the Persians, and the Medes, and then eventually God brings them back, and then when you read about, you know, like in Ezra and Nehemiah, things kind of start off with a pretty good start, there's repentance, a revival of the reading of the

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Word, you've got to, and then there's still some things that are off the rails, God sends some other prophets, culminating with Malachi, and then

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God is silent for 400 years, right?

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So, when we begin the New Testament with Matthew chapter 1, and we start to get a picture of what's happening in Jesus' time, is

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Judah under, do they control their own destiny? Are they their own nation that is able to make their own decisions?

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Answer, no, they are under the dominion of Rome, they are under the boot of Rome, and the people are suffering terribly, just like in the time of the judges.

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What is that indicative of? That they've gone off the rails again. And how did they go off the rails?

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So, I'm going to point something out here. So, if we go back into Deuteronomy chapter 28, okay,

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Deuteronomy 28 is the place where we get the list of curses that God will begin to execute against faithless

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Israel if they don't obey all God's commands in the Mosaic Covenant. And so, you'll note, it begins kind of vague, you know, with kind of general curses, and then gets very specific as we get farther into the text.

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So, if you will not obey the voice of Yahweh your God, or be careful to do all of his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you, all right?

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And they shall overtake you. Curse shall you be in the city, curse shall you be in the field, curse shall be your basket and your kneading bowl, curse shall be the fruit of your womb, and the fruit of your ground, and the increase of your herds, and the young of your flock.

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Curse shall you be when you come in, and curse shall you be when you go out. Yahweh will send on you curses, confusion, and frustration, and all that you undertake to do.

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You kind of get the idea. But then, as we get further into the text, it goes on to start to give very specific curses that you can see playing out in Israel's history.

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Yahweh will bring you and your king whom you set over you to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known.

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This is a prophecy regarding the Babylonian captivity, okay?

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There you shall serve other gods of wood and stone, and you shall become a horror, a proverb, a byword among all the peoples, where Yahweh will lead you away.

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If you don't believe that that happened, read the book of Esther. You shall carry much seed into the field and shall gather in little, for the locusts shall consume it.

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You shall plant vineyards and dress them, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes, for the worms shall eat them.

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You shall have olive trees throughout all of your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives shall drop off.

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So, you get the idea here. This is a very specific prophecy, a curse then, that foreshadows what

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God will do in the Babylonian captivity. But it gets even more specific, and this gives us the context then of what happens when the

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New Testament opens. The very beginning of the New Testament, Israel is not a nation that is sovereign.

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They are under the control of the Roman Empire, and here's the prophecy regarding that from Deuteronomy 28.

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All these curses shall come upon you and pursue you and overtake you, till you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of Yahweh your

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God to keep His commandments and His statutes that He commanded you. They shall be a sign and a wonder against you and your offspring forever, because you did not serve

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Yahweh your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart because of the abundance of all things. Therefore, you shall serve your enemies whom

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Yahweh will send against you in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and lacking everything, and He will put a yoke of iron on your neck until He has destroyed you.

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Yahweh will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, swooping down like the eagle.

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What's the ensign of the Roman Empire? The eagle. This is a prophecy of God punishing

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Israel for their disobedience by sending Rome to conquer them in their own land.

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Yahweh will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, swooping down like the eagle, a nation whose language you do not understand, a hard -faced nation who shall not respect the old or show mercy to the young.

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It shall eat the offspring of your cattle and the fruit of your ground until you are destroyed.

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It also shall not leave you grain, wine, or oil, the increase of your herds or the young of your flock until they have caused you to perish.

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They shall besiege you in all of your towns until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout all your land, and they shall besiege you in all your towns throughout all your land which

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Yahweh your God has given you." There's more to it, and you can read more about it, because the siege of Jerusalem in 70

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AD is also prophesied in this section of Scripture, and the details are horrifying, by the way. So, you need to know your

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Bible. If you know your Bible, then you'd recognize then that with the opening of the

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New Testament that God is punishing, punishing yet again the children of Israel by invoking one of the other clauses from the curses clauses of Deuteronomy 28.

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So, when we get to the New Testament, the children of Israel are under the boot of Rome, which is a punishment for their not obeying the commands.

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And so, now that we have to ask this question, who's responsible? Who led

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Israel into apostasy, led them into rebellion so that they would not obey

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God's commands? Answer, the Pharisees. They are the problem.

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They're the idolaters. They're the ones who have, through their false doctrine and false teaching, have brought upon Israel God bringing further curses.

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And so, if you know your Bible, then you know with the opening of the New Testament things are not well in Jerusalem.

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Things are not well in Judea. Things are not well in Israel at all. And there's a reason for it, because one of the curses clauses of Deuteronomy 28 has been exacted against Israel for their disobedience.

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And here's where the Pharisees come in. So, in Mark chapter 7, this is now where I kind of do my standard teaching on this.

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Mark chapter 7, the Pharisees decide that they're going to send some folks from headquarters in Jerusalem to check out the ministry of Jesus.

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And they're going to find fault with Jesus. And where they find fault is the actual fault of the

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Pharisees. And I'll explain that as we go. So, here's what the text says. Now, when the Pharisees gathered to him, some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of Jesus' disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed.

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Now, you're sitting there going, what command are they breaking? They're not breaking a command that's found in the Old Testament.

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Uh -uh. But watch what this says. For the Pharisees and all the Jews, they do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders.

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And when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.

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Okay? So, here in this parenthetical statement, we see what the problem is. The Pharisees, they follow something called the tradition of the elders.

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And you're going to have to do a little research to figure out what that is. Okay? So, let me explain. So, in all of the

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Old Testament, Pharisees are nowhere mentioned. They come up during the intertestamental period between Malachi and the life of John the

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Baptist. Okay? Which kind of opens with the, that's the opening for the New Testament.

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And they had, the Pharisees had a story. And here's how the story went.

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The Pharisees claimed that when Moses ascended Mount Sinai, when he came down from Mount Sinai, he didn't have one

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Torah. He had two. They claimed that there was a written

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Torah, and then there was an oral Torah. The oral Torah is what became known as the tradition of the elders.

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And the thing is, is that they claimed that they were the ones who were the keepers of the oral Torah. And so, that's the problem.

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They're not listening to the voice of God in scriptures anymore. They're listening to the tradition of the elders.

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They're listening to the oral Torah. And it's in the oral Torah that you get the command to wash your hands.

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Nowhere in the Old Testament does the Bible require you to wash your hands when you're out, after you've spent the day out at the marketplace or things like this.

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That's, that is not a command found in the Bible. But it is in the tradition of the elders.

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And let me explain how then this works. So, what the tradition of the elders teaches is that when you as a

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Pharisaical Jew are out among the unwashed heathen masses, their ick, their unholy ick can get on you.

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And so, when you come in, you are required to do this little water ceremony. And here's how the water ceremony goes.

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You have a bowl of water, and you have a pitcher of water. It's actually a bowl for catching the water and a pitcher of water.

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And here's how you have to do it. You start by putting your left hand over the bowl of water. You take the pitcher, and you pour water on the back of your left hand.

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You then kind of shake your hand, switch, put your right hand, palm down over the bowl, pour water on the back of your right hand, and then you kind of shake the water off, switch again, left hand, palm up this time, and pour water on your left hand, palm up, spritz it a little bit, get the water off, switch hands again, right hand, palm up, water on top of your palm.

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And then you can put everything down and you're required to say a prayer that goes something like this. I thank you,

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God, Lord God, maker of heaven and earth, that you have given me the command to wash my hands. The end.

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Did God give us the command to wash our hands that way? Nope. Totally made up.

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And I know that because of what Jesus says. So, watch what happens here. So, when the

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Pharisees send people to check out Jesus, the thing that they took issue with was this, and that is that Jesus did not permit his disciples to obey the commands of the tradition of the elders, otherwise known as the

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Oral Torah. And it's the Pharisees who were the ones who led Israel astray from God's commands.

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And here is how I can prove it. So, the Pharisees and all the

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Jews, they do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders.

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That's a body of work. And when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash.

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

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And the Pharisees and the scribes asked Jesus, why do your disciples not walk?

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Why do they not conduct their lives according to the tradition of the elders? And the simplest answer to this is because it's not biblical.

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These aren't commands from God. So, but they eat with defiled hands. And watch what

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Jesus does. He rounds on them hard. So, Jesus said to them, well, did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as 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.

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What Jesus is saying here is the Pharisaical tradition of the elders, God didn't give those commands at all.

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These are merely the commandments of men and they're teaching them as doctrines of God. That's what's going on.

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So, when you know your Bible, you know that when the history of the New Testament begins, the children of Israel are yet again under God's judgment for disobeying his commands.

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What's the instigating cause here? Are they worshiping Baal? Are they sacrificing their children to Molech?

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No. Instead, they've stopped listening to God's word and they've added to his word the tradition of the elders, which are nothing but the commandments of men.

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It's another form of idolatry, but it's idolatry nonetheless. So, Jesus then says this, you leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.

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Remember Deuteronomy 18, this is where we come back to it. So, Deuteronomy 18, listen again to what

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God says to the children of Israel who are under the Mosaic covenant. If you will not obey the voice of Yahweh your

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God, to be careful to do all of his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you.

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So, Christ is saying here that the curses of Matthew 28 has come upon them.

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Why? Because they have left the commandments of God and they are now holding to the tradition of men.

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That's the problem. So, he said to them, you have a fine way of what? Rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition.

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Moses said, honor your father and your mother and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.

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But you say, if a man tells his father or mother, whatever you would have gained from me is korban, that is a gift that is given to God, then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or his mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down and many such things you do.

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So, what is a Pharisee? Is a Pharisee somebody who's a churchy person? No. A Pharisee is somebody who has rejected the commandments of God and supplanted

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God's commands and his word with their own traditions, with their own doctrines. It's a form of idolatry.

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It's a form of false worship altogether and making void the word of God and the fact that the children of Israel were under God's judgment from one of the clauses of the cursing portion of Deuteronomy 28 at the opening of the

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New Testament and that Christ rejects their tradition of the elders and judges them and says, you have rejected the commandments of God and are holding to the traditions of men, show what the problem is.

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So, Pharisees, the reason why they're judgmental is because they reject God's word.

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The reason why they're judgmental against Christ is because they reject God's word and they've added their own traditions, their own religion and have basically created a competing religion altogether, which isn't even

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Judaism. And I would note something here. And that is, is that folks like Jeremiah Gibson, he's actually the one who is really like a

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Pharisee, not those who would condemn him and say to him, your teaching is not in accord with sound doctrine.

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You see what I'm saying here? So, it's kind of fascinating when you know really the truth about who the

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Pharisees are, where they came from, and they came up during the intertestamental period and they're as idolatrous as any of the bad kings of Judah who, you know, who worship

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Baal and sacrifice their children to Molech. They're just as bad and they've abandoned the commandments of God by adding their own.

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Now you get it. That's what this is really all about. So, if somebody says to you, you know, you're just a

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Pharisee, you're a judgmental churchy person, send them this video and hopefully this will sort them out because, you know, because people who say that you're a

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Pharisee for rebuking somebody who's a false teacher and pointing out that it's not biblical, you're not a Pharisee at all.

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You're being faithful like Christ was, just like Christ was faithful in Matthew 7 in rebuking the

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Pharisees for their adding of the Scripture and their tradition of the elders and all this kind of stuff. When you point out that somebody's being a false teacher, a false prophet, and teaching false doctrine and not abiding in the sound words of God, you're being like Christ.

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The person who is teaching the false doctrine is actually the one being the Pharisee. Now you know.

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So, hopefully you found this helpful. If so, all the information on how you can share the video is down below in the description. And a quick shout out and a thank you to all of you who support us financially.

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And if you do, thank you for your support. We cannot do what we are doing here without it. So, until next time, may

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God richly bless you in the grace and mercy won by Jesus Christ and His vicarious death on the cross for all of your sins.