FBC Morning Light – February 17, 2023

Well, a good Friday morning to you. Looking forward to a good weekend, I trust you are. I'm looking forward to gathering together with God's people on the Lord's Day. We'll be meeting for Bible study time for all ages, 9 .30 in the morning Sunday, morning service at 10 .30, and then evening service at 6 o 'clock.

So if you're in the Sterling Rock Falls area, I encourage you to come and be a part of that service, those service times on the Lord's Day. But for today, if you're following in our Bible reading plan, we're reading in Leviticus chapters 5 and 6, Mark chapter 7, and the 35th Psalm.

Traditions of the Elders in Mark 7

And there's a situation in Mark 7 that it's an interaction that Jesus has with those notorious Pharisees that brings up a potential problem we need to be aware of. The Pharisees had, I mean, they knew the Old Testament law, they knew that they could be defiled in some way by something unclean, and so they developed a whole system of washings to make sure that they didn't end up allowing themselves to be defiled by the uncleanness that they might possibly have encountered out in the marketplace somewhere.

And so verse 3 talks about this, it says, "...the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands in a special way...". That special way was a special way that the water would run off the hands, so it wouldn't, you know, if there was defilement it wouldn't, you know, roll up your arms or whatever.

And they did, and it says that they did so, "...holding the tradition of the elders.". Now that's an important distinction, holding the tradition of the elders. This was not something that was commanded by the Old Testament Scriptures, the Mosaic law, this was the tradition of the elders.

He goes on to say that when they come from the marketplace they don't eat unless they wash, and there are many other things like this that they have received and they hold. They have received by the tradition of the elders, and they hold firmly to them, like washing of cups and pitchers and copper vessels and couches.

And the idea is this, see, if you, for example, if you're not a Jew, you're a Gentile, and if you were a Jew at that time and happened to run into unknowingly a Gentile, you might have bumped shoulders or, you know, you might have touched something a Gentile touched, you would be considered unclean by the elders' tradition, and therefore you'd have to be cleansed of that uncleanness before you ate anything, or you'd be defiled.

So they had all these ritual cleansings to make sure that if they happened to come across and accidentally touch a Gentile or touch somebody who had touched something that was dead, you know, they had to make sure that they weren't defiled, and so they cleansed themselves in this way.

Human Traditions Versus God's Commandments

Jesus addresses this and says, you're really just a bunch of hypocrites, and he does this because the Pharisees had said, how come your disciples don't follow the traditions of the elders and wash like they're supposed to wash before they eat?

They're eating with unclean hands because they're not following the prescription of the elders. Jesus says, you're hypocrites. He says, it's written of you by Isaiah the prophet. These people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

They teach as doctrines the commandments of men. And furthermore, Jesus goes on to say, by your commandments of men, you have ended up nullifying some of the commandments that I have established, that God has established.

For example, he says, if you, you know, the Bible says, then one of the Ten Commandments is, honor your father and your mother, and he who curses father or mother, let him be put to death. But you say, if the way in which I would normally honor my father and mother, if that's been dedicated to the temple, dedicated to God, then I can't honor my father and my mother.

This is a tradition that has been elevated above the commandment of God, and Jesus is critical of this. It's a vain show of religious hypocrisy, in other words, when we can become very meticulous about adhering to our own rules or quote-unquote standards that we have developed and we have added to the prescriptions of the law of God.

You know, we take some law of God, one of the Ten Commandments, for example, and we extrapolate from that, and we add to that certain safeguards, we call them, or standards that will prevent us from going over the cliff of violating that command.

The problem comes in when we are meticulous about adhering to those man-made rules and standards, to the point where we are critical and judgmental of others who don't happen to have those same exact standards or rules for their life that I have established for my life.

Say, for example, television watching. Television watching can be good or bad, it can be helpful or it can be harmful. Let's acknowledge that. It's probably the case that most of us spend too much time watching television.

But let's say, for example, I become convicted about that, and I say, okay, I don't want to let anything defiling enter through my eye gates, so I'm just going to completely get rid of my television, I'm not going to have any kind of internet connection because I don't want to be able to see a YouTube video or anything like that.

I'm just going to completely eliminate that from my life. But then you have brothers and sisters in Christ in the same church that you attend, and they don't have that same rule for them. How do you handle that?

Well, what the Pharisees did was they would look at those who still have the television set, and subscribe to certain YouTube channels, and consider them to be defiled because they don't have the same rule.

Jesus says that's hypocrisy. That's a vain show of religious hypocrisy, elevating the commandments of men to the law of God. Let's beware of that. Let's not do that. Father and God, I pray that we would be meticulous about obeying you, but we would be very understanding and flexible about some of those add-ons that we consider to be important to us personally, to help us personally in our walk with you.

Deliver us from the kind of judgmentalism that sees others that don't have the same kind of personal rules for their life that we might have for our own. Help us, Father, not to be hypocrites, we pray, and we ask this in Jesus' name and for his sake.

Closing Encouragement for the Lord’s Day

All right, well listen, have a great, wonderful weekend. I trust the Lord will bless you in it, and especially on the Lord's Day. Gather with God's people and enjoy the day of rest together with the people of God.

Have a good day.