If you would, turn with me this morning to the Gospel of Mark, chapter 7, so we continue in our series there. And as you're finding your spot in the Gospel of Mark, I want to read to you a little story, whether true or not, I'm not sure, but it says that there was a Sunday morning where a gentleman sat through a church service, and then on his way home, he fussed about the sermon, he griped about the traffic, He complained about the heat and he made a big fuss about how late the lunch meal was served. Then he bowed and prayed, giving God thanks for the food. His little boy was watching him all the way through his post-church experience. Just as they were beginning to pass the food, he said, Daddy, did God hear you when we left the church and you started fussing about the sermon and about the traffic and about the heat? Father Blushing said, Well, yes, son. He heard me. Well, daddy, did God hear you when you just prayed for this food right now?" The father said, well, yes, sonny, he heard me. The little boy looked at him and said, well, daddy, which one did God believe? And you know, that is true of every single one of us, because we are quick to come into church and praise God and worship God and sing songs to God, and then no sooner that we hit the door, Does our attitude and our speech change? The complaining begins, the troubles start, the temptations are all around us, and it's easy for us to drift far away from where we just were ten minutes ago. And there's a word that many people use today, whether just or unjust in some situations, you can make an argument for both. But when we act that way, the word that is used by the world is hypocrites. We are hypocrites. When we speak one way and then in the same breath say something completely opposite or act completely different in the next, The Greek word is hupokrates, and that means someone who wears a mask. All it was, was in those times there would be plays that would put on, actors would come out with several different masks, and depending on what scene they were in, they would hold up a different mask. It was somebody that was insincere, became known as that, because they wore different masks. They played different parts. They were trying to be someone that they weren't. In today's text, we're going to look at a portion of Scripture in Matthew 7 that deals with the Pharisees, who Jesus time and time again condemned for many different reasons. Hypocrisy, legalism, exalting traditions, to doctrine, and we're going to see all of that take place in the text today. But I would like to say to you this morning that maybe you have encountered people, or maybe you're one of them, that said, I won't come to church because there are hypocrites there. I want to give you just a couple of things to think about and maybe to respond with when you hear that, because I hear that quite often. And so, think about these things this morning. There will always be hypocrites in church. There's no avoiding that. You'll never find a church that does not contain hypocrites. But I can promise you there won't be one hypocrite in heaven. There will not be one there. It's better to spend a couple of hours in church with a few hypocrites than an eternity in hell with all of them. Think about that for a moment. And lastly, I would say, if there's a hypocrite standing between you and God, the hypocrite's closer to God than you are. So I'll leave you with those things to think about as we begin. But look with me this morning at Mark chapter 7, verses 1 through 5. Our text begins and says, Now when the Pharisees gathered to Him with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem. Now that's a long trip from where Jesus is in comparison to Jerusalem is about a hundred miles. So this committee of Pharisees and scribes and religious people make a long journey Not because they're interested in hearing about Jesus' teaching, not because they have any attraction to Christ Himself, they're coming specifically to find fault, which is what they do every time they gather around Christ. They're coming to stir up trouble. We've seen it all throughout the Gospel already, and you'll see it all the way up until they finally petition for His crucifixion. It was what was driving them was to find problems with Christ and stir up the people against Him. And it goes on to say in verse 2, And here it was, they found it. They came snooping around, they came looking, and if you dig deep enough, you'll find something to complain about. But the problem was their complaints were not founded on the law of God. This was not anything that God had commanded be done in the law. It was not anything to do with good hygiene. They were looking at traditions that they themselves and the religious people before them had put into practice, had elevated to doctrine and put it on par with the Word of God. And they expected everyone to keep this standard and anyone that didn't, they looked down upon as being unrighteous, as being ungodly, as being unclean. And you'll see that in verses 3, through five. You'll see parentheses or quotations around that. That is because Mark is giving you a little commentary in these verses about what was going on. He says, For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands, holding to the tradition of the elders. And when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe. such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches, or that can be translated, tables. Now I want you to see a few things in this before we go on, because I want you to see the extremes that these people had taken in their traditions and in their legalism. Do you see in verse 3 where it says, The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash. The King James Version puts a word in there, oft, O-F-T. But either translation, that word wash or wash oft, really translates literally, in a special way. So their tradition had taken them to such extremes that there was a specific way to do everything, including how you washed your hands, so that God would look at you and say, you did that just right. Everything was perfect, now I'm happy with you. That was the idea that they had. Let me read to you what John MacArthur said concerning this ceremony. He says the ceremony involved someone pouring water out of a jar onto another's hands, whose fingers must be pointing up. So you couldn't have your hands like this, you couldn't be doing any of this, you had to have your hands just right. As long as the water dripped off at the wrist, The person could proceed to the next step. If it rolled up your arm or didn't make it there, you were still unclean and you had to start over again. He then had water poured over both hands with the fingers pointing down. Then each hand was to be rubbed with the fist of the other hand. And that's just a small portion of what went into this. So here's basically what had happened. God, you know in the Old Testament, gave the people of Israel the law. He gave them the Ten Commandments. He gave them the Levitical ceremonial laws and all the things that we see. But the Jews throughout history decided that they were going to make commentaries on how they felt the law ought to be carried out. They had certain applications of when and where and how the law ought to be done. And so all of these things became an oral tradition for these people, known as the Mishnah. It is still very, very sacred to the Jewish people today. That is their traditions, their oral traditions. And they also, on top of it, have a commentary about the way the law is to be used called the Gemara. And when you put the Mishnah, the oral things, and the Gemara, the commentary together, you have what the Jews call the Talmud. And the Talmud is what they go along with today on top of the five Old Testament books of the law. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, the Pentateuch. That is what the Jews look to today for their religion. And this Talmud comes together 613 commands or things that they shouldn't do, 248 specifically, do this, do this, do this, and 365 prohibitions, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this. The Mishnah alone has 30 chapters just how to clean vessels properly. That's the extremes. That's the extremes that these religious people went to to keep tradition alive to the point where by Jesus' time coming on the scene with His disciples, they had elevated this to such an extreme that they looked down on anybody that didn't keep the law like they felt they ought to. And this is where they were constantly seeking to trip Jesus up. It wasn't that He was breaking the laws of God, it was that all of their legalism and all of their hypocrisy, they felt that they were right with God, and unless anyone else could do the things that they felt should be done, you were wrong, and you were unclean. And so they were constantly finding fault. Let me read a little more to you. This is from a fellow named Alfred Edersheim, who is a scholar about New Testament times and when Jesus lived. Let me read to you what he says concerning this ceremony. He says, water jars were kept ready to be used before a meal. The minimum amount of water to be used was a quarter of a log, which is defined as enough to fill one and a half eggshells. You see how extreme this is? Every detail had to be just right. The water was first poured on both hands, held with the fingers pointed upwards, and must run up the arm as far as the wrist, and must drop off from the wrist, for the water was now itself unclean, having touched the unclean hands. And if it ran down the fingers again, it would render them unclean. The process was repeated with the hands held in the opposite direction with the fingers pointing down and then finally each hand was cleansed by rubbing with the fist of the other. A really strict Jew would do all of this not only before a meal but between each course. Think about that. Do you see how crazy that these people would become with the external things, trying to please God by what they did on the outside? This was what Jesus faced. Do you see why He got so angry at the religious teachers of that time? They weren't concerned with holiness. They weren't concerned with honoring God. They were concerned about keeping their traditions intact and doing things outwardly so that they could boast about their spirituality. That was the condition. Jews had turned God's laws into nothing more than a religious tradition. They took what was meant to be spiritual and they turned it into physical. They made external works the focus instead of internal transformation. And the Pharisees saw everyone else's condition instead of their own hearts. And that spirit of hypocrisy is alive and well today in the world and in the church at large, because there are many people that come in and think that if you don't do it exactly the way that they do it, you're wrong. And all they see is everyone else's faults, and they sit under the preaching of the gospel week after week, and they leave unchanged because all they worried about was everybody else getting it right, because they, in their minds, already are right. And they couldn't be farther from the truth. Someone said that there's three types of people in the world. The person that people see, the person I think I am, and the person that God knows I am. And that last one's really what matters. God already knows your heart. He's just trying to get you to a place where you recognize your own heart and confess and admit that things are far from being right in your life. Look with me as Jesus goes on. It says the Pharisees, in verse 5, and the scribes asked Him, why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition, there it is again, of the elders, but eat with defiled hands? So they've posed the question to Jesus at this point. And now we're going to see Jesus answer in verse 6. He says to them, in verse 6, 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. In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. So here's what I want you to see take place. Tradition, for the Pharisees, had replaced truth. Tradition, for them, replaced truth. Tradition is something that you have to keep. You have to hold on to it, but truth is something that keeps you. There's a big difference. Tradition is something that you have to keep, the truth will keep you. It will guard you, it will direct your paths, it will lead you. Tradition keeps you in bondage. Truth will set you free, as Jesus said. And in verse 6 he says, you hypocrites, He looks right at him and he doesn't beat around the bush. He says, you honor me with your lips, but your hearts, which is what God is really concerned about, is so far from me. They were play acting. That's what the word means. They were actors on a stage. There was no real desire to please God. It was all a show for people to see. There was no sincerity. And we do the same thing as believers when we talk about love, but we don't really love people. We do the same thing. We are hypocrites when we talk about forgiveness and ask God for forgiveness, but refuse to forgive those who have offended us. We are hypocrites when we talk about witnessing and sharing the Gospel, and then go week after week and never open our mouths to warn people of the danger to come, the judgment to come. And we're hypocrites when we say we love Christ, but don't obey what He commands. There is no other way around it. When you refuse to do what God has commanded and then come in and pretend that God is pleased and that you're following Him, you are being a hypocrite because your life does not line up with what you profess with your mouth. You honor God with your lips, but your heart is far from Him. And it's evident by the way that you live. And these Pharisees got to a place where their legalism completely took over to the point where, like it or not, recognize it or not, for them, they were turning away and rejecting God's Word. Look at the downward spiral that happens in these verses. Verse 7 says, as Isaiah prophesied and Jesus applied it to them, in vain do they worship me. teaching as doctrines the commandments of men." That's where it started. They began to replace the Word of God with traditions. It was no longer, thus saith the Lord, it was, thus saith the people, the religious rulers. They determined what was truth, and so God's Word took a back seat to what they felt ought to be done. among the people. And then verse 8, it goes on. He says, you leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of man. You lay aside God's commands for tradition. So we go from a rejection to a neglecting of God's Word. They push it aside for the traditions, and then they start to neglect it completely. Verse 9 says, And he said to them, You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition. Now we're to an outright rejection of the Word of God. They reject it. And finally in verse 13 he says, You make void the Word of God by your tradition that you have handed down, and many such things you do. They finally get to a place where they've completely invalidated the Word of God. You see the pattern that takes place? They replace it. They neglect it, they reject it, and ultimately they invalidate it in their lives completely so that they can keep their pattern of traditions rather than following and serving God. And Jesus, in the verses before that, He talks about an example of that. He says in verse 11, But you say, if a man tells his father or mother, whatever you would have gained from me as Corbin, that is given to God, then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother. And what he was saying there is, they had a tradition again where they were commanded in Scripture to take care, honor their father and mother. But they said, claim certain possessions as Corbin or dedicated or consecrated to God, and because they're gods now, I can hang on to those things, I can keep them for myself, I don't have to sell them or give them to my family to provide and take care of them. You see, they were so concerned with themselves, they didn't even worry about taking care of their own families. They just made a loophole where they could hang on to their stuff and pretend that they were giving it to God to hold on to it. And that's what Jesus was exposing. The law for them had become secondary to their own evil religious wants and desires. Because legalism is going to tell you, always tell you, that to be right with God, you've got to keep all the rules. Legalism will say you have to do everything exactly so, or God is displeased with you, or God will not accept you, or God will not receive you. And as long as you're doing everything right, God will love you. And those people are still all around us today. And we won't go there, but if you want to see how Jesus responded in another place to the Pharisees who lived this way, read Matthew 23 sometime. Look at the seven woes that Jesus pronounces on these religious people. Look at how He deals with that. Look at how he handles that. There's no room for that in the kingdom of God. And Jesus exposes their hypocrisy and their legalism for what it is. Now, we are commanded to live a godly and a holy life, but that stems from a heart that is right with God and desires to please Him. We don't do religious things to make God happy with us. God is happy with us because Christ died in our place, and His blood covers us, and His righteousness is imputed to us, and there's nothing you can do when He said, it is finished on the cross, to add to that. And it's your pride and your hypocrisy that says, I will elevate myself to a position of honor in the eyes of God by doing more things, by working harder than my neighbor. You're supposed to love your neighbor as yourself and humble yourself so that God can exalt you, instead of condemning them and looking down on them in a critical spirit like the Pharisees did, constantly. But legalism always turns it around to make it an effort that we earn. And Ephesians 2.8.9 says, By grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourself. It's the gift of God, not of works. Why? No man can boast. So no man can boast. There's no boasting about our right standing with God, because we did nothing to earn it, we can't do anything to earn it, we can't do anything to keep it. It's all by grace through faith that we're saved. And the Pharisees didn't see it. And Jesus goes on, He's going to declare the real problem. And I want you to see this this morning as we get close to closing. He says in verse 14, He called the people to Him again and said to them, Hear me, all of you, and understand. There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him. But the things that come out of a person are what defiles him. Remember, they were concerned that they were eating with unclean hands and because of that what they were taking in was defiled and going to make the person unclean. And Jesus is righting that wrong right here. He says, listen guys, unclean hands and making sure the water drips off and your fingers are pointing all the right way, that has no bearing on whether or not God looks at you as clean or unclean. That has nothing to do with it. Here's what it has to do with. It says, there is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him. Someone once said that the heart of the problem is the problem of the heart. You see, Jesus is exposing them by saying, you have to stop looking at the outside, because what you see on the outside is only the fruit of what's going on on the inside. What's being produced is coming forth from a wicked heart. That's where the issue lies. And that's what Jesus was trying to get them to see. It's not about doing all these things right. It's about God transforming and changing your heart. About giving you a new heart. Being born again. Making you a new person in Christ Jesus. That was what He wanted them to see. And He goes on and explains that. Look as He continues. Verse 17, He says, And when He had entered the house and left the people, here come the disciples and they are going to ask Him about this. And he says to them, Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart, but his stomach and is expelled? Thus he declares all foods clean. And he said, what comes out of a person is what defiles him. Look, verse 21, for from within, out of the heart, you know we've talked about the heart is the inner person, it's not the organ that beats blood, it is who you are, it is your identity, it is your makeup. of a being out of the heart, he said, of man come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these things come from within and they defile a person. He lists 13 sins in that portion of Scripture, and we could list plenty more. But the bottom line is this, every one of them stems from an evil heart. And our problem today, and has always been, is we don't think ourselves as being that bad. Again, we'll admit our faults, we'll admit we have some shortcomings, but heaven forbid that we call it sin. Heaven forbid that we say that we've sinned before a holy God and we're guilty. It's difficult to get people to admit that. They think they just need a little cleaning up, a little sprucing up. They don't realize that they're dead in their trespasses and sin and headed for hell for eternity without Jesus Christ. That is the danger. That is the judgment that's coming on humanity who rejects the Son of God as Lord and Savior. And people don't realize the seriousness. And so what we do is we try to fix ourselves up. We say we're a little rough around the edges. We've got some faults. We've got some things we struggle with, some habits, some problems. And so we're going to work on that. We make deals with God. We make deals with the church. You know, I'm working on these things. God, I'm trying harder. I'll get involved when I get my life straightened up. I'll join the church when I can lay down the alcohol. When I stop cussing, when I stop looking at that pornography, I promise when all that stuff gets cleaned up in my life, then I will get active. Then I will serve you. Then I will follow you. Do you realize that all of that stuff that's going on on the outside of your life is not the real issue? The issue is in here. The issue is your heart is not right with God. That's where the things are coming from. The problem is an issue of the heart. Like I've said many times, you can go out and mow down the weeds, and I promise you they're going to come right back. You've got to pluck up the root. You've got to dig it out, and you can't do that, only Christ can. Only Christ can free you from the bondage of sin. Not only does He forgive your sin, but He breaks the power and bondage of sin in your life. You have the Holy Spirit as a believer inside of you, and there is no temptation that comes that you must submit and surrender to unless you choose to do so. unless you choose to do so. When you fall into sin or when you dive into sin, it was an active choice that you made. You had an escape route and you chose not to take it. And you can blame no one but yourself for your sin. And that's what we see in the Garden of Eden right from the beginning. They disobey God and immediately, rather than running to the source of life, rather than running to the God who created them in His image and begging for forgiveness, they hide in the bushes and sew together fig leaves to cover their nakedness. And we do the same thing. We sin and then we run and we run and we run and we sew together our own fig leaves to try to fix and cover the mess that we've made. When Christ says, come to Me, come to Me, confess your sin, and I will be faithful and just to forgive it, He calls us to Him. He desires that you come and lay down your sin and surrender to Him. And we run, and we run, and we cover it up with religion. And we cover it up with traditions and we cover it up with legalism. And the problem with that is you can spend 10,000 Sundays in church and you can read the Bible every year and you can pray until there's calluses on your knees. And if you still have the same wicked heart, you'll die lost. You see that none of those things that you do can change who you are on the inside. Jesus told a religious person that would probably put every one of us to shame in this room by his morality, named Nicodemus, that unless you are born again, you shall not see the kingdom of God. And that goes for all of us, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. He said there is none righteous, no not one. We all like sheep have gone astray, and each one has turned to his own way, and on and on and on. He condemns us for our sins and our hopelessness. But Christ came to set us free. He came and gave His life as a ransom for many, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but by His mercy He saved us, Paul writes to Titus. You see, there is nothing that you can do because everything has already been done. And that's the good news this morning. Stop with the traditions, stop with the legalism, stop with your pride, and just fall at the feet of Christ, who's done it all for you. You know, God said, take off the fig leaves and I'll make you a covering. And He killed the animals and He covered Adam and Eve. And only God's covering is going to stand in the day of judgment. Only the blood of Christ will be recognized as payment for your sin. There's nothing else that you can bring. As the old hymn says, nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I cling. You've got to rest in Christ, or there'll never be rest for you. That's the only place that you can find rest. And so, I want you, as we close, to think about this. Because what I'm saying to you this morning is grace is not opposed to effort, but it is opposed to earning. There's a big difference there. Grace doesn't mean you sit back and don't ever do anything. But grace means that you have to recognize that you'll never earn anything from the hand of God. He's freely given it to you. That's what grace is. Undeserved, unmerited, unearned favor. It's the gift of God in His Son Jesus Christ that gives eternal life. John 3.16. That's what He promises. And I would say this morning that some of you are just looking at all the things in your life that are wrong, all the fruit, and you still don't see the root. You still don't recognize that the problem is inside of you. It's in your heart. And it would be as ridiculous as this. Imagine if you went out this morning and got in your car and turned it on and there was a rod knocking. I mean, just about ready to blow through the engine. It was low on oil and it was ready to pop. And you took the car down and drove it through the car wash and thought that would fix it. That's ridiculous. But it's just as ridiculous to think that you can have a wicked heart and by doing good religious activities that you're going to change what's on the inside. It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen at all. Because man's opinion of sin and God's opinion are different. Listen, I'm going to close with this because we say these words all the time and maybe you've said it. Man says sin is an accident. God says it's an abomination. Man says sin is a blunder. God says it's blindness. Man says sin is a chance. God says it's a choice. Man says sin is an error. God says it's enmity with God. Man says sin is a failure. God says it leads to fatality. Man says sin is just a trifle. God says it's a tragedy. Man says sin is a weakness. God says it is wickedness. See how carefully we change the words to justify what's going on inside of us? Charles Spurgeon said, if sin had not been in you, it could not have come out. All the trouble in the world does not put sin in the Christian, it simply brings it out. When you get angry at your wife or angry at your husband, and you say, man, you made me mad. No, they didn't. It was already there. They just brought out what was inside. And that's the fact with any sin in our life. It's already there. Nobody put it in there. Nobody made you do it. They just brought it to the surface so you could see it. And you've excused yourself by blaming someone else. See how deceptive it is? See how the devil gets our eyes off of the problem so we can't make it right, so we can't get it right? He doesn't want you to realize that the solution is Jesus Christ. He doesn't want you to come to Christ. He wants you to blame your neighbor. Blame your family. Blame your wife. Blame your mom. Blame your dad. Point the finger. And then, when you're done pointing the finger, He says, work harder. Work harder. Do this. Do that. Do this. Do that. And it never ends. It never ends. And that's why some of you have been struggling for the same sins for years. Because you're stuck in that pattern. And you simply will not recognize the problem is your heart, and you need Christ to change that. Ezekiel 36, 26, Jeff, as you come, he says, I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. He's going to take that rock-hard stone that's in there, and he's going to break it. And I pray that he does. I pray that he breaks your heart and gives you a new heart that can feel and receive the things that God has for you. That's what God desires this morning. That's what we as a church desire is to see you that have struggled for so long with things realize that mowing down the weeds won't fix it. You need a new heart and a new life and Jesus offers that this morning. So as we stand and as we sing, if you need to come, if you need to come and receive Christ as your Savior, if you need to come and rededicate your life. If you need to come and surrender to serve in this body, if you need to follow him in baptism, I don't know what your need is, but you do and God does. And that's all that matters. Get it right today with him, as we sing. Just as I am. You come just as you are. Don't let the tradition and the legalism say I gotta clean up first. You can't. Come just as you are. And you won't leave as you are. I can promise you that. And that Thou bidst me come to Thee, O Lamb of God, I come, I come. As we say, you need to come this morning. Is God tugging at your heart? Is He pulling you? Is He calling you? You need to respond. There's no guarantee of tomorrow. He's calling you today, respond today. You say, I don't know what to do, just step out by faith. Step out by faith and trust Him, follow Him. Just as I am, Thou wilt receive, Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve, Because Thy promise I believe, O Lamb of God, You need to come, just as I am. Thy love unknown hath broken every dam. You'll be Thine, yes Thine, alone, O Lamb. Anyone else? God bless you all. It's great to see everyone. Thank you for all that you've been doing here. We give God the glory for the many amazing things. It's just been a blessing to see that Bob taught on unity. It's been wonderful to see you. And as I've been saying, continue to pray, continue to be on guard because when things go good, we tend to let our guard down and that's when the devil attacks. So I'm not trying to be a prophet of doom, but I just want to issue a warning to stay prayed up, stay in the Word, stay in fellowship, and do the things that you need to do so when those attacks come, you can be ready. Before I close, I want to bring Brendan Thomas forward. Brendan was baptized last week, and I've got a new Bible for you, buddy. I hope that you will read it and that it will be a blessing to you, and we're proud of you and look forward to seeing how God uses you. There you go. You're welcome. Austin Crouch, I'm going to bring you up too. Austin was also baptized last week. Austin is, I think, getting close to maybe heading back down to school. So we didn't pray for you specifically, but we are praying for you as God leads you in another year of school. And as you go, I want to give you the word here to take with you. Man, study it, stay in it, and I'm proud of you. Absolutely. Come back tonight at six if you're able and join us. If you've got any questions about any of the stuff, but man, don't forget there's a meeting for the softball team. If you want to be in the men's ministry or the ladies ministry, please make sure that you sign up on those things and we look forward to seeing what God's going to do. Marcus, do you mind to close this out this morning?