 That said, we'll begin reading here in Mark chapter 7 at verse 1. I'll read verses 1 through 5, and then I'm going to give to you as I normally do an introduction that gives you a sense of the context of this passage, and then go through it verse by verse to verse 23, and that's where we'll conclude. So beginning at verse 1, reading to verse 5, Mark chapter 7, then the Pharisees and some of the scribes came together to Him, having come from Jerusalem. Now when they saw some of His disciples eat bread with defiled, that is, with unwashed hands, they found fault for the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands in a special way, holding the tradition of the elders. When they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash, and there are many other things which they have received and hold, like the washing of cups and pitchers, copper vessels, and couches. Then the Pharisees and scribes asked Him, why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands? And so we're going to be looking at a study of the new life. We're going to be looking at a study of the truth versus tradition. And so to lay an introduction, let me begin by quoting an author by the name of T.A. McMahon. T.A. McMahon. He said, biblical Christianity and the religions of the world are primarily set apart by what they teach about ultimate salvation and actually make up two different systems. One system relies on human achievement and the other on divine accomplishment. Biblical Christianity alone comes under the heading of divine accomplishment. All other religions of the world must be placed under the label of human achievement. You see, throughout the Bible, God often states that true worship is actually built on two things, sincere love for Him and obedience that rests on faith in Him. We see that throughout the Scriptures. Let me give you a couple of examples. One is found in the Old Testament. It's in the book of Deuteronomy in chapter 6, verse 5. In Deuteronomy 6, verse 5, it says, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. In Deuteronomy 10, verse 12, it says, and now Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. The relationship that man has with God is based on love for Him and obedience to Him. Now, over her long history, Israel did not consistently remain faithful to God. Instead of steady faithfulness, often the nation, and you read this in the Scriptures, will lapse into idolatry, a prophet that God ordained to the nation. By the name of Jeremiah had a message for Israel that reveals this about the nation. In his book, the book of Jeremiah in chapter 2, verse 5, he wrote, this is what the Lord says. What fault did your ancestors find in me that they strayed so far from me? They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves. He went on in verse 8 of Jeremiah 2, and he said, the priests did not ask, where is the Lord? Those who deal with the law did not know me. The leaders rebelled against me. The prophets prophesied by Baal following worthless idols. And so the nation of Israel would often lapse into idolatry. And so when convicted, the nation would confess their sins and very often would, as a nation, repent. But that repentance was not lasting. Soon after, they would once again enter idolatry, and once again they would begin to practice sin. Often the repentance was only external, but was not sincere. You see, God didn't want Israel to act like they repented. He wanted them to really repent. Again, a prophet named Joel in chapter 2, verse 13 says, rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity. Repent, repent, repent. They would lapse into idolatry. God would send a prophet. The prophet would call him to repentance. Once again, they'd lapse into idolatry. And what would happen is very often they would have an appearance of faith, but they didn't have it. And God didn't want the appearance of love and faithful obedience. He wants the real thing. Well, during the time of Jesus, Israel was still practicing external faith. To fashion outward devotion to God, the religious leaders began to develop religious rules. And these rules produced a convincing appearance, an outer appearance of righteousness. But Jesus saw through their hypocrisy and he would directly confront the religious leaders in this passage. It's the Pharisees and the scribes. The scribes were the legal experts, legal not in terms of laws, regulations, and all of that pertaining to the kind of judges we have now. This was laws that are pertaining to religious life. It's those who were experts in the law of Moses. And so they were the religious experts and teachers of Pharisees and the scribes. And Jesus saw how the religious rules would produce in the people a false sense of security. The people that were being influenced, in other words, by these religious leaders and teachers would think that if they did what they were told, if they only needed to do that, if they would do those things, that they'd be right with God. It was all external though. And Jesus confronts that. In Matthew 23, verse 13, he says it like this. He says, What do you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites? You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. And so Jesus would speak to the religious leaders and he said, You're not entering yourself and you forbid those who want to. So as we're about to begin chapter seven up until this time, Jesus's popularity and ministry have been expanding. We've seen that as we've gone from chapter one through chapter six. And we saw in chapter six how he had sent out the 12. He had fed a multitude. He walked on water. He healed many. His popularity is so great that many want to take him by force and make him a king. And that's something that Jesus would not allow. John, when he was speaking concerning of the feeding of the 5000 and the response to it gives us more insight into what took place after that feeding. He writes that when the people attempted to make him their king, that Jesus himself confronted them. He told them that the only reason they wanted him was because he was feeding them. He then went on to tell them that he was the bread of life. And if they were to fully partake in him by faith, they would never spiritually hunger and they would never be spiritually thirsty again. But after he says that to them in John 6 verse 66, it says, they went away and walked with him no more. They said to themselves, this is a hard saying. Who can understand it? And so they just left him. Well, from that point on, his popularity began to decrease and attacks against him began to increase. And this chapter shows us how attacks against him are now beginning to intensify. So in verse one, we're introducing into the Pharisees. It says in chapter seven, verse one, the Pharisees and some of the scribes came together to him having come from Jerusalem. Now, these were influential religious leaders. They had traveled from the south, Jerusalem, and they had traveled up to the north. They're more than likely there to assist the Pharisees of the north as they confront Jesus Christ. And that's because they're concerned because the people were beginning to follow Christ in great droves and were beginning to reject them. And so for these reasons, they've come. They've come to challenge Jesus. And so they came together to him having come from Jerusalem, verse two. Now, when they saw some of his disciples eat bread with defiled, that is, with unwashed hands, they found fault. So that gives us insight into their motives for coming from Jerusalem. They were looking for a problem so they could find fault with them. So they could make an accusation against him. We've already seen that in chapter three, verse two, where he said that they had watched him closely whether he would heal on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him. Well, at this time, Jesus has already shown no regard for much of what was important to them. He'd been busy breaking quite a number of their religious traditions. He had sat down and shared a meal with sinners and tax collectors and it bothered them so much when he did that. He had broken their tradition on fasting by not teaching his men too fast. And he had rejected their understanding of the Sabbath and its observation. And his reputation is now well known. And these religious scholars have come to see him. They've traveled from Jerusalem just to find something they could accuse him of. They knew that if they watched him closely, eventually they could find something to make an accusation. And so it says in verse two, they saw some of his disciples eat bread with defiled, that is, with unwashed hands. It's not that they didn't wash before eating like we try and train our children to do. It was something different because their hands were not dirty. It says they were unwashed. And that word unwashed speaks really of a ceremonial matter. And so what Mark goes on to do, notice this in verses three and four, is he goes on to explain this to his non-Jewish readers. In verse three he says, the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands in a special way, holding the tradition of the elders. When they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other things which they have received and hold, like the washing of cups, pitchers, copper vessels and couches. So he gives an explanation to his non-Jewish readers. Mark knew some of the readers would not understand this area of Jewish religion. You see, the tradition of the Jewish elders required them to always wash before eating lest they might have touched something or someone that was unceremonial or rather ceremonially unclean. So if they're in the marketplace, they brush against the Gentile. He's not an observant Jew and all. He's a Gentile. They would go and they would wash in case they inadvertently touched something that was not clean. Jewish priests had been required by the law to wash before they would enter the tabernacle. Exodus 30 verses 18 and 19 says, make a bronze basin with its bronze stand for washing. Place it between the tent of meeting and the altar. Put water in it. Aaron and his sons, the priests, Aaron and his sons, are to wash their hands and feet with water from it. So it was a ceremonial washing for priests, but not for non-priests. Well, in the time of Jesus, the Pharisees had adopted the ritual washings required of the priests. So for them, their daily food was to be eaten as if it were priestly food and ordinary acts of life were treated as if they were sacred because they believed that this gives glory to God. Like it says in the book of Leviticus chapter 20 verse 26, you shall be holy to me. And so they had established this and they began to practice it. Well, verse five says, the Pharisees and scribes asked him, why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands? Why? They were concerned about Jesus ignoring their traditional interpretation of the law of Moses. For them, their tradition was superior. It was superior to Scripture itself because it explained Scripture. And so let me speak about that for just a moment about tradition and all of that, how that came to be. You see, their tradition was intended to safeguard God's law from being ignored. They were to keep it and they were to transmit this law to the next generation. And so they developed traditions intended to make sure that God's law would continue into the future. And what they would do is they would train disciples to follow their traditions because they wanted their disciples to be able to teach the law of God and their interpretation to future generations. So by enforcing their traditions, they were attempting to ensure that God's law continued. And for this reason, they built what is called a hedge. They built a hedge around the law. It was to act as what is called a wall of protection. And the hedge that they built was their traditions. The problem was that this opened a way for hypocrisy to take root. Outwardly, they could appear to be sincere, even if they were only pretending. And Jesus spoke of this and he would point it out. And he did so clearly and courageously. And he said this was a sin of the religious leaders. In Matthew 23, 25, he said, What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and new Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you're filthy, full of greed and self-indulgence. You can't imagine how these religious leaders must have responded to those words as this itinerant rabbi, this man with no formal training in the law and traditions confronted them with such courage and bothered them. But that's because Jesus is dealing with the emphasis of outward appearance, because that was the breeding ground for hypocrisy. In the book of Matthew, in chapter 6, Jesus speaks to them concerning these things. And he exposed hypocrisy. He exposed the hypocrisy of their prayers, of their fasting, of their giving. He said, You do these things to be seen by men. You stand in front of people and you make prayers so that people will wander by and see you as you're standing on a street corner. And you're doing that so that they may give you glory, or you fast, you disfigure your faces so that you appear fasting and people will look at you and they'll say, Oh, that very righteous man is fasting. Look at the sorrow of his face, or you give in a way that you go into the temple and you have your coins and you drop it into this trumpet, this metal trumpet, so it rattles when it goes down. And people can hear the number of the heavy coins. And you do all of this, Jesus said, to be seen by men. And by men, you shall receive your reward. In Matthew 23, verse 5, he said, All your works are done in order to be seen by men. That's hypocrisy. You see, they were so blinded by their traditions that they couldn't even see their own hypocrisy. And that's the danger of superficial traditional ritualistic religion. So they saw the disciples didn't wash and they wonder why didn't they do that? Verse 5, again, why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition? What they're saying is you are actually not treating or teaching them right. You are not truly observant because if you were really religious, you would be doing things our way. Now, they're already aware that Jesus rejected their traditions, their spiritual authority. They knew that he had forgiven a man who was paralyzed. He had forgiven this man of his sins. And they knew that that was in their mind a violation of the law and blasphemy. They also knew that Jesus rejected their understanding of the Sabbath because he actually healed on the Sabbath. So they already know his reputation. And so that made Jesus an enemy because he was rejecting their traditions. And they saw his influence as dangerous because he was appealing to great numbers of people. When we get to chapter 12, verse 37, it says, the common people heard him gladly. So the religious leaders were threatened by Jesus. And they're outraged. They're outraged because Christ is allowing his disciples to do this. They knew that this could spread to the people. It would undermine their religious image. And they didn't want to lose that because the religious people, rather, saw them as very righteous. And in Jesus exposing this, that it's not necessary, they'll also expose their sinful hearts. And so they speak to him and they ask that question, why are they doing that violating tradition? Verse six, he answered and 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. And in vain they worship me teaching his doctrines the commandments of men. So Jesus doesn't just argue with them. He gives them scripture. He says, this is what scripture says. And so it's not just an argument. What he does is expose their hypocrisy. And later on, he's going to explain what this means to his disciples. You'll see this in verse 17 following. But his point is this, you're only outwardly religious, but inwardly you're spiritually dead. In Matthew 23, 27 and 28, he said, well, unto you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites, you're like whitewash tombs, which look beautiful on the outside, but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. In the same way on the outside, you appear to people as righteous, but on the inside, you're full of hypocrisy and wickedness. And so to expose their hearts, he quotes Isaiah, Isaiah 29, 13. In vain they worship me teaching his doctrines to commandments of men. So he exposes the heart of their hypocrisy. You're pretending to honor God. But in reality, you're teaching legalism to these people. You're more concerned with upholding your manmade traditions. You see, man's wisdom can never provide forgiveness and freedom from bondage to sin. Because it's the truth that sets you free, not man's traditions. In John 8, verses 34 through 36, Jesus answered them, most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin, and a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore, if the son makes you free, you shall be free indeed. In Romans 1, 16, Paul said it like this, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It's the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. For the Jew first and also for the Greek, Jesus Christ sets the sinner free. And he doesn't do it by giving them some kind of rote thing to pray or rote thing to do, something you do by memory or practice by habit. He gave them freedom and that freedom comes to the word of God. We'll look at that in a moment a little more deeply. And so he goes on in verse 8, and he says, for laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men, the washing of pitchers and cups, and many other such things you do. He said to them, all too well, you reject the commandment of God that you may keep your tradition. So he says, laying aside the commandments. So the words laying aside means to desert wrongfully. It means to leave something behind. You have voluntarily deserted what true worship is and replaced it with your manmade traditions. Your traditions and your rituals have choked off truth, and you're closing them to spiritual worship. You see, true worship of God, he's saying, is with the entire person, the heart, the soul, the strength, the mind. In Psalm 8612, I will praise you, Lord my God, with all my heart, I will glorify your name forever. Psalm 103 verse 1, bless the Lord, oh my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. It's love and devotion for God that directs our behavior, not rules or feelings. These religious leaders have never been transformed from within, and that made their religious works empty of genuine faith and empty of real worship. Notice he says in verse 9, you reject the commandment of God that you may keep your tradition. You're deserting specific commands of God. Not only are you neglecting the commands of God, but you're teaching others to do the same. For Moses, verse 10, said, honor your father and your mother, and he who curses father or mother, let him be put to death. But you say, if a man says to his father or mother, whatever prophet you might have received from me is Corbatan, that is a gift to God, then you no longer let him do anything for his father or his mother, making the word of God of no effect through your tradition, which you have handed down, and many such things you do. So he begins to speak to them and tells them what the word of God actually says. So he says in verse 10, Moses said honor your father and your mother, and the one who curses father or mother should be put to death. Well, these commands are found in Exodus 20, verse 12, and Exodus 21, verse 17. To honor parents is the fifth commandment. To not do so is a very serious crime. To curse your father is to pray that God himself would curse him and bring him to ruin. So people will be wondering about that one because you may have a teenager and you're seeing, does this give me permission to kill him? Well, let's look at this. Yeah, preach it, brother. Let's look at this. He's not speaking of casual, impetuous teenage rebellion. Okay, we'll start that out. This is speaking of ongoing, deep-seated rebellion and when addressed, the one who is rebellious refuses to listen. In Deuteronomy 21, 18 through 21, it says, if a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother and who, when they have chastened him, will not heed them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of the city, to the gate of his city. They shall say to the elders of his city, this son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey our voice. He's a glutton and a drunkard. Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones, so you shall put away the evil from among you and all Israel shall hear and fear. You will put away the evil. To execute them was to purge the nation of evil, both what was happening then and future. And it was the result of rejecting a direct command of God to honor our parents. And that's what was taking place here is the Pharisees were teaching them to get around the honoring of the father and the mother. Notice verse 11. He says in verse 11, you say if a man says to his father or mother whatever prophet you might you might have received from me is Corban, that is a gift to God. Then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother, making the word of God of no effect through your tradition, which you have handed down in many such things you do. And so this is what they would do. The word Corban means to devote to God's devoted to God. That's Corban. And I as a will say as a homeowner, I I could dedicate my furniture to God. So we'll say I have a table. So I say this, this table belongs to the Lord. And I made a vow to God. This is a table that belongs to God. Well, I have my father and I have my mother and my father and mother are now elderly. And they're the furniture that they have in their and their humble home is well, it's old and it's in need of replacement. And my father sees that I have a table that I'm not using. It's just there in the room. So he approaches me and he says, Son, you know, your your mother and I have need of a table. And obviously, I don't have anything that that I can spend on a table. I would like to know whether or not I could have your table so we can have a table in the house to eat from. And so I say to my father, dad, I'd love to give it to you. I really would. But I've already dedicated it to God. It belongs to God. I'm sorry because I've made my vow to God and I can't go back on it. It's Coran. And so when I could have honored and cared for my father, I chose to find a loophole to keep from ministering to him. Now, in our day, there is still a need to care for our parents. I think all of us would agree on that. There's still a need when my mom, my father died. My mom went to live with my sister Rebecca. My sister Rebecca took care of my mom. On occasion, we would be of help when she needed it because that's my mom and it was her mom. She never would have thought she never did think that it was too hard. And she was a single woman at that time. She had no life. She gave up her life. She didn't go out on dates. She didn't have, you know, much she could do. My mom was in great need. Now, my sister Becky could have said, you know what? This is too hard. We'll put her in a home but she couldn't do that. In the time of Israel, there were really no retirement packages of any sort. You would be wise to save and hold on to some finances over time and still wise to this day. But you always didn't have that as an option. Sometimes you didn't have enough to do that. And so by having many children, part of the blessing, especially sons, was that they could provide for you in your old age. And that's kind of how the system worked in the nation of Israel is that I had a responsibility as a son to care for my parents. And my children would have responsibility to help me and that's how it would work. Well, the priests are giving them a loophole. They're saying, well, no, just dedicate whatever it is that you have to God. Make a Corvun. And when you do that, your father will ask and you'll have to say, no, I'm sorry. I already gave it to God. And that's how that works. And he says, so what you're doing is through your tradition, you are breaking the actual word of God. And in doing so, you're actually in great sin for that. So what Jesus is doing is exposing their hypocrisy, honoring your father and your mother as a commandment and taking care of your parents is required of you. And it's required of believers, because if your parents are in need, then do what you can in order to help them. Like it says, even in the New Testament, 1st Timothy 5, verse four, if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents for this is pleasing to God. And so through the traditions, they were undermining actual faith and traditions do that. When you begin to put traditions of men in front of what faith actually is, you actually begin at that point to, to miss the point of what God would have us to do and what God would have us to be because the tradition can take the place of actual faith. If what I'm doing is just traditional and not filled with faith, then it's just outward hypocrisy is what it is. It's like in the United States, a lot of people, we had Christmas just yesterday and there were a lot of people who are celebrating Christmas who don't believe in the Christ child. They were just celebrating a traditional holiday. That's what they do. And sometimes you can actually be taught things that are traditional and in doing so, you're missing the point of what actual faith is. When, and you know, I'll say it like this, I don't say this in a way to, other than to explain what I mean by it. I don't know if you had a religious tradition you grew up in. I don't know. I don't know the makeup of this congregation, whether or not you were raised as a Baptist or whether you were raised Nazarene or raised a Pentecostal Catholic. I was raised Catholic so I can only draw from my own religious tradition and life when I when I make these kind of religious statements or traditional statements and being raised in the Catholic Church, I had a lot of traditions that I was taught. There were quite a number of traditions that were not necessarily scriptural, but they were traditional. There were things that we did as Catholics and my my girlfriend who became my wife Marie was raised in the same kind of religious atmosphere. She was raised a Catholic and so she carried around what we called scapulars. She had a green scapular. She had a brown scapular. She also had little statue of Joseph and Joseph was what quote unquote was her patron saint. And so Marie before she got saved had taken a statue of Joseph, a little plastic statue. Some of you guys are familiar with these and she had placed it on her dashboard facing traffic. And you should have seen that because the statue had his hands over his eyes because of the because of the way she drove. And but what happened, what happened is the son melted it. So he's just kind of like a hunchback Joseph, you know, I still remember that. And then one day, you know, we're still just dating. She had left her purse next to me and she had walked out of the room and being the kind of scoundrel I am. I thought I wonder what she has in here. And I opened her wallet up and I saw a picture of Joseph saying Joseph, that was her patron saint. And she's already saved. And so she came and sat down next to me and I said, you know, Marie, I'm kind of upset with you. Why is that? You're going out on me. She goes, what are you talking about? I said, you have another boyfriend. She's going, No, I don't. Yes, you do. You're going out with Joe. She goes, Joe, Joe, Joe. And I pulled out the picture of Saint Joseph. You know, I said, you're carrying Joe's picture. You know, what's with you? And then we had a nice little visit and I shared with her. I said, I said, Marie, you need to let go of any tradition that keeps you away from Jesus Christ. I said, you need to do that, sweetheart, because you're free in Jesus Christ. And these traditions that you keep in them are going to keep you from growing. I said, when I got saved, I let go of anything that wasn't in Scripture. What I did is I was two years old in Christ or so, right in that I was still a new believer. But I was at somebody's house and I found one of these giant Bibles that people have on the table, you know, and I opened it up and it was a Catholic Bible. And I began to read it and look at the back for the different doctrines of the Catholic faith. And I was raised as a Catholic, like I said, I had baptized and I had the, you know, Confession and First Communion and Confirmation. I had gone through the different rites of the Catholic faith and all. And so I said to myself, I'm now a Christian. And this actually was before I was, it wasn't even two years. It was within the first few months. I opened up the Bible and I started from A to Z because it was big family Bible and it had all the doctrines that I'd been taught from A to Z. So I went and I said, is the assumption of Mary in Scripture? And I discovered that it's not. I look for the doctrine of penance. It's not. I look for the doctrine of purgatory. It's not. I look for the doctrine of limbo. It's not. I went through all of it. And as I was there looking through every doctrine, I made a determination then that if it's not in Scripture, I'm not going to believe it. If I can't read the Bible and find that there, then I'm not going to believe it. And that wasn't some act of rebellion again. It was nothing like that. I knew that the truth would set me free. I'd already been taught that. I had gone through an experience of coming to faith in Jesus Christ. I knew what freedom was and I didn't want to be in bondage to any man-made tradition. And it was so. It was never. It was never an argument. Really. It was never. It was never, oh, I hate. No, I had nothing to do with that. As a matter of fact, just before I got saved, a friend of mine named Bill had been trying to bring me to Christ and take me to this cult church called Calvary Chapel. And I was upset at him because I said, Bill, I said, man, you've never had faith in your life. You were raised a Lutheran. You didn't even go to church. What do you know? I said, I was raised in the true church, the Catholic Church. We have a descendant from Peter himself as our Pope. I mean, I knew my theology as a pertain to the basics. And I would argue with them about that. Even though I was a Lodi and a drunk, I still argued with them. And that's a fact because I knew that one day I'd meet a nice Catholic girl and that she would marry me and we'd raise our kids as Catholic kids. I'd stay home and drink a beer and watch the game on Sunday while she took the kids to church. That's what I thought church was and all of that. So that was it. So I got upset because he was trying to win me to this Protestant faith and I was real upset. So I went and spoke to my parish priest. And I said, I have a friend, a Protestant. I used it like it was a dirty word. I said, I have a friend, a Protestant who's trying to convince me to be born again. I said, I was when I was baptized, right? I said, Holy Spirit came on me when I was four months old. As a matter of fact, this month celebrates 71 years since my mama as a 21 year old little girl. Young lady took her baby to the church in LA right by Alvaro Street, the little Plaza church where every Mexican in California was baptized there. And that's where I was baptized. I had my baptism certificate. I was four months old. I got baptized in December 1950. And so I was a staunch Catholic. I just wasn't practicing. I felt that I would later, but it wasn't then. So I go to my priest and trusted him and I say to him, I just want to know, I need some answers. I have a Protestant who's telling me about Jesus Christ and it's angering me. Give me some answers. And he leans back. I'll never forget this, not to his shame. Seriously, he just leans back. Now you have to picture, I was a hippie. I had the long hair. I had the full cyborns and granny glasses. I was barefooted. You know, I was a hippie. I'm sitting in his office. I'm 20 years old and I've got my arms folded. I need some ammunition. Tell me. This is his answer. I still remember it to this day. He leaned back, put his hands behind his head, leaned back in his chair and he said, I tried Eastern religion. I've tried other things. I came back to the Catholic church. So will you. That was his answer. As a young kid seeking truth, I walked out of that room and I'll never forget my feeling. I still have it to this day. I said, he doesn't know truth. He doesn't have an answer. And that's what made me start listening more to those who said, I can tell you the truth. See, tradition versus truth. Tradition sets you into a legalism, but truth will set you free. And Jesus Christ said, you shall know the truth and it will make you free. And so when he's speaking to these people and they're speaking of their man-made traditions and all, Jesus confronts them and it makes it very clear that this is hypocrisy. And now in verse 14, when he had called all the multitude to himself, he said to them, hear me, everyone understand there's nothing that enters a man from outside which can defile him, but the things which come out of him. These are the things that defile a man. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear. And so Jesus explains what true righteousness is. It's not what goes in. It's what is coming out. It's not whether you wash or not. It's rather whether your heart has been washed. And that's the point it's making. And we understand that, but notice his, you know, what takes place in verse 17, when he entered a house away from the crowd, his disciples asked him concerning the parable. So he said to them, are you thus without understanding also? Do you not perceive that whatever enters a man from outside cannot defile him? Because it doesn't enter his heart, but his stomach and is eliminated thus purifying all foods. He said what comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within out of the heart of men proceed the evil thoughts, adultery, fornication, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness, all these evil things come from within. And defile a man. It comes from your sin nature. Don't you have ears to hear? Sacrifices, circumcision, dietary laws, festivals are only pictures of the future. These things that the Jews practice were intended to prepare them for Messiah, who fulfilled all of the law's requirements. In Colossians 2.16 and 17, let no one judge you in food or in drink regarding a festival, a new moon, Sabbath, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. So it isn't food that produces sin, it's man's understanding. It's his unredeemed human nature that does. Food is physical and only affects what is physical, but it doesn't affect the spiritual. These sins come from an unwashed heart, not from unwashed hands. And God's design for salvation is to wash your heart with the blood of Jesus Christ in Titus 3.5 and 6, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us by the washing of regeneration, renewing of the Holy Spirit, which he shed on us boundingly and abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior. And that's what produces freedom. I was in the army. I was going through Chow Line. Some of you military vets remember that experience. And as I was going through the Chow Line, I saw ahead of me a few men, a few of the guys who were being served and the guy who was placing a pork chop on their plate, he was saying something to them and they were kind of looking at them all shocked. And I was only a Christian about a year and a half at this time. And I'm wondering, what is this guy saying? And so I finally found out as I was getting closer to him, he was dropping the pork chop on the plates and he was saying, if you eat that, you're going to hell. If you've eaten army chow, you feel like you were. But he was saying that if you eat that, you're going to hell. And so I'm a new Christian. So I had my plate out and tray and he drops and says the same thing to me. He says, if you eat that, you're going to hell. And I stood there and I said, why? Why am I going to go to hell if I eat a pork chop? And I held up the line for a moment. This is worth talking about. That better be the best pork chop I ever ate. So I said, why? Why would I go to hell if I eat a pork chop? He says, because God forbids you eating pork, if you eat pork, you're going to hell. I said, really? I didn't know that. So I went to my eight and went and sat on my bunk and I opened my Bible because I've been reading it because I was taught that you should read your Bible and I'd been reading it. And I knew Paul had said something in Romans, Paul had said something in 1 Corinthians. And so I read 1 Corinthians chapter eight, verse 18, verse eight, 1 Corinthians eight, verse eight. And it says, food does not bring us near to God. We are no worse if we do not eat and no better if we do. So the next day I go through the chow line again and he was still dropping food on plates and I stood there again and I said, you're wrong. He goes, what? I said, you told me I'm going to hell for eating pork chop. He says, you are. I said, no, I'm not. For food does not commend us unto God. Neither if we eat, are we the better. Neither if we eat, not are we the worse. That's the King James. I used to memorize my scriptures in King James. It doesn't commend me to God. It doesn't make me close to God. Eating food, eating pork is not going to make me closer to God and it doesn't take me away from God. What you're telling me is not true. See, so from the very beginning I made a decision. I'm going to find it in Scripture. If it's not there, I won't believe it. And if it's a man's tradition, I will not believe it. If it's a word of God, I will thoroughly do my best to investigate that to do exactly what he would have me to do because it's the spirit that gives life and not the flesh. And I want to live not by man's traditions, but by God's word. And so I study it and I present it to you in the same way. That's how it works. You see, 2 Corinthians 3.17 says, the Lord is that spirit and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. So somebody said, it is the presence of the spirit that gives freedom in contrast with the bondage of the letter of the law. We are set free from fear, freedom from the guilt and burden of sin and freedom from the tyranny of the law of Moses. The one who is renewed in Jesus can be trusted with full liberty because they are upheld by a power that guarantees that they will righteously live out their freedom in Christ. And that's why again in John 8.36 Jesus said, if the sun sets you free, you will be free indeed. So it is not traditions of men. Jesus said, you guys are hypocrites. You scour the outside of the cup, but inside you are filled with rottenness and decay. You do the outer appearance, but you don't understand it's the heart. You make an issue over washing hands, but it's your hearts that need to be washed. And that's why here in this church, if somebody walks up to me wearing weird piercings, I do kind of trip on that. I go, whoa, that must have hurt. Or if they've got tats, I don't care. I don't care because a lot of times people who get all uptight with these guys, they have tats or whatever women with tats, you know, look at, you know, you're marking your body and this and that. Well, these people who are all marked up are going to people who are marked up and are reaching them for Jesus Christ, or the people who are condemning them don't go outside of their door, let alone down the road to tell someone about Jesus. I'm going to go with the tatted kid every time, every time, because that's, it's, it's the matter of the heart. Now, do I want everybody next week? You all come with things on your face. If you like that, that's fine. But I was raised in a, I'll close with this. I was raised in a movement where we, there's this old song we used to sing, looking past the hair and straight into the eyes. We learned to look into hearts. We learned what really true faith in Christ was, which was loving God and loving your brother. And we learned that there's a place called heaven and we learned that there's a place called hell. And we learned that you needed to be born again, to have the washing of regeneration, the renewing of the Holy Spirit, in order to have a clean heart. And I asked God, I'm sorry, 51 years ago yet, tomorrow, creating me a clean heart, renewing me a right spirit, make me new Jesus. And for 51 years, he has worked in my heart to change me. And I bless God every day for the goodness of God. And it was not by a tradition, it was by my Savior Jesus, who laid his life down for me.