Somebody Loves You

Raul Ries: Eight times Jesus said, "Woe unto you Pharisees and Scribes and Sadducees, hypocrites. You play church, but you don't really have a real relationship with God inside. It's all outside, not inside." The only way that it can work inside is by being truly born again of the Holy Spirit of God.

Guest (Male): Welcome to Somebody Loves You Radio, the Bible teaching ministry of Raul Ries in Diamond Bar, California. Today's lesson continues our study of the perfect truth of God, and we're glad you've joined us.

Pointing to the Pharisees' hypocritical piety, Raul will urge you to stay authentic with the Lord. Without genuine repentance, church activities and religious traditions become false displays of spirituality. Instead, God calls you to confess your sin and enjoy a real relationship with Him. With the message "Truth versus Tradition," here's Raul Ries in the book of Matthew.

Raul Ries: And what's amazing about this chapter now in chapter 15, verses 1 through 20, we're only going to take the first nine verses this morning, is that the Lord's great concern now is for truth and love. He was teaching the Jewish leaders the truth about the gospel of Jesus Christ, but at the same time, exposing their hypocrisy.

There's a lot of hypocrisy in the world today, and there could be a lot of hypocrisy within the church. When you study the Scriptures and you look at the Scriptures and see what they really teach, it's really important that we understand that in our lesson this morning, as Jesus not only believed in the truth and was teaching the truth, at the same time, He rejected the traditions of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. He couldn't stand it. Couldn't stand them, the way they came.

Remember *Fiddler on the Roof*, tradition? Remember that there's a lot of times many of us here that are looking at our children, looking at our homes, and we feel like what's going to happen in the future to my children? Well, it all depends the way you lead them and guide them and the way you teach them by example. That's real important. Real important.

If you're a father, if you're a mother and they see you fighting, arguing all the time, they hear you cussing and you don't have devotions with them, you don't pray with them, you don't get down into their level to communicate to them, then what happens is you get and you put up a wall between you and your children and they can't relate to you. So what do they do? They go somewhere else for help. They go out for drugs, alcohol, sexual adventures, or they go to their friends.

And I think it's really important that we understand that it's commanded by the Bible that fathers are to be the leaders of their homes. And you need to really bring your family into the presence of God, but first of all, you need to deal with your life personally, not only in the home but where you work and where you play. To make sure that you're not a hypocrite like so many people today.

And Jesus here is going to be dealing with a heavy, heavy issue. An issue where, first of all, we see the first observation here in the first nine verses of the book of Matthew, that after Jesus goes across the Sea of Galilee, he stops over in the Gadarenes, now he comes up and goes to Gennesaret. And now he is coming back to Capernaum, his headquarters.

The Jewish leaders of Jerusalem, the Pharisees and Scribes, are pursuing after him and now they're coming to accuse him. Accuse him. I don't know if you've ever been accused by someone falsely. Jesus was being accused very falsely. And yet these Pharisees and Scribes were amazing people. They not only were coming angry, upset, but in their own minds and in their own hearts, they wanted Jesus out of the way. If we can get rid of him, it will be better for us.

Check this out, what he says beginning there in chapter 15 in the first observation, the accusation. He says, "Then the scribes and the Pharisees who were from Jerusalem, they came to Jesus saying..." So here we have now the Pharisees, which are about 6,000 of them. They're the self-righteous people. They would equal today to the Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem today down by the Western Wall. The guys with the curls, the little caps on top of their heads, and they have their little prayer shawls.

And what they do is they prepare their meals on Thursday because on Friday, on the Sabbath day, they cannot cook. But they can use microwave ovens. That's hypocritical. And so when I read the stories of the Bible, I get excited and sometimes I get mad because I think, man, think of how many people play church. They play religion. It's really important that as we go through the Scriptures, we not only get convicted by the Holy Spirit, but that we have a change of attitude and heart. That's what Jesus was looking for.

And yet these guys came boldly, and in verse 1 of chapter 15, they come and they're having accusation against Christ. In verse 1, it says, "And then the scribes and the Pharisees came who were from Jerusalem, came to Jesus saying..." So they're saying something to him. And the scribes were another bunch of guys like the Pharisees. They were the ones that would write the actual Scriptures on papyrus paper.

What you see here is that the bitterness and unpractical phoniness of these people, they were enemies to the cross of Jesus Christ like so many today are, enemies of the cross of Jesus Christ. Check this out, verse number 2, here's their question: "Why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders?" Imagine that. "Why do your disciples transgress the traditions of your elders?" Literally, he's saying this: "Why do you teach people to break up their ceremonies?"

Why don't you put tradition first? Let me put it more clearer to you. Instead of the Bible, they put tradition higher with the Bible, no, equal with the Word of God or even better than the Word of God. And Jesus says you can't do that. When Moses went up on top of Mount Sinai, God gave him two tablets with five on one and five on the other, ten commandments, ten words given to Moses. They went ahead later on and took ten commandments, the Pharisees and the scribes, and they wrote 20 volumes.

They made 613 laws for themselves. They started out doing these things that are not even biblical. They started with the called the Gadara and then the Mishnah, and the Gemara and Mishnah brought it together and they made a Greek translation of both of them, which became the Talmud. 20 volumes. 20 volumes in Greek of tradition, which they put tradition higher than God's word.

There's a little warning in the book of Revelation. He says, "Whoever adds to these things will be added the plagues of life. Whoever takes away, his name will be taken away from the book of life." Don't mess with God's word. Keep it as it is. Do not mess with it. You'll get yourself in big trouble.

It's real important to understand that because Jesus here is not only applying and bringing forth this question that is being asked from these religious fanatics: "Why do your disciples transgress the traditions of the elders, for they do not wash their hands when they eat bread?" What does that have to do with it? Washing hands?

Sure, for hygiene purposes, we should wash our hands all the time. But in their culture, in their mind, they were saying there's a way to wash your hands traditionally. You wash them with your fist closed, palm open, the water is being poured downstream, you actually rub them this way and then you go like this and then you kind of lift them up a little bit. But don't let the water go down to your elbow because then, oh-oh, you're breaking tradition. Imagine that. How sad.

So Jesus knows what's up. He knows what's going on here. Observation number 2, verse 3, Jesus' reply to them: "And then Jesus answered and said unto them, 'Why,' notice, 'do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your stupid traditions?'" I just made that up, all right? That was added. It's crazy. I mean, Jesus is really upset. "Hey, listen, why do you change my commandments when I have given to you my Word?"

Did you notice that he said again the word transgress? What's the word transgress? The word transgress means a willful act of sinning, knowing what's right and wrong, and yet you rebel against the truth. They transgressed what? The commandment of God. The commandment of God because of your tradition. You see, tradition does not matter, but Scripture matters. The Word of God.

And in this century, God has given us the opportunity to be able to read in every translation of the Bible. Imagine that. He's made it so easy to read translations so that we can understand what God is saying. And yet here Jesus is coming back in his response and he's literally rebuking them. "Why," he says, "do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition?"

And then he says this amazing, he quotes the Scriptures, Exodus chapter 20, verse 1, where Moses gives us the ten commandments. He says, "For God commanded saying, 'Honor your father and your mother.'" Now check this out. When Moses came, the ten commandments were given and the law was given. So here we have now a situation where you have a teenager and you say, "Honey, can you please go ahead and take out the trash?" and then he says, "No, forget you, Mom, Dad, you do it yourself." Whoa. First of all, he'd be flying like 20 feet.

I mean, that's unheard of. And the second thing that these guys would do, this is amazing. You think we are hard? Listen. He says this in the Scripture. He says, "Okay, you don't want to do it, you're responding to me, you're getting rude with me." And let me say this: many times our kids are rude because we're rude. They copy what you are and then you try to discipline them and you need to discipline yourself first. Real important.

Because in the Old Testament, when a son or a daughter got out of hand, if your daughter was young and went out and did with her boyfriend and they had sex together and you were found out that that happened, your parents would take you to the gates of the city, to the elders of the city, and they would write a piece of paper, your parents would sign it, they would take you outside of the city walls and they would kill you by stoning you to death.

Not only for sexual matters, but for calling your dad stupid or responding back, they could take you out and stone you. That's why there was no juvenile delinquency in those days. No gang problems. Think about that. God's law, God's Word.

Verse 4 again, check this out. "For God commanded saying, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and 'He who curses his father or mother, let him be put to death.'" Those are the words of Jesus. "Let them be put to death." Capital punishment for any disobedient child in the Old Testament. Imagine that. In the Old Testament.

And then in verse 5, check this out. "But you say..." See, he comes back again. "But you say, 'Whoever says to his father or mother, "Whatever profit you might have received from me, it's the gift of God,"'" or Corban is the word used in the old King James. Let me read it to you here in verse 5 of this translation what he says here. In verse 5, he says this.

He says, "But you say it is all right for people to say," notice, "to their parents, 'Sorry, I can't help you, for I have vowed to give to God what I would have given to you.'" A child helping his parents, but then a child lying to his parents and spending it on himself. You see? Jesus is bringing the act of what they're doing.

They were saying, "Oh, in the name of Jesus, in the name of God, this is to help my parents," but at the same time, they hated their parents, never helped their parents, but spend it on themselves. And then God says what? "The gift is worth nothing then." Check this out. He's amazing in what he says here. "And then he need not honor his father or mother. Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition."

Why? Because the tradition said what? "You can spend it on yourself, forget your parents." But the Word of God says what? "Take care of your parents." Why? Your parents took care of you when you were young. Think of how many people today, parents and grandparents, that are in nursing homes and their children, they don't even care. I go to those homes all the time. I know what it's like.

And you think of all those things that one day you and I are going to be old, we're going to be in one of those places or, like in the Bible, the sons and daughters are to do what? Are to care for their parents and their grandparents. But it's easier to put them in a home and let the state take care of them. Is that what the Bible teaches? No. Where's the love of Christ?

Oh yeah, there are cases you have to put them in. And you know what? When I talk to those old people and I pray with them and they're all alone, their tears come in their eyes because they said the last time my son, the last time my daughter was here was years ago. How sad that that could happen in America.

Where in some of the old countries, man, the parents are still living with their children and their children's children because of financial problems. And they take care of the old and they respect the elderly. That's what's lacking today in the church and outside of the church. Real important to understand what Jesus is saying here. They were making excuses according to tradition which was not God's Word. God's Word said what? Love your mother and your father, honor them, take care of them.

Then he says this: "Hypocrites." Wow. Verse 7, gentle, loving, kind Jesus: "Hypocrites." You know what that means? That's an interesting word. It means literally, you spiritual phonies. The Romans, when they went on stage, the actors, they had all these masks on stage. And if I was acting and I wanted to be angry, I would run over, put a mask of anger. If I wanted to smile, a smiling face. If I wanted to growl, I would growl. And anything that I wanted to do, I had a mask for that. The word hypocrite means a man or woman of many faces. Hypocrite.

Think of the hypocrites in the church today, in the home, in the playground, at work, in the supermarket, in the church. And Jesus doesn't play games. He says, "Isaiah prophesied about you saying this: 'These people, they draw near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips.'" And check this out: "but their heart is far from me." Underline that. People put in an appearance outwardly, but inwardly, it's no value at all. You play the part, but you're not real. You're not real.

God sees it all. God hears it all. And God will judge. This is the prophet now speaking saying, "You, these people are drawing near with their mouth." How many people sing the songs? They worship the Lord: "Oh, Jesus, I love you, I want you." and then with the same mouth, they curse. With the same mouth, they drink. With the same mouth, they're doing whatever else they do against God. And yet God says, "Where is your heart?"

The heart is deceitful, desperately wicked. Who can know it? I, the Lord, know your heart. Jeremiah 17:9 says that. Where is your heart? That's why in Matthew chapter 23, when you go home, read it. Eight times Jesus said, "Woe unto you Pharisees and Scribes and Sadducees, hypocrites." You play church, but you don't really have a real relationship with God inside. It's all outside, not inside. The only way that it can work inside is by being truly born again of the Holy Spirit of God. Repenting. Coming to Christ.

And check this out. This is amazing. Verse 9: "In vain they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men." Isn't that incredible? Emptiness. Vain. It means nothing to God. The only thing that God is honored with is those that worship me, John 4:24: "They worship me in spirit and in truth." God has to be real in my life. God wants your heart.

And yet Jeremiah 17:9 says what? "The heart is deceitful, desperately wicked, who could know it? I, the Lord, know your hearts." May God help us to be awoken by the Scriptures. Forget tradition. Stick to the Word of God.

Guest (Male): If you feel you can relate to the surface spirituality of the Pharisees, we hope you've been inspired to move beyond religious activity to pursue a genuine, deeply meaningful relationship with the Lord.

You're listening to Somebody Loves You Radio with Raul Ries. To review Raul's teaching titled "Truth versus Tradition," call 800-634-9165 and we'll send you an unedited version for a donation of five dollars or more.

We'd also like to offer you four key messages from Raul's Truth series. Available on both CD and thumb drive, this collection celebrates God's saving love and illuminates the timeless, unchanging message of the gospel. You'll find that as you spend more regular time in Scripture, you'll be able to tune out all the world's noise and confidently walk in the true words of God.

Visit somebodylovesyou.com or call 800-634-9165 to order Raul's four-message Truth study. We'll send you the flash drive for just nine dollars or the CD set for 18 dollars. That's 800-634-9165. Or write to Somebody Loves You Radio, PO Box 4440, Diamond Bar, California, 91765.

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Somebody Loves You Radio with Raul Ries is entirely listener supported, and we are grateful for your gifts. Your partnership is a great blessing to us. Well, thanks for making us a part of your day today. And join us next time as we continue this Truth series with more guidance for avoiding the Pharisees' mistake in choosing man-made religious rules and traditions over a genuine relationship with Christ. Now, here's Raul to lead us in a closing prayer.

Raul Ries: Father, we come before you, Lord God, to thank you so much for your love, for your grace, for your mercies. Lord, for everything that you represent to us, Lord. We pray, God, for your people which are called by thy name. We pray for the Holy Spirit to continue to move about us, Lord.

And there may be many of you in the coffee house here in the sanctuary that you came because somebody invited you or you happened to see the sign, Calvary Chapel came in here. And you can leave here today empty, with all your sins, miserable and all your problems and on your way to hell, or you can have a change of heart.

You can come to that place and say, "You know what? I do need God in my life." And the first thing I need to do is to realize that I need to repent of my sins. Two, by faith receive Jesus Christ into my heart as Lord and Savior. Number three, he will cleanse me and wash me by his blood from all of my sins. Number four, he'll write my name in the book of life. Number five, he'll give me the guarantee that if I die today, I will go to heaven.