Words of Jesus Podcast - Compare the Tenants of your Faith to the Requirements of Jesus

Episode Date: May 26, 2023

Seventy years of captivity was the Jews' punishment for ignoring the Sabbath commandment for 490 years. As a result, they overcorrected by building fences (traditions) to protect the Sabbath.  In reality, they made keeping the Sabbath onerous and complex.  Once a day of rest, it became an encyclopedia of dos and don’ts wielded with precision and penalties; all the while, the intent of the commandment was lost.  God knows we need a day off, a day of fellowship with Him, in order to meet the demands of life with justice, mercy and humility. Compare the tenants of your faith to the requirements of Jesus.  Jesus says His burden is light.  Is yours?***Chapter 39: Jesus Defends His Disciples for Eating with Unwashed Hands Matthew 15:1-20; Mark 7:1-23Certain Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem came to Jesus, finding fault that his disciples ate bread with unwashed hands.             For, according to tradition long handed down, the Pharisees and Jews could not eat without first washing their hands. There were many other old laws concerning the washing of cups, pots, brass vessels, and tables.            The Pharisees and scribes asked Jesus:            “Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? They wash not their hands when they eat bread.”            Jesus replied:            “Well hath Isaiah prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, “This people honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.’ For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups; and many other such like things ye do. Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition. For Moses said, ‘Honor thy father and thy mother,’ and ‘Whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death.’ But ye say, ‘If a man shall say to his father or mother, “It is Corban,” that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; he shall be free.’ And ye suffer him no more to do aught for his father or mother; making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered; and many such like things do ye.”            Then Jesus called all the people to him and said:            “Hearken unto me every one of you, and understand. There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him. But the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man. If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.”            When Jesus retired from the people into the house, his disciples came to him and said:            “Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended, after they heard this saying?”            Jesus replied:            “Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up. Let them alone. They be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.”            Then Peter, the disciple, said:            “Declare unto us this parable.”            Jesus...

Think Red Ink Ministries presents The Words of Jesus Series with Don C. Harris Hello my friends, welcome once again to the Words of Jesus series. I'm Don Harris of Think Red Ink Ministries, Pytown, New Mexico. I want to let you know about our series, the Words of Jesus, the goal of which is to reinforce Christianity with the wisdom and the words of Jesus, which incidentally are recorded in red ink in your Bible.

I'm awful glad to have you here to be with us and continue our study as we go through this little book called the words of Jesus. And today we're on chapter 39. This is when Jesus defends his disciples for eating with unwashing hands. I know it doesn't sound like much of a crime, but evidently it was in those days, and you'll see why. Certain Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem came to Jesus, finding fault that his disciples ate with unwashing hands.

For, according to tradition, long handed down, the Pharisees and Jews could not eat without first washing their hands. There were many other old laws concerning the washing of cups and pots and brass vessels and tables. The Pharisees and the scribes asked Jesus, Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? They wash not their hands when they eat bread. Now I admired them in this particular

case that they didn't say, Why are your disciples breaking the law of God? I thought it was very coherent on their part, at least aware that this was a tradition of the elders. Now the Jews were just amazing at traditions and how important they are. It's probably one of the most famous lines in The Fiddler on the Roof.

Jesus was about to explain to them that traditions are causing a problem in your theology. This is something that I find that I'm having to fight constantly. And it's not so much a fight, and you have to very well pick what you're fighting against. I'll explain. Because there's a lot of traditions that are involved in Christianity that are good and sound and solid and good for you. Good for the

home. They're good for your social life. They're good on the job. They're just good for us. These are, it's just because something is a tradition does not mean that it needs to be totally rejected. Now, when it becomes a religious right, when it becomes a tradition that starts to take on a religious connotation and even a sinful connotation, I think it needs to be examined. I think it needs to be examined hard because Jesus, well, let's go on and read we're gonna we'll let jesus teach here for a little while um jesus replied well hath isaiah prophesied of you hypocrites as it is written this people honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Howbeit in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.

For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots, and cups, and many other such like things you do. Full well you reject the commandment of God that you may keep your own tradition. For Moses said, Honor your father and mother, and whosoever curseth father or mother, let him die the death. But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or his mother, It is korban, that is to say, a gift,

by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me, he shall be free. And ye suffer him no more to do aught for his mother or his father, making the word of God of none effect by your tradition, which ye have delivered, and many such like things do ye. Jesus had other things on his mind when he was talking about this.

The particular laws of Korban came to his mind. The laws of Korban were, was a man-made law, and I don't even want to say a law, because I really don't think that the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the scribes, the people of the Sanhedrin that were making these laws, I want to give them the benefit that they

understand the difference between the Lord God Almighty, Jehovah, barking down through the heavens and giving us laws and commandments, carving them in stone, is different than a bunch of men sitting around talking about stuff and making up rules. Well, you know, there's people out there that would argue with me, people that know a lot better than I do, and people who are more qualified, to say the least, to condemn them in this, because I don't know these things personally. I haven't been on the inner circle, so to speak. But I understand that there are some who feel just that way. As a matter of fact, the Takenot and Ma'asim of the Jews, the oral and the written law that has been developed over time is considered to many to be Torah, to be the law of God.

Jesus made it very clear that there are 10 commandments. I think the story of the 10 commandments makes it very clear that there are 10 commandments. God was perfectly capable of writing 11 commandments if he wanted to, and he could certainly write 613 commandments if that's what he wanted to do. But he gave us 10 commandments. It's also a curiosity, if you look at the 10 commandments, you can see as many as 14 different commandments in there. So why do we call it the 10 commandments? Well, because in three other places in the scriptures,

it talks about God giving us ten commandments. So they have to be divided up until they make ten. I think that there are commandments within commandments. It's like the carving of gods. Don't do that. And don't do that and don't bow down and worship them to me that sounds like two commandments but they are coupled together in one those of you who are catholic are not aware of this particular commandment because somewhere along the line uh some pope and i don't know which one it was, it's not coming to me now, had that commandment removed.

Yes, you heard me. They just arbitrarily removed it. But before you get mad at me if you're a Catholic, let me tell you something. I admire the Catholic Church in this area more so than I do the Protestant faith tremendously. Why? Because, you know, their doctrine teaches that the Pope is the voice of God on the earth. He is the vicar of Christ. He stands in the place of Christ.

So, sure, he can eliminate commandments and add commandments or do whatever he wants to do. Because at least these people are honest enough to say, we don't care what the Bible says. This is what we're wants to do. Because at least these people are honest enough to say, we don't care what the Bible says. This is what we're going to do. And we're going to change it and we're going to eliminate this commandment and so forth and so on. But the Baptist, oh gosh, I shouldn't pick on the Baptist. It's all Protestant denominations. They eliminate commandments and do it secretly. Or they act like they're fulfilling the commandment in some other way. Or they say, well, in the Greek it means, in the Latin it means, in the Hebrew it means.

And they make all these excuses, pretending to keep the commandment, yet violating it as if they're wagging their fist in the face of God. So one is an honest approach, and one is a dishonest approach. Both approaches, by the way, are absolutely wrong. He gave us ten commandments. We are to keep ten commandments, not nine, not eight out of ten. We are to keep ten commandments. Now, that's another subject for another day, and I'm sure we're going to hit it over and over again, because it's unbelievable that the foundation of Christianity, the foundation of the worship of our God, is the commandments,

and they're the most disrespected thing that he's ever written. Well, it's true. Had not the apostles made it clear that if you violate one, it's just like violating them all, I suppose a nine out of 10 approach would be just fine. But it's not. So we'll deal

with that in another time. But I think it's interesting that one of the, let's see was it a Pharisee? Yeah it was a Pharisee. He said, Master, what would you consider to be the greatest commandment? Now it's interesting that when Jesus went to choose a commandment, he didn't choose from the ten. You ever thought about that? Where does the Bible, where does the Ten Commandments ever say,

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength. And the second commandment is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Well, you can scour over the little stone tablet all you want, and you will never find those commandments there. What in the world was he doing? He, Jesus, saw, I think, a sinister opportunity that was being taken by the Pharisees that he would divide up or at least draw some distinguishing mark or connotation, some kind of a borderline between the commandments, thus moving commandments into an area of prioritization.

And he didn't fall for it at all he said the greatest commandment in the world is that you'd love the lord thy god with all thy heart soul mind and strength and the second is like unto it well they didn't ask about a second but he thought he'd give it to him anyway why because he says on these two hang all the law and the prophets. He's saying that if these two commandments are fulfilled in their entirety and with sincerity, you will find that you are keeping all ten of these commandments. Now, there are, in our day, you know, people who are constantly looking for reasons not to keep one or two of the commandments will say, well, you know, I don't keep the 10, but I keep the two.

Friend, if you've ever said that, you're either deceived or you're a liar or you're wicked or you're blind. Something is sincerely and severely wrong with your theology, your doctrine, and ultimately, subsequently, your relationship to God. Please don't say that. There is no way that you love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. There is no way you do that.

You know, you might feel love you might you might insist that you love him with all your heart because you have no hate toward him a lot of people feel like that's what love is the lack of hate um there you know people come up with all kinds of things to make them to justify themselves so that they can continue to do what they've always done and um and and the second commandment loving your neighbor as yourself really i'd be interested to see some example of that in your life where your concerns for your well-being and for your physical comfort and for your uh nutrition and for your clothing and your housing is less important to you than your neighbors need for those things. Friend, we're deceiving ourselves if we think we

keep those two commandments. And, you know, there's also a theological postulation that God gave us these 10 commandments to show us how sinful we were? Well, he made a mistake if he did, because you can keep all 10 of the commandments without really much trouble. You can keep them all. So how is that showing me that I'm a sinner? If he really wanted to show me that I was a sinner, and by the way, he doesn't have to show me. I'm fully aware of this. But if he really wanted to show me a sinner, he would have remained at two commandments that are just, man, they're just impossible to keep.

Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength. I'm condemned. Love my neighbor as myself. I'm condemned. Love my neighbor as myself. I'm condemned. There's just, there's no way around that. He could have stayed with those two if his intention was to condemn the world. But that was not the intention of the commandments.

The commandments have had two purposes, as a matter of fact. There were two purposes, and you should you should you should know this memorize this understand this that they they have no other purpose first of all they were given to the children of israel because our god wanted to live with us and he says i can't do that for two reasons you guys you're you're you you're breaking, the life that you're living is not congruent with my life. I have certain rules that I have to live by, and I can't countenance a lot of the things you're doing. So here's a list of ten things.

Obey these things and I can come live with you. And then the second thing I have to have i gotta have a place to stay i gotta have a place to live i can't live inside you because you're wicked i can't live in your houses because they're not up to my standards so i'm gonna need a temple and in those days it was a tabernacle he needed a place to stay and he just wanted us to keep these 10 commandments he didn't give us commandments we can't keep well if you count those two he did but in the 10 none of those commandments you don't have to violate those commandments i know you know what you've been told you gotta sin every day everybody sins every day i don't and you don't have to either a sin is not just you

know falling slightly a millimeter below perfection it's not just absolutely hitting the bullseye's bullseye or not hitting it i should say it's not just falling a little short of the bullseye. Sin, the Bible says clearly, is a transgression of the law. So how can you live without sin? Don't violate the commandments. It's really just that simple. He really put together a wonderful plan by which mankind could live on the earth in communication with him

uh through through the this was all a stopgap measure before christ came i understand but the the adherence to the law a temple for him to live in that had certain rules that had to be obeyed a priesthood to minister to him in his temple, the respect for him and all the things that you read about not having any gods before him and not taking his name in vain and not worshiping other gods, the Sabbath day observance,

and these commandments have to do with our relationship to him. And you'll see that the next five commandments have to do with our relationship to others. And of course the tenth commandment is your gift from God. And we'll talk about that one day. But it's actually to keep us from violating our own selves. And we'll explain all that as time goes on. But what I want you to know is that he developed a system

that would have worked perfectly. Well, Israel, they didn't keep the Sabbath day. The Lord was really distressed with them that they, well, you're going to think I'm speaking like a hillbilly, but I'm not. Pay attention to what I'm saying. He was really distressed that his people wouldn't or couldn't do nothing for him. And it's really true. All he wanted us to do was to cease from our own labors on one day a week,

and we just couldn't seem to do that. Well, for 490 years uh israel violated these commandments and and they and for that god says hey you owe me 70 years of sabbaths and by golly he got them from didn't he 70 years in captivity um to to equalize the balances. 70 years in captivity corresponded to the 490 years that they ignored the laws of the Sabbath day. So when they were, when they trickled back into Israel and started to develop their own nation

and their own country and setting up the walls and the gates and and re-establishing their country the the sanhedrin the the religious leadership decided you know what we don't need to go through this again we need to make sure that people are keeping the Sabbath day. Now, how are we going to do this? What they did, one was, as they were very Sabbath sensitive, you notice that when Jesus was there, they were constantly talking about him breaking the Sabbath day.

You never hear him talking about him breaking any other commandment um except in in in some cases um but it was the sabbath day that they were super sensitive to number one they became super sensitive to the sabbath day because the lord made it very clear this is the reason you were in captivity he made it clear so they said how are we going to keep this from happening well let's see what does the bible say about the sabbath day oh don't build a fire on the sabbath day all right i'll tell you what we'll make it a law where you not only can't build a fire but you can't even put one out. Yeah, that's it. You know, he says, in the situation of manna that fell in the wilderness, when the Lord says, I'm going to give you manna enough for so many days,

and I don't want you going out on the Sabbath to gather manna, let no man come out of his tent on the Sabbath day. Do you realize that that scripture is what is the is they consider to be the basis for their rule called the sabbath day's journey the scripture says nothing absolutely nothing about a sabbath day's journey so uh they invented the sabbath day's journey. They all got together and said, hmm, what's the farthest a man should be able to walk away from his possession, his property, on the Sabbath day? Well, they, I don't know how arbitrary it was. I don't know how much time they spent deliberating over this, but they decided about 3,000 feet.

And so, you know, a thousand paces, that's as far as you could go from your home. And so they built this commandment into their list of rules and enforced it. And so it became understood. Everybody knew what a Sabbath day's journey was. It wasn't in the scriptures, but they invented that. Why did they do that? Because they're just trying to aggravate people or trying to lord it over them or what are they? No. Buddy, they were still stinging from having

been in captivity in Babylon. They meant well by what they were doing, but it just got out of hand. They kept building fences around the commandments, and then they would build fences around the fences. They didn't want people to violate the commandments of God. And so they would take scriptures in the Bible, like thou shalt not the a goat in its mother's milk and so bang out the window go cheeseburgers well who in the world thought of that um you can't have meat and dairy together no ice cream after a after a burger i don't know how who could who in their right mind thinks that's the right way to live well all right i'm having fun and and and i and i i want to be light-hearted about this

but these commandments were were driven and pounded into the heads of these people to the point that what happened these were their traditions and jesus is saying your traditions are making the faith of god the word of god the scriptures the law of god of no effect and so he was trying to tell them i don't know where this washing of pots and bowls and cups and stuff comes from it's not in the scriptures. I didn't tell you to do that. My father didn't tell you to do that. Where did that come from?

And now you're condemning my disciples for not obeying your traditions. You see, this was very frustrating for him. Because he says, I'll tell you what characteristic you do seem to have. You're over here, you you know swatting these little gnats and you want to make sure that oh there's there's a gnat in my drink here i need to get that little gnat out and and he says you're straining out gnats and you're swallowing camels this is this is not good how is it that it's okay for you to do this, and it's not okay to do that? Does this sound familiar to you? This does not just apply to the Jewish community. This applies

to almost every religion that has ever been created. I don't know why, but there it is. It happens all the time. You know, it's easy to find a church or to find a group of people that call themselves Christian. They don't have any trouble with gossiping about one another. Scripture is very clear about gossip. They don't have any trouble with overeating. Scripture is very clear about not overeating. They don't have any trouble with a lot of the things that the scriptures are very, very clear.

You will not do this. But they'll make a man quit smoking before he can join the church. That's amazing. Where is that in scripture? It's just not there. But it's such an ingrained thing that there's people that just can't get over it they cannot get over that and so it's okay if i gossip it's it's okay if i don't tithe it's okay if i violate the sabbath day there's one that's carved in stone, and that's okay.

Why is that okay? Because of your tradition. Friend, I'm going to tell you, you're going to be amazed if you honestly inspect the doctrines and the traditions, the tenets of your faith, the articles of your faith, and try to find them in Scripture. You are going to be shocked at how much you think is important that he doesn't feel like is important at all. And, contrarily, I hope you're shocked when you realize the things

that he feels like is very important and you couldn't care less about. Now, friend, if you start finding these kind of things out about your faith, what's the next thing we need to do? Don't we need to rebuild this from the bottom up? Don't we need to just purposefully eliminate some of the foolish, trivial minute that divides all of us don't we need to purposefully eliminate that and then gather in what is obvious that the lord wants us to do and put it within our life friend if you're not going to do that just keep on going to church

just keep on you know getting your information from some guy somewhere. And please don't tell people that you're a Bible-believing Christian, because you're not. You're just not. All right, the time is gone. What a shame. But we're going to continue this at another time. And I appreciate you showing up here and I look forward to seeing the next time hey I want you to do something for me I want to hear from you you know I give you my personal email if you write to me I'll read it I'd like to know your comments I'd like to know your questions tell me where you live how you're listening to the broadcast and what we can do what we at thinkredinc.com can do for you. All right, time for us to go.

Till then, Think Red Inc. Bye-bye. You've been listening to Don C. Harris of Think Red Inc. Ministries. Email don at thinkredinc.com. That's thinkredc.com. That's ThinkRedInc.com. Join us again for the next episode in the Words of Jesus series. you