Fault Finders – Religious Nitpickers (Part A)

Added to his heightened popularity was this word that was getting around that there were those up in Galilee that tried to make him king. That would make him ruler over them. Could you imagine how that went over in Jerusalem? Well, if he was to have any success, they would have to hold the keys.

They would have to retain influence. This has never stopped. What are your credentials? Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the Gospel of Mark Chapter 7 as he begins his message, Fault Finders, Religious Nitpickers. Gospel of Mark Chapter 7 verses 1 through 23. It's a little long, but we can't really split it.

It all belongs together. 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 washing of cups, pitchers, copper vessels, and couches. Then the Pharisees and scribes asked him, Why do your disciples not walk according to the traditions of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands? And he answered and said to them, Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites as it is written, These people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. And in vain they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. 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. And he said to them, All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition. For Moses 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 profit 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 his mother, making the word of God of no effect through your tradition, which you have handed down and many such things you do. When he called all the multitude to himself, he said to them, Hear me, everyone, and understand there is nothing that enters a man from outside which can defile him, but the things which come out of him.

Those are the things that defile a man. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear. When he had entered a house away from the crowd, the 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 does not enter his heart but his stomach and is eliminated, thus purifying all foods? And he said, What comes out of a man that defiles a man? For within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetedness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, and evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man.

Well, I'm a little tired now. Fault finders, religious nitpickers, that's what's given to us. Among other things in this section that I just read to you, these Pharisees, and the Sadducees were in cahoots with them, and there were other Jews also. They felt that they could renovate God's word amongst God's people, and they got away with it.

They did a lot of damage. Deuteronomy, their own law, explicitly said, You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of Yahweh your God, which I command you. This is what was behind the authority of Christ when He was saying, You follow man's traditions, not God's word, and you should know better.

He wasn't going to take this mess from them, and we applaud it. This was the dumbification of God's people, and it's never stopped. In some form, in some way, some use emotion, some use intellectual or pseudo-intellectual or something to just take the word of God and make it more complex or difficult or what it is not meant to be. This group that comes down from Jerusalem to Him, self-impressed minutia, the smallest, tiniest things that really God has no interest in. They had elevated, they had deified their created traditions, and these folks were not harmless.

Such are never harmless, and again, they're here in some form in this life to this day. It is a master stroke of Satan to make one's faith dumb, and it is no honor to be biblically illiterate and claim that Christ is Lord. For these, they were the leaders of their faith, or supposed to be, and they were illiterate. At one point, Jesus said, You don't know the word of God. They were the custodians of the Scripture. There are many theologians that don't know the word of God.

They just know how to criticize it. Well, let's look at verse 1 of Mark's Gospel, chapter 7. Again, our title is Fault Finders, Religious Nitpickers in parentheses. Then the Pharisees and some of the scribes came together to Him, having come from Jerusalem. Now, they wanted to find out if He supported their rabbinical Judaism. They wanted to find out if He loved and cherished their style of worship, if you can call it that. Was He enthusiastic about what they made up about God, about what Moses really meant? Because what Moses said wasn't clear enough, they had to come along and add to it.

You get kind of a chip on your shoulder reading about these chaps. His popularity at this time was at its highest, and He was so well received by just the common people. This disturbed their religious intelligentsia.

He didn't like that one bit. His fame outpaced their popularity, and that was not to be tolerated. Only if they were the ones that made you who you were supposed to be would you get a pass.

But if you didn't come through them, you could not be left alone no matter what. You could walk on water, and you still would be beneath their approval if you did not agree with them. Added to this, added to his heightened popularity, was this word that was getting around that there were those up in Galilee that tried to make him king. That would make him ruler over them. Could you imagine how that went over in Jerusalem? Well, if he was to have any success, they would have to hold the keys. They would have to retain influence.

This has never stopped. What are your credentials? Oh, there are places that's very appropriate. I mean, I don't want my dentist to have an online degree.

I want him to benefit from what the universities can offer, and be able to not cause me to be waiting for him in the parking lot after the procedure. I'll get you later. Anyway, verse 2. Now when they saw some of his disciples eat bread with defiled hands, that is unwashed hands, they found fault.

You catch how Mark says, let's make sure we are just clear about this. They say the hands are defiled. They're just unwashed.

There is no defilement here. So they come to find fault, and they found what they wanted. Jesus said this about this bunch. Blind guides who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel. It's like, oh, oh, I can't swallow, that's a gnat.

And then, because there's blood inside the gnat, and you can't have that. But then Jesus of course points out, they'll swallow a whole camel, blood and all. Majoring in the minor things. Now, there are those that come to get exposed to Christianity.

They won't major in the minor things. They just pretend. They really don't love Christ. They're just playing this game.

It's a kabuki theater. And this is what's happening with these folks. He's going to call them hypocrites. He's going to say, you're wearing a mask. You're showing people this thing on the outside. But behind that mask is a fool. You have no excuse.

No excuse for this behavior. You won't be able to stand in front of God and say, I played you. God will have none of it. And he's giving mankind a glimpse in such a chapter as this. He is saying to everyone, I see it. What are you going to do with knowing, I see it? Some does not enough.

Keep right on. Just continue to be as devilish as they can be. They lie to your face and expect you to be content with that. And if you catch them lying and call them a liar, oh brother, you got real problems.

Don't you dare tell the truth about me. Go figure. It's the mystery of lawlessness.

You just can't make sense out of it. Well, with these boys, if they could not find a fault, they would supply one. And that's what they were doing here. Jesus, by this time, what he had done in Galilee had certainly circulated. He had raised the dead. He had given lepers back their lives. He had given lame people back their legs and to blind their eyes and on and on it goes. And you got a problem with me washing hands before dinner? Are you sick?

Yeah, sick in the head and dangerous and applauded by some. Their traditions meant more to them than God meant to them. Well, they had never worded that way, but that's what they were doing. So he could not be of God. He didn't wash his hands. But he walked on water. He raised the dead people. That's what he's preaching about in Moses. Doesn't matter. He did not check the boxes that we put out there.

You know how much work we put into these boxes? Mark tells the whole world about them. Mark is saying, let me just tell you about these guys. His audience is, and his intended audience is Gentile.

So he's telling them about what was happening in Israel and he's saying, these are their traditions. This is what they actually did. Knit pickers like this, they routinely find frivolous faults without shame. And again, largely they get away with it. You know it's a lot easier to criticize someone than it is to pray for them.

Why is that? The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. No man can know and accept the Lord. But he doesn't leave it at that. He gives us a new heart if we want it.

But if you play games with God, you again will lose. And so, verse 3, 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. Who are the elders? Who cares? I mean, who cares? They're in line with God.

They've rendered themselves irrelevant to those who are looking for God. And again, he explains these customs. Because the Pharisees made them binding on the people. There were penalties for violating what they said.

You couldn't get away with this stuff. It was troublesome to the people. And again, they would use the scripture when it was convenient, because all they had renovated what God had said. Verse 4, When they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other such things which they have received and hold. I meant verse 4.

Like the washing of cups, pitchers, copper vessels, and couches. Marx is saying, you Gentiles understand these folks. What they're doing here.

You can hear a bit of Marx's irritation decades later, writing this down. He says, here in verse 4, And there are many other things which they have received and hold. There's a whole bunch of stuff with these boys. It's not just washing the hands after they finish with that one. They just mind another one on you. The only way to get them to leave you alone is to think like them.

But who wants to think like this? This will lead to Christ's death. That's how serious they were about this. They took it personal.

This would have become an extension of who they were. If you dare disagree with them, you're going to die. It's smug about their external cleanliness, but completely oblivious.

Willfully so. Disinterested in inner cleanliness. They wanted what they wanted. And it was this whole ritual, lighting candles and incense or statue, whatever, you just name it.

I have a piece of the cross of Christ up in a relic form of some junk. Then there are the legalists, which were mixed in with them. They habitually, legalists, substitute outward forms for the inward. Just as long as everybody can perceive that they're the ones to listen to.

Then they go home and terrorize their own families many times. Well, verse 5, 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? Really?

Do you have to even ask me? Why should I even care what the elders say? They weren't about to give Jesus a pass. Again, raising the dead was small to them.

This is the gnat that they strain out and the camel that they swallow. I don't want to be this kind of a believer to anybody. Anybody here want to be a hypocrite?

Put on a little mask when you leave church and fake it all? All of it. I hope not. They picked a fight with him over this. As legalism does, it will pick its fights to make itself look better and stronger and just dominate its environment. And in so doing, it snuff out all the light, all the love, all the kindness. You know, Paul says you can't even boast about being a martyr if you don't have love because it's not dying for the Lord.

It's something else. If I have not love, it's junk. How do I get to that love? Well, this ain't the way following the tradition of the elders. We never read about love coming from these Pharisees. It's not until we see Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus converted at the death of Christ that this is the Christ. We can't figure this out, but they show love to his remains. I believe strongly you'll see both of those men in heaven. But for this petty defiance and offense, they will eventually crucify him. John, who tells us in the seventh chapter of his gospel, links this time period. He says they sought to kill him after these things.

John doesn't give us these details, this story, but it's the same time going on. And so to add or to take away from God is to criticize him. To come to his word and add things to it or pull it out is to edit him. It's to criticize. I don't like that. I think it's a mistake.

This is not going to work. God alone sets the dispensations for us. He gets to do that and he does it through his words. And he does that through his apostles and his prophets and Jesus Christ. Ephesians 2.20, having been built in the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being chief cornerstone. It's such an easy verse to read.

But listen to the power of it. Jesus Christ himself. If he is who he says he is, then the believers believe that, which makes us believers. If he is who he says he is, and it says Jesus Christ himself, that means his hands are all over this.

And I better line up with him before I line up with anybody else. And I can do that without being abrasive. Although the guilty will always accuse the guiltless of...

The guilty who have no intention of being righteous will always accuse the innocent of some form of guilt. Well, he shocked them. He shocked these boys with his disregard for their modifications.

He just wasn't impressed. How dare you not be. You will notice me. You will give me recognition.

No, you're not getting the kind of recognition you're looking for. He shocked them with his disregard for the modifications. They shocked him in this sense with their disregard for God's word.

It's like, are you kidding? What other words do you use to express your frustration with human beings who behave this way? It would be really not much if they didn't hurt people, but they hurt lives long term.

And he's going to close with that. As we read, he gets into the lewdness and the evil eye and the blasphemy. These things are sinful and they hurt in a big way. They do damage. And so he's saying when he gets to that section, you think this is just a religious game?

My views versus their views? No, this stuff hurts, harms, and sends to hell. It's very serious. And that's what he's going to be saying. We know it to be so serious that he died for us to take away the penalty from those who want him, but because of it, cursed flesh can't quite pull it off. So he's died for the ungodly, but not for the impenitent ungodly. Well, he died for them, but they don't benefit from it because they don't come and receive the grace of Christ.

Verse 6, he answered and said to them, Well did Isaiah prophesy to you? Hypocrites, as it is written, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Imagine, you're one of the disciples. You see these guys come from Jerusalem in their three-piece robes, and you're impressed by them. They're the intelligent ones. They're the ones that are overlords of the faith and the land. And they ask this question.

Why don't these guys wash their hands like the elders do? And Jesus, he goes right to the scripture. He doesn't play around, he doesn't mince words. He says, Isaiah the prophet, I'm telling you something from the Bible, because you may be too dumb to know it's coming from the Bible.

Now he might not say it like that, but he kind of needs me to kind of lay it out for you. What he does, he's in their face, I'm not walking that back. He says, well, did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites right between the eyes? And if you're one of the apostles, you'll say, oh man, what are you doing?

They're going to get us now. He didn't care. Well, he cared in the sense that he would love to have converted them, but these fellas were irretrievable because that's what they wanted to be.

Take someone who's exposed to the word, they go, yes, I love it. Oh, yes, I'm a believer, but really, again, they've got that mask on and they're faking it. Even God can't reach them, because they don't want to be reached. And they resent being told that, so they go find some other religion or some other way to do it, and they hate on those who say, but we've got the facts. We've got the prophecies, we've got the logic, we've got that which is irrefutable, but no.

And that's why your damnation will be just, because you got up in God's face and lost. Well, here's another section of Isaiah that they should have known, Isaiah chapter 8, verse 20. Isaiah the prophet says about people like this, to the law and the testimony, if they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. They're dark.

They're in darkness. They were the product of de-prioritizing scripture. This is the outcome, and the Holy Spirit says to us, you want to de-prioritize your Bible, you're going to be messed up too.

There's a consequence to this. They pointed to the elders, he pointed to the word of God. If you stop reading your Bible because it does not give you the desired results, then watch the results you will get from turning from your Bible.

I want to say, you know, in my head I'm saying, I've been through this, I've been there. To go verse by verse through the scripture, to hunger and thirst for the Bible, and to then to struggle nonetheless and come up with results less than appealing, I have now a choice. I can say I'm done, it didn't work, or I can pull out my sword and swing against those demonic thoughts that tried to move me from God's word. That's what a martyr is, one who suffers and or dies for what they believe in. Well, going by that definition, I can suffer as a martyr just by struggling through life and adhering to Christ, in His words, abide with me.

Go with me anywhere. It is too easy to be a fault finder of God and His word and of others. I don't know about you, but I love being criticized. Sarcasm, instead of an applause meter, sarcasm.

And there are those that just love doing it anyway, it makes them feel good about themselves. So he says, oh, you hypocrites. Again, he doesn't spare their feelings, because they're hurting people. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio for this study in the book of Mark. Cross Reference Radio is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. To learn more information about this ministry, visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. Once you're there, you'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe, you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross Reference Radio. You can search for Cross Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app. That's all we have time for today, but we hope you'll join us next time as Pastor Rick continues to teach through the book of Mark, right here on Cross Reference Radio.