Hypocrisy

If you have your Bibles with you, I'll ask you to turn with me to Mark chapter 7, and we're going to be looking at verses 14 through 23. He said to them, Deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.

All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person. Bow with me as we go to our Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, I pray for Karen Starger, for Rita Haynes, for Karen Simpson, for Wanda Abercrombie. Give them healing and grace. Please be with Nicole Lowes as she's suffering with vertigo.

Be with Janet Craft as she heals from a knee replacement. Have mercy on all these. Heavenly Father, I thank you this morning for allowing us to see the courage that Jesus had to confront his enemies. Now we might say, yes, but that was easy for him because he's fully God.

But the truth of the matter is this, he was also fully man. He knew that these enemies of his would have no mercy on him. When he told them the truth, they would not be broken and repent.

They would get angry and plot to nail him to a cross. That suffering and humiliation would be painful and deadly, and yet Jesus told them the truth with no hint of compromise. Lord, we want to be like that. Father, build steel into our backbones. May we be repentant of our own sins and then give us the courage to share your truth with others. Help us to lovingly, not arrogantly, but lovingly share truth. And may our witness have a profound effect on others, for it is in the precious and holy name of Jesus that we pray. Amen.

You may be seated. I want to read verses 14 and 15 once again. He called the people to him and said to them, hear me all of you and understand. There's nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him. But the things that come out of a person are what defile him.

William Barclay said that this particular statement of Jesus was one of the most revolutionary statements in the entire New Testament. Now we found that kind of odd because we live in America where we know nothing in America about ceremonial eating. We say eating is a physical issue. It is not a spiritual issue. That's not to say that what you eat is not important. Because if you have a diet of deep-fried liver mush and fatty barbecue ribs, possum burgers, and large sandwiches, add 12 Krispy Kreme donuts to that and a big pile of chocolate ice cream with whipped cream, then you go to the doctor.

He may tell you you're about three meals away from a major heart attack. So we're not saying that it doesn't matter what you eat for it certainly does matter. All we're saying is that this is not a spiritual issue for us. But when Jesus said what he said, it was absolutely revolutionary. What Jesus said here shocked the Pharisees and it confused the disciples because they knew what Leviticus said about the dietary restrictions and several other places in the scripture.

And so they were concerned and the Pharisees had believed that by not eating non-kosher foods, that that was helping you spiritually. That was going to make you right with God if you did that. Jesus said no. Jesus said what comes into the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated, has no real spiritual effect on you.

In other words, the heart is God's concern and not the stomach. One of the disciples who was listening to this just didn't get it. And that one of the disciples, probably all of them, but particularly this one, his name was Peter.

Peter heard exactly what Jesus said and Jesus spoke with clarity to the Pharisees and the disciples heard it. Peter didn't get it. On the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit filled Peter's heart, Peter still didn't get it. When Peter later on that day preached to the multitudes and three thousand were saved, Peter still didn't get it.

Now how do we know he didn't get it? Well, several months later Peter was in a little town called Joppa. He was up on the rooftop of a particular house and God put him into a paralyzed position and gave him a vision. Let me read that to you from Acts 10. And he became hungry and wanted something to eat, but while they were preparing it he fell into a trance. And he saw the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth.

In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air. There came a voice to him, rise Peter, kill and eat. But Peter said, by no means Lord, for I've never eaten anything that is common or unclean. The voice came to him again a second time, what God has made clean do not call common.

This happened three times. The thing was taken up at once to heaven. God used this principle about eating to teach Peter a principle about race. What God was saying was this, God is not so concerned with your ethnicity or what country you live in or the language that you speak. God is concerned about your heart. The black man, the white man, the red man, the yellow man, the brown man have the same problem and that problem is a sinful heart. And folks, the only thing that can cure the sinful heart is the shed blood of Jesus Christ. God gave Peter a vision and in that vision he wasn't trying to help him to understand the difference between kosher and non-kosher foods. He was putting a desire in Peter's heart to go and witness to a Gentile military commander named Cornelius. The message that Jesus is teaching Peter and the Pharisees and all the other disciples and us is this, quit minoring on the majors and quit majoring on the minors.

Got two points I want to share with you today. Number one, the truth stated. The truth stated. Look with me at verses 14 through 16. And he called the people to him again and said to them, hear me all of you and understand. There's nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him. But the things that come out of a person are what defile him.

If any man have ears to hear, let him hear. Now if you've got an ESV, then you don't have a verse 16. It goes right from 15 to 17. If you've got a King James Version, you do have a verse 16.

Now why is that? Well the ESV was translated from a much earlier translation, a much earlier manuscript. And it was much closer to when Mark actually wrote the gospel. The King James Version was written much later. And probably what happened, as the King James Version scribe was copying the scripture down, he looked and he probably put in a little footnote. And then that footnote, the next time a scribe wrote it or copied it, was probably placed into the scripture as what we have in verse 16. And that verse says, if any man have ears to hear, let him hear. So that particular verse probably is not really what we could consider to be the inerrant, infallible, God-breathed Word of God. That doesn't mean it isn't true, for it is true. And it's also very prudent that it been said, for what's being said here is this, take what Jesus is saying here seriously.

Do not gloss over. Listen to this with spiritual ears. Huge crowd is there and the religious leaders up in Jerusalem had been furious at Jesus because his popularity was growing and they were scared it's gonna have an effect on them. And so they sent a contingent of Jewish scholars down to Galilee for a purpose. They were gonna confront Jesus. They were gonna tell him that he was wrong. They were gonna make him look foolish in front of all the multitudes. They were gonna put him down and they were gonna accuse him of being mistaken in what he said. How did Jesus handle it?

We saw that last week. Jesus called them hypocrites. He said, you have broken the fifth commandment. Honor your father and mother. He said, your mom and your dad got older in life. They got to the point where they couldn't work.

They didn't have enough to eat. You're supposed to take care of them. But you didn't want to do that. So you came up with this man-made law. And you say, Corban, and that would mean your inheritance was going to go for the work of the Lord. And that's what you were going to do.

That's how you were going to handle all that. But what happened? Your parents went out and because you said that, you thought that gave you the right to not take care of your parents. So what was this man-made law? He said, you created this man-made law to legitimize breaking the fifth commandment.

In other words, you loved money more than you loved your parents. So as the Pharisees are seething in anger and the crowds are reeling in shock that Jesus spoke so blatantly to them, Jesus moves forward. What does Jesus say?

He says, listen, you're under a delusion. You believe that what's on the outside defiles a man. That eating non-kosher foods makes him wicked and sinful. Jesus said, no. It's not what goes into a man that makes him sinful. It's not what's on the outside. The problem is the heart.

The problem is the heart. In the parallel passage to this, in Matthew chapter 15 11, Jesus said, that which proceeds out of the mouth makes him sinful. James explained it this way in James 3 6 through 12. And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staying in the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life and set on fire by hell.

For every kind of beast and bird of reptile and sea creature can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs?

Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water. Now what does that mean? Is the physical tongue the problem? No. Are the words that we say the problem?

No. The tongue says what the heart tells it to say. When I'm talking about the heart, I'm not talking about the blood pump.

I'm not talking here about the blood pump with all its vessels and its veins and the valves and all that. I'm talking about the old man, the carnal nature. I'm talking about your flesh. Folks, why is the flesh so corrupt and so sinful?

Here's the answer. Because we were born with a sin nature. The Scripture tells us we were conceived in sin. I didn't have to sin in order to become a sinner. I sinned because I was born that way.

I was conceived that way. I was always, from the very first time the sperm connected with the egg, at that point in time, there was sin. I like what my brother Clay Brogdon said in Sunday school a few weeks ago. He said, you know, we look down at a little baby in the cradle and he's sweet and he's innocent and we say, oh, he's so sinless. And then he said, well, he said, Bode Baucom got it right when he quoted Jonathan Edwards and said, those little babies are vipers in diapers. And that's exactly true.

Exactly true. Our mind, will, and emotions are tainted with sin at conception. So the tongue expresses what the heart is and what the heart desires. As the prophet Samuel said, for God does not see as man sees. For man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart.

Paul dealt with this issue powerfully in Romans chapter 2 when he said this, for no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor a circumcision outward and physical, but a Jew is one inwardly and circumcision is a matter of the heart. By the Spirit, not by the letter, his praise is not from man but from God. Let me ask you something, is that relevant today? Oh, you better believe it is. If you don't believe it is, go out and witness. Go out and share the gospel with somebody.

What do they do? Immediately they start talking to you about the good that they do. Oh, I do this good thing. I do that good thing. That makes me right with God. I've shared my testimony a lot from this pulpit.

I want to share, add something to that today. Why was it that I went down to Chip Sloan's house? Chip Sloan's the guy that led me to Christ. Why did I go down to his house that night when he shared the gospel with me? I went down because his pastor had offended me.

That's why I went down. On that Sunday before that, Chip had invited me to go to church with him. I went to church and then the next Monday night, his pastor, David Wilson from North Anderson Baptist Church, David Wilson came to our house on visitation and so I invited him in. He had a deacon with him. He sat down on our couch.

I went out and I got a coke and some cookies and brought them back and gave to him. We talked for a little bit, just small talk, and then David looked right in my eyes. He said, Doug, when did you get saved? And I said, I've always been saved. I said, I don't use the Lord's name in vain. I've gone to church all my life.

I'm a good person. I've always been saved. And I said, I've always been a Christian.

And David just about choked on his cookie. And he said to me, Doug, do you not know what Jesus said? Jesus said, you must be born again. Have you ever realized that you were a sinner and that you needed a new heart? Have you ever repented of your sins and turned to Christ? I said, I know.

I didn't need to do all that. I've always been a Christian. And he finally just left. I went right down to Chip's house and I told him, Chip, I'm offended by what your pastor said to me. He questioned my Christianity. And Chip said, sit down. And he looked over at me and said, Doug, are you a Christian?

And I said, yeah, I'm a Christian. He said, I don't think you are. I said, Chip, you can't see my heart. He said, Doug, you can't see your own heart. He said, Jesus said that we would know those that are his by their fruit. He said, I don't see any fruit in you.

You drink like a fish, you cuss like a sailor. And he said, there's nothing about you that resembles Christ. He said, Doug, you need a new heart and only Christ can give you a new heart. So I went back home.

Now not only was I mad at David Wilson, I was also mad at Chip. But I knew as I was walking home what he said was right. I got home, I tried to go to sleep at night, couldn't sleep. Finally got up, I walked into the to the living room about two o'clock in the morning. I got down on my knees and I cried out to the Lord.

I said, Chip and David Wilson, they were right. I said, Lord, I'm not a Christian. I'm a sinner. My heart's filled with wickedness and I need you desperately. And Lord, I'm asking you right now to forgive me of my sins. I'm repenting of my sins. I'm submitting myself to your Lord, Chip.

Lord, have mercy on me and save me. And I can remember standing up after praying that and I knew I'd never be the same. I felt like somebody had scrubbed me on the inside with a scrub brush. I knew that when I died I was going to heaven and it was the most glorious day of my life. But I got to thinking about everything later and I thought, man, what a deception I was under.

I thought that what took place on the outside was what was important and God was concerned about my heart. When I witness to people today, so many have that same issue. They are blinded to the fact that the heart is the problem. They don't realize it. They're spiritually dead in their trespasses and sins. When they look at their external works, they think that's all that really matters.

And so they compare themselves with other people and they say, I think I'm doing just as good as they are, so that must mean I'm right with God. Folks, that's not the issue. The heart of the issue is the issue of the heart. And let me add this because I'm always trying to learn better ways to help communicate the gospel. I deeply appreciate the ministry of Alistair Begg. He's got a radio ministry. I was listening to it the other day and he was promoting a book written by Randy Newman called Extreme Evangelism. Great book.

I got it and read it. Just tremendous. It was C.S. Lewis's. It was a synopsis of C.S. Lewis's evangelistic methodology. He started off by saying how C.S. Lewis said, anytime you share the gospel, you got to share the Word because faith comes by hearing, hearing by the Word of God. It's the Word of God that breaks the heart open so that the Holy Spirit can do his mighty work in that heart.

He said, but also what's important is using imagery. And then he explained it. Went back to David and Nathan. And David had sinned.

He committed adultery with Bathsheba. He had ordered Uriah to be killed, and Nathan could have come to him right there at that point, and Nathan could have just given him the Word. He could have said, David, you've sinned against Uriah, you've sinned against Bathsheba, you've sinned against Israel, you've sinned against God.

Judgment is coming, David. He could have done that. He didn't. He went back and shared a story, some imagery, and he said, David, there was a very rich man who had flocks and flocks of sheep, and a friend came to visit him. And he said, I want to fix a dinner for you. So he said, I'll go out and get a lamb. But he didn't go to his own lamb. He went to his next-door neighbor's house, a very poor man, and that poor man and his children had really nothing but this little you lamb that they kept as a pet.

He stole that lamb, he brought it back, he killed that lamb, and they ate it for supper. Boy, when David heard that, he had the same reaction that you and I would have had. He was furious.

He said, that's sin, that man needs to die, this is not right. Now what had Nathan done? Nathan had used imagery in order to get David's heart prepared for the Word. Then Nathan gave him the Word. David, thou art the man.

You sinned against Uriah, you sinned against Bathsheba, you sinned against Israel, you sinned against God, and you need to repent. And David with a broken heart repented. Most of you have either read the book or seen on film C.S. Lewis's book called The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

In that great book, C.S. Lewis explains how the children fell in love with Aslan. Aslan was a big lion who represents Christ.

They are wowed by his righteousness, by his goodness, and by his love. As the story is closing, Aslan goes to an altar, realizing that these children are guilty of sin and rebellion, and it has to be paid for. And Aslan goes up and he allows his enemies to take his life.

So he's there. He's become the substitute for those children, and his body is laying there on the altar, and the children come back and they see it, and they know what has happened, that he has died in their place. He has died for them. And then they cry for three days. After three days, the Aslan miraculously is raised from the dead to assure the children of their forgiveness and to assure them that they have a glorious eternity with him forever. We have watched that film at our house a lot of times. We brought our grandchildren over to watch it with us. When we watch that film and get to the point where Aslan is laying on that altar and the children are crying, there's not a dry eye in our living room. It gets to us. Now what has happened? Imagery is being used there to help explain to us the gospel.

We need to take that to heart. All right, point to the truth explained, verse 17 through 23. When he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. And he said to them, Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach and is expelled?

Thus he declared, All foods clean. And he said, What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, comes evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a person.

This is an amazing thing to me. After Jesus's confrontation with the Pharisees, with this huge crowd, hearing everything that Jesus just said, Jesus and the disciples go back to Capernaum. They go to a house, probably Simon Peter's house. And the scripture tells us that the disciples are absolutely baffled by the parable that Jesus said to the Pharisees. Now Jesus didn't really tell a parable. They think this is a parable. That's not what Jesus was doing. Jesus wasn't giving them a parable that was hard and almost impossible for them to understand. Jesus spoke to them purposely, pointedly, deliberately, and with power. And he said to them, You're a hypocrite, a pretender, a fake, a phony.

That's what you are. But he assured them that their little performance rituals did not put them in favor with God. Listen, Jesus is not worried about who he offends. He doesn't back up, he doesn't slow up, and he doesn't shut up.

He opens both barrels and boom! He lets them have it. We need to quit listening to the woke church's depiction of who Jesus is, that he's this timid, cowardly, weak little sissy. No, no, he's a son of God and he's tough as nails. He's tough physically, he's tough mentally, he's tough emotionally, and he's tough spiritually.

He backs down from no one. I think of when Jesus's trial was going on and Pontius Pilate gets very upset with Jesus and he says, Do you not realize Jesus who I am? Why aren't you talking to me? He said, Do you not realize that I have authority? I can put you to death or I can save your life! Jesus looks at him and said, Only authority you have is that which my Father has given to you.

Wow. Disciples are afraid that Jesus has stepped over the line here with the disciples, with these Pharisees. Matthew 15, Scripture says this, Then the disciples came and said to him, Do you not, do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?

He answered, Every plant that my Heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone, they are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.

Can you believe this? The disciples are saying to the Son of God, Jesus you better be careful. Do you not know who you're talking to here? These are the Pharisees, these are religious leaders. Man, they've got power. Jesus, you better watch what you're doing. This is dangerous for you. You're gonna get yourself in trouble. What'd Jesus say? Oh my goodness, I didn't realize that. Oh, I might be in all kinds of trouble.

No. Folks, this is the Son of God. This is the Creator of heaven and earth. He knows that these people hate him. He knows that they're gonna nail him to a cross because he's voluntarily gonna give his life up, not that they take his life from him. He's gonna voluntarily let them do this to him.

Let me tell you what else he knows. He knows that these Pharisees are gonna stand before him one day in the final judgment at the great white throne and they are gonna give an account for his wickedness. Folks, Jesus is not concerned about what they think about him.

He is not concerned about that. What he's concerned about is that they are perverting the Word of God. He calls them blind guides that are leading the blind and he tells them this, that they and their followers are headed to an eternal hell. What a message to the American church in 2022. It is not right for us to water down the Word of God and compromise it. It is not right for us to try to appease wishy-washy professing church members and a blatantly lost culture. If you stand for truth and you share the Word of God, rest assured of this, people are gonna call you a judgmental person, they're gonna call you unloving, it's gonna come. I want you to know that what they're saying is a lie. That's not being judgmental, it's not being unloving.

Let me ask you something. If there was a doctor who was examining a man, took him through the examination, knows because the examination that he's got stage 4 cancer and probably only has a few days to live, would it be loving for that doctor to say, oh you're okay, everything's fine, it's okay. That would not be unloving, folks.

That would be as evil as it could be. That man needs to hear the truth. He needs to get ready and prepare for his death. He needs to hear the truth. Jesus is being honest and forthright, and his word to the disciples, I think, is this, disciples, you need to do what I'm doing right here.

This is what you need to do. The disciples did come to understand that, that the gospel is offensive. It's always going to be offensive.

Why? Because the gospel stings the heart, and it has to sting the heart that the heart might be broken. Truth is more important than life itself. I know that they got the message because all the apostles were martyred for their faith except one. That was John, and John was thrown into a vat of boiling oil and he lived through it. God wasn't finished with him yet, still had to book a revelation to write. But they were all martyred for their faith.

Let me ask you something. Why do you think they were martyred? They were martyred because they did the same thing Jesus did.

They would not back off and compromise from telling the truth. So Jesus tells his disciples that what you eat is not the issue, the depraved heart's the issue. Then he went on to explain what's in the depraved heart.

John MacArthur said this, and this is good, I want you to listen to it. Jesus' list of six representative evil actions began with fornication, a form of the Greek word porneo, from which the English word pornography is derived. A general reference to sexual sin. Next, he identified thefts, a form of clopae, the related verb klepto provides the basis for the English word kleptomaniac. Murders, a form of phonos, denoting the illicit taking of another person's life. Adultery is a form of morchaia, meaning sexual sin that violates the marriage covenant.

And deeds of coveting, a form of pleonexia, a reference to desires and behaviors motivated by greed and avarice. All four of those actions are included in the second half of the Ten Commandments. The disciples would have immediately recognized them as flagrant transgressions. Jesus also mentioned bearing false witness in this context.

Completing the category of evil, Jesus added wickedness, a form of porneo, a general reference to iniquity that encompassed everything else that violates God's law and His holy will. So, here's the question for us. Is there hope?

Is there hope? I want to point you to the Apostle Paul. Paul's a Pharisee of the Pharisees. He is no different from the Pharisees that we see here in this passage. He thinks that his exterior works, his superficial religious acts, he thinks that they're fine, that they make him right with God.

Same as the Pharisees thought, that they were wrong. And then the resurrected Lord appears on the Damascus Road before Paul. He breaks his heart, he saves his soul, and he corrects his wicked theology.

Paul went on to become one of the greatest men of God to ever live, and in the book of Titus, as Paul doesn't have much longer to live, he speaks to his preacher boy, and he tells him this. He says, "...not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us through the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit." Folks, here's the question for us. Do you have religion or do you have Christ? If you have religion, I can promise you this, you're headed for an eternal hell. If you have Christ, you're headed for an eternal heaven. Last week I shared with you that if you're not sure about your salvation, don't leave this building today without grabbing an elder or a pastor and saying, please, please, please explain the gospel to me.

Tell me the truth. I've got to know that I belong to Jesus. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we confess to you that we are so sinful that we often do in our Christian lives what the Pharisees did.

We get caught up in the externals. We think that you're more concerned with our works than our hearts. Forgive us and help us to be so open to your spirit that we would learn to live in a continual state of repentance and renewal. Forgive us for arrogance and pride and build humility and dependence on you into our hearts. Lord, help us to be better witnesses, not just with our mouths, but also with our lives. Guide and direct us, for it's in Jesus' name I pray, amen.