Matthew-043

Mark 7:1-13

Today, we continue in our exposition of the Lord Jesus’ teaching in Mark 7:1-13, which has a parallel passage in Matthew 15:1-9. We want to consider what important spiritual principles the Lord Jesus wants to bring to our minds and to our hearts through this passage.

Jesus teaches on our relationship with God, parents and man

I don’t know if you can feel that this is an exceedingly intense pas­sage, in the way the Lord Jesus spoke these words, and in the way that there was a situation of confrontation. The Pharisees con­fronted Jesus because he did not observe the religious “commands” set down by the religious rulers and Bible scholars of Israel. If you think the Jews are religious because they were chosen by God and were given the law, they are nothing compared to the Pharisees in terms of being religious. The Pharisees were the most religious of the Jews.

What important spiritual lesson emerges from this passage? What does it say to you and me? Jesus said something to the Pharisees, but we are not Pharisees, at least we hope we are not, and so we don’t suppose that Jesus has anything to say to us. And if you were doing your Bible study in this passage, you would probably say, “This is for the Pharisees. Let’s get on to the next passage.” Not so fast. Jesus is saying something that is of eternal value because it is an eternal principle here. And we have to discover what that principle is.

I am going to divide the exposition of this passage into two sessions. The first of these sessions will deal with our relationship with God, and the second has to do with our relationship to our parents and to people.

Now there is a great deal of misunderstanding or plain ignorance regarding what is the Scriptural teaching on our relationship to our parents. Since our church is composed mostly of young people, it is essential that you know how you conduct yourself as a Christian in relation to your parents. The ignorance in this area even among pastors is absolutely appalling! I shudder to think of the unfortunate circumstances of those who must walk in ignorance in a day when it’s difficult enough to be a Christian.

For example, a certain sister wanted to serve the Lord as a mission­ary. Her parents were not Christians, which is a very common situa­tion in this part of the world. She went to her parents and said, “I want to become a missionary.” What do you think her non-Christian parents would say? “Wonderful! Go and be a missionary!” Of course not! The parents say, “No! You are not going to be a missionary!” So this girl did not know what to do. She had just graduated from nursing at that time. She did not know what she should do, so she went to the pastor. She said, “I want to serve God. He has called me forth but my parents say no. What shall I do?” What is the pastor’s answer? The pastor quoted the fifth commandment: You shall honor your father and your mother. He said, “If your parents don’t want you to serve God, then don’t.” This happened over ten years ago, and to this day, she is not serving God because the pastor tells her she should not serve God when her parents don’t want her to. The pastor thinks that the fifth commandment means that she should not serve God. Is that what the Bible teaches? We shall look at this important question in great detail from the Scriptural aspect of the teaching next time.

Part 1: Our Relationship to God

Hypocrisy: Self-deception – honor God in words, disgrace him in life

Today, we come to the vertical aspect of this passage: Our relation­ship to God. As we study this passage, I would also like you to notice that Jesus is not talking to non-Christians, people who don’t believe in God. He is talking to theologians who are very, very religious, the Pharisees and scribes, but he has no compliments for them. He said, “Well did Isaiah the prophet say of you hypocrites, people who honor God with their lips but their hearts are far from him. You are theologians but when did the study of God’s Word bring your heart near to God? You honor God with your lips, you know all the theo­logy, all the right things to say, but your heart is far away from God. You are supposed to be teachers of the Word of God and what do you teach? You teach the precepts of men for doctrines, and you say, “We teach the Bible.” Do you indeed!” (The word “precept” means commandments, regulations, rules both in English and in Greek.)

I shall be ruthless in examining hypocrisy as the Lord Jesus was ruthless, if you could put it this way. Hypocrisy is thinking that one is teaching the Word of God when in fact, one is teaching nothing but the words of men. It’s no surprise that non-Christians today view the church with utter disgust. As I have said before and I say again, my sympathy is with the non-Christians. The church does not deserve the respect, even a hateful respect of the non-Christian. Today, the non-Christian simply despises the Church. How many times have you and I heard it said, “Wherein does the Christian differ from me? He behaves and thinks in the same way as I do. Too often, we are in the position to have to say, “It’s true. I can’t see any substantial dif­ference apart from the difference in name.” That is the unfortunate position that we find ourselves in. That is hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is honoring God with our mouths, but disgracing his name with our lives, intentionally or unintentionally. Don’t think hypo­crisy means intentional deceit. It doesn’t necessarily mean that at all in the Scripture. The quality of an actor’s acting depends on how sincere he really is, how well he identifies with the subject that he acts. The less he is sincere in his role, the poorer the acting. A hypocrite is not at all deliberately insincere.

When you study the way that the word “hypocrisy” is used in the Bible, you will see that very clearly. The Pharisees were not pretending to be religious, they were very religious. No one who understands the New Testament background and the situation of life at all would for a moment accuse the Pharisees of being insincere. The problem is that they thought they were doing God’s will, when in fact, they were doing nothing but their own. They had deceived themselves. There is nothing so pitiful as being self-deceived.

A Christian is “born again,” with an entirely new way of thinking

What is the distinction in Scripture between a Christian and a non-Christian? Is the distinction simply that you have been baptized and a non-Christian has not been baptized? Is the only distinction that you believe certain things happened 2,000 years ago in Galilee, and they don’t believe that? If that is the only distinction, I suspect it’s not even worth being a Christian. It doesn’t really matter whether you are a Christian or not, for the only difference is the difference of name, and a difference of some people believing certain historical things to be true, and others not accepting them as being historical. Who would bother to be a Christian if that is the only difference? You might as well be a historian. In the Bible, the distinction between a Christian and a non-Christian is the distinction of an entirely new way of thinking.

Evangelicals like to use this term “born again,” but do they know what it means? I have yet to see an Evangelical who can tell me what it means. They mouth the term being “born again” asking, “Are you born again?” And some people say, “I am born again.” What do you mean when you say you are “born again”? When you ask the ques­tion: “Are you born again?”, what kind of an answer do you expect? Do you know what you are asking? To be “born again” means nothing less than you have become a new person. A new person implies that you are different from the kind of person that you were before. You are not “born again” unless there is a fundamental change in you.

The other day, a person was in church and said, “I believe in Jesus therefore I am born again.” It doesn’t follow at all that if you believe in Jesus you are born again. Then on second thoughts, without my having said anything, he scratched his head and said, “Maybe I’m not born again.” So eventually, he didn’t know whether he was born again or not because he really didn’t know what “born again” is. That is the tragedy. Do you know whether you are born again? Or are you going to say, “I’m born again because I believe in Jesus”?

Believing in Jesus does not necessarily mean you are born again. The devils also believe in Jesus, and much more than you and I because they know he is true. Perhaps you are not so sure, but they are very sure. Do you think all the devils are born again? Of course not! That is what James 2:19 says, “Do you believe in God? You are doing well. The devil also believes in God, and a lot more than you do,” but his believing doesn’t save him. The question is not whether you believe in Jesus, but whether that faith in Jesus involves a total commitment to him, that results in the Spirit of God coming into your life, and makes you into a different person than what you were before. If you are not different, then how can you say you are a new creation?

What is the mark of a transformed person? The first thing that you will see about him is that his whole way of thinking has changed. He doesn’t think the same way as he thought before. If you think the same way as you thought before, then what is new about you? Your hairstyle? A new tie? When we say a person is a new creation, the Scripture means that your whole thinking has changed. That is what Paul says in Romans 12:2, “Be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” If you say that you are a Christian, it must mean that you think in a different way. If your thinking hasn’t changed, then what is new about you? When our way of thinking changes, our conduct changes. People look at you and say, “There’s a fundamental change about this person. I knew this fellow before, but he’s different now.” But do you see that change in many who call themselves “Christians”? Or do you even see a change in the way you behave towards your wife, husband, children, or friends? How different is your life when you become a Christian?

Not born again “Christians” have their assurance easily disturbed

There are a lot of “Christians” who have not changed at all. The pitiful thing is that they think they are born again, and that they are going to heaven. When you tell them, “Don’t be so sure,” they say, “You’re disturbing our assurance!” Now if you were that sure that you are born again, nobody could disturb your assurance. If I say to you, “Maybe you haven’t been born,” would you say immediately, “I’m not sure whether I’m alive or not now, because you have questioned whether I have been born or not. You have disturbed my assurance, my security. From now on, I’m going to be a mental breakdown because I’m not sure whether or not I’m born after all”? You will say, “That’s ridiculous! The very fact that you are you is evidence that you have been born! You don’t have to ask silly questions on whether you have been born. And nothing can disturb your assurance.”

In the same way, if you have been born again, you know you have been born again. You know something has happened to you. Someone can ask you, “Are you sure you’ve been born again?” and you’ll never say, “Well, I’m not very sure.” If that’s the case, you are not a Christian. You should have assurance to say, “I’m sure.” Today, Christians live in such a state of utter insecurity that they need to have all kinds of invented doctrines to make them feel secure. It’s pitiful!

Any man who has truly been born again, who has been transformed by the power of the Spirit knows it. There is nothing you could say to shake his assurance. Try it on me some time. Why? Because I am so self-confident? Of course not. I can’t be the same again because God has done something to me. It’s no use telling me he hasn’t done anything to me because I am the one who has experienced it. I know he has done something to me. I don’t need any doctrine of assurance to keep me comfortable. I need none of that. The difference between the Christian and the non-Christian is a difference of being a new creature or not. It’s not a matter of simply believing something, accepting it to be historically true or not true. It is a matter of being.

Man corrupts God’s Word because it makes him uneasy

But the problem goes deeper. Man has a tendency to corrupt every­thing that God has said and done. That is the heart of the passage if you can grasp this spiritual principle. He takes everything that is divine and humanizes it. He takes everything that is of God and brings it down to his own level. God says,

What do we do if we don’t like God’s thoughts and ways? We bring them down to our level. We humanize them and make them more acceptable to ourselves. We must bring God’s way down because it makes us uncomfortable. Have you found yourself humanizing God’s Word, bringing it down to your level, corrupting it, and not necessarily intentionally? What do you do when a passage is too difficult for you to accept? It is the human tendency to water down God’s Word consciously, and mostly unconsciously. By the time you have finished with it, you have taken all the sting out of the passage, haven’t you? I see Bible commentators doing this. I hear pastors doing this. It’s just too uncomfortable, so what do we do? We say, “Oh, it can’t mean that!” So we have decided what it can mean and cannot mean.

I can give you an example of a passage to illustrate what I mean. In Luke 12:33 (par. Mt. 19:21), the Lord Jesus says to his disciples, “Go, sell what you possess and give to the poor … and come, follow me.” Oh, but Jesus can’t mean that. Why not? We have decided what he can mean. Has it ever struck you why he can’t mean that? So the brains of the Bible commentators go to work. What then did Jesus mean? We say, “It referred only to his twelve apostles.” Unfortu­nately, he did not say it only to the twelve apostles. He said to his disciples, “Go and sell what you have.” Or we say, “It doesn’t refer to the history of the church generally, but only to this period.” If we apply that same principle to the rest of the Bible, why should anything in this period apply to us? There is also no answer to that.

Then we say, “Jesus can’t mean that anyway. He didn’t condemn private property, did he? Zacchaeus was allowed to keep some­thing.” If you ask what did Zacchaeus keep by the time he had paid all his debts, he will end up with very little to talk about.

Again we say, “What about Nicodemus? Nicodemus was a rich man, right?” Yes, but he was a secret disciple. He hadn’t declared himself yet.

In the end, every desperate effort is made because we cannot face it. Do we sell all that we have? Think of the $50 I have in my bank. I would be reduced to not even having $50! I can’t stand the thought of it! We don’t want to face God’s Word because it is too difficult for us.

“Take up your cross and follow me” is another passage that got stuck in many throats! Not too few Christians say, “‘Take up your cross’ means I have to put up with my father-in-law and my mother-in-law. They are my cross that I have to bear.” The trouble is how does this apply to the disciples who were not married, who don’t have fathers and mothers-in-law? Perhaps for them, the cross means someone or something that gives them a difficult time. If you explained, “Did it cross your mind that “take up your cross” means to die?”, these Christians would certainly reply, “No, it can’t mean that! Is it a call to martyrdom?! Let’s forget about what Jesus said, because it’s just too unbearable for us!”

“Let’s get on with Paul. I’d much prefer Paul as he is more moderate. Jesus is rather extreme in his teaching. I wouldn’t say that loudly and publicly, but in my heart I think he’s a bit extreme. Paul’s so intel­lectual, and intellectuals are always moderate. So let’s get on with studying Romans. But the problem is I don’t understand Romans. So let’s get on to the next book, Ephesians, but I don’t understand that either. So let’s try something easier, maybe Philippians.” But when you got to chapter 3:8, you got stuck as well. “I consider all things as rubbish for Christ’s sake.” Oh! That’s just one of his excepted moments. Let’s look for something else in Philippians. We want to bring God’s Word down to our level.

If Paul had to regard everything as rubbish in order to win Christ, he must be the only fool around here, if we are rather blunt about this. I don’t have to lose anything to win Christ, but he has to give up everything to win Christ. I don’t understand his language, or could it be that I am on the wrong side of this fence? Oh no, none of the Christians believe it either. So Paul must mean something different.

I am saying all this just to give you an example in the way in which we go through mental gymnastics in order to take the force out of God’s Word because it makes us too uncomfortable. You know what I mean don’t you? Surely, you have studied the Bible just as I have, and it has made me amazingly uncomfortable. Hasn’t it made you uncomfortable? If it hasn’t made you uncomfortable, you couldn’t have been reading the Bible. You must have been reading something else, maybe Streams in the Desert where it makes you very comfor­table. After all, it’s supposed to be streams in the desert; it’s not said to be a heat stroke in the desert. Don’t get me wrong. There is a place for reading Streams in the Desert. You need a drink from time to time to get comfort, but don’t let any book substitute the Word of God. Get back to the Word of God, or else you’ll try to claim all the comforting promises in the Bible, and forget all the conditions. You will say, “The Bible’s not true. I claimed a promise but it didn’t happen.” Remember that no promises are without conditions.

This is exactly what the Lord Jesus is speaking to us about. By the time we have finished with humanizing God’s commandments, they don’t look like anything that God has said before. God said, “Live in holiness before me.” What do the elders say? Wash your cups and saucers. Wash your hands. (Mk. 7:3; Mt. 15:2) What was it meant to be? Of course, it was meant to be an exposition on holiness. Holiness is now simply reduced to a ceremony. Instead of living the high cost and demands of a holy life before God, we end up washing dishes, pots and pans! It’s much more on our level, right? We don’t like washing up too much, but that’s a lot easier than living a holy life. We certainly know how to go through mental gymnastics with God’s Word!

The Pharisees and scribes degrade the Word of God to religion

The Pharisees and the scribes were no exception. This is what they did as Mark has explained to us in Mark 7:3. Why did they come down to this washing dishes and washing hands? Well, because God said, “Be holy as I am holy.” Is holiness important for salvation? Many pastors would rather not discuss this controversial question. The Pharisees decided that holiness had to be made very practical, so what does practical holiness mean? Practical holiness means wash your hands before you eat your meal. Of course, that was not good enough for them, being exceedingly careful and meticulous about religious matters. You only have to read the Mishnah to realize what it means to be religious. To be religious means that you have to hold your hands upright so that water that is being poured over your hands will flow away from the fingertips to the ground. You also have to be careful to measure the minimum of 1 log of water (the equivalent of 0.137 liters today), to pour over your hands. Also, your hands must not be held downward because the water will flow from the back of your hands to the fingertips, and therefore, carry the pollution to your fingertips.

You will say, “Now this is getting to be more ridiculous. I thought we were talking about holiness but you’re giving me a lesson on hand washing.” That is religion. We cannot cope with holiness but we can still cope with washing hands. So we have reduced holiness to washing hands. A little water does help towards cleanliness, and the disciples were not being accused about lacking hygiene. Were they accused of ceremonially breaking the law set down by God? No, set down by the scribes, the rabbis. That is religion. We have taken the lofty things of God and reduced it to the ridiculous.

The commandment says, “You shall keep the Sabbath day holy.” The Pharisees say you may not walk more than 1,350 yards on a Sabbath day. That is keeping the Sabbath day holy. A Sabbath day’s journey is three-quarters of a mile, and you may not walk more than that, otherwise you are not keeping it holy. But if you walk to one foot less than that, you are keeping it holy.

You say, “This is ludicrous!”, but that’s what we are doing. This is the principle that the Lord Jesus is enunciating to us. We are forever degrading the Word of God. And little wonder Paul says, “Therefore the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. You have made the name of God to be ridiculous.”

God said, “You shall bind my law upon your heart and upon your mind. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind.” So the Pharisees wore phylac­teries on their foreheads and on their arms. A phylactery is a small capsule made of parchment in which were inserted 4 miniature scrolls containing 4 passages from the Law to believe in one God, and to love him and not serve other gods.

The church removes the authority from God’s Word

God says, “Be holy as I am holy.” But the Evangelical Church today declares that holiness is not essential to salvation. I would say that the church today is every bit as daring if not more, than the Pharisees and scribes. And who is right? Of course, the church is right and speaks the truth! This is coming to the point of incredible! I can hard­ly believe my ears when I listen to some Evangelicals speaking. Is holiness essential to salvation? No, only faith is essential to salvation, holiness doesn’t matter. So the church has decided it doesn’t matter. What does the Scripture say? Do you know why they have arrived at this conclusion? Because it prejudices the evangeli­cal doctrine of “justification by faith.” And having made our doctrine, we can dispose of the rest of the Word of God. It is a fearful situation that the church has come to, in the way it handles the Word of God.

In Mark 7:13, the Lord said, “You make void the Word of God through your traditions” – the Greek word translated in English as “make void” means to remove authority. “You have removed the authority from the Word of God.” It is in fact, to deny the kingship of God.

Let me give you a number of things to think about. Let us take some trivial points, trivial only in expression, not trivial in principle and move on to the more serious.

Many years ago, I first heard somebody addressing God as “you” in prayer. I had always prayed in “thee” and “thou” – “thou comest” and “to thee” and similar things, and suddenly, someone said, “you,” and it gave me a shock! How can you address God as “you”? This is unthinkable! You only address God as “thou” and “thee”! And here, some irreverent person comes along and says “you”! Who do you think you are?

Then I decided to study the Scriptures before I got too angry about the matter. And studying the Scripture was a very good thing to do. I looked up the Greek word for “you” and to my surprise, I discovered that the word “you” in Greek is simply “you.” There are no two different words for “you” in Greek. In German, there are two different words for “you,” one is the polite form sie and the other is the common form du. In French you have the same thing, vous and tu. But in English, there is no common form and polite form, neither in Greek. In other words, I discovered to my astonishment and shock, that in the Bible, God is simply addressed as “you” with the same word “you” when addressing anyone else!

Having recovered from my shock and having pondered this Scriptural position, I decided that since that is Scripture, I would do the same. So when I prayed and said “you,” at the beginning, it was quite difficult because I was almost going to say, “you comest.” I forgot you don’t say that, but you say, “you come.” So I prayed “you” in prayer. That brought the roof down on me because all these other highly religious people like myself, immediately protested. “How can you say “you” to God?” That was my reaction too. “You are dishonor­ing the name of God! You cannot do this!” So I said to them, “Search the Scriptures.” But their reaction was different. They did not want to search the Scriptures. They didn’t want to know. That’s strange! I thought we abide by the Word of God, but they couldn’t care less what the Word of God said. They said, “Our tradition requires us to say “thou” and that’s the way it’s going to be.”

And I said, “Too bad, I’m going to say “you” because I don’t happen to be interested in your tradition. I am interested in the Word of God. Is that a trivial example? It wasn’t that trivial to me at the beginning. But it showed the remarkable principle that no matter what the Word of God actually teaches, we will stick to our tradition.

Imagine someone who has trouble enough coping with English, trying to cope with King James English to say, “thou comest,” “thou doest,” “I thankest thee” and the like. And the result of that prayer begins to get rather amusing by the time one has finished with it. But what does it mean? Whether a person says “thou” or “thee” is really of no interest to me. If he wants to go on saying that, it is his business, but if he should attack someone else who says “you,” it is for him to prove what he is doing is scriptural, not for me to prove it. What I am doing is scriptural; what he is doing is not scriptural, so he has no right to attack others. Those who behave un-scripturally are always those who are on the offensive, attacking others who do what is scriptural, demanding that they should change, or they should be kicked out.

So these innocent disciples who were eating without ceremonially washing their hands were accused of breaking the teaching of the religious leaders. Are you aware that according to the Mishnah, the teachings of the scribes are considered more authoritative than the Bible? Once you start the process, there is no more stopping.

Today, what Calvin says is more authoritative to most Calvinists than whatever Jesus says. It doesn’t seem to matter too much what Jesus says as long as Calvin says it. It’s staggering! And some, not all, accuse some of us of not preaching the Scripture. It is impossible for anyone to blame or provide evidence against us that we have not taught Scripture, although we have been accused of not teaching what Calvin says, or what the reformed churches and the like say. This is really coming to the point where we have reached the stage of the Pharisees and the scribes.

I was just refreshing my memory this morning as I looked in the Mishnah. If you look in the Mishnah under the section of the Sanhedrin, in Section 11, paragraph 3, you will discover they state it in black and white that whatever the scribe says is of more authority than the Law of God. It doesn’t matter if a person violates the teach­ing of Scripture, but if he transgresses the teaching of the scribe, it shall not be forgiven him. I could hardly believe my eyes when I read this!

Yet, that is what has happened. Today, it is absolutely true for many churches, that it’s more serious if you violate the teaching of this reformer or that person, than if you violate the teaching of Scripture. I know this from experience. We have degraded the Word of God. We have taken the commandments and the teachings of men in place of the teachings of God. To some people, smoking a cigarette, drinking a glass of wine, going to a cinema, is somehow a worse offense, or at least as bad an offense as committing some other much more grie­vous sin towards the neighbor. It’s strange how we have distorted the Word of God! Being a Christian isn’t about abstaining from drinking, smoking, going to the cinema, dancing, or similar activities. To be a Christian means to possess a transformed mindset and be transformed.

Bible college and seminaries conform to displays of glory

Let us consider further cases. All of us who are pastors get endless newsletters from various seminaries and Bible colleges everywhere. It’s graduation season at this time of year, and all these newsletters are always about people wearing academic gowns and caps. Let me ask you, hasn’t the world crept into the church influencing its thinking and actions in every way? It’s all right for secular colleges and universities to require their graduates to wear caps and gowns or hoods, but should the church be conforming to the world? That is my question. Should it? Most evangelicals would say yes. I thought that being a Christian means you behave differently from the world; you don’t conform to these external displays of glory. Apparently, that doesn’t hold water with the majority of Christians. Does it hold water for you? Perhaps not. Perhaps you also think that Christians should go to Bible colleges and graduate wearing academic gowns conforming to the practices of the world. We cannot change the rules of the universities which we come from, but we don’t have to have Bible colleges conform to those practices. Why not have these Bible college graduates humbly kneel before the Lord God, and spend a time in worship and prayer instead of wearing gowns and giving out certificates as the world does on graduation day?

It is so essential that we don’t become conformed to the world! We are so ingrained with the ways and thinking of this world that we don’t even realize it. Did you realize that these degrees from most of these Bible colleges have no academic value at all in any reputable academic institution in this world? As a result, we deceive ourselves with degrees that deceive us, but fail to deceive the world. That degree carries no credit whatsoever with any academic, respectable institution. I ask you to try it and see. I know from experience that in England, they wouldn’t even grant you two credits for it.

What then is the point of this degree? Apparently, the degree is conferred to allow us to fool ourselves into thinking we are truly somebody. If the world has the right to do this, then we believe we have the right as well. But do you think God cares two hoots about your degree? It matters to men, but not to God. If it doesn’t matter to God, why exactly do you do with it? Is it not because you desire to make an impression on others? Surely, or else why would you bother?

The church hires pastors according to secular requirements

I received a letter from a sizable church on the west coast of the United States, with a congregation of 400 people, that is seeking a pastor. So in case you don’t see me around, you will know what has happened! Don’t get me wrong, I did not apply. I did not even know of the existence of this church. This church somehow got my name from somewhere and sent me this letter about hiring a pastor. I looked at the detailed information about the requirements for the pastor they are looking for, and what they require is a degree from a seminary or Bible school, and a few years of experience. That’s all.

It seems very easy to be a pastor these days. I say this because it’s not as easy in the Bible. What are the Biblical requirements for a pastor? Not even one is mentioned in the list in that letter. Presu­mably, they have not read Titus or First Timothy. Or if they have read it, they couldn’t care less. Today, the requirement of a pastor is not spiritual. If you apply to a secular job, the only thing the world will ask you is what degree you have and how many years of work experience. To my surprise, the church does exactly the same thing! So we are not Pharisees! We are not hypocrites! Only they were! We have taken God’s standards and reduced them to our level. We behave and think exactly as the world does, and we wonder why the world despises the church.

When Paul drew up the requirements of a pastor, he did not mention one word about education. Just read the lists in First Timothy and Titus. He only listed in detail the spiritual quality of that man: and his place of work, what kind of man he was, what kind of life he lived at home, and what was his spiritual dedication. That is the only thing Paul wanted to know. Isn’t it surprising? Paul was an intellectual, so you would assume he might have thought: “I sat under the feet of Gamaliel all these years, so I’m going to require anyone who comes to me to have at least this kind of minimum intellectual requirement.” The only requirement is spiritual because the church of God is spiritual.

But I am a voice crying in the wilderness. No Chinese church appoints a pastor on that basis today, whether or not it’s evangelical. The requirement is purely intellectual. Today, all you need to do to become a pastor is to go to a Bible school or seminary, and when you graduate, you hope that some church will be interested in you because maybe only 2% will find employment as a pastor. What happens to the rest is of no interest to the seminary, or to the Bible school. They are not an employment agency. They couldn’t care less what happens to you after you graduate. Perhaps 2% might find employment as pastors, maybe a few more percent as missionaries, and the rest will just pack their bags and return to whatever they did before.

Bible colleges and seminaries cannot be justified from Scripture

Talking about seminaries and Bible schools, would it surprise you if I asked a question: What is the Scriptural justification for the exis­tence of a Bible school or seminary? Have you ever thought about that? It suddenly struck me only recently, and gave me another shock. I have had a lot of shocks in my Christian life through studying the Bible. It had never crossed my mind to ask whether a seminary or a Bible college is Scripturally justifiable. Has it ever crossed your mind to ask that question? We think that if any institution teaches the Bible, it automatically justifies itself, but it doesn’t. The Pharisees and scribes, who are Bible scholars, also taught the Bible. But let us ask this question, uncomfortable as it makes us, where in the Bible do you find justification for the existence of a seminary or college? If you can find the answer, kindly share it with me some time, because I have not found it in the Scriptures. It may surprise you to come to the conclusion that in fact, there is no justification for their existence as far as Scripture is concerned.

This raises another question, what was God’s way? I said God’s way, not the church’s way. What was God’s way of training men for the ministry of his church? Study the Scriptures and find out. His way was certainly not the way of the Bible college or the seminary. Now I am no sour grapes. I have spent a lot of time in Bible college and in the Faculty of Divinity. But it came to me as a shock to realize that I was doing what was unscriptural. But I trust that God will have mercy upon me because like Paul, I acted in ignorance. I did not know it was unscriptural. I would like you to think deeply on this matter.

I would like any Bible college, any seminary to show me from Scripture, what is the justification for their existence. I suspect that they will feel very, very uncomfortable when confronted with that challenge, because there is no way they will prove it from Scripture.

When you look at Scripture, you will realize that God in his wisdom, did not intend to train people in Bible schools and seminaries. In order to train for the ministry in the church today, you have to go out of the church to a Bible school and seminary to train for work in the church. What a strange situation! Do you have to go out of the church to learn to serve God in the church? What happens as a result of that? The person who is seminary-trained or Bible college-trained does not have the faintest clue how the church functions when he is responsible for its administration.

When I came out after so many years of training, I did not know how to conduct so simple a thing as a marriage. When I had to conduct my first wedding, I had to rush out to a bookshop, grab a book on wedding and read it. I did not know how to conduct a wedding. You think there is nothing to it, don’t you? Try it some time. I did not know what the church procedure was. And to my confusion, in this book, there were over a dozen different forms available for conduct­ing the wedding service. And I thought, “Which is the right form to use?” In fact, all forms are right. In that case, which one shall I choose? I had no idea how I was supposed to conduct a baptism and a funeral. I remember conducting my first funeral and wondering what I was supposed to do. I didn’t even know what I was supposed to say at the moment the coffin was to go into the ground. A man had to nudge me to say, “Would you say, ‘Unto dust you shall return’?” I said, “Okay.” I did not know what I was supposed to do in the church!

But even more serious than that, I did not know the Biblical teaching on the structure of the church. We should have elders. What are elders anyway? We should have deacons. What is the function of deacons? What is the overseer? What is the bishop? What is the Biblical structure of the church? What a state of affairs! I had to go out of the church to learn to serve God in the church. Little wonder those out of the church were not able to tell me, or did not bother to tell me how I was supposed to serve God in the church.

More serious than that, the average Bible school and seminary is conducted just like any secular college, as some of you will know. What do we do? We have a timetable, and we arrive to attend a lecture at a given hour. When the lecture is over, you take your books and go to your room. Where do you learn to live the life of the New Testament Church, of the Biblical Church? The result is that all of us in training, maybe 100 or more students, simply had no commitment to each other. We had no interaction with each other, just as you would have no interaction with any other student on your university or college campus. We had no idea how the church functions. Little wonder when I read what Paul said about the church, I did not know what he was talking about. Paul said the church is a body committed to each other, that lives in a relation to each other. Do you know what it means? I had no clue what that means. I know what it is to live in a Bible college. I know what it is to study in a Faculty of Divinity, but I don’t know what the church is in spite of all that.

What happened when we graduated? There is a big ceremony, and when your name is called and you go up the platform to receive a piece of paper with a nice little ribbon around it. I received mine in a nice little dark blue box. Then you shake hands with the principal and the distinguished guests invited to preside over the ceremony. After that, you say good-bye to all those fellow students who you have lived with for a couple of years, and who you never really got to know. He goes his way, you go yours, and that’s the end of it. That is a church? How can those of us trained in this kind of a way even have the vaguest inkling of how a church functions? That is not the New Testament Church. You would have thought that living in a seminary or Bible College is the opportunity to live as a church. Apart from an occasional prayer meeting, and apart from the fact that the subjects we studied were not engineering, or physics, or chemistry but the Bible, our training was no different from any other secular training. Are people trained in this way going to come out and build a church? It is pitiful!

Little wonder that in the wisdom of God, that is not the way he intended his people to be trained. Look in the Scriptures. How did the Lord Jesus train his disciples? How did Paul train his? Do you think that an expanding and growing church like the Early Church had not thought about the question of training? They certainly did. Why didn’t all these apostles come together like a college of cardi­nals and say, “We’re going to have high-powered, academic training sessions now, with twelve apostles to teach you”? That is the best group of professors which anyone could hope to sit under. We might think they apparently never thought of a college. Of course, they did! They thought of a college, but that was not the way it was going to function.

So does it make you uncomfortable to realize suddenly, that there is no scriptural foundation for the way the church is functioning? Yet, those of us who seek to fulfill the scriptural way of doing things come under attack, even if it is not in our particular desire or interests—both from the point of view of the time consumed and the exhaustion involved—to train people. Isn’t that incredible? The state of the Church is pitiful!

We are the Pharisees and scribes if we degrade God’s Word

When you read this passage again, I hope you can read it with a lot more meaning. Don’t say that it only applied to Pharisees and scribes. We are not Pharisees and scribes. Aren’t we? I fear that we are the Pharisees and scribes in this generation. And the Lord Jesus is saying to us, “Well has Isaiah the prophet spoken of you. You honor me with your lips” (cf. Mk. 7:6). You will say, “In my evangelical creed, the Bible is the Word of God. It’s not just containing the Word of God, it is the Word of God.” The question is, when are you going to do the Word of God? And Isaiah goes on to say, “And your hearts are far away from God” (cf. Isa. 29:13). The church stands condemned under hypocrisy. We have tampered with the Word of God. We have degraded it whether in doctrine or practice. The churches don’t like to hear me say so, but it’s my responsibility to say it. The Pharisees and scribes did not like hearing him say it, but it was his duty to do so.

Faith is submitting to Jesus as Lord, to do his Father’s will

I can give you example after example how almost every aspect of church life today has departed from the Word of God. It is unfaithful to the Word of God and has corrupted it. We have completely dis­torted the truth even in the fundamental doctrines of salvation. The Scriptural teaching is that faith means submitting to Jesus as Lord, and doing the will of his God and Father (Mt. 7:21). The church has changed this to: “We are saved by accepting Jesus as our personal Savior.” Not one word is said about “Lord.” I am not sure what this term “personal Savior” means. Do you know what it means? How can you accept him without accepting him personally? How is it possible to accept him impersonally? I don’t understand. But apart from this kind of a strange expression, the church does not say one word about the lordship of Christ. That is reserved for some higher consecration later on. It’s good enough for the average Christian to accept him as your personal Savior.

Who gave us the right to change the Word of God? I defy any person, pastor, theologian anywhere in the world to prove it from Scripture that he, you or anyone else can be saved by accepting Jesus as your personal Savior. I defy them! I don’t think anyone will come forth to take the challenge because it is simply unscriptural. We have changed the Word of God! We have devalued the Word of God.

The Word of God says Jesus must be Lord, but the church says Jesus only needs to be Savior. When he is your Savior, you get something from him. When he is Lord, you have to give something to him. That is less popular, so let us just water it down.

We are the Pharisees, the scribes, the hypocrites of this generation! God’s judgment upon the church will be exceedingly, exceedingly severe! It will be far more severe for the Pharisees and the scribes, the theologians, the Bible scholars than it would be for the common person, if you can say anyone is common.

The Church does not function as a New Testament church

Have these words made your ears sting? What is there left in the church that is still scriptural when I am through with it? I will go on to tell you that the church does not even function as a New Testament church today. What we have here is a meeting, it’s not a church! We have a meeting that gets together twice a week. Do you realize that we have not even begun to function as a church? Christian Gospel Disciples Church, or any other church for that matter, does not function as a New Testament church. All we have functioned as is a twice-weekly meeting.

A church is not just a meeting. It is people who are committed to each other, and each lives for the other person. The Training Team is only beginning to function as a church. It has a long way to go. I am saying that we, the Christian Gospel Disciples Church, are not actually functioning as a New Testament church. I don’t have to wait for any­one else to say so, because I know what the Bible teaches on this matter. We have to move on to becoming a church, that is, a commu­nity of people who live for each other, to each other, with each other, not necessarily in the same house, but living with each other in our commitment to each other. We have a long way to go.

How shall the church be saved?

How, O God, shall we be saved out of this situation? My heart groans. We have a whole church full of people today, who will not attain salvation. No one is going to make it until his life is subject to Jesus as Lord, not just as “personal Savior.” That is the scriptural teaching. What happens to the others who have been deluded by pastors and preachers? Are these strong words? Let any man show me that what I have said is unscriptural. Wherein is the hope for the future? The hope for the future lies in precisely this: We are determined to finish with being “Christians” by name, stop being hypocrites, and be determined as I am determined, to apply the Word of God into every aspect of the life of the church. That is what we will have to do. We are going to have to examine every detail in the light of God’s Word. If we don’t do this, we will be like the Pharisees and the scribes who have removed the authority of the Word of God with our own thinking, our own tradition, or regulations and practices.

May God have mercy upon us! If you desire to be found in the king­dom of God, make sure that you understand the lesson that Jesus, our Lord is teaching us in this passage. Make sure that you examine your life in the light of God’s Word because we are not talking about trivial matters in this church. We are not talking about religion but about our eternal life that is at stake.