Best Zucchini Muffins 😋 Hypocrisy

Mark 7:6 - 7

⁶He replied, "Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: 'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. ⁷They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men."

These are insightful words. And our Lord plunges right to the heart of the issue. When the Pharisees ask Him. "Why do your disciples not observe the traditions?"

He points out to them the effect tradition has upon their lives…

It produces hypocrites. And Jesus is very blunt with them…

In fact, in Matthew's account (15:12) we’re told that the disciples came to Him afterward and asked him if He realized that the “Pharisees were offended when they heard this?”

 What was happening at this time is that the Pharisees and scribes were following Jesus around looking for anything they could criticize Him on or accuse Him of violating the Jewish law. And here, Jesus along with His disciples were accused of eating bread with defiled hands.

They didn’t wash their hands before coming to the table.

Now don’t get confused about the practicality and common sense of washing hands but rather see the point that Jesus was getting at, between tradition and doctrine.

*I like what Warren Wiersbe said about this…  “It was not the law that protected the tradition, but the tradition that protected the law”.

Jesus, is pointing out the result of tradition…

And He uses the words of the prophet Isaiah, which says:

“Therefore, the Lord said: ‘Inasmuch as these people draw near with their mouths and honor Me with their lips, but have removed their hearts far from Me, and their fear toward Me is taught by the commandment of men,’” (Isaiah 29:13)

According to Isaiah, there is that which consists of right words but wrong attitudes.

Everything outward is right, but inwardly the mind and heart are wrong.

That, Jesus says, is hypocrisy--to look as if you are doing something religious and worshipful and God-related, but inside to have an entirely different attitude.

  

Through the years I have heard many say that they don’t attend church because

churches are filled with hypocrites.

And perhaps what they’re really saying is: "You use great words--wonderful words--but you don't really mean them. You talk about love, but you don't love. You talk about forgiveness, but you don't forgive. You talk about living for the Lord, but you live like the rest of the world."

You see that is what tradition can do to us… It externalizes religion, makes it outward instead of inward.

As long as we are fulfilling the prescribed outward form, we think we are acceptable before God and that is the terrible danger of tradition.

Then Jesus goes on to clarify in Mark later in chapter 7, (vs. 14&15):

the difference between law and tradition and how it is distorted to the point of defilement.

“When He had 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.:”

Dr. David McKenna said it well: “Jesus makes the ‘heart of man’ the source of sin.”

Jesus is saying that it isn’t what we ingest that defiles us. It is what our heart does with it.

Hypocrisy is defined as; the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform; [where there is a] false appearance of virtue or goodness, while concealing one’s real character or inclinations.

Everyone, at times can have the right words with a wrong attitude - but we must recognize it and admit it.

As Christians we need to be careful, and not allow ourselves to be fooled into thinking that because we do things in the "right" way, and say the "right" words, and believe the "right" doctrines, that we’re pleasing to God.

As I close this devotion, I want to make a point on those who say they don’t attend a church because there are too many hypocrites.

But the fact is, every church is full of hypocrites because we’re all sinners and yet we claim to follow God. (but I do understand, that some churches level of hypocrisy can deter people from getting involved).

But on its own intellectual merits, using the ‘hypocrisy’ argument is a lousy excuse to stay away from church. Because it’s like saying, “I’m never going back to that hospital, it’s full of sick people.”

Because a hospital exists to make sick people well. With no sick people, it wouldn’t be doing its job. In the same way, the church exists to make spiritually sick people spiritually well, to help people achieve spiritual health and wholeness.

So, from that perspective, if a church does its job right, it’s always going to be attracting new hypocrites to the church.