Chapter # 7 Paragraph # 1 Study # 4
April 26, 2022
Moss Bluff, Louisiana
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Thesis: Hypocrisy consists, on one level, of the abandonment of divine instruction while presenting what is done as "the desire of God for you", and, on a deeper level, the abandonment of God Himself.
Introduction: As we have inched our way into Mark's presentation of the massive flaw that consumed the nation, we have seen that it was initiated by the Pharisees and some of the scribes as the thought leaders of the Jews. We have seen that these adversaries of Jesus were actually what they accused Jesus of being: those empowered by Satan to attempt to corrupt the true Israel of God. And, being so empowered, they had joined forces with the other segments of national leadership to seek the destruction of Jesus.
This is not a small matter. Mark has exalted his thesis of national antagonism in order to answer a question that was both inevitable and necessary: Why should we believe that Jesus of Nazareth is The Messenger of Truth instead of the national leaders whom God has established over us in these days? The argument of the perverse leadership has been the same for centuries: God would not allow His people to go so far away from "Truth" as to require such a radical "correction" as that which Jesus represents. This argument has the twin issues of "sovereign oversight" and the development of "wisdom" in the thinking of the elders on its side. How can a "God" be trusted Who permits the destruction of the wisdom that is to preserve His people?
The reality is, however, that God has not expressed His own wisdom in history by the preservation of the institutions which have arisen among men. He did not keep Lucifer from injecting great evil into His creation; He did not keep Adam from aligning himself with The Serpent; He did not prevent the murder of Abel; He did not keep the world from descending into such a massive embrace of wickedness that it required the great flood that destroyed the world and all who dwelt in it except for eight; He did not prevent the rebellion of Babel; He did not preserve the offspring of Abraham from descending into perversity; He did not maintain the loyalty of the nation that arose out of the loins of Jacob; He did not sustain the unity of the nation which David had established by his gifts and calling; He did not keep Judah and Israel from descending into the chaos of idolatry; He did not prevent the mystery of iniquity to grow so massively that the creatures of rebellion murdered His own Son; and He has not kept the "visible Church" from descending into the same morass of wickedness to which we are witnesses in the present time. If history tells us anything, it tells us that, in the wisdom of God, God does not keep His creation from incremental, and persistent, decay.
However, there is another reality that God has revealed out of His wisdom: He preserves His own as individuals. Remember the complaint of Elijah and God's response to him (Romans 11:4) and the promise of Jesus that no one can pluck the believer out of the hand of God (John 10:28-29).
In our study this evening we are going to look into Jesus' response to those leaders of the nation so that we may see what is really going on.
- I. He Addressed Them As "Manifest Demonstrations" Of The Truth Of The Words Of God.
- A. He said that Isaiah got it exactly right.
- 1. The word translated "rightly" is a word Mark used 5 times in his record, and it means "to be in exact harmony with" (in this case, Isaiah's words).
- a. In this same context, the word is translated "experts" (as those who have honed their skills in a certain effort to the point that they are the standard in those skills: 7:9).
- b. And before we leave chapter seven we will see it again (7:37) in the mouths of those who witnessed Jesus' imparting of the ability to both hear and speak to a mute who could not speak clearly.
- 2. What Jesus is addressing is a "prophecy" from Isaiah (740-680 B.C.) found in Isaiah 29:13.
- a. It is not a "prophecy" in our typical sense of that word (predicting something to come), but is, rather, a "prophecy" in the sense that he wrote certain words that would find an "exact" correlation in the reality of men more than 700 years later.
- b. In other words, what Isaiah wrote was an "exact" description of the "visible" people of God who were not "the actual people of God", and his words were "fulfilled" in every generation and continue to be so in our present time 2700 years later.
- 3. What Isaiah got "exactly right" was that the Pharisees and some of the scribes were elements in Jerusalem of what Jesus summarized with His word "hypocrites".
- a. This is a "summary word" that pulls several issues down into one reality.
- b. This word in the first century was not, necessarily, "negative": it simply referred to a class of people who made their living by presenting themselves as something other than what they were: they were "actors" on stage who were skilled at getting people to see them as who they were in a play rather than who they were off stage.
- c. In harmony with the origins of the word translated "hypocrites", they got others to "judge" them according to the facade "under" which they concealed their own true identities [some of these actors were so adept at their "acting skills" that they began to believe they were actually what they were on stage; a massive delusion just like Hollywood today].
- 4. The specific issue in this "hypocrisy" is that these religious leaders were "acting" like God's words really meant something to them when, in fact, those words were being twisted into ways to get their own way instead of God getting His.
- B. As "manifest demonstrations" they were clearly making manifest that fact that God's words of description regarding them as hypocrites were exactly right.
- 1. They came to Jesus to "question" Him in a "manifest pretense".
- a. They were pretending to be "seekers of the truth" by "questioning".
- b. But the reality was that they were "accusers" whose questions were to "accuse", not to find truth.
- 2. Their "manifest demonstration" was understood by all: they were "obviously" in "accusation mode", not "truth-seeking mode".
- II. His Claim Is That The Lips Do Not Reveal The Reality Of The Heart.
- A. The "honor" that the "lips" give is fake.
- 1. "Honor" in Scripture is an overt demonstration of the amount one would "pay" to obtain something one wished to own as a permanent possession.
- 2. In this context, the "honor" is giving lip-service to the value of the words of God as a value so great that they should be incorporated into one's life as a permanent resident (such as washing your hands before every meal).
- B. But the "heart" does not really value the actual meaning of God's words; its true values are far removed from "the heart of God".
- C. The "worship" is "empty" (the "honor" is not genuine) and the proof is that the content of the "teaching of the teachings" is "of men" and not "of God".
