What Would He Say Now?

READING
Mark 7
Isaiah 29
2 Kings 22












When the Pharisees saw some of Yeshua’s disciples eating bread with unwashed hands, they criticised them, because the Pharisees, and all the Jews, didn’t eat unless they wash their hands to the elbow. It was a tradition. (Not a command from God).
And there were many other things, which they had received from one another, and which they held to — immersions of cups, and of jugs, and of copper pots, and of beds.

Then they started on Yeshua, as if it was his fault because they were his disciples. “Why don’t your disciples walk according to the tradition of the elders? They eat bread with unwashed hands.”
Yeshua answered… “Yisheyah (Isaiah) prophesied well about you. Hypocrites. As it’s been written, ‘This people honours me with their lips but their heart is far from me. And they futilely revere me, teaching teachings which are the commands of people.’ For you’ve left the command of God behind, and you hold to the tradition of people — immersions of jugs, and of cups — and you do many other such things as these.”
“You set the command of God aside well, so you can keep your own tradition. For Moshe said, ‘Honour your father and your mother.’ And, ‘Let the one who speaks evil of a father or a mother be put to death.’ But you say that if a person says to their father or to their mother, ‘Whatever you- might have benefitted from me is korban, (which is an offering)’, then you no longer let them do anything for their father or their mother — invalidating the message of God for your tradition which you’ve handed down. And you do many such things as these.”

Hundreds of years before, a young king Josiah was trying to restore the temple to what it should be. As part of that the high priest searched the tabernacle and found the Book of the Law.
The priests had lost the Book of the Law and forgotten what it said!
When Josiah heard about that he was devastated. But he decided on the spot that they needed to repent and follow God’s commands immediately.
The king stood by the pillar, and made a covenant before Yahweh, to walk after Yahweh, and to keep his commandments, his testimonies, and his statutes, with all his heart, and all his soul, to confirm the words of this covenant that were written in this book; and all the people agreed to the covenant.
They brought out of Yahweh’s temple all the vessels that were made for Baal, for the Asherah, and for all the army of the sky, and he burned them. He got rid of the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places; those also who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the army of the sky. He brought out the Asherah from Yahweh’s house and burned it. He broke down the houses of the male shrine prostitutes that were in Yahweh’s house, where the women wove hangings for the Asherah.

How far they had fallen! Worshiping Baal, worshipping the gods of the world, in the house of Yahweh! And thinking that it’s all OK.

Hopefully we’re not that far gone, but compare the early church you read about in the Bible, with the one you’re part of now.
They’re not the same are they.

We attend church and follow the same pattern week after week. We have CEOs, we run it like a business, we market and manipulate, we entertain and then send them home pumped up for another week, (but not pumped by the Holy Spirit, just by our marketing).
Not to mention Christmas, Easter, and the way we elevate the priests to such a high status, and present them as an infallible separate class of Christian.
We build fancy buildings just like the world does. We (sometimes) dress our priests in special robes, just like the world does. And we entertain the masses, just like the world does.
Yeshua would say the same thing to us he said to the Pharisees. “You’ve left the command of God behind and you hold the traditions of people.”

Yeshua gave us two commands. Love God. Love others.
That’s all we have to do.
How would your church change if it trimmed back to just that. If you removed every man made tradition. Every single one. How would it look?

Can you justify not doing that?

Do you need to follow the example of Josiah and repent? If you do, do it now. And get rid of everything in your church which shouldn’t be there. Or explain to Yahweh why you didn’t.

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