Hello, this is Pastor Steven Anderson from Faith Forward Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona.
Today I want to talk about Mark chapter 7 verses 3 through 9.
And I want to explain to you about a book called the Talmud that is the holy book of
the Jews.
A lot of people think the Jews believe in the Old Testament.
Really their religion is not based on the Old Testament.
There are so many things in the Old Testament that contradict what they believe.
They actually follow a different book called the Talmud.
Now these false teachings that go against Old Testament scripture were already in existence
at the time of Mark 7.
We find Jesus rebuking these oral traditions that would later be written down around 500
years later in the Talmud.
That they already were being taught as early as around 200 B.C.
Listen to what it says in Mark 7-3,
For the Pharisees and all the Jews, except they wash their hands off, eat not, holding
the tradition of the elders.
And when they come from the market, except they wash, they eat not.
And many other things there be, which they have received to hold, as the washing of cups
and pots, brazen vessels, and of tables.
These are all things that are later going to be written down in the Talmud.
And they're already being observed by all the Jews at this time.
Then the Pharisees and scribes asked him,
Why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with
unwashed hands?
He answered and said unto them,
Well hath the Zaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written,
This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
Howbeit in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
For laying aside the commandment of God ye hold the tradition of men,
as the washing of pots and cups, and many other such like things ye do.
And he said unto them,
Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.
And this is exactly what Judaism is today.
It's a religion that rejects the commandment of God, rejects the Old Testament scripture,
claims to believe in it, draws nigh unto the Lord with their lips, but their heart is far
from him.
They claim to believe the Old Testament.
But it's just like it was in Jesus' day.
The Pharisees who wrote the Talmud and the Pharisees today who call themselves Orthodox
Jews, they don't really believe in it.
They have their own tradition and to them that trumps the word of God.
That's what the Talmud is.
All the Talmud is, is a written down version of what Jesus was speaking against here in
Mark chapter 7.
These oral traditions of the elders that were passed down.
Sure they'd be written down in the Talmud, in the Mishnah, but it's the same garbage
that Jesus was rebuking that makes void the commandment of God.