# 433 - Today's Living Word comes from Mr 7:5-7, “Then the Pharisees and scribes asked Him, "Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands?" He answered and said to them, "Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: 'This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.'”
Isn't Jesus amazing? He never needs a Concordance to find an applicable Scripture to a situation! The scribes and Pharisees were upset because they could see that Jesus' disciples didn't buy into their traditions which were in reality the commandments of men.
Since Jesus quotes from Isaiah 29:13, let's go back to that part of Isaiah and see what else is being said about these hypocrites.
In Isaiah 29:16 we read, “You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay? (In other words, should we mold God into our image, our ideals, our behaviors? Should we really try to improve on God's standards?)
The point is, in essential spiritual matters, man does not have the right to invent “Thou shalts, and thou shalt nots.” And when we do, look what happens according to Is 29:14! ”the wisdom of their wise shall perish and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.”
Discernment disappears, spiritual vision becomes clouded and you wind up with what Jesus called the blind leading the blind. “And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch. (Mt 15:14)
Spiritual discernment comes from the Holy Spirit, and it's only fitting that He should withhold it from those legalists who who think the commandments of men are on even par with God's Word.
I'm Duane Matz and that's Today's Living Word.
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