[PraiseNews] Tearing Down Traditions

[Ministry]

Greetings:

This message can be listened to at our Radio site:
http://Radio.MarriageHealing.ORG in the Audio Archive
section in the near future.

Today I want to talk to you about the subject of the
traditions of man. The Scriptures have much to say about
this subject.  Our Saviour Yahushua had something to say
about this subject as well.  (See Mat 15.2-6, Mar 7.8-9,13,
Col 2.8, 1Pe 1.18)

He warns us that we are not put our trust in the traditions
of man.  You know there is an interesting story about
traditions that circulated on the internet in the form of an
chain mail joke.  It is a story about of man's wife cut the
ends off of her ham before she put it into the oven.  Her
husband found this to be a very curious practice, so one day
he asked his wife, "Honey, why do you cut off the ends of
the ham before you put it into the oven?"  The response was
"Well, that was just the way my mom always did it." So the
next time he had an opportunity, he asked his mother in law,
why she cut the ends off the ham every time she baked the
ham.  The man's mother- in-law replied, "Well, son, that was
the way my mother always did it." So in this particular case
the wife's great-grandmother was still living and he had an
opportunity to speak with her and asked her your "Your
daughter and your daughter's daughter cut the ends of the
ham off of their hams when they baked them and I asked them
and each one said that their mother did it that way.  I am
wondering why you did it that way." "Well, sonny, when I was
growing up, we only had a pan so big.  In order to get the
ham into the pan, I had to cut the ends off it so that it
would fit."  That is tradition.  Doing what your fathers
did, that your forefathers did, what your great
grandfathers, etc.  and not even really knowing why you do
it excepting that it is the way they did it.  "What do you
believe?"  "I just believe what they told me."  That is
tradition.

Our Master, Yahushua, says we are not to be influenced or
living our lives according to the traditions of man. There
is a way that we need to live our lives and that way is laid
out for us in Yahweh's Word, the Scriptures. A lot of people
look at the Word and their understanding of the Word comes
primarily through traditions not necessarily past down from
father to sons, but from preacher to preacher.  For example,
many people's only real serious exposure to the Scriptures
comes on Sunday mornings.  Their belief system is shaped
almost exclusively through what they hear on Sunday morning.
But if the man that is in the pulpit has had his views
shaped exclusively by what he has been told to believe,
i.e., by some teacher in bible school or some other method,
then the only thing that you have the potential of being
exposed to are the opinions of man or the traditions of man.

The Scriptures say very clearly, this is what the Master
Yahushua said, "When the Holy Spirit has come..."   Now I am
going to finish that comment, I just want to ask you friend,
has the Holy Spirit come?  The answer is yes, the Holy
Spirit has come at what we know as Pentecost, in the upper
room with the 120.  The Holy Spirit has been with us ever
since, here on the earth to guide men to, to instruct men,
to reprove men, to correct men, etc.  Yahushua said when the
Holy Spirit has come He will guide, He will lead and guide
you into all Truth.  That pretty well sums it up right
there. The Master says that if you want to know the Truth,
the Truth that will make you free, then you should be
looking for guidance and instruction from the Holy Spirit.
It is the Holy Spirit that will lead and guide you into all
Truth, not man.  I want to make a little caveat here, that
man is sometimes chosen by our Heavenly Father to preach and
to teach.  Not every man has been chosen to preach or teach
because there is one body and many members with many gifts.

Not every man is a preacher,  not every man is a teacher but
some are.  The way that this should work in our life is that
rather than putting our confidence in man or in the
traditions of man, we should put our confidence in the Holy
Spirit.  When the Holy Spirit has become our teacher, when
we look to the Holy Spirit for our guidance and our
instruction in all things, then and when we have learned to
hear that voice, as the Master has said "My sheep hear my
voice and they follow that voice.  And the voice of a
stranger they will not follow." (John 10: 3,4,8)  So we know
that if we are seeking the direction, as it says in the
Proverbs 3:5,6 "Lean not on our own understanding," or lean
on the understanding of some other person, then if we just
do not lean on our own understanding, "but in all our ways,"
that means all the time and in everything.  If we lean upon
him, and acknowledge Him,  the word acknowledge means to
give place to.  It means:

ACKNOWL'EDGE, v.t. Aknol'edge, [ad and knowledge. See Know.]
- To own, avow or admit to be true, by a declaration of
assent; as to acknowledge the being of a God.
- To own with assent; to admit or receive with approbation.

1921 \~epiginosko\~ epiginosko {ep-ig-in-oce'-ko}
AV - know 30, acknowledge 5, perceive 3, take knowledge of 2
      have knowledge of 1, know well 1; 42

1) to become thoroughly acquainted with, to know thoroughly
    1a) to know accurately, know well
2) to know
    2a) to recognise
      2a1) by sight, hearing, of certain signs, to perceive
2b) to know i.e. to perceive
    2c) to know i.e. to find out, ascertain
    2d) to know i.e. to understand

But if we do not lean on our own ways, our own
understanding, but in all our ways acknowledge Him, then He
will direct our paths.

What is the application then for teachers who are man?  The
application is simple, when we are hearing the voice of the
Spirit, when we are not leaning on our own understanding or
the understanding of any man, but we are leaning upon the
Holy Spirit, then the Holy Spirit will give approval.  He
will give His mark, will give His witness as it says in the
Scriptures, with our Spirit.  So we will know inside because
of the witness of the Holy Spirit that a teacher is speaking
the oracles of Yahweh.  You see, we are to receive sound
doctrine that is given to us by ordained teachers.  But we
are to be on guard against false teachers because they are
dangerous.  And we are not to receive what they say.  They
can look good, smell good, feel good, appear good, dress
good, but the bottom line is that if their doctrine is not
good, the Holy Spirit will tell us as long as we are not
leaning on our own understanding or the understanding of
that man.  If we look toward the Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit
will say "yes this is my teacher, I bear witness to Him,
listen to him."  Or the Holy Spirit will say  "this a false
teacher, do not listen to him." We will know in either case
to accept or reject that information.

Now how do we do this?  How do we not listen to the
traditions of men, particularly in religious gatherings?
Well what we do is just apply the Scripture that we just
said, Proverbs 3:5,6, apply it in relationship, in
connection with the admonition that says we are to study to
show ourselves approved (2 Tim. 2:15) - to whom are we going
to show ourselves approved according to that Scripture?  The
Father.  This is for us, we have to apply this and the way
that we show ourselves approved is to study.  The Greek word
for study:

4704 \~spoudazo\~ spoudazo {spoo-dad'-zo}
AV - endeavour 3, do diligence 2, be diligent 2, give
      diligence 1, be forward 1, labour 1, study 1; 11
1) to hasten, make haste
2) to exert one's self, endeavour, give diligence

...basically means to labor intensively.  It is indicative
of hard work, it is not something that you do very casually,
or just at a drop of a hat, it requires effort.  It requires
effort and time.  We are to study to show ourselves
approved, that means that we are acceptable, approved.  We
are acceptable to the Master.

We are to study to show ourselves approved, the workman who
rightly divides the word of truth.  Rightly divide the Word
of Truth  means that we handle it properly, we understand it
properly, we propagate it properly, we teach it properly,
etc.  We don't add in any leaven.  We don't interject our
opinion, we don't interject the traditions of men, whether
it comes from their fathers, a bible school, or any where
else.

The issue is always the same, what is the standard that this
measured by?  The standard is clear and that is the inerrant
incorruptible eternal word of our Father and the instruction
and guidance that comes from His Spirit.  When you put these
two things together, Yahushua said that when the Holy Spirit
has come He will bear witness, He will testify of Me.  Now
who was Yahushua?  Yahushua is often times referred to as
the Living Word in the book of John, in the beginning was
the Word and the Word was made flesh and the Word dwelt
among us.  Well so if the Holy Spirit is going to bear
witness of the Word that means the Holy Spirit is going to
bear witness of Yahushua.

You cannot separate the Word from the Spirit, now what I
mean by that is that when the Spirit is present and
instructing and directing through the Word, then you have
Life.    When you have a person who is simply repeating or
regurgitating the letter of the law, that would be really
the word without the spirit, ink on paper, just the words,
the letters.  When people are just regurgitating letters and
they are interpreting letters, they are speaking letters,
they are teaching not by the spirit but by their carnal
mind, that is what is called "interpretation" of the
Scriptures.

Some people will say that this is not my interpretation or
they will make reference to interpretations.  They are
talking about people who have introduced their own tradition
or they have received a tradition of another man.  They are
not talking about Truth but tradition and what they have
done is taken from the intellectual process from their
carnal mind and they have analyzed these words and they have
formed a conclusion that comes from their mind - their
carnal mind, their fleshly mind, their intellectual mind.

We know from the scriptures the carnal mind is death.  It
says in the Scriptures to be carnally minded is death.(Rom.
8:6).  The carnal mind is at enmity with our Father (Rom.
8:7), the Scriptures in Corinthians say that we cannot
understand the things of Yahweh with our carnal mind, it is
impossible.  It says that they are spiritually discerned and
can only be understood by the spirit and when they are
interpreted with the carnal mind they basically become
foolishness, they are foolishness and the carnal mind is not
able to understand them because to the carnal mind it is
just foolishness.  In fact it even says more specifically
that it is impossible for the carnal mind, for the
intellectual mind to understand the spiritual truth of our
Heavenly Father.

We have a mind that He was given us, He has created us with
a mind this is not to say that our mind is not involved in
the process but the way that it works is that as we study
His Word and as His Spirit gives us instruction and bears
witness and guides us then our Spiritual man begins to get
understanding which comes from the Holy Spirit.  The Holy
Spirit gives us that understanding.  And then based on that
understanding our mind can relate to it.  It is very key to
understand that we don't interpret the Scriptures with our
mind, we don't analyze them and reason them out and figure
them out and then say "ah ha here it is, this is what it
means."

No, we only have an understanding of truth as it is revealed
to us by the Holy Spirit.  Now this is the difference
between tradition and truth.   And this is the point where
some smarty pants will say... "yeah, but the scriptures say
'LET US REASON TOGETHER, SAITH THE LORD'" My comment is do
your homework.  You will find that it isn't in the context
of what we are talking about.

We want to tear down traditions because traditions will lead
us into apostasy. Traditions will lead us into religious
bondage.  Traditions will lead us into error and sin.  The
Scriptures say that there is a way that seems right to man,
but the end thereof is destruction. (Pro. 14:12).

We want to be careful how we come to understand these things
and we need to humble ourselves.  The Scriptures say if we
humble ourselves under the mighty hand of Yahweh, then in
due time He will exalt us (Jas 4:10).  We need to humble
ourselves when we come to Him.  We need to understand He is
the Almighty and we are not.  So when we come to Him and do
not lean on our own understanding, when we ask Him to lead
and to guide us by His Spirit, when we ask Him for wisdom,
see the Scriptures say that if any of you lack for wisdom,
then ask of Yahweh who gives to all men liberally, but let
him not ask wavering but ask in faith (Jas. 1:5,6), because
if you waver and have doubt you will not receive anything
from the Heavenly Father.

Come to Him humbly, ask Him for guidance, ask Him for wisdom
and He gives it to us if we have that heart condition and if
we are determined to study as He has commanded us, so if we
are obedient to study His Word, so that we would show
ourselves approved that we would rightly divide His Word of
Truth that we would not be ashamed... He will help us.  You
see there is a reason for all this, part of the reason for
all this is that so that we won't be ashamed.  Who are we
going to be ashamed before?  We will be ashamed before Him
if we are not rightly dividing His Word. So that we won't be
ashamed in that day in that fearful day of our Elohim we
need to study to show ourselves approved.

Refuse man's tradition and embrace Yahweh's truth...

Shalom
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