The Fear of God Being Taught by the Precept of Men

 

The Fear of God Being Taught by the Precept of Men: a Jeopardy

“Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward Me is taught by the precept of men” (Isa. 29:13).

“Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto Me with their mouth, and honoureth Me with their lips; but their heart is far from Me. But in vain they do worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” (Mt. 15:7-9). “He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me” (Mk. 7:6).

Bible things, particularly the knowledge of God, must be communicated to other men with Bible words, words which the Holy Spirit teaches  (I Cor. 2:13). They must be communicated by those who are “living epistles”, having been begotten again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. [How shall they hear without a preacher?]. The Holy Scripture is a precious compendium of spiritual vocabulary: spiritual words that are especially suited to acquaint men and women with God’s thoughts and ways. Scriptural words are the divinely ordained containers for imparting to men the knowledge of God.  They alone are able to make men “wise unto salvation” (II Tim. 3:16).  It has “pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe” (I Cor. 1:21).

Whenever men seek to communicate the knowledge of God with the wisdom of men’s words, they cause their hearers to stumble and to err.  The knowledge of God must be communicated by the means which God has both provided and ordained.  When this divinely appointed means is ignored, the tragic result is that of the fear of God being taught by the precept of men.  The hearers who subject themselves to the wisdom of men’s words  may become “religious”, but they are woefully ignorant of the God revealed in the Scripture, whom to know is life eternal (see Jn. 17:3).

Language Describing this Phenomenon. “That this is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the LORD : Which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits: Get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us” (Isa. 30:9-11).

“HEAR ye this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, which swear by the name of the LORD , and make mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth, nor in righteousness. For they call themselves of the holy city, and stay themselves upon the God of Israel; The LORD of hosts is His name” (Isa. 48:1-2).

“CRY aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show My people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins. Yet they seek Me daily, and delight to know My ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of Me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God” (Isa. 58:1-2).

The Lord Jesus Christ, addressing such corrupters of the Word of God, declared: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves” (Mt. 23:15).  These proselytes were being taught by the religious elite of that day, and yet the result of that instruction set the hearers on a course that ultimately leads to damnation, rather than them being set on “the way of holiness”, even the way that leads unto life eternal.

In our day religious instruction of one sort or another abounds on every hand, even in the name of Christ.  Every sect poses as an official representative of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and yet each religious faction is saying and emphasizing completely different things from the others. There are multitudes of approaches for finding God, an abundance of agendas for serving and pleasing God, yet in the vast majority of these sects, the fear of God is taught by the precept of men, as Jesus said.  As striking evidence of this, for the most part the people of which we are here speaking are strangers to Bible things, and strangely unfamiliar with the God who sent His Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is the tragically fatal result of the fear of God being taught by the precept of men.