10 After Jesus called the crowd to Him, He said to them, “Hear and understand. 11 It is not what enters into the mouth that defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man.”
12 Then the disciples *came and *said to Him, "Do You know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this statement?" 13 But He answered and said, "Every plant which My heavenly Father did not plant shall be uprooted. 14 Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit."
15 Peter said to Him, "Explain the parable to us." 16 Jesus said, "Are you still lacking in understanding also? 17 Do you not understand that everything that goes into the mouth passes into the stomach, and is eliminated? 18 But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders. 20 These are the things which defile the man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man."
Welcome you to worship in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is such a privilege to come together with you today for the study God's Word. I praise God for those of you who have been moved to join us today, whether it's your first time or you are a faithful member of our family in Christ. I also would like to thank each of you who have faithfully continued to share the ministry website, and social media platforms with your family and friends. God has continued to bless your efforts in reaching the lost and the deceived. We are reaching people and places never before imagined, bringing people to Christ. I ask you will continue to join us in praying, asking God to continue to bless this ministry in reaching the lost, the broken and the hopeless. May He use each and every of us mightily to reach the lost, that they come to know Christ as their personal Lord and Savior. If
you have recently received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, please contact and let us know so that we can pray for you. If we can share your story with others let us know if
you would love to do so. Each one of us have been
blessed with a unique testimony. We'd love to hear from you.
If you have a prayer request, please click the link on the home page. It is our honor and privilege to be in prayer with and for you. James instructs us in chapter 5:16 says "..pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much."
If I had to summarize what is happening in our culture today, the world is trying its best to look like the church and the church is trying its best to look like the world. It is the problem of cultural Christianity. While political leaders are doing their best to outlaw Biblical teaching and the very mention of God’s name that is until there's a tragedy, then they're quick to invoke His name, call on Him for help or even quote Scripture during speeches when it's convenient.
While mainstream religious denominations are scrambling to determine if issues like homosexuality and transgenderism are compatible with Scripture and biblical teaching. Issues that I believe that God settled in His Word in no uncertain terms centuries ago in Genesis 1:27; "God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them."
And in Leviticus 18:22 the Lord said "You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination."
Then we have professing Christians, who complain if the pastor's sermon runs longer than expected, interfering with their Sunday afternoon plans, who spend a few minutes in prayer yet will spend countless hours watching the filth that Hollywood produces. Not only is cultural Christianity little more than worthless words; it is also worthless worship.
In John 4:24 Jesus says "God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." It seems that cultural Christians are more concerned with their image than they are with honoring the Lord. We have foolishly deceived ourselves into thinking God on our time schedule, there are things that are more important than worshipping God. If we can't find time for Him in our lives, we can imagine that He won't find room for us in His kingdom.
Let us pray
Heavenly Father,
Father, thank You for Your clear Word for us today, for reminding us there can be no true worship except through Jesus Christ. Father, oh we pray that if there is anyone among us who are not true Christians, that have not truly embraced Christ, having been exposed to the Gospel, help them understand they are in a dangerous, dangerous position. Lord, we pray that You would save their souls, even today. I pray for Your pastors and shepherds throughout Your Church, that Christ might be preached, He exalted and Your might be glorified in their messages. Place a heavy burden on our hearts for the authenticity of our relationship with You. Lord, You know I am deeply and profoundly concerned with those whom You've entrusted in care. May they be a spiritually alive, obedient people. All for Your glory and for Christ's sake
It is in His name we ask and pray
Amen
Today's Message: Truth or Tradition - Part 2
Today, we're told that truth is quite often different than what we first believe to be true. I strongly believe that most pastors and Christians, in the name of compassion and tolerance are unintentionally promoting Satan's lies. Calling individuals a gender other than the one that God designed does not make them something else. I assure you, we will all be held accountable for the words we speak, but for those
who teach the Bible, there is a higher standard. With that higher standard also
comes a more severe judgment from God.
While Christians are called to be tolerant, most recently, tolerance has come to mean accepting things followers of Christ cannot do. The Bible is very specific on that we should and should not accept. We are created in the image of God, Who calls us to proclaim the truth and honor the beauty of His design, male and female, one man and one woman coming together in marriage are intended to bring forth new life. Throughout both the Old and New Testaments, God and His people are portrayed as husband and wife. The creation account found in Genesis clearly lays out God created humans male and female.
Though God has given us clear evidence what a man and woman is, many still refuse to believe the creation account, or what their eyes tell them. While the world demand tolerance for their own demonic agendas, God has told us clearly we will not receive it. Still, we do not play by the world's rules, we are not respond to intolerance with fear and hate but with the love of Christ.
Open our Bibles to the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. Today, we will be examining verses ten through twenty. Matthew 15:10-20. I invite you to follow along with me as I read them.
Let us open our hearts and see what the Spirit of God has to say to each of
us. I pray that the Lord would help us to hear and apply what He's saying to each of us today. After Jesus called the crowd to Him, He said to them, "Hear and understand. It is not what enters into the mouth that defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man." Then the disciples *came and *said to Him, "Do You know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this statement?" But He answered and said, "Every plant which My heavenly Father did not plant shall be uprooted. Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit."
Peter said to Him, "Explain the parable to us." Jesus said, "Are you still lacking in understanding also? Do you not understand that everything that goes into the mouth passes into the stomach, and is eliminated? But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders. These are the things which defile the man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man."
The first thing I'd like you to notice is that in our text today we see some form of the word "defile" five times. The word defile is the Greek word "
koinóō," which means to treat what is sacred as common. To be stripped of its sacredness. Reducing what God has set apart, calls sacred to mundane or ordinary. It refers to spiritual desecration. Making it unclean and dirty.
In verses 1-9, Jesus rebuked the religious teachers for their hypocrisy, who were attacking Jesus and the disciples for their activities, specifically, not washing their hands when they eat bread. They were accusing them of violating the "traditions of the elders," as if those traditions were now authoritative and could be sinned against. They had elevated the traditions of men to the status of God's Word. Both the Old and New Testaments does have much to say about defilement. God speaks to the issue of being defiled hundreds of times. We are repeatedly commanded in Scripture not to be defiled.
I won't belabor the point but I'll give you a few examples:
Leviticus 18:24 says
"‘Do not defile yourselves by any of these things; for by all these the nations which I am casting out before you have become defiled." Psalm 119:1 says
"How blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord." In other words, blessed are the undefiled. In
2 Corinthians 7, Paul in writing to the Corinthians says, "Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God."
And I'll give you one or two more examples before we move on, but I strongly believe this is important for us to understand,
Hebrews 7, "
For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens." Last one, Revelation 21, "In the daytime (for there will be no night there) its gates will never be closed; and they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it
; and nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life." Over and over again, God commands us not to be defiled, He calls His people to be clean, to be holy, to be pure. We are to be like Jesus Christ, that's the point.
Since God calls us to be undefiled, we must understand what defiles us and understand how to deal with that. In Ephesians, Paul tells us that the Lord wants His church to be spotless, without blemish, blameless.
First let’s look at the principle stated in verses 10 and 11, where Jesus gives us a clear word on the subject of true defilement.
"After Jesus called the crowd to Him, He said to them, "Hear and understand. It is not what enters into the mouth that defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man." We can assume, the crowd was the multitude of people described to us in chapter 14. Where Jesus was speaking, teaching and healing those who had gathered from the area of Gennesaret, which may have lasted for quite a long time. Apparently long enough for some Pharisees to come to Jesus, to shame and discredit Him publicly. Which ended up as Jesus denouncing them by calling them hypocrites, described by the prophet Isaiah and
who worship God in an empty manner, substituting the commandments of men
for true doctrine. We don’t know how much of the Pharisees’ conversation the crowd actually heard, but they’re certainly in the proximity. So, that sets the scene.
Verse 10, Jesus says "Hear and understand." That's an important phrase, it isn’t because what He’s going to say is difficult to understand but He wants them to listen carefully and think it through. Jesus was just striking a devastating blow at all of the religion that they are used to. He wants them to understand that defilement is not a physical issue, it is a spiritual one. In one profound statement, Jesus is teaching the truth that He came to proclaim. A relationship God is not outward religion, but inward, worshipping Him from the heart, in Spirit and truth. The scribes and Pharisees were committed to that which was outward. He sets Himself in direct opposition to everything the Pharisees and scribes taught when He says in verse 11, "It is not what enters into the mouth that defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man."
While they must have been absolutely
devastated by Jesus' words, they certainly should not have been shocked by them. After all, the Old Testament says in 1 Samuel 16:7 "But the Lord said to Samuel, "Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." In keeping their man-made traditions, Jesus wanted to be clear on the unreliability of the Pharisees’ teaching,
they violated the commandments of God. By the way, I believe the church today faces the same problem. I have witnessed church members arguing over "That's the way we've always done things." Things, I might add, are not mentioned in Scripture, they are the church traditions of men.
In verse 12, "Then the disciples *came and *said to Him, "Do You know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this statement?" The disciples’ question Jesus about His treatment of the Pharisees, were worried that Jesus was too hard on them.Their entire life, they had all this stuff they had to abide by, besides that which were biblical, such as the ceremonial and dietary commands based upon clean and unclean, but external rituals which were the traditions of men. Apart from the truth of God, there are only externals left. False religion is all bound up with external issues. If you can’t change the heart, you can never really deal with the inside issues of a person. God desires the heart to be circumcised. Only Christianity can change the heart. By the way, this is not the only time the Lord offended them. Jesus was not the passive Jesus we hear so much about today, He was very confrontive. When you give hypocrites the truth, they will be offended. If you are offended by the truth, then you ought to examine your own heart.
Luke 11, is one example. "
Now when He had spoken, a Pharisee *asked Him to have lunch with him; and He went in, and reclined at the table. When the Pharisee saw it, he was surprised that He had not first ceremonially washed before the meal. But the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the platter; but inside of you, you are full of robbery and wickedness. You foolish ones, did not He who made the outside make the inside also? But give that which is within as charity, and then all things are clean for you. "But woe to you Pharisees! For you pay tithe of mint and rue and every kind of garden herb, and yet disregard justice and the love of God; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the chief seats in the synagogues and the respectful greetings in the market places. Woe to you! For you are like concealed tombs, and the people who walk over them are unaware of it."
One of the lawyers *said to Him in reply, "Teacher, when You say this, You insult us too." But He said, "Woe to you lawyers as well! For you weigh men down with burdens hard to bear, while you yourselves will not even touch the burdens with one of your fingers. Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and it was your fathers who killed them. So you are witnesses and approve the deeds of your fathers; because it was they who killed them, and you build their tombs."
However, in being fair to them, many of theses traditions were established in the book of Leviticus, which they were required to follow. Things they could and couldn’t eat, things they could and couldn’t touch, certain clothing they had to wear to perform religious ceremonies. It all started in God's instruction to His chosen people. But allow me to add, at no time in the Old Testament does it ever say that these things were sinful. The issue was their misunderstanding of the Law, they focused on the externals, whatever was necessary to prepare them physically to come into the presence of God. It was only defined as ritual unfitness, not as sin. It was all a illustration of what God wants on the inside. God wants us to come to worship Him spiritually only when your heart is pure. Just as circumcision didn’t save people, it was an outward sign of what wanted to do in the heart.
Jeremiah 4:4,
"Circumcise yourselves to the Lord and remove the foreskins of your heart, men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, or else My wrath will go forth like fire and burn with none to quench it,because of the evil of your deeds." It was always about the heart, clean hands was to demonstrate the need for the pure heart. Rather than focusing on to the fullness of real spirituality, they just kept multiplying the externals. When the reality came in the person of Jesus, they killed the reality.
The writer of
Hebrews 8:7-13 says, "
For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second. For finding fault with them, He says,"Behold, days are coming, says the Lord,
When I will effect a new covenant
With the house of Israel and with the house of Judah;
Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers
On the day when I took them by the hand
To lead them out of the land of Egypt;
For they did not continue in My covenant,
And I did not care for them, says the Lord.
"For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
After those days, says the Lord:
I will put My laws into their minds,
And I will write them on their hearts.
And I will be their God,
And they shall be My people.
"And they shall not teach everyone his fellow citizen,
And everyone his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’
For all will know Me,
From the least to the greatest of them.
"For I will be merciful to their iniquities,
And I will remember their sins no more."
When He said, "A new covenant," He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear."
God never intended for holiness and purity to be an external issue. Because God wanted to impress deeply on the hearts of the Israelites the idea of holiness and sacredness, He legislated rituals to deal with the defilements and the death as a
way of reminding Israel of the fact that they were defiled by sin. Jesus often healed people as a way of showing that He could deal with the results, but with the cause, which is sin. All along God was demonstrating the outward defilements were coming from inside.
Jesus said in Matthew 5:17, "Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill." In a very real sense, Jesus was abolishing the Jewish ceremonial system and bringing the reality. This was one of the ways, but there are many ways He did that. In the New Testament, defilement is always internal, it never has anything to do with the outside.
Acts 10, is another illustration of the ceremonial law being abolished
. "On the next day, as they were on their way and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray. But he became hungry and was desiring to eat; but while they were making preparations, he fell into a trance; and he *saw the sky opened up, and an object like a great sheet coming down, lowered by four corners to the ground, and there were in it all kinds of four-footed animals and crawling creatures of the earth and birds of the air. A voice came to him, "Get up, Peter, kill and eat!" But Peter said, "By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything unholy and unclean." Again a voice came to him a second time, "What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy." This happened three times, and immediately the object was taken up into the sky." Peter, being a Jew, this would be very difficult to handle. His entire life, he was taught only to eat only that which is clean. It took three times to get that message across to Peter. It doesn’t matter what you eat. It doesn’t matter, but if a
guy’s conscience bothers him, don’t force him to eat something that
will bother his conscience.
Paul says in
Romans 14:1-3, "
Now accept the one who is weak in faith, but not for the purpose of passing judgment on his opinions. One person has faith that he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats vegetables only. The one who eats is not to regard with contempt the one who does not eat, and the one who does not eat is not to judge the one who eats, for God has accepted him." It doesn’t matter what you eat, even though there’s nothing unclean of itself, but don't offend anybody. That's the point.
Jesus doesn’t apologize for the offense, He offends even further. In verse 13, comes the judgment on the hypocrite. "But He answered and said, "Every plant which My heavenly Father did not plant shall be uprooted." Here He's saying they’re destined for judgment. It's a reference to the parable of the wheat and the tares. God sows the wheat, Satan sows the tares. That which God doesn’t plant is going to be up rooted.
Verse 14, "Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit." Let them alone is the verb "aphíēmi," meaning stay away from. To those who supposedly hold authority, don’t have anything to do with them. The Pharisees were not leading people closer to God as they should have been. They themselves were far from God, leading others to destruction.
The pit can mean nothing other than hell. Don't listen to them. They're dangerous, don’t expose yourself to them.
Jesus is also saying, don’t act as judge. They’re abandoned to judgment. My Father will separate them out, angels will come in due time to sort out the wheat and the tares. Again, Jesus is saying it's all about the heart. It’s not what goes into your body that makes you spiritually unclean, it’s what comes from out of your heart. I believe this is a warning for the church today about false teachers, those who who heresy in the name of Christianity. Don’t expose yourself to them because they're leading people to straight to Hell. Don't put yourselves in the position where you're are going to be exposed to them and their self-inflicted blindness. Just stay away from hypocrites who aren't obedient to the teaching of the Word of God. They don’t really know God.
Verse 15, "Peter said to Him, "Explain the parable to us." We shouldn't be surprised it's Peter who breaks the ice. It is an honest question, it wasn’t that they couldn’t understand what He meant. They couldn't accept it. You have to remember that the Jewish people took ceremonially cleanliness very seriously. The disciples have faith in Jesus, but they were still weak in their understanding of all that Jesus taught.
Verses 16-17, "Jesus said, "Are you still lacking in understanding also? Do you not understand that everything that goes into the mouth passes into the stomach, and is eliminated?"
Generally speaking, our bodies are designed in such a way that the food we take in is processed and leaves the body. Verse 18, "But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man." Jesus says you can’t be defiled by what goes in your mouth because it goes through normal body elimination process. However, what’s spiritually unhealthy for us, leads to sinful behavior. That which comes from our hearts and from out of our mouths, and through our
actions. That's the issue, that's what really makes us unclean. A sinful heart is what makes us unclean before God. It’s your heart. The external laws of cleanness and uncleanness, if properly understood, were to reflect the effects that sin of the world has on us.
In verse 19, Jesus gives us some detail, a list of several things that makes us unclean. "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders." All of it comes out of the heart. This is not an exhaustive list by the way.
Listen as I read from
Matthew 5,
"You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder’
and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court." He goes on to say "You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery
’; but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart." Then, "You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor
and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven." It’s the filth on the inside that comes from the heart. It is more important for people to get our hearts right with God than to follow tradition.There’s only one way to obey the ways of God, we need an authentic relationship with Jesus.
That brings us to verse 20, "These are the things which defile the man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man." An unclean, unwashed heart is what defiles a man. The heart is what gives birth to sin.
In Closing..
God sees past the outward appearances of being redeemed that people participate in, the worship service, superficial confession and repentance, shallow forgiveness. People may publicly profess to know God, but their lives deny Him. Those who live in sexual immorality, who slander, gossip, and hate. Those whose hearts are filled with bitterness, pride, and greed. They try to legitimize disobedience and and justify their sinfulness. It doesn't matter what you profess if you're defiled in the heart. Traditions can have their place, but we mustn't more concerned about keeping them than being obedient to God's Word. Our worship must be about God, not about us. As long as the focus of our thoughts are about us, the focus of our worship will be about us in the church.
One doesn't have to look very hard to see that many people spend far more time getting ready for church than they do preparing for our Lord's return. It is my prayer that no one will who receives this message, who leave with an unclean heart. That must be the prayer of every true believer," Lord, purify my heart." May God and His ways be the focus in our lives.
May it be so..
And now may the Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen
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