Matthew chapter 15, the true
source of our faith, or the true source of our sin, actually.
We know the true source of our faith is God. The true source
of our sin, what are we talking about there? Well, look at verse
10. Christ here, after he had dealt with the Pharisees and
exposed their hypocrisy, their self-righteousness, It says,
he called the multitude and he said unto them, hear and understand. And when I saw that, you know,
I think about, and I put this in your lesson, that we know
that the gift of hearing and understanding, do we realize
how great a gift that is? The Bible says, I've got quoted
here in your lesson, 1 John 5.20, where it says that the Son of
God has come and has given us an understanding that we may
know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even
in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal
life, 1 John 5.20. In John chapter 17, I think it's
verse 2, where the Lord said, this is eternal life, that they
might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou
hast sent. We read in 1 Corinthians 2, 14,
where it says, the natural man receiveth not the things of the
Spirit of God, neither can he know them, they're spiritually
discerned, they're spiritually understood. Well, there's a lot
of things, Janet and I were talking about this, a lot of things in
life and providence that we just don't understand. We know the
bottom line for all things. And that's Romans 8, 28. All
things work together for good to them that love God, who are
the called according to his purpose. Now we know that, and that's
a comfort. But these vignettes that we go through in life, these
experiences, why this happens, why that happens, We don't understand
it, but we do know what the big picture is. But when it comes
to salvation, if you're one of God's chosen people, he's gonna
reveal himself to you so that you will understand how God saves
sinners. And it's through the understanding,
it's through the mind, the affections, and the will, and that's the
heart. We have a heart knowledge, a heart faith, of salvation by
the grace of God through Jesus Christ. And we learn from that,
we grow from that. I hope I know more than I knew
10 years ago. And especially in the scriptures,
we're studying the scriptures and we see how that is so reinforced
throughout. There's no scripture from Genesis
to Revelation that teaches salvation by the works or the wills of
men and women. It's all of grace. So we understand
that all saving spiritual knowledge and understanding and faith,
repentance are given by Christ to his people as he sends the
spirit of God to convince us of the gospel. and he makes it
the power of God unto salvation. I'll go back to that verse 17
of Romans chapter one. It says, for therein is the righteousness
of God revealed from faith to faith. And I believe what that
means is from the knowledge of God revealed, the faith, to faith,
to the knowledge of God understood and believed. And the reason
I believe that, because it follows it up, the just, it's written,
the justified, those who are forgiven of their sins through
the blood of Christ, those who are righteous in Christ, they
live by God-given life, they live by faith. And that is they
live by looking to and following Jesus Christ as their whole salvation. So understanding, he says, hear
and understand. Somebody said, well, who's he
talking to? Anyone who will listen. I've had people, a lot of times,
you know, they'll take a passage like Acts 17, 31, or 30, where
it says, God has commanded all men everywhere to repent. because
he has appointed a day in which he'd judge the world in right.
And they'll say, is that just a command to the elect? Well,
I know this. When Paul preached that message
on Mars Hill, there were a bunch of people there. And I believe
whoever was there that he was preaching to, he didn't say,
now, you elect, listen to me, but the rest of you don't. Who
knows who is elect and who is not? It's only by a God-given
faith in Christ that we know who God's elect are. So we preach
to anybody who'll listen. Now those who won't listen, what
does the Bible say? Wipe the dust off your feet and
go on. They don't wanna hear. Pray for them that one day maybe
they will want to hear what you have to say. And we know that's
only gonna be by the providence of God. So who am I gonna preach
this to? Who are these commands to? Who
are this word to? Anybody who'll listen. Now here's
another thing. To some, the Bible says, it's
the savor of life unto life, and that's a joy. When you see
someone come to a saving knowledge of Christ, doesn't that just
make your heart leap? And especially a loved one. when
you get your family or somebody like that, your earthly family.
To others, though, sadly, it's the savor of death unto death.
In fact, it's a judgment. And that's what we're seeing
here as Christ is going through his earthly ministry. That's
why he spoke in parables, to actually hide the gospel truth
from those who adamantly opposed it and who were never gonna believe
it. You say, well, if somebody adamantly
opposes this, then we're to just write them off. Always think
about Saul of Tarsus when you think about that. He adamantly
opposed it. Was there a day that you adamantly
opposed it? There was for me. So don't write
anybody off for that. But Christ, he knows the hearts
of men and women. The Lord knoweth them that are
his. And so he says, hear and understand. Now look what he says in verse
11. This is so important. This is one of the prime truths,
profound truths of the gospel message, the word of God. It's
not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man, but that
which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man. Now what
are we talking about here? We're talking about the issue
of the source of our sin. What is sin? Where does it come
from? How does it reveal itself? Those
kinds of things. I was reading this past week,
I think it was an old, either a Chinese or a Japanese philosopher,
and he said this, know thy enemy. Know thy enemy. He said if a
person knows their enemy and doesn't know themselves, they're
going to lose the battle. If they know themselves and don't
know their enemy, they're going to lose the battle. The fact
is in the Bible, you can't really know yourself until you know
the enemy. And if you know neither one,
where does that leave you? Well, what is our enemy? Well,
we have many enemies. The enemy of the world. The enemy
of the flesh. The enemy of the devil. We know
that. But sin is our enemy. Sin is our enemy. And what is
sin? Now listen to me. Sin is not
a substance. It's not material. You understand
what I'm saying? It's not something that I can
drink from a cup. If I had this full of Kentucky
bourbon today, that's not sinful. Now if I'd stand up here and
drink it and get drunk, now that's sinful. All right, you understand. It's not what you eat, it's not
what you take into your body. And that's why people have such
a misunderstanding of sin. I did a study of this in the
Old Testament and the New Testament, every word that's related to
sin. And what is it? Sin is a heart matter. Sin is
a thought matter. Mind, affections, will, all of
that. That's why when we talk about
sin as it applies to Christ, he was made sin. You know all
the fighting and fussing that has been going on for what, 10,
15 years now, isn't it? 2 Corinthians 5, 26, for he was
made sin, Christ who knew no sin, for us, that we might be
made the righteousness of God. And that's another thing, too.
Sin has to be understood in light of righteousness. Righteousness
is not a substance. Righteousness is not something
you can put in a cup and drink it, or put on a plate and eat
it, or anything like that. Now, you can take those things
and use them sinfully, or you can use them in a way that glorifies
God. But there's no sin in these things.
Sin is not a germ. Years ago, I read a book called
Sin is in the Blood. It was written by a physician.
And you know, a lot of denominations, there are denominations who refuse
to get blood transfusions because of that. They think they're pure
and they don't want to get anybody's sin in them. Well, sin's not
transflated through a blood transfusion. The greatest in the Old Testament
and in the New, the most common word for sin is the one that's
found, for example, in Romans 3.23. Hamartia, that's the Greek
word. And it says, for all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. And that's a good definition
of sin. It's talking about how sin is
that which comes short of the mark, missing the mark. You'll
see words like transgression, that's breaking the law. You'll
see words like trespasses, that's crossing the line. You'll see
words like iniquity, that's not balancing out, not evening out. You're found weighed in the balance
and found wanting, lacking. You see? Those are all issues
of sin. And that's why when we talk about
Christ being made sin, and these preachers who talk about, well,
our sin is transferred to him. Well, now that's very confusing.
You mean, did the Lord pick up a big glob of sin from us and
put it over here on Christ? No. That's not what sin is. Sin is evil thoughts, evil motives. false ideas of God. That's what
sin is, that falls short of righteousness. Well, Christ didn't have any
evil thoughts. Even when he was on the cross,
even when he was made sin and went to the cross, he didn't
have any evil thoughts. He didn't have any unbelief,
that sin is unbelief. The Holy Spirit convicts us of
sin because we believe not on him, John 16, I think it's verse
nine. Christ didn't have any evil thoughts.
He had perfect thoughts, even on the cross. Perfect motives,
perfect goals. That which you and I lack. So
how was he made sin? And that's why the doctrine of
imputation is so important. One of the words for sin means
a debt. A debt that you owe. A debt that
you owe to God's law and justice. And that's what was imputed to
Christ, our sin debt. The wages of sin is death. And we know ultimately, that's
not just talking about physical death. Ultimately, that's talking
about eternal damnation, isn't it? Eternal death. Well, our
sin debt was imputed, charged, accounted to Christ. He took
our debt. upon himself and paid the penalty. That's redemption. He died. He was bruised for our iniquity. Well, he was cursed. The Bible
says he was made a curse for us. Well, how was he made a curse? Well, he came under the curse
of the law that we earned. And how did he do that? By imputation.
Well, in the same way, that's how we're made righteousness,
by imputation. And we're given life from the
dead to look to him and to believe in him, all of that. Well, that's
what Christ is talking about. It's not what you eat or drink
that defiles you. It's what comes out of the mouth.
And what comes out of the mouth? What's the source of what we
say and believe and seek? The heart. And I do this. This is just a habit. You know
I'm not talking about this heart. We're talking, what is the heart?
It's the mind, it's the affections, it's the will, it's the conscience,
it's the motives, all of that. And that's what he's talking
about. And here's what this brings us to. And think about that. And I've got in your lesson here
what this teaches us, that righteousness is found in, it teaches that
righteousness is found, is not, you know, I've got that wrong
on your lesson. Look at there at that second paragraph. You
know I do this every now and then. I reveal that I'm human. And righteousness is not found
in things like touch, not taste, not handle, not. Put a big not
there and I'll change it on the computer. I get going fast on
those things. But this is what Christ is teaching,
that sin is found within the mind, within the affections,
within the wills of a person, our thoughts, our motives. And
you know, he taught that on the Sermon on the Mount, when he
said, you know, you've heard it said
by them of, oh, thou shalt not kill, but he said, I'm telling
you that it's murder to even think about killing someone. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
It's sin to even lust after another person. Sin's in the mind, and
he taught that. And what this truth shows us
is this. Number one, we've gotta have
a perfect righteousness that we can't produce. You know, before
he really revealed the reality of the source of sin in the heart,
remember what he said in Matthew 520, except your righteousness
exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you
cannot enter the kingdom of God. So we have to have the righteousness
of God. And that righteousness of God
is Christ in the glory of his person and the power of his finished
work. Christ as our surety, Christ as our substitute, our redeemer.
He's what we have to have. And then secondly, it tells us
we have to have a new heart of grace. Remember, he said through
Ezekiel, I'll give them a new heart. You must be born again. It's not in us naturally to believe
God, to trust Christ. to do that which is good in God's
sight as we're accepted of him in Christ. So we must have the
life of Christ imparted. What is imparted? Knowledge,
that spiritual life that comes through the knowledge of God.
This is life eternal, they might know thee through the gospel. And then thirdly, we must have
Christ to intercede for us before the Father and to preserve us
under glory. That's what we must have. We'll
look at the next verses, verse 12. Then came his disciples and
said unto him, knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended after
they heard this? You think about these disciples.
Oh man, you offended them. I've had people say that to me
about certain people. I'm messy defended, you know,
my mother or my father or my grandfather or somebody. That word offended, you know,
it's like a trap. They get trapped up in their
own lies. That's what happens when you tell them the truth.
And then in verse 13, he says, but he answered. And the reason
they were defended, as I said, it exposed their hypocrisy, it
exposed their evil deeds. John chapter three, you remember,
verse 19 and 20, men hate the light. Why? Because their deeds
are evil. Well, what does the light show
about their deeds? The things that men and women
by nature think are good and recommend them unto God and contribute
to making them righteous. Those things are evil, evil deeds. Why? Because we've all sinned
and come short of the glory of God. Where do you find the glory
of God? In the person and work of Christ.
And so he says in verse 13, but he answered and said, every plant
which my heavenly father hath not planted shall be rooted up. Now the Pharisees and the Sadducees
and the scribes, they had planted themselves in Israel to be the
spiritual leaders of the people. God didn't plant them there for
that. In the providence of God, they were put there as a judgment
upon the people. But God didn't plant them as
keepers of the flame, keepers of the truth. They planted themselves. Well, he said they're gonna be
plucked up. It's the opposite with God's people and God's preachers.
They're like a tree planted by the river. I've got a list in
one of the passages there, it's Isaiah chapter 61, where it said,
we're trees of righteousness whose planting is of the Lord.
And if that's the case, they'll flourish. But now these Pharisees,
they weren't planted by the Lord. They were blind leaders of the
blind. Look at verse 14. Let them alone,
they be blind leaders of the blind, and if the blind lead
the blind, both shall fall into the ditch. We all want to be
led, but not by the blind. And what kind of blindness is
he talking about? He's talking about spiritual blindness. They
don't know the way. And if you want to see a good
summation of what they were leading people in, read Romans 9, beginning
at verse 31. Israel sought after righteousness
because they thought that was the cure for sin. They didn't
even know what sin was. They thought, well, if you drink
this, that'll make you sinful. If you eat that, that'll make
you sinful. If you do this, that'll make
you sinful. No. Are there sinful actions? Well,
of course there are. It's a sin to literally, physically
murder a person. But what people don't understand
is that sin in the heart is just as bad in the sight of God. We
understand that. We don't want to put our sinful
thoughts into action in disobedience and immorality and all of that. But think about this. The Pharisees,
they were trying to get people to keep the law. You know what
they were doing? They were putting their sinful
thoughts into action. Just like the murderer who looks
at a person who that murderer hates and said, I'm going to
kill that person. And when they do, they put their
sinful thoughts into action. And one is just as bad as the
other in God's sight. Now in our sight, it's worse
to actually murder somebody physically. I mean, if you look at me and
you want to kill me, don't do it. I hate that you want to kill
me, but don't do it at least. That'd be worse for me. But I'm
talking about when it comes to a right relationship with God.
When it comes to salvation, in the sight of God, the sinful
thought is just as bad as the sinful action. Can you grab hold
of that? Because the Pharisees couldn't. I heard a fella say one time,
teaching a Sunday school lesson, he said, it's not a sin to be
tempted, it's a sin to give in to the temptation. And I thought,
when he said that, I said, man, you don't know what you're talking
about. Where does the temptation come
from? And somebody said, well, wasn't Christ
tempted? Yes, but without sin, isn't that what Hebrews 4 tells
us? He was tempted as we are, yet without sin? What does that
mean? when he was on the Mount of Temptation. And here he was up on that mount.
He spent 40 days and nights there without eating a morsel of food. Now think about yourself without
eating for 40 days and nights. How hungry would you be? Oh my,
I'd be starving. Well, Christ was just as hungry
as you and I in his flesh, in his humanity. Here's the difference. I'll guarantee you going through
that process, we would have sinful thoughts in seeking to relieve
that hunger. He had no sinful thoughts in
seeking to relieve his hunger. And that's why when Satan said,
command these stones to be turned into bread, And he said, man
doesn't live by bread alone, but by every word of God. He
was following in obedience to the commands of his father when
he was doing, and he had no sinful thoughts. What those are called,
you know, Christ, he sorrowed, he hungered, he felt pain, but
that's not sinful, that's the infirmities of the flesh, the
weakness of the flesh that we all go through. Our problem is
in the heart. So understand that. Well, it
says in verse 15, then answered Peter and said unto him, declare
unto us this parable. Talking about it's not the parable
that he taught in verse 11, the words there. And Peter really
didn't yet understand that. And the other disciples too,
it says in another version of this. And Jesus said, are you
yet without understanding? Don't you know what I'm talking
about, Peter? Well, let me tell you, he says, he was compassionate
with them. He's been compassionate with
us, hadn't he? In verse 17, he says, do not
ye yet understand that whatsoever entereth at the mouth goeth into
the belly and is cast out into the draft, But those things which
proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart. There you
go. And they defile a man. Sin is
an inner heart problem. It's kind of like a fella told
me one time, he said he went to a religious conference, and
the leader of the conference, the quote spiritual unquote leader,
Told him to go home and remove everything out of your home that'll
cause you to sin. And I told the fellow then, I
said, well, you need to go look in a mirror because you're the
problem. See, that's it, we're the problem.
That's the sinfulness of this world. It's sinful, fallen, spiritually
dead, depraved human beings, and even sinners saved by grace.
We're the problem. It's not our environment. Now
I know there are bad environments that we don't want our children
to grow up in. But those bad environments are
caused by sinful people. You get the people out there,
the environment's fine. You see that? And that's what
he tells. Look at verse 19. For out of
the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications,
thefts, false witness, blasphemies. They come out of the heart. That's
why we need a new heart. That's why we need to be born
again. That's why we need spiritual eyes, spiritual ears, spiritual
understanding. These are the things, verse 20,
that defile a man. But to eat with unwashing hands,
you remember that was the issue prior to this? Because they felt
like that purified them from touching a Gentile and all that.
To eat with unwashing hands defileth not a man. That is the key. Well you all remember, look back
on that page one on verse 17, I'll get those lessons because
I don't want that to go out. But it's what, one, two, three,
four, five, six lines down. I did that one time years ago.
I was supposed to put a not in the sentence and I forgot. Is
that right? It teaches that righteousness
is found in things like, well, wait a minute. No, I'm wrong
on that, aren't I? Because what I'm doing here,
let me just read this. We got a little time. It says,
he says, that defiles the man. This is one of the most profound
truths of God's words in the gospel, that sin is a heart problem.
False religion teaches, okay, I got it. This is okay. I am
human. Yeah, what I'm saying here is
false religion teaches that righteousness is found in things like taste,
not touch, not tandel, not so. Maybe I'll just get up here and
read this thing verbatim. I try not to do that, because
I know y'all can read. But yeah, it's okay, so don't
worry about that, all right?