Good singing, sir. Good hymn. Wonderful message, wonderful
hymn. Thank the Lord. Thank the Lord
for this next man. My, my, we were reminiscing. We were in our early twenties.
We've got to know each other in 40 years, over 40 years. I
love you, John, so much. Vicki, glad you're here. May
the Lord bless you. One thing about good preaching,
when you hear it, it makes you want to preach. It does. It inspires you to preach. It's a great honor. and a great
responsibility to handle the Word of God. Things of life and
death. And I have realized over the
years that I've never preached to a small crowd. Remember when
Elijah asked the Lord to open that young man's eyes? And that
whole hill was full of chariot angels. This room is full of
more than just me and you. The Lord is with us. I mean,
that alone ought to just totally astound us. He's with us. And there's a whole host of the
heavenly host that's with us. And I've learned this, if nobody
agrees with the gospel I'm preaching, they do. They do. There's a crowd that's going
to rejoice. They rejoice. They rejoice. And it's what an honor to be
able to stand and brag on the Lord Jesus Christ one more time. Turn to Matthew 15. Matthew 15. I'm going to look at several
of these verses, but let me just read the first nine verses. Matthew
15, then came to Jesus, scribes and Pharisees, which are of Jerusalem,
saying, Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the
elders? For they wash not their hands
when they eat bread. But he answered and said unto
them, Why do you also transgress the commandment of God by your
traditions? For God commanded, saying, Honor
thy father and mother, and he that curseth father or mother,
let him die the death. But you say, Whosoever shall
say to his father or his mother, it is a gift whatsoever thou
mightest be profited by me, and honor not his father and his
mother, he shall be free. Thus have you made the commandment,
the word of God. You have made the word of God
of none effect by your tradition. You hypocrites. Our Lord was
not afraid to call people what they are. He was not afraid to
tell the truth, the truth speaking the truth. And he said, You hypocrites,
well did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, This people draw nigh
unto me with their mouth, and honor 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. Our Lord here, exposes false religion for what
it is. It's empty, it's vain, as you
can see that in verse 9, but in vain you do worship me. It's vain, it's empty, it's useless. Useless. True worship comes from
the heart. It happens in the heart. Worship
doesn't happen when you get here. It better happen before you get
here, in the heart. It starts in the heart. It's an act of faith. The scripture
said, he that comes to God must believe that he is, that he is
who he is, and that he's a rewarder of them who diligently seek him.
And then true worship is done with understanding. Scripture says the Son of God
has come and given us an understanding. We worship God with understanding. We know what we are doing. We
know the one we are worshipping. We understand what we are doing.
Now, I'm not saying that outward worship has no significance.
It does. I mean, we gather together here.
We gather together here to worship the Lord, to sing His praises,
to read to read his word, but all of these things can be done
properly. And God not be worshipped. And
the Lord not be worshipped. The outside of the cup can be
clean, while the inside is filthy. Filthy. Without the heart, worship
is an abomination to God. Now there in verse 1 it says,
The Pharisees and the scribes came, to the Lord. These are
like the Pharisee and the scribes were like flies at a picnic.
Just pestering. Just pestering. But what they
came to do, they came to find fault with the Lord's disciples.
These are fault finders. You know what, you've met them.
They're fault finders. They listen to a message to find
fault. Not to feed, but to find fault. And they came to find
fault with the Lord and with His disciples. A fault that was
not a fault. A fault that was not a fault.
They made it a fault. By their tradition, they made it a fault. They came to correct. Can you
believe this? They came to correct the Lord concerning His disciples. They came to straighten Him out.
That's what they did. I want to make a note of importance
here. We must be very careful in worship, not to introduce
our tradition in place of the Word of God or alongside of the
Word of God. We never place our tradition
alongside the Word of God or replace the Word of God by our
tradition. The elders set aside, now listen, they set aside God's
command in order to have their tradition. And they asked the Lord, they
said, why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders,
for they wash not their hands when they eat bread? And our
Lord doesn't answer them. You see, He's the Sovereign.
He gives no account of any of His matters. He's the sovereign
here. And what our Lord does, as He
always did so many times throughout the gospel, He asked them a question. The right question. The right question. Why do you set aside the commandment
of God in order to keep a tradition? You set aside the Word of God.
You set it aside. One of the writers I read said
this, What is a tradition compared to a commandment? And what is
an elder compared to God, who gave the commandment? Who gave you the authority to
set aside God's Word? Who gave you the authority to
make amendments? to God's Word. You know, we're
always making amendments to law. The laws, man-made laws, we're
making amendments. God's Word needs no amendment. We make no amendments to the
Word of God. We add nothing to it, we take
nothing from it. We keep it as it is. God gave the command, listen,
God gave the command for children to honor their parents. to help
them in their old age, to speak well of them, to honor them. In fact, when you were reading
over in Ephesians chapter 6, let me read this, it just jumped
out at me. Over in the Old Testament, the
command is given to honor your mother and father. Over here
in Ephesians chapter 6, Paul says, children, obey your parents
in the Lord, for this is right. You know, it's always right to
do right. It's always right to do right. And he says, it's right
to obey your parents. And he says, honor thy, in verse
2, he says, honor thy father and mother, which is the first
commandment with promise, that it may be well with thee and
thou mayest live long on the earth. Paul, even over here in
Ephesians, Paul says, honor your mother and your father. Show
respect to them. And these elders here, they set
that aside. And the reason they set it aside
is that they could make more money for the temple for themselves. And what they did, they come
up with a way to do this. They come up with a way to raise
money. They said, just say that the gift that would have been
profitable to you, mom and dad, I have dedicated to God. Now
that sounds, man does that sound, that sounds so holy and spiritual
and that just sounds so right. I've dedicated this to God. Did
you get it dedicated? You don't object to God? You going to help them with anything
that's left out of that? What they've done, they came
up with a way to raise money for themselves and in doing so,
they said, they took the Word of God and set it aside. They
set aside the Word of God. We can never nullify God's Word
by man-made laws and rights. God's Word is God's Word. It
starts to be tampered with. By tradition, they made the commandment
of God, He said, of non-effect. They made it as nothing. They
made it as empty. They made it meaningless. Meaningless. Not to care for
mother and father? You know, that was punishable
by death. Not to honor mother and father. That's over in Exodus
21, 17. That's how serious it was. And they just set that aside.
But the Lord uses the Word in verse 7 to reveal their true
character. He says, where did Isaiah write
of you? Now, they knew the writings of
Isaiah. And he's saying, when he quotes
Isaiah and he applies it to them, it makes them mad. You know,
it makes lost men and women mad when truth is applied. When you
apply truth, it's upsetting. John said to Herod, it's not
right for you to have your brother's wife. Well, that made Herodias
mad. And she never got over it. When
she got the opportunity, she wanted his head. What did he
do? He told the truth. He told the
truth. Truth makes men mad. It makes
them mad. And he called them what they
are. He said, you're hypocrites. You're hypocrites. You know,
back in the ancient Greek days, And they would have the theater.
And they would put on plays and shows, like we would watch on
TV. And back then they didn't call
them actors. We called them actors. You know
what they were called, the actors back then? Hypocrites. They were
called hypocrites. They're playing parts that they're
not. They're pretending to be something. That's what an actor
is. An actor is playing a part that's not him or her. And he
says, you're a hypocrite. You're playing a part that you're
not. Your heart's not in this. You're
pretending. It's all out of a show. No heart
conviction of sin. No real heart faith in Christ.
It's just going through the motion. Inside, you're dead. You're full
of dead men's bones. Listen. Salvation. Salvation is Christ enthroned
in the heart. And that's no pretense. That's
no pretense. When God saves a sinner, that
sinner will never be the same. You'll never talk the same, think
the same, live the same, love the same. There's a real difference
made. Go over and read 1 Thessalonians
chapter 1. When the gospel came to them in power, they forsook
their idols, they followed the apostles and the Lord, and they
became examples. They became examples. Now you
can't meet God and not be different. God cannot do a work in you and
it not make a real difference. These men were just pretenders.
They didn't love God. There was no heart worship of
God. And the Lord exposes them. He exposes them. He tells them
that their worship is vain, it's empty, it's nothing to it. He says, you draw nines with
your lips, but your heart, he said, is far from me. David said, Lord, give me a clean
heart and a right spirit. Give me a heart to love you with.
Give me a heart to praise you with. Give me a heart a right
heart to love and to worship and to be obsessed with Jesus
Christ. Because I tell you this, where
your treasure is, your heart is. And if God has made Jesus
Christ your treasure and given you a heart for Him, that's you. He's got you. He's got you. If
He has your heart, He's got you. Solomon said in Proverbs, Son,
give me thine heart, for out of it are the issues of life.
You know, we protect this body, don't
we? We dress it up. We really try
to take care of our body. We try to protect the heart. And the best way to do that is
to sit here under the gospel. It's to read the Word of God.
It's to seek the Lord. Be more concerned with your heart
than anything else about you. I want a heart right with God. I want a heart right with God. I don't care whatever else I
may have or not have. Whatever may come my way, whatever.
Lord, give me a heart right with You. That's what I want. A heart that's just absolutely
in love with Jesus Christ. Peter, do you believe me? You
didn't ask that, did you? He said, do you love me? That's
a heart issue. That's a heart issue. Peter,
if you love me, feed my sheep. Feed them I love. Feed them I
love. Salvation is an inward work of
God in the heart. That's where it starts. It starts
in the heart. Now verse 10, the Lord passes
by the learned and He calls a multitude of sinners. A multitude. I'm glad He did that. I can fit
in here. I can fit in here. He called
a multitude of sinners to himself. Because those who were so learned,
they couldn't learn anymore. You can't teach a know-it-all.
You can't teach a know-it-all. They know it all. Before you
get two sentences out, they're correcting you. So he called the multitude to
him. And he gives the real problem here. Now, listen, now he's going
to deal with the real problem. The real problem here, listen,
is not dirty hands. It's a dirty heart. Here's the
real problem. Let's get to the root of the
problem. You know, I went to the doctor the other day. and
I had some blood work done, and I have high cholesterol. Well,
he calls it high, 224. And he wants to put me on some
medicine. That's how man treats it. He
treats the symptoms. He didn't tell me the truth. Your lifestyle, your eating habits,
you're overweight. You need to exercise. He's trying
to be nice to me. Don't be nice to me. This could
be my life here. I said, no, I'm not going to
do that. I know what the problem is. Our Lord never treated symptoms. He never treated symptoms. He
treated the root of the problem. And the root of the problem is
the heart. I was born with a dirty heart. I was born with heart
problems. And I can wash my hands, and
wash them, and wash them, and wash them, and I can't cleanse
my heart. I can wash my hands never so
clean, and I can't have a right thought of God. It's not going
to enable me to worship God having clean hands this morning. Now,
if you're going to dip your hands in a potato chip bowl with John's,
go ahead and wash your hands, Because I'm going to get mine
there too. But it's not going to affect the heart. It's not going to have anything
to do with my heart. It's a heart issue. And our Lord is going to deal
with the real problem. And the real problem is the heart. Look here, it says here in verse
11. Not that which goes into the
mouth defiles a man, but that which comes out of the mouth.
This defiles a... It's not what I eat or drink. We can't bottle sin. Sin's not
in a can. You think at Lowe's you don't
take a drink of alcohol, you're fine, you're not sinning at all. You've got a dirty heart. I don't care if you drink water
all day. You can drink the purest water on this earth. And your
heart's still filthy. It's not what I put into my mouth. It's what comes out of this heart.
It's what's in here. You know, I told someone one
time that I had some real problems. But they keep denying the problems. I said, you know, 90% of the
cure is realizing you have one. If you just recognize you've
got a problem and own up to it, That's 90% of the battle, right
there. By nature, we want to elude everything. We don't want to deal with what
we really are. We're a bunch of ungodly, wretched
people. Now, I know that's not going
to go across in this generation, but that's alright. Truth is
truth. Would you rather I stand here
and lie to you or tell you the truth? Lord, tell me the truth. Send me some. My pastor told
me the truth for years and years. Tell me
the truth. Don't tell me I'm good looking
when I'm not. Don't tell me a suit fits me
when it doesn't. Don't tell me I don't need to
lose weight when I do. It's a lie. I don't want to lie. Tell me the truth. There was
a time, there was a time, I would rather you just tell me I look
good and don't say no more else. You know, there was a time I
just said, you tell me this suit does look good on me. Even if
it looked terrible. But not now. Every believer here
wants the truth. Tell me the truth. No matter
how much it hurts. God sent a Nathan. This says,
thou art a man. Thou art a man. Send a Nathan
that tells the prophet, the prophet Nathan, that tells David, the
king, King David. You know, this is the king, you
might want to be a little careful. John, you might want to be a
little, stand before Herod, you might want to change it up a
little bit. Paul, stand before Felix, you know, you might want
to change a little bit. Paul reasoned of righteousness,
judgment, and temperance. No, we don't change the message
to fit the crowd. We preach the gospel. We preach
the truth. And that's how you feed the sheep.
Feed the sheep with the truth. He said here, it's not that which
goes into man, it goes into the man that follows it, that which
comes out. Then his disciples, then came his disciples and said
unto him, Do you know you made the Pharisees mad? Do you know
you offended them? Listen, they were born offended.
They live offended and they're going to die offended. The disciples, they were still
just infants. They were just infants. Don't you know you've
made them mad? Now they're upset. I tell you what, the gospel comes.
When it comes in power, it's going to either make us mad,
sad, or glad. It's going to do one or the other. But he answered and said, he
didn't even... It was like when your children
ask you something stupid, you just got to let it go. You just let it go. He just says,
every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted, it'll
be rooted up. It'll be rooted up. You know
how God roots up these plants? By truth. They're exposed by
truth. And I heard my pastor say, you
know, the best way to tell a crooked stick is lay a straight one down
beside it. Just keep laying that straight from now. And when God
gives eyes to see, you'll see the crooked one. But until then, you won't see
it. You won't see it. And they were offended, he
said. Truth offends liars. I mean, it always will. And then he says here, And this
is something you don't want God ever to say. Verse 14. Leave them alone. I'm telling
you, you don't want God to leave you alone. Trouble me. Trouble me. Don't leave me to
myself. Lord, don't leave me alone. Ephraim,
he's joined to his idols. Leave them alone. And there is a time, there's
a time to leave them alone. There's a time. God knows the
time, but there's a time to leave them alone. Don't court their
approval. Don't court the approval of men. No matter what station in life
they hold, Don't court their approval. You know, there's a point where
tolerance becomes approval, where tolerance becomes acceptance.
Now, I know we have to tolerate things. You know, we have things
about each other we need to tolerate. But there is a point where we
tolerate something and it becomes approval. And here he says, all right,
now leave them alone. Don't seek their approval. Let them be offended. Let them
be offended. And he said, if the blind leads
the blind, they both fall in the ditch. They both fall into
the ditch of lies. They both fall into the same
ditch of error. If you're going to be careful who you follow,
thank God, I mean, From your heart, thank God, He's given
you a man. And I mean this from the bottom
of my heart. He's given you a man that's telling
you the truth. You have the truth. He's not
lying to you. If a blind man follows a blind
man, both of them end up in the same place. Be careful who you
follow. The truth matters. But here's the truth of the matter.
In verses 15 and 20, and I'll wind this up. Nothing that I eat. You remember when Peter saw the
Lord let that sheep down and had all those different animals
on it, clean and unclean. Peter said, no, Lord, I've never
eaten anything unclean. He said, don't you call that
clean, which I've cleaned. And here, nothing that I eat
that God has given me, even if I eat it with dirty, grimy hands,
I mean, if I had to clean the sewer and then eat, had no place
to wash my hands, it never touches my heart. It never defiles my
soul. My soul is never defiled by what
comes into me, but what comes out of me. That's who I am. As a man thinketh in his heart,
so is he. You know, it's not who I think
I am, it's what's in my heart. That's who I am. That's who I
am. Food goes into the stomach, it
goes out, it doesn't touch my soul, there's no spiritual significance
in it whatsoever. I mean, they replaced the commandment
of God of taking care of mother and father with this commandment. That which defiles a man, in
verse 19, is what is in his heart. Evil thoughts, murders, adulteries. That's what defiles a man. You know what this shows me? When I read this, and I see the heart I was born
with, I see my need of the Lord Jesus Christ giving me a new
heart. I see my need of a new birth.
I see my need of a new creation. I see my need of Christ. Because I was born with a dirty
heart. Dirty, filthy heart. This shows the necessity of the
atonement. What can wash away my sins? All the weeping, all the crying,
all the mourning will not put away one sin. If God gives you repentance,
He will give you godly sorrow. You will have godly sorrow over
your sins, over yourself, over your wretchedness, but that doesn't
put it away. That does not put it away. There's
only one thing that can put away my sins, the blood of Jesus Christ
that was shed for them. You know what gives me great
comfort when I ask God to forgive me of my sins? I realize that
the very sins I'm asking forgiveness for, His blood was drawn out
for. His blood was shed for. The penalty
has already been taken out on Him. God is able to forgive me
of my sins through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. All
of them. All of them. Now, if you really
don't know what sin is, that really doesn't mean anything
to you. But if God has given you some understanding of the
filth and evil and wretchedness of sin, and I mean just some
understanding, we just have a glimmer. We'll never see it like God sees
it. We can't. We can't. People think, why is hell eternal? Why is punishment forever and
ever and ever? If you understood sin, you would
know that. If you really could comprehend sin and the evil of
it, you'd know that you can't satisfy God's justice. But only He can do that. And
He did that. He did that. Our only hope is
for Jesus Christ to save us from our sins, wash us in His blood,
robe us in His righteousness, and give us a new heart. A heart
to love Him with. He can only do that. The Lord
Jesus Christ, and I close with this, He only can present us
faultless, faultless before His throne. You know, Job said, though
I wash myself never so clean, my own clothes will plunge me
in the ditch. But if the Lord washes me clean, I'm clean, David. I'm whiter than snow. Whiter
than snow. Salvation is heart work. It's God doing business in the
heart. It is a heart right with God. That's not a tradition. That's a work of God. That's
a work of God. Lord, give me a clean heart and
a right spirit. Aren't you thankful? Thankful for that message, these
messages and these men. Aren't you thankful? The greatest gift God can give
a people is a true preacher of the gospel. Scripture says, let the righteous
smite me. It will be a kindness. It won't
break my head. It won't break my heart. I need my heart broken. Faith for the wounds of a friend.
We need that. That was a blessing. Both those
messages. I'm not adding, I hate when men
stand up and add to a message. I'm not doing that. I'm confirming
what you just heard and confirming these men as being the true messenger. Haggai and Zechariah were two
prophets that were living at the time the wall was being built.
And Zerubbabel, it says, as they were building the wall, the prophets
were helping them. They were able to build because
the Lord through the prophets gave them the oppressive promises.
Those prophets were right there building the wall, telling them
the whole time, this wall is going up. And right there they
are. Two present day prophets, Haggai
and Zechariah. They are. If you want to hear
the word from God, it's going to be through a man. That's just
a man, that's just an old machinist, that's just an old cabinet maker.
No, God sent these men. How do I know? Because of what
I just heard. I heard the truth. In no uncertain
terms. I'm thankful for you men. Thankful
the Lord sent you. Did we pick the right preachers
or what? I'm thankful. 474. Let's stand and sing this closing
hymn. 474. Only a syllable. 474. Not have I gotten, but what I've
received, Great has bestowed it since I have believed. Boasting excluded, pride I have
faced, I'm only a sinner saved by grace. Only a sinner saved
by grace Only a sinner saved by grace This is my story to
God be the glory I'm only a sinner saved by grace Once I was foolish
and sin ruled my heart, causing my footsteps from God to depart. Jesus has found me happy, my
case, I now am a sinner saved by grace. Only a sinner saved
by grace. Only a sinner saved by grace. This is my story to God be the
glory. I'm only a sinner saved by grace. Dear son of Bailey, no merit
had I. Mercy has saved me, for else
I must die. Sin has alarmed me, fearing God's
grace. But now I'm a sinner, saved by
grace. Only a sinner saved by grace. Only a sinner saved by grace. This is my story, to God be the
glory. I'm only a sinner saved by grace. Suffer a sinner whose heart overflows,
Loving his neighbor to tell what he knows. What more to tell it? Would I embrace it? I'm only a sinner saved by grace. Only a sinner saved by grace. Only a sinner Saved by grace,
this is my story, to God be the glory, I'm only a sinner saved
by grace. so