The following message was delivered
on Sunday evening, March 12, 1995, at the Trinity Baptist
Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now those of you who regularly
attend upon the ministry here are aware that we've just completed
an 18 message and two Sunday school discussion periods added
to those messages, a series on the subject of Christian liberty,
And in this Lord's Day of Transition, before launching into new series
of studies in the Word of God, I have sought to know what might
be an appropriate word for the morning and evening ministry,
and over the years have come to the conviction that on such
occasions one can never be wrong in preaching on those very fundamental
and central issues of basic saving gospel truth. And so this morning
we consider together from the 18th chapter of Luke our Lord's
parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee seeking to open
up the passage under the extended imagery of our Lord giving us
a guided tour through a portrait gallery in which we see the smug,
self-sufficient Pharisee in contrast to the penitent, broken-hearted
publican. Now tonight I'd ask you to turn
with me to the 15th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, and while
our attention will be focused primarily upon one verse in this
passage, It is important that we see the setting in which the
Lord spoke these words, and so I shall read in your hearing
Matthew chapter 15 verses 1 through 20. Matthew chapter 15 and verse
1. Then there come to Jesus from
Jerusalem Pharisees and scribes, saying, Why do your disciples
transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash
their hands when they eat bread. And he answered and said unto
them, Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because
of your tradition? For God said, honor your father
and your mother and he that speaks evil of father or mother let
him die the death but you say whosoever shall say to his father
or mother that wherewith you might have been profited by me
is given to God he shall not honor his father and you have
made void the word of God because of your tradition you hypocrites
Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, This people honors me
with their lips, but their heart is far from me. But in vain do
they worship me, teaching as their doctrines the precepts
of men. And he called to him the multitude,
and said unto them, Hear and understand, Not that which enters
into the mouth defiles the man, but that which proceeds out of
the mouth, this defiles the man. Then came the disciples and said
unto him, Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when
they heard this saying? And he answered and said, Every
plant which my heavenly Father planted not, shall be rooted
up let them alone they are blind guides and if the blind guide
the blind both shall fall into a pit and Peter answered and
said unto him declare unto us the parable and he said are you
also even yet without understanding Don't you perceive that whatsoever
goes into the mouth passes into the belly and is cast out into
the draft? But the things which proceed
out of the mouth come forth out of the heart, and they defile
the man. For out of the heart come forth
evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness,
railings. These are the things which defile
the man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man. Now let us again seek God's face
in prayer and ask the help of the Holy Spirit as we study the
Word of God together. Our Father, we thank you for
the record of this encounter of our Lord Jesus with the religious
leaders of his day and his interaction with the disciples concerning
the verbal exchange between them. And we pray that the same Holy
Spirit who moved the biblical penman to write these words would
be present even now to illuminate our minds to help the preacher
to speak your words with accuracy and in the power of the Spirit,
and to help your people to attend with carefulness and with discernment
and teachableness, and that together we may be conscious that you
are present, speaking to us in all the livingness of your Word. Hear our cry, bind the powers
of darkness that wicked one and the host of hell that would seek
even while we attempt to attend to the word to distract our minds
to the passing concerns of this life. Oh God help us that your
word may run and have free course and be glorified in this place
and in every place where it is truly preached this night. We
ask in Jesus name. Amen. Now if you were paying attention
to the reading of these first 20 verses of Matthew chapter
15, you will have immediately recognized that it is the record
of one of the many encounters which our Lord Jesus had with
the scribes and with the Pharisees. And as most of you are well aware,
the Pharisees and the scribes were the leaders of the popular
religious system which dominated Jewish life in the days of our
Lord. And this is why throughout the
gospel records you find them popping up here, there, and everywhere. The scribes and the Pharisees
and at other times some who are called the doctors of the law. However, while supposedly basing
their beliefs and practices squarely upon the Old Testament Scriptures,
they had effectively negated the practical impact of the Word
of God and had done so by means of their man-made traditions. In verse 3, Jesus said to them,
you transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition. And then he gave them a clear
example of how they were actually transgressing the fifth commandment
by a tradition which gave them a very clever bypass around the
demands of the fifth commandment as those demands touched their
purse strings. But not only does he accuse them
in verse 3 of transgressing the Word of God because of their
traditions, in verse 6 he says that their traditions were actually
nullifying the Word of God. He shall not honor his father,
verse 6b, and you have made void the Word of God because of your
traditions. So they were not only transgressing
clear commandments of God in pursuit of their man-made traditions,
they were actually making the Word of God null and void. They were neutralizing it by
their traditions. Therefore, because our Lord was
fulfilling the Scriptures and was constantly teaching the true
intention of the Scriptures, was constantly stripping away
all of the barnacles and all of the veneer which they had
laid over the Word of God by their traditions, our Lord was
in constant conflict with the scribes and with the Pharisees. Now in the midst of one of these
recorded encounters, these recorded conflicts, he had publicly exposed
their error. For verse 10 said, he called
unto him the multitudes, and said unto them, Hear and understand. And in a very public manner,
he exposes the principle that lies behind this nonsense of
the Pharisees' preoccupation with external washing of hands
and taking the disciples to task because they didn't keep their
hand-washing tradition, while all the while they are openly
violating clear moral precepts of the Word of God. and having
openly exposed them, the disciples come to Jesus and tell him in
verse 12, then came the disciples and said, don't you know that
the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying? Lord,
aren't you aware that this is going to heighten the tension
between you and the official guides and rulers of the religious
life of Israel? You go on with this kind of public
showing them for what they really are and this is going to heighten
and intensify the conflict and it is to that concern of the
disciples that Jesus be aware that he had offended the scribes
and Pharisees by publicly exposing them, that Jesus answers in the
words of verse 13, but he answered and said, Every plant, or more
literally, every planting which my heavenly Father planted not,
shall be rooted up. And it is that text to which
I want to direct your attention tonight, but in its setting,
so that as we handle the text, and as we seek to make application
to it, we will see the peculiar relevance of these words being
spoken in that particular setting. This is one of those statements
that our Lord could have spoken in any number of settings using
this imagery, and could have said, every plant which my heavenly
Father has not planted shall be rooted up. But it is spoken
in a unique setting, and it brings to it then no little matter of
insight as we keep before us that setting. But as I attempt
to open up the text in your hearing, I want you to notice with me
first of all what I'm calling the imagery employed. The imagery employed. Our Lord is here using verbal
imagery. He is seeking with words to paint
a picture upon the minds of his disciples. And in this passage,
Jesus is using the extended metaphor that is a figure of speech in
which something is called something else without using the word like. When we say of someone who played
very fervently in a game that he played like a tiger, that's
a simile. If we say he was a tiger in that
game, that's a metaphor. We don't use the word like. We
say he was a tiger. We don't mean that he suddenly
turned into this animal with four legs and a long tail. But
we are dropping the word like. We are not using a simile. We're
using a metaphor. And that's what our Lord is doing
here. He is using an extended metaphor
and it has in it two dominant factors. God the father and every
true child of God God the father look at the passage but he answered
and said every planting which my heavenly father planted not
here the father is likened to a domestic gardener or horticulturalist
One who personally plants plants of his choosing, grows plants
of his own choosing in his own arrangement, God the Father is
likened to a domestic gardener. And then the second part of this
imagery, this extended metaphor, is every true child of God is
likened to a planting of God in his own personal garden. Every planting which my heavenly
Father has not planted shall be utterly rooted out, taken
out of his garden. So the second part of the imagery
is that the father who is the domestic gardener or horticulturalist
is planting a garden and in that garden every plant of his hands
is a true child of God. A possessor of true saving heart
religion. And that imagery is picked up
by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 3. You may want to turn
there for a moment. The Apostle Paul here, in dealing
with the problem of divisions in the church at Corinth over
the various servants of God who had ministered among them, is
trying to sort out their mistaken concepts about the ministry,
and in so doing, he uses imagery from the farm, from the garden. We read in verse 5 of 1 Corinthians
3, What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Ministers through
whom you believed, and each as the Lord gave to him. I planted
Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither
is he that planteth anything, neither he that waters, but God
who gives the increase. Now he that plants and he that
waters are one, but each shall receive his own reward according
to his own labor, for we are God's fellow workers, you are
God's husbandry, literally, you are God's tilled land. And then he uses another imagery,
you are God's building. But here he says, you the people
of God, who are the fruit of the saving work of God through
the various servants of God and their labors, you are true plants
in God's tilled land. You are God's garden of grace. So the imagery employed in the
passage then is the imagery that will become very real to many
of you in a few months time when you plow up that patch of your
backyard where you have your vegetable garden And what is
placed in the ground and what is weeded and what is trimmed
and what is nourished with fertilizer from which you'll get your various
vegetables is a pilled plot of land. And anyone who knows anything
about that will know that that thing just didn't spring up of
its own. with all of the various vegetables
in their particular rows and each plant so many inches or
feet apart and the tomatoes staked and cut back and trained for
maximum fruit bearing. It's that imagery of a plot of
ground into which plants have been placed that did not simply
grow wild but were planted by an intelligent, caring gardener. So that's the imagery employed
by our Lord when he said, in response to the concern of the
disciples, every planting which my heavenly Father has not planted
shall be rooted up. That's the imagery employed. But now notice, secondly, the
assumption expressed. There is an assumption of our
Lord expressed in this passage. And that assumption is this,
that there will be plants found in the garden of the visible
community of his people who are not the result of his work of
planting. Do you see that in the text?
Every planting which my Heavenly Father has not planted shall
be rooted up. And it's a vigorous word in the
Greek. It shall be utterly torn out
of the ground. But the assumption is that it's
there amongst His plantings. Every plant which my Heavenly
Father has not planted shall be rooted up. The assumption
expressed is that in the garden of the visible community of his
people will be those who are not the result of his planting. There will be those who, like
the Pharisees, have earned the status of being considered religious
people, who are very meticulous about their religious rituals,
who practice many religious ceremonies, even more than those required
by God. And we had a little picture of
that when we looked at that first portrait in Luke 18. God nowhere
required of his people that they fast twice in the week. That
was a tradition of theirs. God had required the annual fast
and occasionally to the prophets in a time of crisis called the
nation, to seasons of fasting and humiliation, but they went
even beyond what God required in what we would call meticulous
and even self-denying religious rituals. there will be those
who say their prayers, who give their tithe of mint and anise
in common of all that they possess. But the assumption of our Lord
is that not every plant that is found in His garden is a plant
of His own working, and a plant that he himself has placed there. Every planting which my heavenly
Father planted not shall be rooted up." So we've considered briefly
the imagery employed. Secondly, the assumption expressed. Now thirdly, note the prophecy
made. The prophecy made. Every plant
which my heavenly Father did not plant shall, shall, shall
be rooted up. Every planting which my Father
did not plant shall be rooted up. Now what does that prophecy
mean? It means that God who knows each
of his plants in his garden and who knows every plant that is
in the garden of his visible people that is not a true planting
will himself take the initiative utterly to tear it up from the
roots There is not a strict parallel,
but there are certainly overtones of parallel in that which our
Lord teaches in Matthew 13 about letting wheat and tares grow
until the day of harvest. There our Lord clearly says the
field is the world and as long as the world exists alongside
of God's true wheat will be this darnel, this false wheat that
looks so much like real wheat. And that's not talking about
the church. It says the field is the world,
but the point is, in the world there are those who will bear
a great resemblance to his people, who will have religious profession
and religious activity and indulge in religious rituals and ceremonies,
but they are not true wheat. And at the end of the age, the
Lord Jesus said, that which is the tears shall be taken out
of his kingdom and gathered into bundles and cast into the fire
and shall be burnt. So that the prophecy made is
that a time is coming. when every plant not planted
by the Father shall be rooted up. It shall be taken out from
the company of His true plants. It shall be taken away from the
company of His true plants. Every single plant which my Heavenly
Father planted not shall be rooted. up. Now in the light of the teaching
of this verse, briefly opened up under those headings of the
imagery employed, the assumption expressed, and the prophecy made,
do you see the very simple question that I want to press upon the
conscience of each one of you sitting here tonight? I think
you can anticipate it. Those of you who sit under this
ministry and know the way The message often unfolds. You can
anticipate it. The one simple, direct, but all-important
question I want to ask you is this. Are you God's planting? That's it. Are you a plant of
God's planting? Is your presence among his visible
people the fruit of that which only God can do? Are you the product of what the
scripture calls his workmanship created anew in Christ Jesus? Are you God's planting? Are you a man, a woman, a boy
or girl for whom there is no rational explanation about what
makes you tick from the time you get up in the morning till
the time you go to bed in the overall patterns of your life,
but that Almighty God has made you a planting of His grace in
the garden of His true people? Now that's a very simple question.
It doesn't have a lot of big words in it. It doesn't have
a lot of lofty philosophical concepts in it. But you see,
it is a question of supreme importance because our text says, every
planting which my Father has not planted shall be rooted up. And if you are not God's planting,
you are marked to be plucked up and rooted out and cast off
by this very God. You see, Pastor Martin, I can
see the importance of the question in the light of the context and
in the light of the words of our Lord Jesus. How can I know
if I'm God's planting? How can I know if I am His workmanship? Well, in answer to that question,
it would be relatively simple to take what we call the analogy
of Scripture, that is the overall teaching of Scripture, and bring
from a number of passages some of those major marks of a true
work of God's grace. When Paul says, one sowed, another
watered, God gave the increase, what are the evidences when God
gives the increase and brings forth a true plan of His own
working? And we could do that, and that
would be a legitimate way to answer the question. But I want
to answer the question out of the context of this very passage. For remember, our Lord said these
words with peculiar reference to the scribes and to the Pharisees. And you will notice that in conjunction
with this particular encounter with the scribes and Pharisees,
the great issue is the issue of whether or not God is more
concerned with the outside than with the inside. With the washing
of the hands, or the washing of the heart. Do you see how
the passage is bounded by that emphasis? Look at it again. The
whole incident began, verse 1, when there came to Jesus from
Jerusalem Pharisees and scribes saying, why do your disciples
transgress the tradition of the elders And then they get very
specific. They wash not their hands when
they eat bread. You see, their great concern
was these external washings which would render their devotees,
in their eyes, clean. set apart unto God, undefiled. And when Jesus' disciples did
not go through all of their prescribed rituals of external washing,
they were deeply concerned. And our Lord begins to address
them by, first of all, saying, as we've already seen, why do
you transgress God's commandment because of your tradition? Why
do you make void the Word of God by your tradition? But notice
what He hones in on again in verse 10. And He called to him
the multitude and said unto them, Listen and understand. Not that
which enters into the mouth defiles the man, If someone has failed
to keep all of the ceremonial washing rules and regulations
of the scribes and Pharisees and picks up a piece of food
with a hand that the Pharisees say it's unclean, it's undefiled,
it hasn't undergone all the ritual washings that we prescribe. Jesus
said such a man taking a piece of food with such a hand and
putting it in his mouth, that doesn't defile him. He cannot
become morally defiled by touching a piece of food and ingesting
a piece of food that has failed to undergo all of the rituals
of Pharisaic washing. Don't you understand, he says? Not that which enters into the
mouth defiles the man, but that which proceeds out of the mouth,
this defiles the man. And after the disciples say,
don't you know they're offended? Then our text, Jesus says in
verse 14, let them alone, they are blind guides. If the blind
guide the blind, both fall into the pit. And then, apparently,
Peter and the other disciples draw aside with our Lord alone,
and Peter says, Declare to us the parable. You're speaking
in parabolic language. We're not quite clear what you're
saying. To which the Lord answers, Are
you even yet without understanding? Don't you perceive that whatever
goes into the mouth, here's that piece of food again. There it
was on the table. Reaching out for it is a hand
that maybe only went through two instead of five of the stages
of ceremonial washing. It takes the food. puts it in
the mouth. What happens to it? He says,
don't you understand? Whatever passes into the mouth
goes down into the digestive system and goes under the normal
processes of absorption and elimination. It's done nothing in that whole
process to touch the moral fiber of man. But the things which
proceed out of the mouth come out of the heart, for out of
the heart come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications,
thefts, false witness, railings. These are the things which defile
the man But, and now notice it brings us right back to the issue
addressed in the opening verses, but to eat with unwashing hands
defiles not the man. In the context in which our Lord
says, every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted shall
be rooted up, what is the great emphasis of our Lord on the mark
of a planting of the Father's work. It is a man, a woman, a
boy, or girl who has come to understand that true and saving
religion is fundamentally an issue of the heart. That's it. You're waiting for something
profound? Sorry to disappoint you, but that's it. That's it. In the context, that's it! That true and saving religion,
those who are the Father's planting, have come to know and understand
and experience that the essence of true and saving religion is
a matter of the heart. It is first of all As we saw
on the parallel way this morning, it is coming to understand that
my deepest problem is a heart problem, for it is the heart
that is the sinkhole, the cesspool of my sin, the artesian well
that defiles me. For out of the heart come forth
evil thoughts. When you have an evil thought,
whether that evil thought is of lust, of envy, of bitterness,
retaliation, Out of the evil, out of the heart proceed murders,
that unbridled animosity that will eventually raise the knife
or pull the trigger, adulteries, violations of the sanctity of
the marital covenant. fornication, any form of sexual
impurity, be it lustful thoughts, lustful glances, dabbling in
pornographic literature, whether it is any form of incestual contact
between a father and his daughters or siblings, whatever it is,
that's thinking and desiring and taking that which is another.
bearing false witness, whether under oath or not under oath,
lying, doing something other than telling the truth, the whole
truth, nothing but the truth, when I'm giving the impression
that that's what I'm doing, railings, abusive, negative, hypercritical
speech. These are the things which defile
the man. You see, all of the Father's
plantings in the garden of his grace have been brought to understand
that true and saving religion is fundamentally an issue of
the heart. And the first way they learn
that is when God gives them a little bit of a sight of their own heart. And they begin to understand
that these Pharisees never did understand that defilement before
God is not an issue that can be addressed by multiplying ceremonial
washings and religious rituals, but that somehow the very power
of God must touch that artesian well, that sinkhole, that cesspool
of iniquity called the human heart. They come to understand
that that's the seat and the root of their problem. Have you
come to understand that? that what you do in violation
of the law of God is a revelation of what you are and what you
are is essentially what you are constituted in that heart which
the scripture says is deceitful above all things and desperately
wicked. What is the plant of God's planting? It is that man, woman, boy or
girl who has come to understand that true and saving religion
is fundamentally an issue of the heart, and that fundamental
to that understanding is the realization that my sin has its
seat in my own heart. not in society, not in the actions
of my mother and father, not in the influence of my peers,
not in any other source but my own heart. Something that they
did not understand. In the context, the second aspect
of true and saving religion is that there is spiritual sight
imparted with respect to spiritual realities. Verse 14, let them
alone. They are blind guides. What a graphic image. Someone
comes along and says, for a few shekels, I'll be your guide through
Jerusalem. And you say, what's your qualification
to be my guide? He says, I'm a blind man. You'd
laugh him to scorn and say, no, thank you. I want a guide who
can truly guide me in the places I should and should not go. A
blind man guiding others, both fall into the ditch. And in this
setting, our Lord says, one of the marks of those who are not
is planting. They're not only ignorant of
the great principle that the heart is the seat of all safe
in religion, It is there that God's work of grace takes place,
giving us a sight of what we are, of what we are capable of,
and that what we do flows out of what we are, and that what
we need is a, what we desperately need is a change that touches
not just the externals, but touches the fountain of our moral actions,
namely the human heart, but also Those plants that are of the
Father's planting are those who have been given spiritual sight,
to see spiritual realities for what they are. 1 Corinthians
2.14 says, The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit
of God, for they are foolishness unto him. Neither can he know
them, because they are spiritually discerned. He has no faculty
to discern them. He cannot know them. 2 Corinthians 4, 4, in whom the
God of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe
not, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ should
dawn upon them. The God of this world hath blinded
the minds. Jesus said, let them alone, they
are blind guides. These plantings that are not
of my Father's planting, they are spiritually blind. And how
was their blindness manifested? Their blindness was manifested
in this setting in two very predominant ways. First of all, they didn't
have a clue of the true meaning of the law of God. They were able to take God's
commandment, thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother, and
so trifle with it that they could walk by the home of an indigent
starving, destitute mother or father, on their way to the temple,
and take the money they should have used to care for that mother
or father, and give it to God, if they did indeed give it. Call
it Corban, dedicated to God. Come back to pay a visit to mom
and dad, and say, sorry things are so rough, but what I had
hoped to give to you, I have dedicated to God. and thereby
exempted themselves from the fifth commandment. You say they
were blind to the true intent of God's law, the spiritual demands
of God's law, and one of the marks of those plantings that
are God's plantings is by the Spirit. He gives them not only
to understand that their basic problem is a heart problem, but
He gives them some spiritual perception of the demands and
meaning of His holy law, that that law touches the very springs
of desire that law touches attitudes and motives and thoughts and
intentions of the heart just read the last half of Matthew
chapter 5 when Jesus strips away all of the pharisaic scribal
crust around the law and says you have heard that it was said
that is by the scribes and the pharisees but I say unto you
here is the true meaning of the law And if you are a planting
of God somewhere along the line, in differing ways and with differing
intensity, God gives to every one of his plantings not only
the knowledge that their basic problem is a heart problem, but
their problem is to be defined in terms of what they are and
are not. in the presence of the true intention
of God's holy law, for the scripture says, by the law comes the knowledge
of sin. Paul said, I had not known sin
except the law said, thou shalt not covet. And when the Holy
Ghost took that 10th commandment in hand and began to burrow into
the heart of this proud Pharisee, and he realized, here is the
commandment that doesn't touch what I do with my hands and where
I go with my feet and what I say with my mouth. There was nothing
in all of this Pharisaic tradition that touched the deep inner springs
of his heart. And when the Holy Spirit began
to show him the true intention of that tenth commandment, he
found no refuge in all of his pharisaic activities and endeavors. In all of his pharisaic religion
there was no refuge. He saw himself exposed and condemned
by the law of God and he said, the law which was to be unto
life I found to be unto death. The commandment came and sin
revived and I died. When God gives spiritual eyes
to those who are his planting, he gives them some perception
of the true meaning of his law. and then he will always give
them some true perception of the proper identity of Jesus
of Nazareth. Those whose eyes are opened will
see in Jesus of Nazareth, even as these disciples did and their
sight was gradually unfolding, but already They had come to
see that he was one worthy of being obeyed when he said to
Peter and Andrew and James and John, leave your nets and follow
me. They had come into loving attachment
of faith and obedience to the Lord Jesus. Though there was
much ignorance, we see it right in this passage, and the Lord
even shows an element of holy disappointment. Verse 16, Are
you even yet without understanding? Yet he's not casting them off,
because these are those who have seen in him not an object with
which they desire to debate, let alone to criticize. You see,
the scribes and the Pharisees, they were prepared in their brassy
spiritual cheekiness to take on the Lord Jesus anywhere and
everywhere. Even when he would put them to
shame in argument and silence, and back they'd come, send another
one of their Goliaths that they thought could slay this David,
who dared to front them and to expose them for what they were.
And if you're a plant of God's planting, one of the indications
will be that the native spiritual blindness to the glory of God
in the face of Christ will be removed. And you will see in
the Lord Jesus God's perfect and final prophet to teach you,
and you'll be prepared to humble yourself and sit at the feet
of Jesus and let him tell you and interpret to you all reality
according to his word. You'll let him tell you in the
language of the children's hymn, holy Bible book divine, precious
treasure thou art mine, mine to teach me, tell me whence I
came, mine to teach me what I am. You'll be prepared to be taught
of the Lord Jesus, God's great and final prophet concerning
who you are, where you came from. You'll be prepared to be taught
of him about what it is that God requires of you, what God
will do if you do not fulfill his requirements. The wages of
sin is death. Cursed is everyone who continues
not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do
them. You will see in the Lord Jesus, God's final and great
and glorious priest, who by his one sacrifice for sin has forever
put away the sins of his people, who when he cried out upon the
cross, it is finished. It was not poetic license going
on beyond reality. It was, it stood, accomplished. By one offering he hath perfected
forever. them that are sanctified and
gone back to the right hand of the Father there by His intercession
to secure infallibly a complete salvation on behalf of all for
whom He shed His precious blood. You will see in Him God's great
and final King worthy to rule over you and govern you, well
able to protect and preserve you and bring you safely home
at last into His presence. Eventually, not only to stretch
out his scepter and govern this entire order while he completes
his purposes of redemption, but to come in one final glorious
manifestation of his kingly rule to put the last enemy beneath
his feet, even death, to raise his own and to usher in the new
heavens and the new earth. If you're a planting of the Lord's,
Your spiritual blindness concerning the nature of the law and the
identity of the person and work of Christ will be removed. And
the result will be that you're attached to the Lord Jesus in
faith and in love. For you see, though Peter expresses
on behalf of the disciples partial blindness, notice where he came
for further light. He came to Jesus. And he says,
Lord, declare unto us the parable. You had every right to utter
the parable, and you had a meaning in the parable. And what you
meant is of supreme importance. So, Lord, declare it to us. He
doesn't say, give us your opinion and we'll see whether it fits
with our present notion. You know, though there was partial
ignorance, it was also a beautiful indication of the disposition
of one whose eyes had been spiritually open. And you remember it's in
that very next chapter when the Lord Jesus says, different ones
say this about me, I'm this, I'm that, but who do you say
that I am? And Peter says, thou art the
Christ, son of the living God. And Jesus said, flesh and blood
is not revealed this unto thee. You didn't learn this by just
doing your catechism questions, Peter. But my Father who is in
heaven has revealed. You're one of his plants, Peter.
And one of the marks of his plants is that he takes away the spiritual
blindness and gives a saving sight of the Lord Jesus. Then the third mark of his plants,
the first is they understand that true religion is an issue
of the heart. Our real problem is a heart problem. The solution must be a heart
solution. His plantings are those in whom
he takes away native spiritual blindness and gives a true and
accurate sight with respect to the law and with respect to the
person and work of the Lord Jesus. And then, though there is nothing
explicit in this passage, it is implicit, it is explicit in
many other passages, and that is God's plantings are never
barren sticks in the ground. You remember in the parable of
the sower, the seed that fell upon good soil brought forth
fruit, thirty, sixty, a hundredfold with endurance. John 15, the
imagery of the branch and the vine, every branch in me that
bears fruit, he proves that it may bring forth more fruit If
there is one who seems to be attached to me, is attached to
me by profession and association, but there is no fruit born, what
is done to it? The husbandman cuts off such
branches, they are cast into the fire, and they are burned. Our Lord is not teaching we can
lose salvation. What he is teaching in that extended
metaphor is that where his saving grace has come, there will always
be fruit. But not all who profess to be
in Christ are vitally joined to Christ. And if you are the
Father's planting, there will be fruit, degrees of fruit, yes,
thirty, sixty, a hundred, but fruit there will be. The fruit
of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, goodness, faithfulness,
meekness, self-control. The fruit of some measure of
growing conformity to the image of Christ, 2 Corinthians 3 and
verse 18. The fruit of a desire that others
shall know Christ. The fruit of ongoing tenderness
to sin. and constant going to the fountain
open for sin and uncleanness. You see, these are matters that
the Pharisees knew nothing about. These plantings that were not
planted by the Father that were to be rooted up, there was nothing
about them that defied explanation but that the Father had made
them his plants. Everything in their religion
was acquired by tradition, by dint of personal effort, by dint
of personal discipline, but they were utterly ignorant that their
hearts were a sinkhole of the foulest sin. What about you? She'll never forget an old Dr. Tozer before he died, saying,
I've seen a lot of ugly things in my life, but the ugliest,
vilest thing I've ever seen is my own heart. Can you say that? You dear children, do you really
believe, though God has surrounded you with the wonderful restraints
of parents who are hands-on, assertive parents, who don't
govern by consensus, but govern by the rule of the Word of God,
and they put the reins on you. And so you are kept from many
of the vile sins of kids in the neighborhood, kids in your school,
kids on the block, kids here, kids there. And perhaps, constitutionally,
God's given you a sensitive conscience. If you so much as try to take
a pin without asking your mom, you feel like you've robbed a
bank and you've constitutionally have such a tender conscience,
you've got to make it right. And that's the way you've been
from as long as you remember. But I want to ask you kids, do
you really believe, has God shown you, that left to yourself, you've
got a heart? that could produce the vilest
sin that any kid of your age ever committed. Do you really
believe that? Has God brought you to see that and believe that?
If he's making you his plan, he'll give you a sight of your
heart, kids. And he'll let you know that left to yourself, you
have a heart that is deceitful above all things and desperate. then he'll open your eyes. And
when you begin to study the Ten Commandments afresh, you'll see
that when it says, Thou shalt have no other gods before me,
you don't just breathe easy and say, Well, I better never bow
my knee to an idol. I can buy that one all right.
No! You'll understand a little of what Paul says in Colossians
3, covetousness, which is idolatry. And when you begin to think of
all the things that you want just because you want them, not
because you need them, but because you've seen them. Someone else
has them. They're in a catalog. And there
is this powerful magnet of your wonder going out. I want that. I want this. If only I could
have that. This would make me happy. This
would make me beautiful. That's idolatry. You're breaking the
first commandment. You begin to understand that
if the Lord's making you his planting. You begin to understand that.
When he says, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. You begin
to see that you dread the coming of the Lord's day. Man, a whole
day, Sunday school, church. Other than saying, a day when
with a good conscience, I can't do my homework. A day when with
a good conscience, I can't be asked by dad to go out and rake
the lawn. A day when with a good conscience, I can read more of
my Bible, I can read good Christian biographies, and I look forward
to that time with mom and dad when we have quality time uninterrupted
by other things. You see, an absence of delighting
in the Lord's day is an evidence you have a heart that's distant
from the Lord whose day it is. And when it's His honor, thy
father and thy mother That means something more than you just
don't cuss him out and punch him out when you get big enough
to do so. It means that in your heart, you thank God that he's
placed them over you to govern you and guide you and direct
you. And even though at times you may chafe at that guidance,
when you do, you say, Oh, Lord, forgive me. I know that's wickedness
and sin. You've come to realize that in
your heart, left to yourself, Your native hatred of government
exercised over you by mom and dad is such, you'd do what those
skinheads did to their mom and dad, you'd kill them. Every time
in your heart you have felt that bitterness when they've reined
you in, left to blossom, that bitterness would be murder. And if you're one of God's planting
kids, God's begun to show you that, to some degree, some degree. And then if you're one of God's
plantings, he's given you eyes, spiritual eyes, to see to some
degree that the Lord Jesus is perfectly suited to all your
needs as a sinner, prophet to teach you, priest to forgive
and intercede for you, and king to rule over you. And you've
come to the best of your knowledge to embrace him as your prophet,
your priest, and your king. For according to the Bible, repentance
and faith are always joined to a loving attachment to the person
of Christ. In repentance we turn from our
sin, in faith we turn to and trust in the Lord Jesus, and
then with all our hearts we embrace Him to be His on His terms. As we sang in the hymn tonight,
we found a friend! And having discovered that friend,
we say that we gladly give him our all. This is the mark of
all of the Father's plantings. Now I ask you, are you one of
God's plantings? Are you? If not, listen to the
words. Every planting which my Heavenly
Father did not plant shall be rooted up, though I've addressed
my preaching primarily in the latter part to the children,
because you children sat very patiently through that stuff
on Christian liberty, much of which went sailing clean over
your head. I know it did. But your parents
had to get hold of that, and you were patient, and so I'm
glad to have a special concentrated portion for you tonight. But
though I've been speaking to you kids, what about you mums
and dads, visitors, adults here? Can you say in the light of what
we've considered from this passage tonight, by the grace of God,
there's no explanation for what I am, but that I am one of God's
plants. In the language of Ephesians
2.10, I am His workmanship created anew. in union with Christ Jesus. I'm not a perfect product of
his workmanship, but I am a product of his workmanship. I'm not the
perfect plant that has no malformed leaves and no grubs on it. that is as fully flowered and
fruitful as it could be, no, but I am a plant concerning which
there's no rational explanation but that the heavenly Father
planted me. I've seen my heart enough to
know that if God left me to myself, there's no sin anyone's ever
committed. It could not be justly charged.
I know that if I ever have true and saving religion, it must
touch the springs of my very being, my heart. I'll not be
content with some ideas that wash through my brain and some
ceremonies that will, as it were, wash over my hands and feet and
give me a respectable life. I'll not be content with anything
short of religion that changes my heart. Christ died to ratify
the new covenant. And one of the assured blessings
of the new covenant is a new heart. God says, this is the
covenant I will make. I will take out the heart of
stone and give them a heart of flesh. Are you His planting? You've seen your heart. You know
that nothing less than a transformation of heart is of the essence of
true religion. But about your eyes, has the
native blindness to the true meaning of the law and the true
beauty and glory of Christ been removed? And are you now bringing
forth the fruits of one united Christ? I leave you with this
very simple text from the lips of our Lord Jesus. Every plant
which my Heavenly Father planted not shall shall, shall be rooted
up. If you say, I cannot say that
I'm His planting, what do I do? Here's the marvel of it. You
go to the God who can make you His planting. And if we thought
that getting you to walk down an aisle would do it, we'd come
out there, get you in a hammerlock, and force you to walk down this
aisle fifty times if that would do it. If we thought that raising
a hand would do it, we'd get three or four people to gang
up on you and jerk your hand as high as we could. But we're
not asking you to walk an aisle to raise a hand. You need to
go directly to the God who alone can make you His plan B. Seek
the Lord, seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him
while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord,
for he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly
pardon." And if you've been able to sit here and say, yes, yes,
yes, yes, yes, I am a planting of the Lord. Then, dear child
of God, remember whatever the human instrument in your life
may have been. Though one human instrument sowed
and another watered, it was God that gave the increase. He that
glorieth then, let him glory in the Lord, and in the Lord
alone. And be renewed in the confidence
that no plant that our Heavenly Father plants will ever wither
and ever die. until it's transplanted to a
better place. And then when it's transplanted,
there'll be no malshapen leaves, there'll be no little grubs under
the leaves, there'll be no partial fruitfulness. We shall be the
plantings of the Lord, perfectly reflecting the image of our blessed
Lord Jesus Christ. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank you for
these words of our Lord Jesus, for this portion of your holy
word. And oh, how we beg of you, Father,
that that last day, when the great sifting will take place.