seeing and saying is what we are by nature in bondage to God's holy law which requires us to produce what we cannot and we cannot escape the obligation of it this is God's law not man's there's no there's no escape with the whips of an evil conscience and the dread of judgment We're burdened and afflicted in our souls when the Lord reveals our condition. That's why the Lord said, are you burdened? Are you heavy laden? Are you weary? Because when you are, that's when you'll come to him for rest. And that's what Paul said happened to him.

The Lord revealed the law to me in such a way that my sin became exceeding sinful. that I realized that the law is not letting go of me. It's gonna demand of me like Pharaoh more, and I've got nothing with which to produce what's required of me. I am in evil case.

And in God's grace, by his grace, we hear a message of hope and life, of freedom. Christ, the God-man, the Son of God, has kept the law as a man, as the representative of a people. My problem is in Adam, not that we blame it on Adam, but the first Adam, when he sinned and fell, I sinned and fell in Adam. All die. But now we hear of another Adam. The last Adam, a representative of a people who instead of by representation sinned and fell, he perfectly kept the law of God in every jot and tittle.

He did always those things that pleased the Father. That's why Paul said, I want to be found in Him. I don't want my own righteousness. I want to be found in Him. That's just as in Adam. So all those who are in Christ are made alive in him. And he died.

He shed his precious blood as my representative to redeem me from the sin, not only that I've done, but the sin that I am. He took my place under the wrath of God. And not only, remember there's always two kinds of sins. There's the ones that you know are sin, that you call sin, and then there's the ones you call your good works. He paid for all of them. He covered my sins and my righteousnesses, because they were just as bad, they're worse. And he now is my only righteousness, my only sin offering. and were justified freely without the deeds of the law."

This is the whole message of the scripture, the whole message, and yet it's missed on such a grand scale. It's so simple. Somebody that's deceived by religion, they cannot refute the simplicity of the reality. It's either God or you. It's your will or his will, it's your way or his way. It's your works or his work. That's not complicated. If you're trusting anything about yourself, anything that you are or have done, or ever will do.

There's no hope there, only bondage. So a sinner by God's grace, like the Apostle Paul in Philippians 3, have come to the place where they renounce themselves and their own imagined righteousness and lay hold of Christ, run to Christ as all of our righteousness and all of our sin offering, justified freely by God's grace through the redemption that is in Christ. God can't just wave his hand and make our sins go away. He got to pay for them. Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, I'm saved freely. Freely for me, but at the cost of His precious blood.

And boy, that's glorious news to a sinner when you hear about Him. If you ever see what you are and where you stand, if you ever realize what evil case you are in before God, You will rejoice to hear of Christ and not mumble or argue or complain or try to find a different way. To a Pharisee, this is blasphemy, this is horror. To a Pharisee, the whole have no need of a physician, our Lord said, but the sick, which are you?

Which am I? Have you done something? Have you performed some duty of tradition that makes you imagine that you're acceptable to God? Or are you a helpless, hopeless sinner who has cast your wretched soul upon the Savior and His finished work of salvation? Look what our Lord said in the rest of the text, now look at verse 10. And he called the multitude and said unto them, hear and understand. Hear this now, you need to understand your problem.

In vain, verse nine, he said, you teach for doctrines the commandments of men. Your doctrine is what your tradition says. Our doctrine is the doctrine of Christ. And that doesn't just mean what he doctrined or taught, but he is our doctrine. Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man, but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.

In other words, your problem is not that you're breaking these traditions. Your problem is on the inside. That's the message of this whole thing. You clean up the outside, but your problem is on the inside. You can maybe change the outside at least enough to convince yourself. But you can't touch the inside. A leopard can't change his spots.

And then came the disciples and said, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended after they heard this saying? They were offended to learn that their sin is an inward problem and not something they could fix. That's what made them mad. You can't fix it. That still makes people mad. You can't do it. Who then can be saved? With you, it's impossible. There's nothing you can do.

Quit telling people what to do to be saved, what they have to do to please God. that they can perform some duty or some action that will make them acceptable before God. When Paul was asked, what must I do to be saved? He said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. You know what that is? That's a ceasing from your doing. That's what Paul did when he said, I quit on myself and I'm running to him. That's what faith does. Faith's not a work. It's a grace.

Don't you know that they were offended but he answered every plant which my heavenly father hath not planted shall be rooted up. The delusion of the Pharisees was that outward deeds performed by religious sinners were meritorious, that that gained favor with God. They were angry to find out. They were angry to hear somebody say that's not true.

You mean my devotion, my eye walking, my decision, my will means nothing before God? That's exactly what I mean. The Bible teaches that even our righteousnesses, our best deeds, the sins that we trust and not the ones we're ashamed of, are filthy rags in the sight of God.

Paul renounced all of his religious law-keeping, that in his words, he might win Christ, and be found in him not having his own righteousness. That's the only way you can be found in Christ, is not having your own righteousness. Which is of the law, but that which is through the faithfulness of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. So when Paul was saying, what must you do to be saved? Believe. He's saying, belief is without the righteousness of the law. Belief is not doing something to be saved. It's abandoning your doing and looking to the one who can save you alone.

But this tradition, the Pharisees of not eating with dirty hands, that was a perfect example, too. It's instructive regarding their basic error in their understanding of sin and what will wash it away. It won't wash away with physical water. To the Pharisees, sin was an outward problem that could be remedied by an outward act. Well, I know I'm a sinner, but I do my best. But I know I'm a sinner, but I love God. Do you think your love for God is going to save you? What you call love for God? Is it that good? Is it that strong? The so-called church in our day teaches the same thing now. And it's so transparent.

You can sin all you want to, but then just confess it to some pervert and you'll be fine. No, no, no, it doesn't work that way. You didn't sin against them, you sinned against God. and your only hope is His Son. Say some Hail Marys, or count some beads. Your outward evil, according to them, is washed away by an outward goodness, an outward act of contrition. No!

The Lord said unto them, Now do you Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter, but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness. You're full of insatiable evil. And our Lord revealed this in our text to be the grave error that it is. Look at verse 15. Then answered Peter and said unto him, Declare unto us this parable. And Jesus said, Are you also yet without understanding? The Lord's not just trying to make them feel bad. He's trying to show them this is not complicated. You really don't get this. The gospel is not complicated. The Bible doesn't say a lot of different things.

It says the same thing over and over and over. In the garden, it was you or Christ. And as you sit here this morning, it's you or Christ. Do you not yet understand that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth, goeth into the belly, and is cast into the drought, it's going to go in and out. And it's not going to have any effect on you, spiritually speaking.

But those things which proceed out of the mouth, they come forth from the heart. That's where your problem is, Simon. And they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemy. Well, there's none of that in my heart. You don't know your heart. Your heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. Who can know it? The sweetest grandma on this earth is guilty of all of that in the heart. And the sweetest baby on this earth has that same heart. Just wait. Just wait. May God's grace intervene. May his mercy be upon us.

These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashing hands, that defileth not a man. Is that complicated? You talk about electing grace, that's just free grace. God just decides, instead of saying, oh, he did what I wanted him to do, so I'll save him. God just says, I'm going to save him because I love him. And I hate Esau not saving him. Is that plain enough?

Oh, he can't be God. Oh, he's God, whether you like it or not. You're going to have to throw your Bible away and write your own, or you're going to have to bow to the God of the Bible. Oh, that's too complicated. No, there's nothing complicated about that at all. You can't argue that. You can hate it, but you can't tell me you don't understand that.

If sin is, as the Pharisees taught, an outward problem of behavior only, then outward change of behavior can at least be thought to undo it. But if sin is in my heart, if it's my nature, if it's my very self, then what? I can wash my hands until they're raw, but I can't wash my heart.

Psalm 24, 3, Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart. who hath not lifted up his soul into vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. The Lord Jesus had clean hands and a pure heart.

He's the only one. If he doesn't stand before God as your representative, you're a goner. He not only didn't do anything wrong, he never thought to. It never entered his mind or heart. because he loved the Lord his God with all of his heart, mind, soul, and strength. You don't. You better run to him. You better run to him.

There's one phrase of our text I want to go back and look at for one final thought tonight in verses 12 through 14 where the Lord said, He said to his disciples, don't you know that the Pharisees were, they said to him, they were offended when they heard what you said. They still are. You tell the average churchgoer what Christ said, it's gonna make them mad. I say that by experience. It's gonna make them mad. To trust in outward religion and work salvation is blindness.

What our Lord said about these Pharisees reminds us of the parable that he told in Matthew 13, 24 through 30, where our Lord likens the kingdom of heaven to a man which sowed good seed in his field. Satan sowed evil seed in the same field. And the man who sowed the good seed is Christ, in verse 37. The field is the world, verse 38 of that passage, Matthew 13. And the good seed are God's children, but the tares are the children of the wicked one. Those same ones are referred to in our text. If the Lord didn't plant you, you're gonna be rooted up.

That was his response to, don't you know that the Pharisees were offended? Shouldn't we appease them? Shouldn't we argue with them? Shouldn't we debate with them? Shouldn't we try to You don't win them to Jesus. They have the gospel. That's what Abraham said to the rich man, didn't he? If they hate the gospel, then what are we going to add to that? What are we going to add to that? I'll preach the gospel to you again if you'll come listen to it. But if you hate the gospel, what am I going to do? I wish it wasn't that way. We don't do it with cold heart. We don't just say, here's the truth, take it or leave it. No. No, we beseech you as though God did beseech you by us. Be you reconciled to God's son. Kiss the son.

These Pharisees, clearly the Lord's declaring, these are not planted by God. He told the Pharisees, you will die in your sins. That was not a hypothetical. And he said, here's why, because you believe not only. You trust yourself. You think you're God. You will not bow to God's son. and you're going to hell for it. This thing of the salvation of sinners is not just a venture by God. It's not God doing the best he can. God has a world.

He calls it his field and he has some plants that he's planted in his garden. And he so loved his garden, his field, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him shall have everlasting life. They shall bear fruit to his glory forever. And the weeds, he says to them, depart from me, I never knew you. He never loved. He never redeemed. He said, I don't intercede for the world. I intercede for those that you've given me. You never planted them. They shall be rooted up and burnt. That's you. There's one hope. Come unto me. Come unto me. All you that labor and are heavy laden, I'll give you rest. Are you burdened by the law?

God did that. It wouldn't bother you a bit. You'd be like, exactly like if the Lord let you go for 10 seconds, you'd be murdering hundreds of people like people are now and never lose a wink of sleep over it. And say you're doing the will of God. God's not like you. He's not like me, he's God. He doeth all things after the counsel of His own will, and He doeth all things well. Boy, I've had people say to me, I don't want anything to do with a God like that. If that's not you, and you say, in answer to the preaching of the gospel, what they said in the book of Acts, what are we going to do? What shall we do? then I have an answer for you. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Amen.