Now in the fifteenth chapter
of Matthew, a brief message, but I took a good hard look at
this scripture that I read a little while ago. Christ said, out of the heart,
Matthew 15, 19, out of the heart proceeds evil thoughts, murders,
adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemous These
are the things which defile a man. And then I read over in the book
of Proverbs chapter 4 verse 23, keep thy heart with all diligence,
for out of it are the issues of life. Out of it are the issues
of life. And I thought, how can I illustrate
that? How can I present that so that
it will be understood? And I think I have an illustration
or story that will help you to understand what Christ is saying
here. Now one of the most important
parts of a city, one of the most important parts of any city,
is that great water reservoir that is down town here, and when
you drive into Cincinnati on Route 52, you pass the great
city water reservoir of that city, it supplies the life-giving
water to the thousands and thousands of people who live in that particular
town. Now, the great reservoir of every
individual The great supply center, that which nourishes the body,
that which gives strength and that which gives life and that
which gives direction, that which gives nourishment to every part
of our body as that water reservoir gives life and strength and nourishment
and health to a city. The great reservoir of every
human being is the heart. The scripture says, as a man
thinketh in his heart, so is he. And so much disease and sickness
has come from water supply. We know that through history,
reading accounts of great epidemics and great diseases that have
spread over cities that traced it to the water supply. The whole
city was contaminated by the bad water. And the scripture
says, As a man thinketh in his heart, whatever his heart is,
that's what he is. Out of the abundance of the heart,
the mouth will speak. The hands, the head, the actions,
the attitude, Everything we do is motivated by the heart. Our
Lord says, out of the heart proceeds murders and adulteries and fornications
and blasphemies and false witness and thefts. And all these things
come from that polluted reservoir, the heart, that source of supply. That's where it all is. Now,
a lot of people have some strange ideas about how to take care
of that reservoir, how to take care of that source of all that's
important. out of which come the issues
of life. The moralist says for us to go down here and clean
up the grounds and paint the buildings. The way to have pure
water, he says, the way to have healthy water in your reservoir
is to mow the grass, rake the yard, plant beautiful flowers,
paint the building, make the outward appearance beautiful.
And in Matthew 23, verse 24, our Lord says that's the way
a lot of people try to take care of this heart, try to take care
of the spiritual reservoir. He says in Matthew 23, He says
that you may clean the outside of the cup and the platter, and
within you're full of extortion and excess. He says, verse 27,
you are like whited sepulchres. quieted tombstones, which appear
beautiful on the outside, but within are full of dead men's
bones and all uncleanness. Outwardly, he says, you appear
righteous unto men, but within you are full of iniquity. You
go down here to this reservoir, and if it's polluted and filthy
and diseased, you could cut the grass and paint the buildings
a beautiful shade of pale blue or green and put red roofs on
all the buildings and rake the yards and plant flowers, and
the people would still get sick from the water that came out
of that reservoir. Cleaning up around it won't clean
up within it. And straightening up your life
so that you appear religious and pious and holy to people
won't clean up this source of all the issues of life. Well,
the intellectual says the way to have pure water is to fire
that old dumb waterkeeper down there. That fellow down there
doesn't have any education. That fellow that's been running
the reservoir all these years is just a country boy. You fire
him now and put in his place a man who knows the history of
water. Put in his place a man who knows
the science of water. Put in his place a man who knows
all the mechanics of supplying water. And then you'll have pure
water. That's what's happened to our
churches today. They have thrown out the preachers that felt led
of God and sent of God and ordained of God, given a message of God,
and they've put in his place the intellectuals and the modernists
and the liberals. And our Lord plainly says, the
preaching of the cross to them that are perishing is foolishness. But he said, where is the wise?
Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this
world? I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will bring
to nothing the understanding of the prudent. We preach Christ
and Him crucified, to the Jew a stumbling block, to the Greek
sheer nonsense or foolishness. But the wisdom of God, the world
by wisdom knew not God. It pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. And then along comes
the free willer. And he says, well, there's no
problem to having pure water. You say your water's contaminated,
then the thing to do is just say the water's clean. Just say
the water's clean. I will it to be clean. I want
it to be clean. That's all there is to it. Just
will it, just want it, just say it's clean, and it's clean. Well
now, anybody that knows anything at all about polluted streams
knows that you can't, by willing it, and by wanting it, and by
wishing it, make it clean. John said, to as many as received
him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, which
were born not of the will of man, not of the will of the flesh,
but born of God. It takes more than willing my
heart to be clean, it takes a supernatural operation of God to make my heart
clean. And then over in the book of
Romans, the apostle Paul said, it's not of him that willeth,
it's not of him that runneth, it's of God that showeth mercy.
So just standing looking at the water and willing it to be clean,
or wanting it to be clean, is not going to make it clean. And
something bigger than that's got to happen down there. And
then the religionist says, now we need to get organized. If
we're going to have clean water down here, we're going to have
to get organized. We're going to have to have a
planned program for the workforce. We're going to have to have a
choir, and we're going to have to have an orchestra, and we're
going to have to have a youth program, we're going to have
to have a teaching program, and we're going to have to have a
social program. We're going to have to institute all these programs
down here around the reservoir, and then when we get everybody
doing things together, the water will be clean. Our Lord said,
you compass sea and land to make a proselyte to your religion,
and after you've made him, he's twofold more the child of hell
than you are. That won't straighten out the
heart. He said in Matthew 7, while many are going to tell
me in that day what they did in my name, and I'm going to
tell them that what they did were works of iniquity. Depart
from me, I never knew you, you that work iniquity. But Lord,
we did many wonderful works in your name. And I will say, depart
from me, I never knew you. So the moralist says, clean up
around the reservoir. And the moralist preacher says,
the way for you to have a pure heart is to clean up around it,
is to put on an outward show, to appear righteous to men. The
intellectual says, study, study, study, study, learn, be intellectual,
be a liberal. The free willer says, just will
it, just say it's clean and it's clean. Just say you're a Christian. That's all you have to do. Just
say you're a Christian. Just say, I believe in Jesus,
and I'm going to heaven when I die. And the religion, it says, get
organized. But the wise man points to the whole problem. The wise
man points to the whole problem. He says your reservoir is contaminated. It is corrupt. It is polluted. Because the source of your water
is polluted. The reason you're getting bad
water out of that place is because the springs are polluted. Because
the source of your water is polluted. In Adam we died. In Adam we received
a guilty, filthy, corrupted heart. We're born in sin. We're born
rebelling. We're born lying. We're born
lusting. We're born thieving. What we're
going to have to do is get a new reservoir. We're going to have
to tear down that old one. We're going to have to do away
with that old one. We're going to have to be done with that
old one. We're going to have to have a new reservoir and a
new spring. You can't make bad water good
water by putting things in it, or by building fences around
it, or by mowing the grass around it. You've got to start with
a new stream. You know what David said in Psalms
87? I like this statement. In Psalms 87 verse 7, David said,
All my springs are in thee. All my springs are in thee. That's where I get my nourishment
from thee. That's where I get my good water
from thee. And then our Lord said to the
woman at the well, He that drinketh of me, of the water that I shall
give him, shall have within him a well of living water springing
up." He's going to get a new start, a new source. Now, I've got to, first of all,
get a new heart. And that's the gift of God. A
new heart. God said, I'll take that old
stony heart out of you and give you a heart of flesh. I'll take
that hard heart out of you and give you a heart that loves God.
I'll write my statutes on this heart, and your springs will
be in me." You'll get your strength and your life and your water
from me. That'll be your source. But now,
God says, keep your heart. So I've got a new heart by God's
grace. I've got a new heart in Christ
Jesus. I've got a new heart in the new
birth. But how am I going to keep my heart? Well, first of
all, to keep our heart, I would say three things. First of all,
to keep my heart, it must be full. Now, an empty fountain
will have empty pipes. I don't care if that reservoir,
the new reservoir, is empty. The pipes are going to be empty.
The supply is going to be nil. You can't get water out of an
empty reservoir. It's got to be full. If you're
going to get grace and love and kindness and mercy and faith,
which are fruits of Christ, it can only flow from Christ. And
so the heart must be full of Christ. The Apostle Paul said
in Galatians, My little children, I prevail till Christ be formed
in you. He said again, Christ in you,
that's the hope of glory. He said again, when Christ, who
is our life, shall appear, then shall ye appear with him in glory.
The source of every fruit of grace, the source of every act
of love, the source of every good gift, is Jesus Christ. And my heart's going to have
to be full of him. Not full of the world, and not full of my
family, and not full of my pleasures, and not full of my hobbies, and
not full of other things, but filled with Christ. I want to
show you something over in the book of Matthew, if you'll turn
there with me. Matthew 22. Here are some religious people
who met our Lord one day. There were several groups of
them. In Matthew chapter 22, first of all, There were the
Pharisees who met him, and one of them said this to him. One
of them said, is it lawful, Matthew 17, or Matthew 22, verse 17,
he said, is it lawful for me to pay taxes? Since children
of God are supposed to be children of the kingdom, is it lawful
for them to be taxed, to pay tribute? Since we are members
of another kingdom, Should we have to pay taxes in this kingdom?
And our Lord, they were trying to trap him, of course, and our
Lord said, Give me a coin. And they hand him a coin, and
he said, Whose picture is on this coin? They said, Well, Caesar's
picture is on that coin. He said, Then you render to Caesar
the things that are Caesar's. The things that belong to him,
honor to whom honor is due. Taxes in tribute or whatever.
And you render to God the things that are God's. Well, he put
them to Silas, and then another group called the Sadducees. Verse
23, they didn't believe in the resurrection. They came to him
and said, Master, suppose a man dies, and he has no children,
and his brother marries his wife in order to raise up seed, as
Moses commanded. And then he dies, and there's
still no children. And another brother marries her, and still
no children. Those seven brothers are married to the same woman,
and no children born to any of them. In this so-called resurrection,
whose wife is she going to be? And Christ said, You err not
knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God in the resurrection. They neither marry nor are given
in marriage. And then a lawyer came to him after he'd put them
to silence, and he said, Master, which is the greatest commandment?
We've been discussing this matter, all these commandments, thou
shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not commit
adultery, honor thy father and thy mother, keep the Sabbath
day holy, thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God
in vain, thou shalt not covet, and so forth, thou shalt not
bear false witness, which is the most important commandment.
And our Lord said, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all
thy heart. This is the first and great commandment.
and thou shalt love thy neighbors thyself." On these two commandments
hang all the law, all the law. It's all fulfilled in these two.
If you love God and love your neighbor, you keep the law. That's the law. And then he put
them to silence, and before the crowd left, our Lord said, just
a minute, I have a question. And we're going around trying
to answer all these many questions. We're so involved and so concerned
about who started the church, and which church is right, and
should we keep the Sabbath day, and should we pay tribute, and
should we do this, and what about the resurrection, how about the
second coming, and all these different questions. And we're
so concerned with these things. And our Lord said, I've got a
question. And I'm sure they turned their
attention his way in verse 42. He said, What think ye of Christ? Whose son is he? Rather than I tell you the difference
between heaven and hell tonight is what you think of Jesus Christ.
Not what you think of paying tribute, or what you think of
the resurrection, or what you think of the millennium, or what
you think of the church, or what you think of angels, or where
you think King got his wife. The question which is uppermost
in your heart, or better be tonight, is what, who is Jesus Christ?
And why did he come into this world, and what did he do? We're
going to have to get our hearts full of Christ. The old reservoir,
if it's going to supply love and mercy and kindness and faith
and grace, it's going to have to be full of Christ. It's going
to have to be emptied of disputes and emptied of foolish questions
and emptied of genealogies and emptied of statutes and laws
and emptied of denominational pride, and it's going to have
to be filled with the Son of God. And when the heart is filled
with the Son of God, and when the thoughts are taken up with
the Son of God, and when our interest is in the Son of God,
these old pipes are going to be filled with fruit. And coming
from that reservoir is going to be all of the graces of God
that a person could possibly have. The more you have of Christ,
the more you're going to live out Christ, till Christ be formed
in you. Till Christ becomes your life,
till Christ becomes your heartbeat, till Christ becomes your concern,
till this church becomes more a part of you than just something
you go to once a week, or some place you go once in a while.
Till this Bible becomes more to you than a good luck charm,
or more to you than just a sacred book to lay on a coffee table.
When the words become life, and when Jesus Christ becomes your
all, And when you begin thinking about Him, not just once in a
while, but all the time, your relationship with Him. Now, second,
I've got to keep my heart full. If I'm going to keep my heart
out of which of the issues of life, I'm going to have to keep
it full of Christ, full of Christ, full of Christ, study Christ,
pray Christ, talk Christ, live Christ. Secondly, I'm going to
have to keep my heart pure. How many diseases can be traced
to that old bad drinking water? and how much of our problems
can be traced to these old bad hearts. Something happened between
us and somebody else because we hated, or because we were
envious, or because we were jealous, or because we had bad feelings. And how can I keep my heart pure?
How can I keep my heart from these things? Turn to Exodus
15. I want you to look at this. Exodus
15. How can I keep my heart sweet? I'm going to show you how. I'm
going to show you how. In Exodus 15, verse 23, the children
of Israel, they came to Marah, M-A-R-A-H,
Exodus 15, verse 23. And they couldn't drink the waters
of Marah, for they were bitter. Therefore the name of the place
was called Marah, that is, bitterness. Isn't that our heart? Bitter. Bitter. And the people murmured
against Moses, saying, what are we going to drink? And he cried
unto the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree, which when he had
cut the tree down and cast it into the water, the water was
made sweet. God said, see that tree there,
Moses? Cut it down and throw it in the water. He cut that
tree down and threw it in the water, and then when he drank
of the water, it was so sweet, it wasn't bitter anymore. What
is the tree? The tree is the cross. You want
to sweeten your heart? You want to sweeten your attitude?
Go to the cross. That's where you'll learn how
to love people. When Christ could watch them drive those nails
in his hand, and spit in his face, and take off his clothes
in humiliation before that multitude, and lift him up to thirst between
heaven and earth, and drive that cross in the ground until it
ripped his flesh, and then look down and say, Father, forgive
them. They know not what they do. You want to learn how to
give? Then go to the cross, where Christ
who was rich, and clothed with glory, and crowned with glory,
laid aside all these things, and became poor for our sake,
and gave everything that we might be rich. You want to learn how
to love? Greater love hath no man than
this, that he lay down his life for his friends. Put a little
of the cross in your heart, and it'll sweeten the water. It'll
sweeten the water. Just take the tree, the cross,
and put it in that old bitter stream, and I'll guarantee you,
you can't stay mad at the cross. You can't be filled with hate
kneeling at the cross. You can't be filled with envy
and hatred and malice. You can't do it at the cross.
You can do it worshiping at a denominational shrine, and you can do it marking
crosses in front of yourself and counting beads, but you can't
do it at Calvary, because that tree will sweeten any bitter
heart. And then thirdly, if I'm going
to keep my heart, I've got to keep it first of all full of
Christ, secondly, pure by the tree, the cross, and then thirdly,
I'm going to have to keep it quiet and keep it peaceable. Now, when the storm rages, the
water is stirred up. When the storm rages and when
the wind blows, it muddies the water, and it blows stuff into
the water, and it makes it taste bad. I get all mad and get all upset,
and I don't demonstrate the love of Christ or the grace of Christ,
and the water doesn't taste very good. And what I'm going to have
to do Let my heart be at peace with myself and with others,
knowing that God is working all things together for my good.
He's on the throne. And whether it be good or bad,
it's for my good. God is controlling all things.
He's the King of the waves. He's the King of the wind. He's
the King of trials. I've got to keep my heart at
peace. as much as it is in you, live peaceably." Christ said,
come to me, I'll give you peace. I was reading some stories of
the early church, and it said an old Christian, an old German
Christian was condemned to die at the stake. They took him and
they tied him to the stake, condemned him to burn at the stake, accusing
him of being a heretic. And before they lit the fire,
they said, Do you have something to say before we burn you? And he said, Yes, I do. Yes,
I do. And this is what he said, You
have condemned me to die. I freely admit that I am a sinner
saved by the grace of God, but I am not an heretic. I believe
the word of God, and I believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And I have one last request.
And he turned to the priest who had condemned him to die. And
he said, Priest, come over here and put your hand on my heart.
And then put your hand on your own heart. And then you tell
the people whose heart is beating more violently. And you tell
the people who's afraid. I'm not afraid. The Lord is my
shepherd, and though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil. God is with me, and I will dwell
in the house of the Lord forever, and my heart is at peace. Is
yours?" The priest refused to put his hand on the old man's
heart, but rather he ordered the people to light the fire. Keep your heart at peace. Keep
it full of Christ. Keep your heart sweet with the
wood of the cross, and keep your heart at peace, for out of it
are the issues of life. Our Father, honor Thy Word tonight.
Do a work of grace in these hearts. Give us a new heart, a new nature. Fill our hearts with Christ.
Take us to the cross where the bitter waters of Mara are made
sweet by the sacrifice and offering of the Son of God, and help us,
O Lord, day by day in the trials and troubles and the things of
this world that confuse us. When the dark clouds begin to
roll and we can't see the light, give us peace. Give us the peace
that passeth understanding. Thou wilt keep him in perfect
peace. whose mind is stayed on Thee. We ask in Christ's name and for
His sake. Amen. Father, You come lead us. Let's sing 219. Number 219. Stand, please. I saw one hanging on a tree in
agony and blood. He fixed his languid eyes on
me as near his cross I stood. Oh, can it be, upon a tree, the
Savior died for me? My soul is thrilled, my heart
is filled To think he died for me Sure never till my latest
breath Can I forget that look It seemed to charge me with his
death, Though not a word he spoke. Oh, can it be, upon a tree, the
Savior died for me? My soul is thrilled, my heart
is filled, to think He died for me.