STIRRING TIME COMING
MATTHEW 23:25-26/MARK 7:13,21
MANUSCRIPT BY
MINISTER KERMIT REAVES
HAVE YOU EVER RAN ACROSS PEOPLE WHO SAY ONE THING AND DO ANOTHER. OR DO YOU KNOW SOMEONE WHO SAYS DON’T DO AS I DO, DO AS I SAY. LET’S GET PERSONAL OR HAVE YOU SAID ONE THING AND DONE ANOTHER. THAT IS SO MESSY. JESUS HAS GIVEN US A SOLUTION HOW NOT TO BE LIKE THIS A HYPOCRITE IF YOU WILL TURN WITH ME IN YOUR BIBLE TO THE 23RD CHAPTER OF MATTHEW GOD WOULD WANT US TO FOCUS ON THESE TWO VERSES
IN THIS TEXT MATTHEW RECORDS THE FIFTH OF SEVEN WOES JESUS PRONOUNCED AGAINST THE SCRIBES AND PHARISEES WHO WERE RELIGIOUS LEADERS/TEACHERS OF THAT DAY. THE PROBLEM WAS JESUS SAYS EARLY IN THIS CHAPTER IN VS 3 “THEY DO NOT PRACTICE WHAT THEY PREACH”. HE SAYS THIS BECAUSE THESE RELIGIOUS LEADERS/TEACHERS BEHAVOIR WAS INCONSISTENT WITH THEIR TEACHING. HAVING WARNED AGAINST IMITATING THE INCONSISTENCY BETWEEN THE PHARISEES AND SCRIBES TEACHINGS AND THEIR PRACTICES, JESUS NOW IN THIS TEXT GIVES A WOE AGAINST LETTING EXTERNAL CLEANNESS HIDE THE NEED FOR INNER CLEANNESS. SINCE THE ROOT CAUSE OF UNRIGHTEOUNESS IS INTERNAL IT IS USELESS TO BE OVERLY CONCERNED WITH EXTERNAL CLEANNESS. THIS WAS YET ANOTHER WEAKNESS THAT CHARACTERIZED THE PHARISEES THEIR CONCERN FOR OUTWARD CLEANNESS AT THE EXPENSE OF EQUAL ATTENTION TO THEIR INNER CLEANNESS. PEOPLE OFTEN HAVE A TENDENCY TO FOCUS ON THEIR OUTWARD APPEARANCE AND NEGLECT THEIR NEED FOR INTERNAL APPEARANCES
Christ’s fifth woe confirms that many of the scribes and Pharisees have put their efforts of godliness in the wrong place (Matt. 23:25–26). All Jewish sects in His day agree on the need to wash their dishes in order to maintain their ceremonial cleanness, and they certainly also agree that it is pointless to cleanse the outside of a cup and leave the inside filthy. Yet this is precisely what the piety of our Lord’s opponents has achieved. Outward behavior is important, but many scribes and Pharisees have not worked also on their souls. Thinking that external conformity to the Law is enough, they have not seen that evil is ultimately a matter of the heart, for all wickedness originates there (Matt. 5:21–30). Those concerned solely with what others see, not the darkness within, are like a cup whose handle is sparkling but has the coffee from three weeks ago inside. No matter how much you polish that handle, the cup is still dirty.
The Law does not deal merely with externals; its goal is purity of heart Repeated washings should remind the washer of his perpetual dirtiness and help him long for a clean heart. The Pharisees have missed this, failing to see that outer cleanliness depends upon inner purity, (Matt. 23:26).“If renewing, sanctifying grace make clean the inside, that will have an influence on the outside, for the commanding principle is within. “those sins must be conscientiously abstained from, which the eye of God only is a witness to, who searches the heart.” We can easily think we are being obedient if we do many good deeds, however, doing such things while harboring hatred, jealousy, and other such inward sins is to act as a hypocrite. We are hypocrites if we fail to mortify those things only God can see. What inner thoughts and feelings must you put to death?
1. THE JEWS BECAME MORE CONCERNED WITH OUTWARD PURITY THAN INNER PURITY
Through the centuries, these purity regulations gradually degenerated into empty rituals that became substitutes for a personal relationship with God. By the time Jesus was ministering in Israel, these clean and unclean laws expanded to include trivial details that became ridiculous.
In Mark 7, Jesus and His disciples collide with these purity rules. (Mark 7:1-4) The Pharisees and teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and saw some of his disciples eating food with "unclean" hands.
Kids, when your mother tells you to wash your hands before you come to the table, don’t you dare say, "Jesus’ disciples didn’t wash their hands before they ate, why do I have to?" Kids and dirt just seem to be attracted to each other–especially little boys. I used to hate it when my mother licked her hand or a handkerchief to wipe dirt off my face!
Today, we know there are invisible germs, so it’s important to wash your hands before you eat because you don’t want to get germs on your food and into your mouth. Jesus’ disciples’ hands weren’t dirty; they just didn’t observe the "tradition" of washing their hands in a ceremonial fashion, so the religious leaders were appalled. Notice:
God taught the Jews that cleanliness was a means to holiness and godliness. But the Jews took it to the extreme until these regulations became the end of godliness instead of one of the ways to holiness. They didn’t throw the baby out with the bath water; they climbed in the bath and kicked the baby out! They mistook physical cleanliness with holiness. To them cleanliness was not next to godliness–it was godliness!
Jesus was extremely disturbed that the Jews substituted all these rules and traditions for God’s Word. In (Mark 7: 6) He described these hyper-religious clean-freaks this way, "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men." That’s the definition of a tradition: "a rule taught by man." Some traditions are good because they don’t violate scripture. But when we elevate a manmade rule above God’s word, then we are guilty of what Jesus said in verse 13. He said, "Thus you nullify the Word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that." Then in verse 14, He gets to the heart of the matter. He said, "Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a man can make him ‘unclean’ by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him unclean." This was revolutionary!Jesus taught the real problem we have a dirty heart, not dirty hands. In verse 21 He explained it more clearly: "For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man "unclean."
That’s the problem with most religion–it focuses on cleaning up the exterior of a person without really touching their heart.
The Jewish leaders thought they were cleaner than Jesus and His disciples because they washed their hands a certain way before they touched food. It made them feel good about themselves and better than others. Religious ritual allows you to feel good about yourself and better than others. That’s what false religion does–it appeals to the flesh. It gives one a sense of outer respectability and seldom addresses matters of the heart. Every religion has its rituals.
False religion focuses on how you look outwardly: Is your hair cut to the proper length? Are you wearing a coat and tie, or a dress? Are you carrying a big Bible? Let’s face it; doesn’t it make you feel good about yourself sometime because you made the colossal effort to attend church ON New years Eve while all the infidels are out at the clubs. God doesn’t want you to embrace a religion, He wants your heart to be clean, and that can only happen when you know Him. What the Pharisees didn’t understand was that:
3. WE HAVE AN INNER STAIN THAT SOAP AND WATER CAN NEVER CLEAN
Even in Old Testament times God was trying to teach people there is a big difference between outward purity and inner purity. The Jews kept lathering up, washing up and cleaning up thinking they were presentable to God. But through the prophet Jeremiah, God said,
"Although you wash yourself with soda and use an abundance of soap, the stain of your guilt is still before me," declares the Sovereign Lord." (Jeremiah 2:22)
God’s desire is that we be holy and pure. Soap is good for cleansing the outside of the body, but doesn’t get below the skin into the heart. In 1837 a chemist named James Gamble and a candle maker named William Proctor started a little company in Cincinnati, Ohio to produce a better soap. Until that time, soap was harsh and smelly. They came up with a formula to make a pure white soap. For years the brand name was "White Soap." In 1870 a worker accidentally left the machine mixing the ingredients on too long and an excessive amount of air got into the mixture. Not wanting to waste the ingredients, they poured it into some molds and sold it.
They started getting letters from people saying they liked the "floating soap." The company figured out the batch with too much air produced the first floating bar of soap! So, they changed the process to make White Soap float. William’s son Harley was running the company and he didn’t like the brand name "White Soap." One Sunday in church he heard his pastor read from Psalm 45:8 that says, "From palaces of ivory the music of strings makes you glad." From that verse he renamed his soap Ivory Soap.
For marketing purposes Proctor and Gamble asked independent chemists to analyze the ingredients of Ivory Soap. The result was only .56 % of impurities were discovered. So, Harley Proctor proudly proclaimed Ivory Soap was 99.44% pure–he even had the phrase copyrighted. But truthfully, 99.44 pure isn’t pure at all–it’s impure. The meaning of the word pure means "unmixed." And 99.44% means mixed. It’s almost pure.
God’s requirement is that we be pure and holy–not almost pure. What if my wife asked me, Kermit have you been faithful to me?" and if I replied, "Honey, I’ve been faithful to you 95% of the time." Would she be pleased? Don’t count on it.
How clean are you today? I’m not talking about your skin. How clean is your heart today? You may say, "Pretty clean. I’m better than a lot
of people." Let me ask it a different way: Is your heart pure today? Is it totally pure? Do you think God would be pleased if your heart was 80% clean? or 90% pure? Do you think God is pleased if your heart is 99.44% pure? It can be made pure. That’s why God issued the great invitation found in Isaiah 1:18: "Come now, let us reason together," says the Lord. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool." Do you need this inner cleansing? Not just for the up coming year 2014 but for the rest of your life. There’s only one way to be clean before God:
4. JESUS CAN CLEAN YOU FROM THE INSIDE OUT
In Matthew 23 Jesus said to the hyper-clean freaks, "You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean." (Matthew 23:25-26) Jesus offers the opportunity to come to Him to have your life cleaned from the inside out.
In the Old Testament, the Jews sacrificed thousands of bulls, goats, and lambs in atonement for their sins. These rituals made them ceremonially clean–this was the Old Covenant. But Jesus has established a New Covenant in His blood. The writer of Hebrews explains it this way: "The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death so that we may serve the living God!" (Hebrews 9:13-14)
Do you need forgiveness today? Do you need cleansing? The ultimate cleansing is our baptism into Jesus. While speaking about Noah and the Ark the apostle Peter said in 1 Peter 3:21…"
21 and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand —with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.
Only Jesus can cleanse us from the inside out, but we have to respond to him. That’s the cleansing that comes from salvation.
Only Jesus can take our dirty – sinful – heart and replace it with his holy spirit. What a great gift His cleansing is! 1 John 1:7 says: "The blood of Jesus, God’s son cleanses us from all unrighteousness." MY WIFE SAYS COME CLEAN OR STAY AWAY DIRTY....
CONCLUSION
If you’re talking about dirt, then cleanliness is not next to godliness. But if you’re talking about sin, you need to know when the book of Revelation is describing the inhabitants of heaven God says, "Nothing unclean will ever enter it...but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life." (Revelation 21:27)
SO I WANT TO HAVE THE ATTITUDE OF DAVID WHERE HE SAYS IN PSALMS 51:7 PURGE ME WITH HYSSOP AND I SHALL BE CLEAN (ELABORATE) THE BLOOD THAT JESUS SHED FOR YOU WAY BACK ON CALVARY WAS THE BLOOD FOR YOUR CLEANSING TODAY AFTERWARDS YOU BECOME A NEW CREATURE IN CHRIST.. THERE IS POWER IN THE BLOOD, CLEANSING IN THE BLOOD, DELIVERANCE, HOPE , RESTORATION, JOY, SALVATION POWER TO WALK RIGHT POWER TO TALK RIGHT ETC....
Do you need His cleansing today? Let Him wash you clean and give you a new life STIRRING TIME IS COMING
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