Good to be with you this evening and. A couple of nights ago, Pastor Cook called me and asked me if I could come and speak and because he was going to be out of town and I told him I could be and we were in Rockingham this morning, a little church up there, and and we just got in like 15 minutes before I had to leave to come here. So we've just been on the road. And so my wife stayed at home this evening just to kind of get unpacked, unloaded. We were gone for a couple of days, gone for the weekend. But it is good to be with you this evening. If you will turn in your Bibles to Matthew, chapter 15, Matthew, chapter 15. This will be our passage for this evening. Matthew, chapter 15. If you read the Gospels in any kind of manner, maybe read through them, starting with Matthew, working your way through Mark and Luke and then going into John, or even if you read it, try to read it in a sense of terms of its harmony, in terms of some of the passages being similar, even though they may appear in two or three different books, no matter how you read the Gospels or in what order, you will find that If you really take in what is going on, what happens in the life of Jesus, you will find that it is very interesting what occurs. It is very, very mind boggling, to say the least, what happens in the life of Jesus and what he says and by what he says and by what he does. In other words, when you really get a sense of who Jesus is and the things that happened While he was on Earth, it can really change your life. For many of us, we were familiar with the Gospels, we have read the Gospels, we're familiar with the stories, and even in Sunday school, growing up in Sunday school, you were taught a lot of the stories, a lot of the stories or narratives that appear in the Gospel accounts. And sometimes we grow very familiar with them. Sometimes too familiar. And if we take a step back and look again at some of these accounts, we're going to find some stark realities. We're going to find some things that we may not have first realized about our Lord and his ministry while on Earth, but they're true. And tonight is one of those kind of passages in Matthew, chapter 15. I remember years ago when I first became a Christian back when I was about 15 years old and I started studying the Bible. And for the first time in my life, the Bible started making sense to me. And I just started in the New Testament. I started with the book of Matthew, started working my way through it. And eventually I got to this chapter. And I was amazed at what was in this chapter. I was amazed at this passage that we're going to look at this evening of just the not just only the storyline, but the implications for all of this, the reality of what is being said here. And so what I want to do tonight is share some of this with you and hopefully give you an understanding, a better understanding or a richer understanding of our Lord's ministry on Earth. What it was really like. And. I find that learning truth like this is very, very life changing, so let me read this to you. I want to read Matthew, chapter 15, verses one through 20. Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem, they said. Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat. He answered them, why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, honor your father and your mother and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die. But you say if anyone tells his father or his mother what you would have gained from me, Rather, given to God, he may not honor his father. So for the sake of your tradition, you have made void or nullified the word of God. You hypocrites. Well, did Isaiah prophesy of you when he said this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In Maine, do they worship me teaching as doctrines, the commandments of men? And he called the people to him. and said to them, hear and understand, it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth. This defiles a person. The disciples came and said to him, do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying? He answered, well, every plant that my heavenly father had not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone. They are blind guides. And if the blind leave the blind, both will fall into a pit. Peter said to him, explain the parable to us. And he said, are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? But what goes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart. And this defiles a person. For out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone. A very, very interesting passage. A lot is happening here, but it's all wrapped around a kind of a core idea. And that is this, the religious leaders of the day, the Pharisees and scribes here, you basically had. Four main groups of people. You had Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes and Zealots. You don't read a lot about the Essenes. You don't find them in scripture too much because they were like the hermits of the day. The Zealots were your terrorists of the day. They were the guys who didn't like Rome and they wanted to kill Roman soldiers. And there was a Zealot who was one of the disciples and it was a former Zealot, so to speak. Anyway, the people that you really meet on the pages of the Gospels in terms of the religious structure of Israel in that day are the Pharisees and Sadducees. The Pharisees are more popular than the Sadducees. There's more of them. They're everywhere throughout the land of Judea and the land of Galilee and the north and the south. The Sadducees are primarily in the south, in Jerusalem. They're the wealthier of the two groups. And the Sadducees only believe that the first five books of the Old Testament were true scripture. They didn't believe any of the other stuff. The Pharisees, though, did believe all 39 books of the Old Testament. But the one thing the Pharisees and the Sadducees had in common, that was they didn't like Jesus. They did not like him at all. You will find out if you do some reading that on a Sabbath day, Jesus heals someone. And they were saying, you can't do that because that's considered work. You can't work on the Sabbath. Well, Jesus actually healed the man without working from their classification, because when he healed the man, he never touched the man. So by definition, if you didn't touch the man, that means you didn't really work, but he still healed them. Because Jesus could just say that you're healed and you're healed. So he gets the Pharisees there on technicality, but he still does the healing. On a Sabbath day, he heals, but on the same day, they plot his murder. Which is wrong to plot anybody's murder on any day of the week, right? Not just a Sabbath day. So what you find is that the Pharisees and here the scribes, they would be with the Pharisees here, by and large, they are doing everything in their power to thwart Jesus's ministry, to put a ridge in it some way. From their perspective, Jesus is gaining popularity. He's getting a load of popularity from the people because Jesus is healing. He's doing miracles. And they can't combat it. They can't even deny it. The miracles are right in front of them and they can't deny it. But they they're trying to do what they can to put Jesus ministry down. They want to put a wrench into it somehow. We're on this occasion in Matthew, chapter 15, They decide to throw another wrench and see if it'll stick. It says the Pharisees and the scribes, they came to Jesus and these came from Jerusalem. And they said they had a question. Really, they're trying to pick a fight, but it comes out in the form of a question. Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They do not wash their hands when they eat. Now, is it a good thing to wash your hands when you eat? I would think so. I try to do it. We try to tell our children to do that, but there's something deeper here. These Pharisees and scribes, they come all the way up from Jerusalem. They're traveling north up into the area of Galilee and they're they're coming with a specific purpose. They're trying to find fault with Jesus. And so here's their little wrench. Here's where they're they're trying to upset the apple cart. They look at Jesus. They look at his disciples. They say, Jesus, look at this. Your disciples are breaking our traditions. And the implication is this, that is a no, no. They're not to do that. Jesus. Our traditions, the way we established the religion in Israel, that is. That's what we consider gospel truth. And Jesus, your disciples are breaking that. So the implied thing is here, how are they going to answer for this? What's your rationale? Why do you allow this, Jesus? If you were a good teacher, you wouldn't allow it. You would tell them to abide by the tradition of the elders. They're doing everything in their power to pick a fight. They want controversy, OK? They want to throw a wrench, like I said, into the ministry of Jesus. They want to hinder it. They want to stop it. They're doing everything in their power to get it done. And what it does, it helps you understand something. If you read about the life of Jesus, you read the Gospels, you're going to find this. Jesus faced criticism. He faced criticism. Every step of the way. he faced criticism. Quite a bit of it. If you go back to Luke chapter 2, you'll find that when Simeon, the older man, who God revealed to him that he would see the Messiah before his death, he's holding the baby, baby Jesus, in his hands after Jesus being eight days old, and he makes some statements, and he tells Mary, tells the mother, he says, this child is sent for the fall and rising again of many in Israel. The idea of fall is that some things he's going to do is not going to be that pleasant. And some people are not going to like it. It's the fall speaks of judgment. The rising again of many in Israel speaks of bringing salvation. And he says, and he's going to be a sign that's going to be spoken against, in other words, you better get ready for this when he starts his ministry, when he starts doing what he's come here to do. Not everybody is going to receive him. They're going to get offended. And they're going to get upset. Why, because they don't like him and they don't like what he says. What you're about to experience in this passage. Is a lesson in controversy. Here is where it gets real in terms of what Jesus is trying to do. He's facing opposition, an opposition from a not from the Roman guards here, not from the secular world, so to speak. He's facing opposition from those who classify themselves as righteous in the sight of God. The religious leaders. They viewed it as they were it. They are the ones who are the established leaders of the religious system in Israel, and they believe wholeheartedly that everything that they're about, Jesus is against. And they are as a result, they are against Jesus. And so they're going to come here and they come to Jesus says that in verse one. So they're coming for the fight. They're coming to stir the pot. And the way they're stirring it is they're questioning the disciples breaking in what is their mind, the tradition of the elders. And by doing that questioning, they're criticizing. The interesting thing is, how is he going to face the criticism? How is he going to respond to this? You have to understand something. The tradition of the elders is not equivalent to scriptural truth. Now, in their mind, it was, but in reality, it was not. Here's how it worked back in the Old Testament, there were laws, the Old Testament's there, it's binding. What was said was said. When Ezra and Nehemiah. Went back to the land to help rebuild the city, rebuild the temple, and the people came back, exiles began to return. Came back to the land. Ezra being a scribe, he established, they established a system by which God's law would now be read again. Remember Nehemiah 8, OK? They established where God's word would be preached, the Old Testament would be proclaimed, and that there would be men who could explain it to the people. Nehemiah talks about giving the sense, explaining it. Here's what the text says and here's what it means by what it says. It's a great thing. But over the period of the silent, what we call the silent years, those 400 years. It got corrupted. Religious groups were formed Pharisees Sadducees. Most of the time, these two different religious groups were formed because they had disagreements among themselves. OK, eventually one group breaks off and forms another group kind of deal. And so you have these religious groups. And during that period of time, they they're telling themselves, listen, the people are not going to follow the word of God. So what are we going to do something that makes it so that they can follow it? And so what they began to do was add a whole bunch of traditions on top of what was really true, what was really Old Testament scripture. They added a whole bunch of stuff to it. And over the years, it built up and eventually it came into their mind that. All of that is on the same par. In other words, this is You know, you got the revealed word of God and then you have the traditions. Well, some people could say, well, the traditions are a good way maybe to apply the word of God, but it's not as binding as the actual word of God. Well, in their mind, it was all wrapped up into one big heap. And when Jesus comes on the scene. In the Sermon on the Mount, He says, you've heard that it has been said, but I say to you, you've heard it has been said, remember that in the Sermon on the Mount, what he's doing, he's contrasting what everybody had been taught by the religious leaders of the day. And he's contrasting it with what is he's trying to go back to what the Old Testament really did say about that issue and peel off the layer of the tradition. You have to understand that. So when. The Pharisees are very much speaking out here and saying, you're not you're breaking the tradition of the elders. In their mind. That's bad, that's just as bad as breaking one of the Ten Commandments. They've raised it to that level. And they're using that misconception, that misunderstanding and the traditions that they added That's binding the scripture. You say, well, why do they pick up on this thing about washing their hands? It's because if you did not wash your hands. They believe you did not go to heaven. That's how it worked. Now, it's good to wash your hands before you eat. But if you don't wash your hands before you eat, does that mean you lose your salvation or you don't go to heaven at all? Did the Old Testament ever teach that? No, but that's what they would teach. And they added stuff that began to read in reality. Change what was really true. So here they are, Jesus is facing the criticism, what is Jesus, how to how to do how is he going to handle the criticism? Is he going to say, well, you know what, I'm sorry, I know you're right. Forgive me. Does he say that? No. Does he say, you know what, man, I got five reasons why you better leave right now. You know, one, two, three, four, five right here. Does he fight back that way? No, no. What he does. Is he clarifies truth? He clarifies truth. Look at verse three. He answers them. He responds. He says, well, OK, you say that we're breaking the tradition of the elders. I'll tell you this. Why do you break the commandment of God? Whoa. He's going for the juggler. OK, you say that we we break the traditions. You know what? So be it. It's just tradition. Why do you break the revealed commandment of God? That's my question. He's turning it back on him, you see. For the sake of your tradition, you're more willing to abide by this so-called tradition of yours, even if it means sacrificing the clear commandment of God. Now, how messed up is that? That's not even rational. But that's what you're willing to do. You're the religious establishment of Israel. You're the ones that's supposed to be the leaders. You're the one that's supposed to be the teachers. And you got it all messed up. You have you you have totally bought into a system that by doing the system decries the clear commandment of God, which that's what you should be doing. You should be following the clear commandment of God, but you throw it out. Well, how do they do that? He picks up on an example of how they had messed up there, messed it all up here. God made a command, a clear command from Scripture, honor your father and your mother. And another one, whoever reviles father or mother must surely die. Those come from the Old Testament, Exodus 20. And Exodus 21. Clear commandments of God. Implied in those commands Honor your father and mother. It means that you would help them. That you would help take care of them when they needed it. And that you would never do anything that would hurt your father or your mother. You would never revile them. And if you did, you know what? That's that's that's a pretty serious thing. God laid out those specific commands, but you know what you've done by your tradition? You have given people a loophole. By which, if they follow your traditions, if they follow your teaching, they can disobey these clear commandments of God and get away with it. See, God commanded in verse four, but you say you change it. If anyone tells his father or his mother, Father, mother, quote, what you have gained from me is given to God. Then he does not need to honor his father. So for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word of God. So what are you talking about here? They had created what was called like the law of Corbin. This tradition called Corbin. OK, imagine this. Here's a scenario. You have some means you have some money, your father and mother are hurting. They need they maybe need your assistance. They need your help. Remember, there's no such thing as Social Security. There's no such thing as a bailout. There's no such thing as government assistance here. OK. And the family needs to take care of each other. And so you have the means to help your father and mother, and they're in a caught in a bind or something. And by the law, by God's clear command, honor your father and mother, take care of them. That's what God wants you to do. In that situation. But you go to your father and mother and say, well, what I could have used to help you. I don't have it anymore. What? No, I gave it to God. What I gave it to God, what did that really mean, giving it to God? What really meant Jesus is saying that's what they tell them, that's the script you've told them to tell their parents. But in reality, what you've done is you've made it a way in which you benefit the Pharisees, the religious system. You say, you know what? Why don't you give that to us? We're the religious establishment. We represent God. And you give us the money and you don't you're not binding to your family. You can go tell your family, hey, we gave it to God. And Jesus says, when you do such a thing, He doesn't need to worry about, you know, maybe the guy would say, well, if I give it to you, Pharisees, then am I disobeying the command that says honor your father and mother? Aren't I doing that? I mean, they need this money. They need this help. And if I give it to you and don't have it for them, aren't I violating that? No, you're not violating that at all. You're giving it to God. It was a loophole. And Jesus says, by doing this, you've allowed people for the sake of your tradition to make the clear commandment of word of God void. You've nullified it. See, God doesn't want your money in that case. God wants you to help your family. This is This is exactly what false religious systems do. They prey on people to gain from those people. That's the definition, that's one of the cardinal definitions of a false teacher. They know how to con people out of their money and make people feel good about it when they do it. And by definition, the religious system of the day was a false religious system. They did not represent, truly represent God. They were false. And what Jesus does is he has to clarify truth. The truth is this Pharisees, religious leaders, your tradition does not usurp the clear commandments of God. And if you come up with any kind of tradition, any kind of loophole, any kind of thing that would make it so that the clear commandments of God are violated, then that is anathema. Jesus did not Read the book How to Win Friends and Influence People. See, they come for a fight and what Jesus does is he clarifies the truth. He lays it out before them. The word of God, the clear teaching of the word of God is what reigns supreme, nothing else. It never has and it never will. And when you read the Gospels, you'll find that he does this repeatedly. The Sermon on the Mount is full of this, he's clarifying these kinds of things, he said, you've heard it been said, love your neighbor, hate your enemy. Well, that wasn't taught in the Old Testament, love your neighbors in the Old Testament, but not the phrase, hate your enemy. They added that, you see. And Jesus had to clarify, you know what love your neighbor in the Old Testament really meant? The word neighbor meant anybody and everybody, no matter who they are, no matter what they look like, talk like, look like, or their nationality. But when you say love your neighbor and hate your enemy, then you've just made two classifications of people, those you love, those you hate. If they're my enemy, I now have a theology that lets me hate them. You know, I don't like the guy keeps throwing his trash on my yard. He's my enemy and the Pharisees say I can hate him. Oh boy, isn't that nice. And Jesus says, no, I say to you, love your enemies. So if he says love your enemies and it was already assumed you love your neighbor, then what is he doing? He's restating again, if you're loving your enemies and you're loving your neighbor, you're loving everybody, which is really the true meaning of the phrase love your neighbor. He's going back and restating, clarifying what is really Old Testament truth and what the religious system of the day it had muddled. And it had here's the here's the truth. And it had been clouded and put over. Because of all this tradition. And their tradition has gotten so big and so vast that they are violent by keeping their traditions, they are violating what is clearly revealed in Scripture. And that is anathema. So when Jesus faced the criticism, he responded by clarifying truth, but he didn't stop there. He states what is the reality. He states the reality of their situation. He says, let me describe you. He calls them, you hypocrites, who that is a loaded statement. That's like that's like shooting with both barrels. Just so you understand the word hypocrite. In the New Testament, it was associated with a certain vocation. The word for hypocrite goes back to the idea of being an actor. They had theatrical kind of plays. They've actually, archaeologists have actually dug up areas where they found, I think it was in a town four miles from Nazareth, they found an area that would be used for theatrical plays. It was kind of common in those days. And so you had actors who played parts on the stage. And Jesus is saying, you know what you are? You're an actor. You're playing a part that's not really you. The part you're playing is that you're showing, you're telling everybody you're the righteous ones of Israel. That you represent God. That you're it. That if anybody wants to have truth dispensed, they need to come to you. But in reality, the reality is, you're not the one that dispenses truth. You're the one that's dispensing these traditions that are undercutting the clear commandments of God. And you have the nerve to come up to me and say and criticize me for violating your traditions when your traditions have no weight with God. God cares about his commands being violated. About his word being supported, about his word being honored. Not your traditions. You got it all backwards. You got it all messed up. He says, let me tell you, the Old Testament talks about you. Isaiah, he brings up Isaiah, Isaiah prophesied of you. Here we go. This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me and they teach as doctrines, as commandments of God, the commandments of man. He's saying, guess what? You're no different than the people of Israel who did it way back then. And God had to speak against it in that day. Jesus is not pushing, He's not holding back here. This is the real Jesus. You want to know why He's doing all this? You want to know why He's being this way? This seems harsh, doesn't it? Seems harsh, it seems, you know, man, what acts does Jesus have to grind here? What in the world? Some people have a picture of Jesus, he's just sitting around being nice to everybody and, you know, doling out goodies. That's not the Jesus of the Bible. But why is he making an issue of all this? Why is he taking it to task? I mean, to basically call out the religious leaders and call them hypocrites, it's like You know, signing your own death warrant. Talk about stirring the pot, this guy's stirring the pot, Jesus is really stirring the pot here and then to bring in the Old Testament and to say, you know what, Isaiah really is describing you. He's doing it because. Truth is important. God's holiness and God's righteousness is important. And he has to make it known. These people, they honor me with their lips, they have all the white verbiage coming out of their mouth. But their heart, they don't care anything for me. It's all a show. It's all a show. And they go about worshiping, they go through the motions of doing all their worship, but it's all in vain. It means nothing. Means absolutely nothing. Because their problem is that they take what they believe to be true and their traditions that they've added on and they teach it above and beyond and even counter to what is revealed. And that's their downfall. You will find on the pages of the Gospels that when you read the ministry of Jesus, you read about what's going on, he's always taking issue with those who would violate his word. If you're going to stand opposed to God's revealed word, not man made tradition that adds to God's word, But the revealed word of Scripture, as it was originally written and meant by what it was said, then God will take issue with you. That's just the way it is. That's why it's important that we be in a Bible believing church, right? That we teach the Bible. We don't come to the pulpit and bring the, you know, Wall Street Journal up here. As I heard one preacher one time say, Now, my dad went to a church service one time and the guy got up and he his sermon text was from a group, a rock group from the 70s called Three Dog Night. I don't think I ever heard of that group, and he basically put a song up on the screen and that was his text for the sermon. I said, Dad, did they ever did you ever open up a Bible? Oh, no. I said, did you ever go back? No, that's good. Don't ever go back there. What are you thinking? But Jesus states the reality, the reality is this. If the Pharisees and scribes on this day would would never repent of their sin, they would remain in their sin. And by remaining in their sin, they will go into an eternal hell. The reality is they better wake up, they better smell the coffee that says They are lost and that they need a savior and that they have twisted up God's word so bad that it's beyond recognition. And they better repent of that. But guess what, he clarifies truth, he states the reality, he doesn't stop there either. Talk about running to something to ground. Jesus goes to the next stage and he presents the implications by all of this. I said, OK. If the Pharisees don't change their ways. If they don't repent. What's going to happen to them? He deals with that, starting in verse 10. He calls the people, the crowd to him and says, listen here and understand. It's not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth. This is what really defiles a person. He begins to go back to this issue that they brought up. He says, well, let me let me let me clarify all this. He says, I'll get to verse 12 and 13 in a minute, verse 14, but Peter asks about what is that you just said in verse 10 and verse 11. Explain that to us. And he's like, don't you get it? Let me make sure you get this. Do you not see verse 17? Whatever goes into the mouth passes in the stomach and is expelled. What are you describing? He's describing the normal bodily process of taking in food, digesting food and food coming out. OK, just the normal body process. It's expelled. That's one thing, but there's something else he's talking about. That's a physical thing in verse 17. What he's really dealing with is the spiritual nature of the heart. What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart. That's the real issue he's getting at. That's what really defiles a person. See, it's an evil heart. That's the problem. And the heart has to be changed. The heart has to be transformed. The heart represents not just the beating organ here. We're talking about the innermost part of a person. The real you. What lasts for eternity. If your heart is wicked, it's like being a bad tree, bad tree produces bad fruit. And so if the heart is wicked, That if I was a person, he explains how the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual morality, theft, false witness, slander, all that stuff comes out of an evil heart. So if you're going to stop the evil from coming out, how does that work? You've got to change the heart, right? What the gospel does, the gospel is not about just cleaning up your life and making your life look good on the outside. Not about that at all. It's about your heart being transformed on the inside. And once the heart is transformed, these things will go away. Because you have a new heart, a new life, a new nature. But to eat with unwashed hands, that doesn't defile you. That's not going to send you into eternal hell. He said, I'll tell you what will. An unredeemed heart. That's what will send you. till he lost eternal hell. And so you got people, this is big in our country, where they're religious, they'll talk about God, they'll mention Jesus, and their life will try to look good on the outside, but inwardly, they're dead man's bones. OK? Inwardly, there's never been a heart change. It's never happened. And so eventually their sin catches up with them. And they can't masquerade it any longer. And it begins to show itself. See, out of the heart comes the stuff, you see. And you can try to hide it as long as you can. You can try to cloud it. Try to miscategorize it. You can try to snow people if you want. But eventually it will all come out. It can't keep it hid forever. And none of us ever hid to God. And so Jesus says that's the real issue. And see, I'm trying to help these Pharisees understand what the reality is so that this can be changed. Their hearts need to be transformed. They need to repent. Not remain in their sinfulness, not remain in their religiosity, that's really damning their soul to hell. They better wake up. They think that not washing your hands is going to send you to a lost, eternal hell forever. That's not the reality. The reality is, if you don't have your heart changed, your inside heart, who you really are, if your nature is not really changed, that will defile you. That will send you to a lost, eternal hell. That's the reality. And so he clarifies all that, states all that, and gives the implications of what remaining in your sin will be. I mean, it's not a pretty picture. You know, people, do you know somebody who's probably playing the game? Just like the religious Pharisees here. Claim to be religious, claim to love God, some of them say, I love Jesus, some of them will say I'm born again. And doesn't matter how many times they dumped underwater. I heard about pastors who keep them underwater for a bit, make sure they're really saved, you know. Trust me, I'm saved, get me out of here. You know. If the heart's never truly been regenerated. They're lost. And they need salvation. Well, get a load of this one. Verse 12. The disciples come to Jesus, they say this. Jesus. Do you know that the Pharisees were offended? When they heard this. Jesus, you touched a nerve. He was good at that. You could never remain neutral with him. He had a way. Of making your motives just come to light. Of bringing your heart to the surface. And the disciples, they're about probably losing it here. And they're saying, Jesus, you better calm down, you know, turn the knots down a little bit. We can't have these guys upset at us. They're the religious establishment. I could see him saying, you know, we don't like them either, but we're not going to say what you're saying. We're not that bold. Don't you know that they were offended? They can make our life miserable. And he answered, verse 13. Every plant. That my heavenly father. Has not planted. Will be rooted up. Think about this, if you had a garden. In your yard. It's your garden. You're the gardener. And you plant the flowers in the garden or the vegetables or whatever you plant in that thing. And all of a sudden you look out your window and there's some people you don't know who they are. And they're at your garden. And they're digging, they're digging your flowers up, maybe pitching them. And you're going, what? And you go out there, and you go, what? What's going on? Oh, we're walking by, and we saw that your garden. We didn't like it. Huh? Yeah, we think it needs to be changed. Huh? So we decided we're going to plant what we want to plant. What? Yeah, we want to plant this. We want to plant that. But this is my garden. Doesn't matter. We want to do this. Well, if they did that and then left, what would you do? You take every bit of plant that they put in there, take it out and replant your garden back the way it was. Right. That's kind of what's being said here. If my heavenly father hasn't planted them. They've kind of planted themselves. They've kind of placed themselves in the religious life of the church or religious life of even Israel. If they want to state something that's not really true, they want to claim to be a Christian and it's not real. Or they want to claim to be righteous with God and they're really not. If they want to be a hypocrite or delude themselves. OK. But if they're not truly planted by my father, he's going to root them up. You think that they're offended? You think I'm going to worry about them being offended at me? He's saying, I'm God. I'm the son of God. What can they do to me unless I allow it? I'm not going to be intimidated, he says. I'm not going to be taken back. I have a mission to do, I have a work to do. And that is to take the gospel and preach it and teach it. So just leave them alone. Don't worry about them. They are blind. And they're actually a guide. Their their their responsibility is to guide others in the spiritual truth, but they're blind themselves. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a I literally a pit. It's the idea of a ditch, but a ditch is not just like little thing on the side of the road. This is like a big pit. It's hard to come out of the idea. You think, listen, don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. God will take care of it all. You just do like I do stand for truth. The gospel will offend people. I heard one person say one time. I was like, what do you think of the of the sermon? And that person said, I was highly offended. I'm like, whoo, got a reaction. Got a reaction. They heard everything that was said in that sermon. And the gospel was clearly presented in that sermon because I heard the same sermon and they rejected it wholesale. And that's when your heart cries out. And Jesus says that's the reality of what's going to happen, but you know what? You stand strong for the truth, stand strong for the gospel, you stand strong for the word of God, because it is the only That will affect change, true change in the life of a person by changing a person's heart. Preaching and teaching the word of God and witnessing and sharing your faith, it's not psychiatry, that's not just trying to do behavioral modification on somebody, change a little bit of the externals, make somebody look good on the outside. You're trying to get to the core problem of the heart on the inside and get to that root level. Where it can be changed. Salvation is not just insurance out of hell. It is a change of life. It's having an eternal life. It's a quality of life, not just the time where it's not just temporal in the sense that it's forever goes way beyond that. It's a quality of life. It's the opposite of eternal death. Which eternal death is a it really is an existence, it's a forever existence in an eternal lake of fire. That's eternal death. Eternal life is the opposite. It's living forever in glory with the Lord. And what Jesus does is takes another opportunity. To explain the reality. And the implications of that reality. In terms of the truth that had been violated. Trying Ultimately, with the goal of getting these Pharisees and religious leaders to really see the truth. Close with this. You all know about Nicodemus, right? He comes to Jesus. And from all accounts, we think that Nicodemus truly came to know the Lord later on. But when he first came to meet Jesus one night, He wanted to have a religious conversation with Jesus. Jesus, we know that you've been sent by God, you're a great teacher and you can't do the things that you do unless God sent you. And what Nicodemus wanted was some kind of conversation. At least he was willing to talk to Jesus. Most people just wanted to throw a rock at him. I mean, this guy at least is willing to talk to him. But Jesus stops the conversation right there and he says, Nicodemus. See, Nicodemus was a Pharisee. He assumed he was going to go to heaven, by all accounts, he deemed himself righteous. Part of the religious system. He had no reason to think otherwise, he felt like he was going to see the kingdom of God, he was going to go into the kingdom of God when it was all over. And Jesus said to him, unless you are born again. You're not even going to see that's the word he uses, you won't even see The kingdom of God. Let alone talk about going there. They can make you think you're righteous, you think you're on your way to heaven, I just I'm going to give you a wake up call. You're not. You're on your way to eternal death and you don't even realize and what will change your path. Because you have to be born again. That blew Nicodemus away. He didn't get that one. But he should have. Jesus knows how to lay it on pretty thick, and he does so in terms of getting the gospel into the hearts and minds of people. That's our task is to take the gospel, share it, tell it, witness it, live it so that others can see Jesus in us. And people may get offended by the truth that you live by. Let them get offended. But then God may use your life. And the testimony of your life. To bring another person to him. And use you as his instrument. And what a joy that is, right? Never forget. Jesus's ministry. Always understand it. Let's pray. Lord, we do give you thanks for this hour, we thank you for all that you show us in your word, how clear it is. Lord, sometimes we don't think about these things. These things don't register with us on a day by day basis. The truth that we've learned here just in these verses. But, Lord, thank you for letting us understand your ministry. And what your ministry was really about. It was not easy. Sometimes very hard. But this is what it is. We thank you in Jesus name, Amen.