We're in Matthew 15, verses 1 through 20 this morning, and it doesn't come out as a huge theme all its own in our text for today, but as we work our way through Matthew chapters 15 and 16, for instance, I think you'll see this is a bit of a shift in Matthew as he emphasizes on one hand Christ's rejection of unbelieving Israel, And on the other hand, his ministry now in some Gentile areas. That's important because although Matthew is written very much from a Jewish perspective, even though that is the case, Matthew is going to end with Jesus, the seed of Abraham, blessing all the nations in himself and sending out his followers to make disciples of all the nations. But even here, earlier in the gospel, we see foretastes of that, you might say. The idea that although he came to his own and his own people did not receive him, yet the Lord found many who received him who were the most unlikely candidates, you might say, in the Jewish mind, those who ordinarily had no natural connection to the God of Israel. Here in our text today, we see the rejection of unbelieving Israel a lot because we see religious officials coming from Jerusalem to apparently examine Jesus' ministry and to find things wrong with it. He's not with them, and they quickly find that out, and that means that they oppose him. And he responds by rejecting their religion as false religion. And as I said, right after this, in our text for next time, we'll see him go into the regions of Tyre and Sidon, ancient Phoenicia, modern Lebanon, which were not Israel at all. And there he ends up ministering to a most unlikely woman. of Gentile stock, but that's next week. That's kind of where this passage is going. So let's read Matthew 15, verses 1 through 20, as we see commands to obey and things that defile. Verse 1. Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat. He answered them. And 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 is given to God, you need not honor his father. So for the sake of your tradition, you have made void 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 vain do they worship me, teaching his 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. Then the disciples came and said to him, do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying? He answered, every plant that my heavenly father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone. They are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit. But 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 comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come 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. This is quite a text. It all hangs together, and yet there's a lot here. So I trust you will stick with me as we carefully work our way through this somewhat detailed but important text. A good place to start is with the big idea, the main idea of this text, which I think is this. Jesus exposes the upside-down religion of externalism. Jesus exposes the upside-down religion of externalism. What's externalism? Well, it's not merely the idea that things people can see outwardly matter, but it's the replacement of that, it's the replacement of things that are internal with things that are external. So externalism is when The heart no longer matters because our religion is all about the outward, the external. So Jesus exposes the upside-down religion of externalism. There's two points to this. First of all, in verses 1-9, we see that externalism honors man's commands more than God's. Externalism honors man's commands more than God's, verses 1-9. We see in verses 1-2 that religious experts from Jerusalem had come and they accused Jesus' disciples of disobeying human commands about ritual purity. These were religious experts, Pharisees, members of this strict sect, conservative sect of Judaism, and the scribes, those who studied and taught the Torah, the law, the law of Moses and its application in all of life. These were the religious experts. And they were members, technically, of the correct religion. They were part of Judaism, based on the Old Testament. It was the correct religion, you could say, in that sense. They weren't worshipping false gods, and they weren't Samaritans teaching half-truths about the God of the Old Testament. So, at least in words, they were teaching about the true God and His Word. But they showed their true colors by what they accused Jesus' disciples of here. They didn't find something and say, you're doing something that's against God's law. They found something that was against their own human commands about ritual purity. Things they expected their followers to abide by, to be truly pure and wholehearted in their religion, supposedly. The scribes and Pharisees came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? The idea being this is a tradition that has been passed on through our generations up to the present time. This is how we know we're keeping God's law fully, by following what our rabbis and our teachers and the fathers, the elders have said we should do to be extra careful about God's law. And their specific complaint, your disciples do not wash their hands when they eat. Now, I'm sure there were some hygienic concerns involved, or at least the idea of ritual purity was interwoven with the idea that water physically cleanses you. But the primary emphasis here was ritual. It was ceremonial cleanliness. religious, not just health. Grant Osborne writes that in Jesus' time, these rules for the conduct of daily lives, the tradition of the elders, were transmitted orally, but later were written in the Mishnah with an entire tractate, the Yadayim, filled with minute details on the washing of hands. So in Jesus' day, this was more just something they taught by mouth. They hadn't written it down yet like they would later. He says, they originally had a good purpose, to enable a people living in a culture far removed from the semi-nomadic culture that existed at the time of the giving of the law, to understand and keep the law. That is, these were Jews in the first century, hundreds of years after Moses got the law of Mount Sinai. Some things had changed about their situation. So how were they going to apply the word of God very specifically to their daily lives? That was the intended goal, at least originally here. They called it, he says, building a fence around the law. So this is not something we're foisting upon the first century Jews. This is what they said about what they were doing. We're building a fence around the law. That is, keeping the common people from inadvertently breaking the law. But, he says, the number of details quickly turned it into a burdensome set of pedantic rules. You know, Mark, in Mark chapter 7, the same account, expands a little bit on this, probably because he's aiming a little bit more for a purely Gentile audience. He says in Mark chapter 7, verses 3 and 4, explaining this a little bit. For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders. And when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe. such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches." He's saying this is just the tip of the iceberg. There was a very complicated set of rules to be a really good Pharisee, keeping the law in their eyes. So what about hand washing? Why that? Again, as Grant Osborne mentions, this particular rule does not come from the written Torah, from the Law of Moses. But apparently it originated in the Pharisaic desire to extend the ritual required for priests at the laver, to prepare them for the temple ceremonies, extend that to the ordinary family at meals. The Pharisees scrupulously applied these rules to themselves. There is some agreement that in the first century, such a practice was generally demanded only by Pharisaic hiatus, that is, the really spiritual types, and was not widely observed until the second century. But the point is, God's ceremonial law for Israel did include hand washings for very specific scenarios. Exodus 30, verse 17, about the priests. The Lord said to Moses, you shall also make a basin of bronze with its stand of bronze for washing. You shall put it between the tent of meeting and the altar, and you shall put water in it with which Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet. When they go into the tent of meeting or when they come near the altar to minister, to burn a food offering to the Lord, they shall wash with water so that they may not die. They shall wash their hands and their feet so that they may not die. It shall be a statute forever to them, even to him and to his offspring throughout their generations. And there were other very specific scenarios mentioned where washing was important. For instance, if a man had a discharge, there were the laws about how you might come in contact with him and become unclean. And so it says in Leviticus 15.11, anyone whom the one with the discharge touches without having rinsed his hands in water shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and be unclean until the evening. All right, so follow me here. If God's law prescribed hand-washing for certain things, now man's law decided to be even more sure of purity by expanding the expectation for washings, for rinsings. You think that's strange logic? God only said this, but we'll expand it to be extra sure? Well, you see, if you're looking at the world as a dangerous place, full of lurking ceremonial uncleanness, like a physical contagion which also taints the soul, then more protection is better, right? If you have that mindset. If the priests wash their hands at the temple, let's all wash our hands at home in a very ceremonial ritual. If surgeons wear a mask to protect the patient in surgery, let's all wear masks outdoors just in case we might unknowingly pass a contagion to someone else who gets too close. But I digress. But there's some logic here that's very human. More is better. Now, Jesus replied when they got all over his disciples for disobeying the human commands about ritual purity. Jesus replied that these religionists habitually replaced God's word with theirs. Verses three through six. He answered them. Notice he doesn't even give a moment's credence, give a moment's honor to their complaint. He goes right after them. He replied that they habitually replaced God's word with theirs. He answered them, and 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 for me as given to God, he need not honor his father. So for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word of God. You know, it's easy enough to make up rituals to do to feel extra spiritual throughout the day. But what about when God's law hits you where it hurts your pocketbook? What about the fact that God said, honor your father and your mother? And that clearly implies financial assistance when they need it in their old age. but that cramps your lifestyle. What then? Well, then man's law can find a loophole and find its way around that. People could declare their finances and possessions as held in reserve for God, if you will. It's not that they were on their way to the temple with this amount of money and said, sorry, dad, this is for God, no. The parents might say, son, we noticed you had a good harvest this year. Could you help us? And the son says, very hyper spiritually, dad, I'm so sorry. I already dedicated this to God to be to be specially his in my life. And so I can't help you. So it meant you could hold these things in reserve for God, though they're still yours as you're using them. And if that meant that you could get out of supporting your aging parents, all the better. Jesus put it starkly. So for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word of God. You've emptied the word of God of all meaning, of all authority. for the sake of your tradition. And you know, I'm sure plenty of people with this tradition, even if they personally weren't in a situation where they wanted to keep something back from their parents, I'm sure they defended the tradition because, hey, Rabbi so-and-so said it, and it comes from a long line of honorable rabbis. And this is the tradition of the elders and the fathers. You wouldn't call that ungodly, would you? This is our heritage, great men of the faith. But it's just, it's tradition, which violates the command of God. And so it doesn't matter who taught it, if it violates scripture. You see here, the authority of scripture above all human authority, even in our terms in the church, the word of God is supreme. So they habitually replaced God's word with theirs, and he'd given this specific example. And Jesus isn't finished with them either. He goes on to quote their Old Testament prophet to them, as he often did. He said that Isaiah had already exposed such religion as hypocritical lip service. Isaiah had already talked about their kind of religion, and he called it hypocritical lip service. He says, you hypocrites, So he calls them hypocrites, and then quotes Isaiah to prove it. Well did Isaiah prophesy of you when he said, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. Now, given the context of the Isaiah quotation, which is Isaiah 29, by the way, if you want to turn there, given that context, Jesus is also hinting, I think, that these Jerusalem scribes, remember they're from the headquarters in Jerusalem, if you will, these Jerusalem scribes were doing the same thing that their fathers had done, leading to Jerusalem's destruction. In Isaiah 29, the context is wicked Jerusalem before the Babylonian captivity. The context is God will let the Babylonians carry them off into captivity and destroy Jerusalem because of what they had done, even while they claim to still be promoting the worship of the true God in the temple. And isn't it interesting that Jesus pronounced woes on the scribes and Pharisees, the hypocrites, and said that on them, all the righteous blood shed on earth would come. And the temple would again be destroyed. Jerusalem would again be carried off because of their hypocritical religion. But Isaiah 29, verse 1, it uses this name Ariel for the city of Jerusalem. It says, ah, Ariel. Ariel, the city where David encamped. Add year to year. Let the feasts run their round. There's a bit of sarcasm here. Keep up your religious calendar. Yet I will distress Ariel, and there shall be moaning and lamentation, and she shall be to me like an Ariel. And I will camp against you all around, and I will besiege you with towers, and I will raise siege works against you. And you will be brought low. From the earth you shall speak, and from the dust your speech will be bowed down. Your voice shall come from the ground like the voice of a ghost, and from the dust your speech shall whisper. Now jump down to verse nine, because he goes on to talk about the restoration of Jerusalem, but in verse nine he returns to the topic of why they're going to be destroyed. Astonish yourselves and be astonished. Blind yourselves and be blind. Be drunk, but not with wine. Stagger, but not with strong drink. For the Lord has poured out upon you a spirit of deep sleep, and has closed your eyes, the prophets, and covered your heads, the seers. And the vision of all this has become to you like the words of a book that is sealed. When men give it to one who can read, saying, read this, he says, I cannot, for it is sealed. And when they give the book to one who cannot read, saying, read this, he says, I cannot read. And here's the quotation Jesus took out, verse 13. And the Lord said, because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men, therefore, behold, I will again do wonderful things with this people, with wonder upon wonder, and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden. The wisdom of the scribes and Pharisees will perish, because this is their religion. The issue in Isaiah's day and in Jesus' day was that of hypocritical lip service. The religious elite turned their focus away from the very words of God to their own convenient interpretation of those words. They wanted to speak well of the Lord, to honor him with their lips while giving their hearts to other gods. The elephant in the room was the heartless nature of their religion. There was no heart to it. It was just all about, it was just words. And that connects us well into the second main point of our text this morning, actually. Jesus is talking about how their hearts are far from God, even though their lips talk a lot about God. And so that brings us to this second main point of the text, verses 10 through 20. That is that externalism, Externalism practices ritual purity rather than heart purity. Externalism practices ritual purity rather than heart purity. Remember, the first point was that externalism honors man's commands more than God's. That's because it's all about ritual, not heart. So verses 10 through 11, as we break this down and how it unfolds in the text, we see that true defilement starts on the inside of a person, not the outside. True defilement starts on the inside of a person, not the outside. Verse 10, Jesus isn't just letting this go by denouncing the scribes and pharisees to their faces. Now he turns to the crowds and says, listen up. This is what's wrong with their religion, in essence. 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, because you didn't wash your hands in the right ritual before you put something in your mouth. It's not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth. This defiles a person. Pharisees go around like superstitious germaphobes, always keeping a suspicious watch on the things around them, lest those things somehow contaminate their souls. They should have turned their suspicious gaze inward. They should have been suspicious of their own hearts. They should have focused more on what their mouths said and what their hands did than on what their mouths ate and their hands put in their mouths. Defilement starts on a person's inside rather than their outside, and it works its way out. So Jesus says true defilement starts on the inside of a person, not the outside. And then, verses 12 through 14, those who reject this truth must be rejected. This is not something which those who claim to follow the true God can agree to disagree on. Those who reject this truth must be rejected. Jesus disciples are apparently looking at their master and saying, wow, he is. He is hot, he is angry, he's saying some strong things and maybe he doesn't understand how this is going to damage his PR with these. These are important people. They're from Jerusalem. They're from the temple. Probably from the Sanhedrin, the elders in Israel, the people in charge. We should at least try to stay halfway on good terms with them, shouldn't we? The disciples came and said to him, Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying? Lord, you may not know this, but This really irked these people. Did you need to say it so harshly? He answered, every plant that my heavenly father has not planted will be rooted up. In other words, this is what's supposed to happen. Let them alone. They are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit. What's Jesus' point? Well, his disciples should expect false teachers to be offended when their sham piety is exposed. That's the whole point. And they shouldn't get in the way of, his disciples shouldn't get in the way of such worthless plants being uprooted. Because God didn't plant them. So the disciples shouldn't try to come to some sort of charitable understanding with such people. This is strong. On the contrary, Jesus' disciples should warn the crowds of such religious charlatans. They are blind guides. They are dangerous. If others are blind enough to follow such guides, both the guides and their followers are headed for spiritual disaster. They'll both fall into a pit. If someone insists on a false cure for a spiritual contagion, reject them and warn other people. Warn others about them. You realize there's context here. Jesus says very different things when he's addressing people who look for tiny things that are wrong with other people to rebuke them about, right? Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 7, judge not that you be not judged. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye when there's a beam in your own eye? That's a different context. There are people who take a text like this and then they apply it to everybody and their cat. Everybody that has anything wrong with them. That's not what this is talking about. This is talking specifically about Those who are, you might say, evangelists for this sort of external religion, this externalism, they have to be called out. Those who reject this truth must be rejected. Because again, verses 15 through 19, true defilement comes from the heart. It's more specific than just comes from inside of a person. He says it comes from the very innermost part of your being. It comes from the heart. Peter said to him in verse 15, explain the parable to us. In other words, still not sure we understand exactly what you were saying that got them so mad in the first place. It's not what goes in the mouth, but what comes out of the mouth that defiles a man. And Jesus, remember Jesus never got sinfully frustrated, but he did get frustrated sometimes. He expresses a little bit of mild frustration even with his disciples for being a bit spiritually dense here, okay? Because verse 16, Jesus 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 comes 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. Again, the heart is the issue, and Jesus gets a bit earthy here. If you put the wrong thing into your mouth, don't worry. What goes in one end will come out the other. The problem is when evil emerges from your mouth. When your talk starts sounding like that of a murderer, or an adulterer, or a thief, or a false witness, or a slanderer, that's the time to seek cleansing. That's when the alarm should be going off. And notice that these are things of which God's law does warn us. It's the Ten Commandments. It's not that hard. How shall a young man keep his way pure by keeping it according to your word? What has God blamely said? When you forsake God's commands for man's commands, you'll miss the evil right in front of your face. Happens all the time. For all of us. In verse 20, Jesus ties up the loose end. He wraps it up by saying that external rituals cannot cleanse the heart. At least that's what he implies when he says, these are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone. It's not that big a deal if you miss the right ritual and if you still put something in your mouth. That doesn't defile anyone. Because the implication is external rituals can't deal with the heart. They can't cleanse the heart, and the heart is the issue. Alright. So if your concern for purity and wholesomeness consists of the constant worry that you didn't do your outward routines quite right, you're doing it wrong. Because external rituals cannot cleanse the heart. Now, applications. And I have several. And there could be plenty more if we had the time to just break these down further, obviously. This is a big topic. But I think the application that we need to start with is this. Human applications of God's commands must be kept distinct from the commands themselves. Let me repeat that. Human applications of God's commands must be kept distinct from the commands of God themselves. It is a good and necessary thing to find out how, in my context, I need to obey the Lord. Here's what God actually said. Now how does that apply to my life? as I'm in this job, in this marriage, with these kids, in this church, and so on. But don't then make your specific application into the word of God itself. Keep the distinction there. Because how had the Pharisees and scribes gotten to this sorry state? Well, a lot of it was the tradition of the elders trying to apply the law to specific situations had for them become the law. The authority was no longer with the word of God, it was with their word about God's word. Jesus' interaction with the scribes and Pharisees is a grand illustration of Proverbs chapter 30, verse six. And I'll actually read verses five and six together, which say, every word of God proves true. He is a shield to those who take refuge in him. But then verse six, do not add to his words lest he rebuke you, and you be found a liar. That's exactly what happens in our text today, isn't it? The scribes and Pharisees had added to God's words, and they were rebuked by the Lord and found to be liars. By the way, just as a side note, this will mean that our Christian lives and choices shouldn't all look the same. God has called us under diverse circumstances, and so there will be a diversity, rightly so, in how God's word looks as it works itself out in our different lives. 1 Corinthians 7, verse 17, Paul is addressing various issues of whether to marry or not marry, whether And then other he goes from that into other Differences among people whom God has called to himself He says only that each person lead the life that the Lord is assigned to him and to which God has called him This is my rule in all the churches Was anyone at the time of his call already circumcised? Let him not seek to remove the marks of circumcision Was anyone at the time of his call uncircumcised? Let him not seek circumcision Four, neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God. We can all keep the commandments of God, the implication is, without all looking the same in every aspect of our life. Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called, Paul says. That's a broad principle. So whether we're talking about the road to marriage or family activities or the use of finances or the details of our diets, there are all those things that God has said and things that he hasn't said. So don't equate what for you may be a wise application of his commands. Don't equate that with the commands themselves. And don't expect others to always make the same applicational choices which you make. Don't add to God's words. That's an important principle. Now, when you mess up and accidentally do that, that doesn't mean you're all the way down the road to where these scribes and Pharisees were, that's not my point. But it is the natural drift of the human heart once you get on that road. Put it that way. All right, second application. That is, additions to God's word will soon replace God's word. Additions to God's word will soon replace God's word. This has happened throughout history. Judaism. Judaism became more about rabbinic opinion, what the rabbis have taught down through the centuries since the law was given. More about that than about the scriptures breathed out by God. Many somewhat religious Jews even today know more about what the rabbis have taught than about what their scriptures actually say. That's one big way in which that veil remains over their eyes about their Messiah. Because additions to God's word have replaced God's word, as far as authority goes for them. Roman Catholicism. The Church of Rome has given divine authority to doctrines of its own invention, regarding the Eucharist, regarding the Virgin Mary, and how much the saints in heaven can supposedly affect things on earth. And now, those invented doctrines leave no room for the glory of Jesus Christ as the only mediator between God and men. And they leave no room for the perfection, the finished perfection, of His atonement for all who believe. And he doesn't get re-sacrificed with each mass. But you see, their doctrinal developments over time have replaced the scriptures in authority. More on Rome in a moment. But remember, the very same thing will happen with your pet opinions if you allow them equal authority with God's words. I'm almost embarrassed trying to come up with examples because there's too many. And I'll hit inevitably some groups and not others which are equally guilty. But just a few very random examples. Perhaps dressing in your Sunday best will become the excuse for despising others made in God's image. Perhaps your desire for an unquestioned Bible translation will lead you to break fellowship with faithful Christians and slander their Bibles as perversions. That's a big movement today. Perhaps your opinions about racial conflict will motivate you to judge others on the basis of their skin, rather than judging them as equal sharers in God's image in man. Of course, those are very random examples, and there are many, many others. Whatever your additions to God's word, they will soon crowd out God's word. That's because of what I'm about to say in the next point, which is that the hypocritical heart finds pious ways to ignore God's law. The hypocritical heart finds pious, godly appearing methods of ignoring God's law, getting around it. John Calvin. wrote about why it was a necessity to reform the church in his day, why the Protestant Reformation, moving away from the Church of Rome, was necessary. It was largely because of this. He talks about how worship had been redefined from what the scriptures demanded to what people in their hypocritical hearts just wanted to do to get away from the heart of true worship. He says, but the worst of all is that though God is so often and strictly banned from worship all fabrications made by men, the only worship paid to him consisted of human inventions. What ground then have our enemies to clamor that in this matter we have dissipated religion to the winds? That is, the Protestant reformers were accused of being the ones who were destroying religion. First, we have not laid even a finger on anything which Christ does not discount as worthless when he declares that it is vain to worship God with human traditions, referring to the text we read today. The thing might perhaps have been more tolerable if the only effect had been that men's labor was lost by an unavailing worship. But since, as I have observed, God in many passages forbids any new worship unsanctioned by his word, declares that he is gravely offended by such audacity, and threatens it with severe punishment, it is clear that the reformation which we have introduced was demanded by a strong necessity. I am not unaware how difficult it is to persuade the world that God rejects and even abominates everything devised for worship by human reason. The grounds for this error are numerous. Everyone thinks highly of his own, as the old proverb expresses it. Hence, the offspring of our own brain delights us more. And besides, as Paul admits in Colossians 2.23, this fictitious worship often presents some show of wisdom. Besides, as it has for the most part an external splendor which pleases the eye, It is more agreeable to our carnal nature than that which alone God requires and approves, but which is less ostentatious. But there is nothing which so blinds the minds of men so that they judge wrongly in this matter as hypocrisy. For while it is incumbent on true worshippers to give heart and mind, Men always want to invent a mode of serving God quite different from this, their object being to perform for him certain bodily observances and keep the mind to themselves. Moreover, they imagine that when they thrust external pumps upon him, they have by this artifice evaded the necessity of giving themselves. This is the reason why they submit to innumerable observances which, without measure and without end, miserably exhaust them, and why they choose to wander in a perpetual labyrinth rather than worship God simply in spirit and in truth." The point is, why do people come up with all these extra, outward things to do in worship? because it makes them feel really religious without doing anything about their hearts. They don't want God to mess with their hearts. They want to be able to go and take the Mass and go to confessional and do all these things and never give God their heart. Because that's what the human heart hypocritically wants to do. Again, the hypocritical heart finds pious ways to ignore God's law. It says, the prophet Samuel said to Saul, when God had told Saul, go, attack Amalek, kill their king, destroy all their people and all their livestock. And Saul did that partially, but he spared the king and spared the best of the livestock. When he did that, Samuel said, as the Lord has great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, the externals of worship, as in obeying the voice of the Lord, Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. It's better to simply listen and obey than multiply outward aspects of worship. Why does the hypocritical heart want to look godly while ignoring true godliness? Well, because of our next point. Why does it want to look godly while avoiding true godliness? Well, because the hypocritical heart can love religion while hating God. Our hypocritical hearts, put it that way, can love religion while hating God. This is what God had to say in Isaiah 66, verses one through six, to those who came to the temple and worshiped him with many offerings and sacrifices, which his word had spoken of while they were wicked in their hearts. Isaiah 66, verse one, thus says the Lord, heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. What is the house, the temple that you would build for me? And what is the place of my rest? All these things my hand is made. And so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look. He who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word. He who slaughters an ox in sacrifice is like one who kills a man. He who sacrifices a lamb like one who breaks a dog's neck. He who presents a great offering like one who offers pig's blood. He who makes a memorial offering of frankincense like one who blesses an idol. These have chosen their own ways and their soul delights in their abominations. I also will choose harsh treatment for them and bring their fears upon them. Because when I called, no one answered. When I spoke, they did not listen. But they did that which was evil in my eyes and chose that in which I did not delight. A couple more applications and we're done. Actually, three more, but they're quick. External ritual. Outward ritual can picture purity, but it cannot purify you. This is a big thing that God's people in the Old Testament constantly missed. The nation of Israel, they constantly missed this. That external ritual, which God did require in the Old Testament law, it was given to picture purity, but it could not purify their consciences and their hearts. It only pictured, pointed toward what they really needed. And it's always that way, no matter if we're talking about things God has told us to do, to come and observe the Lord's table and sing and pray and so on. But external ritual, like partaking of the bread and the cup at the table, that cannot purify you. It just pictures the purity that you need. Hebrews 9 verse 9 says that according to this arrangement in the Old Testament law, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshipper, but deal only with food and drink and various washings. Sound familiar? regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation. But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent, not made with hands, that is, not of this creation, he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God? Hebrews 10.1, for since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come, instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? But in these sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins every year, for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Consequently when Christ came into the world he said Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired But a body have you prepared for me in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure Then I said behold I have come to do your will O God as it is written of me in the scroll of the book And in verse 10 it says by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all Therefore brothers, excuse me, verse 19, skipping down again. Therefore brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Jesus cleanses his body and soul, not external ritual. And so, my next point, the fake Christianity of externalism must be soundly denounced. The fake Christianity of externalism must be soundly denounced. I'll just give one example. mentioned in two passages in the New Testament, that of the Judaizers who insisted on the outward ceremonies of the Old Testament law to make people full Christians after they believed in Christ. Galatians 6 verse 12 Paul speaks of these people, he says, it is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised and only in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, echoes of what Jesus said, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh and in the outward appearance. But far be it from me to boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. And Philippians 3, verse 2, Paul says, look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. For we are the circumcision who worship by the spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh, though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more. And he lists his Jewish pedigree. But then he says, whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. And then in verse 17 of the same chapter, he says, brothers, join in imitating me And keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many of whom I have often told you, and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction. Their God is their belly. And they glory in their shame with minds set on earthly things." Now, we could almost be done here. But I think I would be wrong not to mention one last point, and that is this. Things like food, water, and dirt must never matter more to you than a pure heart. And this can be so insidious, so sneaky in how it worked its way into our hearts. Things like food, water, and dirt, and just outward things in general, must never matter more to you than a pure heart." Now, I realize this can cut two ways. It can cut in the direction of prudishness or in the direction of unchecked indulgence. Romans 14, there were people who said, on the one hand, in the church, I think the food laws of Moses, I just have this thing in my conscience, I think the food laws of Moses still apply, and the feast days and so on. They were incorrect, but they had poorly informed consciences. They were weak in faith. Then on the other hand, you had people who wanted to just trample all over those people and say, no, I'm gonna eat my steak. I'm going to eat what I want, and you're not going to tell me different. So, both ways, food could end up mattering more than a pure heart. So, Paul said in Romans 14 verse 13, Therefore, let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, speaking of the food thing, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean. For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died. So do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. Later he says, do not for the sake of food destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats. It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble. As he said in 1 Corinthians 8, verse 8, in a different context, food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat and no better off if we do. So the point, don't endanger other believers by either your use or your rejection of things like food and drink. At the same time, the New Testament does not allow externalists to hijack that principle so they can force their externalism on the church. It's one thing for a brother in Christ to have private scruples, which we must be considerate about. It's quite another thing to allow so-called brothers to make Christianity about things like food and drink and ritual cleansings. As Hebrews 13, 8 says, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods which have not benefited those devoted to them. Now, You may say, Pastor, why, especially at the end of a long sermon like this, why are you getting honest about this? We don't have Judaizers, at least that I know of around, do we? We don't have the Pharisees of the first century here. Oh yeah, we rarely do encounter exactly those sorts of people, at least in all the same particulars, but we do encounter similar impulses. Let's not be naive about that. James Jordan, in his book Pig Out, 25 Reasons Why Christians May Eat Pork, he gives us a little history reminder of our recent history in our nation. He says, fringe groups in American Christianity have, for almost two centuries, advocated dietary and hygienic practices designed to curb sin. And this is part of the milieu in which the current discussion must take place. It seems reasonable to many Americans to assume that God intended to teach Israel about diet, because diet and health are part of the popular civil religion of America today. And because dietetic theology, as he calls it, has been a strong current in American Christianity in the past. In the 19th century, the 1800s, There were prominent liberal and sectarian theologians who believed that the sinfulness of man could be curbed through diet and hygiene. John Harvey Kellogg, heard of Kelloggs? A Seventh-day Adventist, invented cornflakes as a meatless breakfast food designed to reduce the sexual drive. Control of what they called bestial sexual impulses was linked in the popular imagination, both sectarian and liberal, with a bland diet devoid of alcohol, coffee, tea, tobacco, condiments, and largely devoid of meat. Assumption of this diet would reduce what is today called libido. And this reduction of the animal in man, as they called it, would be passed on to one's children, who would grow up with less original sin. Salvation through diet passed into the popular imagination through the writings of liberals like Horace Bushnell, sectarians like Kellogg and Charles Finney, if you've ever heard of him, and cultists like Mary Baker Eddy. As a result, there is a pervasive orientation toward dietetic theology in American Christianity that colors our discussion of the Sinaitic dietary laws. What he's saying is, and you'll still find people out there today saying, maybe we should use the Old Testament food laws because God wants his people to be really healthy. And then that becomes a mark of spirituality. And also in the footnotes from that section, Jordan mentions that Les' original sin was the purpose of graham flour, developed by Sylvester Graham, and still with us in graham crackers. The graham diet was used at Charles Finney's Oberlin College to protect students against vile affections, end quotes. The Bill Gothard Institute is strongly influenced by Finney's writings. It's possible that the dietary aspect of their program can be traced partially To Finney's teaching is mediation of the grand viewpoint. And we could go on. This stuff always comes back to haunt us. As Doug Wilson points out, why are we so tempted by these false standards of food righteousness, these overwrought concerns about what we put on our plates or how it got there? Well, as he says, we're all made in the image of God. We cannot deny or negate the image of God. We can only succeed in dislocating it. So moral rebellions in one area result in a bizarre moralistic crusade in other areas. Because man has a need to be visibly righteous. If he is visibly unrighteous in some area that God's moral law plainly and clearly defines, then he must compensate by excessive zeal in righteousness elsewhere. But it cannot be righteousness elsewhere as God defines it, for that would be obedience, and the disobedient cannot love obedience." You know, here in the postmodern West, and particularly in the Pacific Northwest, it's not just the conservative types or the cultists who get weird about food. You see, people everywhere have this deep drive to use the external details of their lives, things like diet and health, which are fine in their place. Hear me clearly there. But we have this deep drive to use the external details of our lives, like diet and health, to deal with the spiritual void in our hearts. That's why it becomes religious for people. Paul warned us in 1 Timothy chapter 4, verse 1, the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, to the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared. And what will they teach? Who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer. And a few verses down, he says, have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. In the original, that's old women's myths. Rather, train yourself for godliness. So as we close, let me remind you that you have two choices. And I know I've gone long, I apologize for that. But here are the two choices. The religion of pretended purity and the religion of heart purity. Yes, you do need cleansing. That's why you have these impulses. Yes, you are filthy, more than you know. So come and be washed in the blood of Jesus. God said to people in Isaiah chapter one, people who were bringing sacrifices and burnt offerings to him, and yet their hands were full of blood. He said, 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 like crimson, they shall become like wool. Jesus can wash you clean, but your inventions cannot. So come to Jesus. Let's pray. Father, thank you that we have true cleansing that doesn't just go skin deep. Thank you for Jesus Christ and his cleansing blood. May we never try to replace that with things of our own invention. Help us not to forget your commands because we replace them with human commands. And Lord, may we never be concerned about being outwardly religious while ignoring our needy hearts. Please make us the kind of people that know what Jeremiah 31, the new covenant is all about. that you cleanse your people in their hearts from all their idols and from all their filthiness. And you give them new hearts that are pure, pure because of the blood of Jesus. We pray this in his name. Amen.