Now our Lord has responded to the Pharisees' vile and ridiculous accusation that he, the Lord Jesus Christ, was acting on behalf of Satan when he cast the devil out of the man in verse 22. And our Lord, again, continues to speak of that in our text this morning, every idle word. They threw that out there like they had some big idea that they, you know, were going to malign the Lord Jesus Christ. They were going to defame him. They didn't believe that for a second, but they wanted to show him to be an imposter. They knew that Satan doesn't cast the devil out of a man. Satan doesn't speak with authority like the Lord Jesus Christ did from the word of God, speak the truth of God. They knew in their heads who he was, but in their hearts, they despised him because he wasn't the Jesus that they were looking for, that they expected, that they had manufactured in their own mind. And so he calls their words, idle words. They just threw that out there like, you know, but impressing upon us that what we say has consequence. What we say has weight. It means something. It's coming from somewhere. It's coming from the heart. And it's either a good tree or a bad tree. And you'll know it by its fruit. That's the clear teaching of scripture. So they accused him of casting out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of devils. He showed that that was illogical, that Satan wouldn't cast out Satan. A kingdom divided against itself can't stand, and so it's just ridiculous on the surface of it. He showed it to be blasphemous when he said, You blaspheme the Holy Spirit, there's no hope for you in heaven, earth, or hell. And so he gave them that warning. He taught them what really happened when he cast the devil out of that man, how that a strong man takes possession of a house. And he comes and he overpowers the man, and it stays that way. It remains that way. The man has no power against him. The sinner has no power. He can't rescue himself. He's not going to work his way out of it. He's not going to think his way out of it. His only hope is if a stronger comes along. The scriptures teach that sin and our evil is like a snare. And that you don't get out of a snare on your own, because the harder you pull, the more you try to get out, the tighter the snare gets. The only way you get out of a snare is if somebody lets you out of it, or the snare breaks, which this one don't. The snare of God's law, the snare of God's righteous indignation against sinners is unbreakable. And the more work you do to escape that judgment and that bondage, the tighter it gets, the more urgent and the more dire your situation. And your hope is for somebody to come along and cut that snare to release you from the bondage of it. And that's the stronger comes along and saves you from the strong man. You don't participate in it. You don't have anything, any part in that. except that he does it for you. He does it for you. Your part in it is that you need it. Your part in it is your helplessness and hopelessness. But the stronger comes along and he overcomes and binds the strong man so that he can't do anything. In the beginning, you can't do anything about your situation, but when Christ comes and saves you and takes up residence in you, now your enemies can't do anything. Now they're bound. Now you're free because of Christ and His precious blood. So he taught them what truly happened on that day, right before their very eyes. Satan was overpowered and he took away from Satan what belonged to the Son of God. And that's just, that's endearing and And a joyful message, isn't it? Because that's what happened to us. That's what happened to me. That's what happens when God saves a sinner. The Almighty comes along and accomplishes everything for that sinner that he needs. Sets him free. Now here our Lord has one more thing to say about these Pharisees' blasphemous and illogical and idiotic and profane charge against Him. in calling him the prince of devils, casting out devils. He says, either make the tree and its fruit good, or make the tree and its fruit evil. It can't be both. There can't be a mixture of it. There can't be a combination. If the tree is evil, there's not gonna be good fruit. And if the tree is good, it brings forth good fruit, and only good fruit. And what a simple and clear teaching of original sin, of sin. And we were just talking recently, my son and I, about what sin is. And he's showing here that sin is what you are. You're an evil tree. That's why you do what you do. The fruit is just the produce of that tree. The sin is in the tree. It's an evil tree. You can't say, well, all men, you know, everybody's basically good, but they do bad things. No, no, no, no, no, no. If every man is basically good, then they'll do good things. But if they're evil, they'll do evil things. So if they're doing evil things, that's why he said by their fruit, you should know, you'll know. And we do, don't we? Look at this world. Look at this Christless, godless, antichrist world. So he's talking about, and when he says make the tree, he's talking about understand that it's this way, present it this way, understand it this way, reckon it this way, that if it's a good tree, it'll bring forth good fruit. If it's an evil tree, it'll bring forth evil fruit. And there's no combination of that. In their accusation against the Lord, they have an evil tree with good fruit. And he shuts that down. He calls them on it. They couldn't deny that for a devil to be cast out of a man is a good thing. That's a good work. And yet they called the man that did it evil. So you see where he's teaching. It doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way. Both have got to be one or the other. And this not only thoroughly refutes what these Pharisees have said, but it also clears up another lie. Look at verse 35. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things. This is the application of the illustration of the two types of trees. He's explaining the parable of the trees, the illustration, the example of the trees. They're men. They're two different kinds of men. And if a man is good, truly, perfectly good, then everything he does is good. If a man is evil, then everything he does is evil. A sinner without Christ cannot not sin. It is impossible. Everything we do and say and think falls short of the glory of God. And it is shocking how much religion there is in this world and how little understanding of that there is, of what sin is. Everything we do, say, or think is evil by nature. There is none that doeth good. No, not one. You think, well, we know all that. We know that. Be sure you do. Be sure you do. And I think it necessary, like Peter did, to remind us of these things. Because of God's grace, he reminds us of these things. Because it's easy to start thinking differently. It's easy to start saying, well, you know, I love that person so much. And they do. They say some good things. They do some good things. Do they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? Have they bowed to the son of God? Does Christ dwell in them? Those are the questions. You can't get good out of an evil tree, no matter how good it looks to you. That's something else we need to talk about. We're all born into this world, evil, only evil, all evil, and nothing but evil. And almost nobody understands this. And it's a basic gospel truth. Even those that would confess that men are sinners, And I think all of religion pretty much will confess that we're sinners, not understanding what that means. But they'll say we're sinners, but they maintain that there's a good, a good spark down in there, you know, that just needs to be fanned into a flame. The Lord's teaching is clearly, it don't work that way. It's all evil or it's all good. It's all evil or it's all good. The man. That's why in the new birth, The saved sinner is called a new man. You must be born again. You're still born of the flesh. Flesh, that which is of the flesh is flesh. Born of the flesh, it's never gonna be anything but flesh. That's still true of us. But also that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Paul said, I don't live. It's not me, but it's Christ that liveth in me. Christ can't do evil. He can't do bad. The fruit of the Spirit is everything good, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in us. And so, we are both an evil tree and a good tree. We have two natures, and there's just no denying it. The old man can't do any... The old man is never gonna love the Savior. But the fruit of the Spirit is what? Love. The old man is unforgiving and ruthless and self-righteous. He sees everything bad in everybody else and only good in himself. If everybody was just like me, everybody would be great. But the fruit of the Spirit is forgiveness and long-suffering and gentleness and goodness. There are two men, read Romans 7, I always refer you to Romans 7 because Paul is talking in that chapter about two Apostle Pauls. There is one that loves the law and would only do good. And there is that within him, the old man, the old nature that wants to, that although the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak. I desire to do good, but how to perform that I find not, because there's still that old man there. And so that whole thing about a little spark that every sinner has, that if you just fan it into a flame, that's contrary to Scripture. There's nothing good. We are utterly depraved before God as sinners by nature. And listen, this may sound elementary, and I hope it is to us. I hope we know this well, but we know nothing as we ought to know. So let's not get too big for our britches here. Genesis 6, 5, and God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth. and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Every imagination, not most of them, everything he thought of, everything he desired, everything he pictured, all of his goals, all of his plans, all of the inventions of his heart was only Evil all the time the Bible doesn't exaggerate The scriptures don't exaggerate And the key words in that verse is God saw This is what God saw and what God saw is what God sees when he looks at man in his natural state today, he sees the same thing and Every imagination of his heart is only evil continually. That's an evil tree, and it's going to bring forth evil fruit every time. Even your religion, he said, makes me sick. Even when you go out and plow a field, it makes me sick. It doesn't matter how good it looks, and this is important. It's not what we see. We don't see that. We understand that because we believe God, but we don't see that. God saw that and God teaches us that. But what we see is people helping each other, people giving to charities, people stopping on the side of the road and helping somebody fix their flat tire. We see things like that and we say, well, that's a good deed. We say that and we think that because we don't see what God sees. And this is important. I'm not saying we shouldn't do good things for people, but we need to understand our spiritual condition and look to Christ, who is the remedy of our condition. He sees on the inside. God sees the motives. He feels the pride that we feel. You think about this. If you stop and help somebody. I've heard people say it makes me feel good to help people. That's the problem. That's the problem. It makes you feel good and you're not good. You're not. And again, I'm glad that God has evil people do good deeds for people or what they think are good. That's fine. You know, the world, you know, the world, I guess, is a better place because of it. But when it comes to that act of kindness or generosity or whatever it is, God sees sin. because he sees that man trusting in his deeds. He sees that sinner saying, it just makes me feel good. Well, we ought to do good things and feel bad about ourselves or as sinners, but we ought to do good things as believers and glorify God. When God says, let your light so shine, He says that they may see your good works and glorify me, me. If everybody else is supposed to glorify God when you do some good deeds, then who should you glorify when you do some good deed? It's not, boy, that just makes me feel, I did my good deed for the day. No, you've never done a good deed in your life, never. And God only calls what we do as believers now good, because it's sanctified by the blood of God's Son. Because it's the Spirit working mixed with our sin, not mixed in natures, the natures don't mix. But when we do good things, and God says, your good work, He calls them your good works. Because now we have the Spirit in us and He don't do evil things, He don't bear evil fruit. But it comes from a contaminated human being, a sin-wrecked human being. And so that pride is still there in it. We can't possibly do anything and give God all the glory. We're gonna give ourselves a little bit of it. And that's sin, that's evil. But this is what God sees. He sees the pride that we feel, when we do something that we think is good, and He knows it for what it is. He knows that for what it is. Isaiah 1.5, Why should you be stricken anymore? You will revolt more and more. Sinners don't repent because of earthly punishment. You're not going to be You're not going to have the earthly consequences for your sin come down upon your head over and over and over and say, well, I'm tired of this. I think I'll trust God now. No, it don't work like that either. You're still an evil tree. The only thing that works is a whole new person. Circumcision availeth nothing. Uncircumcision availeth nothing. But what? A new creature. A new creature. That's what avails. A whole new person. You've got to be born all over again from above, from the Spirit of God. That which is of the earth is earthy, and that which is from heaven is heavenly. And that's the only way that we'll ever do anything good, and it'll never be perfectly good because of who we are by nature, what we are by nature. Well, you're just gonna revolt more and more. The more God brings the consequences of our sin down on our head in this life, we're just gonna stiffen our neck that much harder. From the sole of the foot, here's why. Here's why. From the sole of the foot, even unto the head, there's no soundness in it. But wounds and bruises and putrefying sores, they've not been closed, closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. From top to bottom, we're evil, we're corrupt, we're vile, we're disgusting in the sight of God. That's what God sees. I look at y'all and I say, man, these are good folks. And in Christ, if you're in Christ, you are. But not in yourself. Turn to Romans 3 with me. Verse 10 through 20, you're familiar with this. As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understand it, there is none that seeketh after God. Now you apply man's religion to that. Here's Jesus, he wants you to come to him. Come to Jesus and come down here to the front, you know, and make a decision for Jesus. The Lord just said, there's nobody that's gonna do that. There's nobody that's gonna do that. He said in John chapter 6, you cannot come to me. You will not, and you cannot. There's none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way. They are altogether become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher. With their tongues they have used deceit. The poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. This is what God saw when he looked at you. Destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace they have not known. There's no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them that are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight. The more you do, the more you sin. Is that clear there? The more you open your mouth, the more foulness and cursing and bitterness comes out. The more you move your feet, the more blood is shed in your heart. So the snare just gets tighter, doesn't it? For by the law is the knowledge of sin. All the law is going to do, it's not something we can measure up to, it's only something that can expose how that we don't measure up to it. If God ever reveals His law in spiritual reality to us, we will cry for a Savior. but now the righteousness of God without you doing anything." What's the remedy to all this vileness and bitterness and cursing and murder, bloodshed, unprofitability, destruction, and misery? What stronger words could he use to describe our natural condition? But now the righteousness of God without you keeping the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. Wait a minute, the law can't help us. Yeah, it can. It can show you your need of the Savior. You just said the law is no good. No, I didn't say that. God didn't say that. But our righteousness comes without us keeping the law, without the deeds of our flesh, without us making a decision, without us walking an aisle, without us turning over a new leaf. It's without it, even the righteousness of God, which is by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. We stand righteous in the sight of God, not by anything we do. What we do is the opposite of that. but by what Christ did. Christ's faithfulness to the law, not mine. He's called the Lord my righteousness. Unto all and upon all them that believe. This is the way that God unites us to Christ, who is our righteousness, by giving us faith that's not of yourselves. It's the gift of God, not of works. Your works are evil. If faith was a work, it would just throw you closer to hell. But faith is a gift of God by which He unites us to Christ. He causes us to cling to Christ. Faith is if I can just touch the hem of His garment. Faith is, Lord, if You will, You can make me clean. Faith is, I can't let You go until You bless me. But there's no difference You're not going to distinguish yourself from sinners that die in their sins and go to hell by what you do. There's no difference and you can't do anything about it. Nothing could be clearer. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Being justified, really, without any cause in you, You know, somebody got smarter than God and spent too much time in their study and figured out that there's no such thing as unconditional love. Really sounds unconditional to me. How about you? That sounds I could do. You spent you been studying too much. You need to get outside. If that's what you come up with, stop it freely. No reason in me for God to justify me before Himself. He's a just God and a Savior. And look at these words, justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. He sat there and said in the same sentence that Christ redeemed us. But he didn't say that love is not unconditional because it's conditioned on Christ's redemption. No, no. He said love is unconditional because Christ redeemed us. That's the Scripture language. Because Christ redeemed me with his precious blood, I'm just in the sight of God for no good reason other than that. There's no other reason. Not because he did that and I did something. No, because Christ redeemed me with his precious blood. No man can lay any charge unto me because it is Christ that died, period. whom God hath set forth to be a sin offering." That word, propitiation. You don't hear that every day, but that just means sin offering. "...through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins." Your sins are not outweighed by your goodness, they're put away by his blood. They're overruled by his righteousness. He becomes your righteousness before God. When he gives you faith in his son, we're justified by faith without the deeds of the law. That's how Jackson sits there, sinless before God this morning, because of Christ and what he accomplished on Calvary. And that's what we're gonna picture right here. He's going to go under that water saying, I'm dead to sin and alive unto God, but also show forth that Christ dying for my sins is my only hope. And he was raised again for my justification. And that's it. That's confessing him. That's confessing your sins. You don't go into a little booth on the flip side of some reprobate that wouldn't know God if he met him at the Walmart and confess your sins before God. The scripture says be baptized confessing your sins, because that's how you do it. You're confessing that my only hope is to die to myself and live unto God, for God to kill me and give me new life. And my only hope is that the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified and was buried, and on the third day rose again. And I stand justified to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God, to declare, I say, at this time, His righteousness. that God might be God, that He might be just and holy and uncompromisingly righteous, and yet justify me. If Christ didn't shed His precious blood, then God's got to put me in hell. But if He did, if He redeemed me with that blood, then He can't put me in hell. No, no. No, not and still be God. If He's just and justifier, then when he justifies a sinner, he's right to do it. And that only happens one way, because he paid my sin debt. He died in my place under the wrath, all of the full wrath of God that was due unto me was poured out upon his son. You might look at our text and say, yeah, this talks about evil men, but it also talks about good men. There's some good men. I know some good men. No, you don't. No. No, you may know some sinners that have a new nature, the nature of God. Not I, but Christ. Christ dwelleth in me. Spirit of God, I don't walk after the flesh, I walk after the Spirit, because the Spirit of Christ... If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he's none of His. When you're His, you have the Spirit of Christ dwelling in you. There's the good tree. Christ is the good... They're just one. They're just one. You remember when the rich young ruler came up to the Lord Jesus and said, good master, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life? And our Lord said to him in Matthew 19, 17, why callest thou me good? He said, good master, why'd you call me good? There is none good, but one, that's God. It's God. Now you think about that. He said, if you just told the truth, if you called me good master and you were telling the truth, then I'm God. And here comes a man who thinks he's good. He said, all these have I kept from my youth up when the Lord questioned him. He thinks he's good. And the Lord just told him, if you are good, then you're God. If you're not God, you're not good. So he taught him in that one question. Why do you call me good? There's none good but God. He taught that wretched sinner who he was and who he was and who he wasn't. That's the issue. That's why Paul calls it a submission in Romans chapter 10. They have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. To be righteous before God is to surrender all of your works, all of your religious heritage, all of your hope in yourself, all of your works, everything, your decisions, especially the religious ones, and look into Christ. for all and in all, all your righteousness, your only sin offering before God, I bow. I bow at his feet. I fall at his feet. And by his grace, I see that Christ is all in all. So this morning, We know what happened. We know what's wrong with Jackson. The Lord got a hold of him. We know what's going on, don't we? Spiritual things, spiritual matters are decided by the Lord today. You know, the Lord has always seen Jackson perfect and holy, and Christ always has. And you know, we've always thought Jackson was a good fella. He's a, he's a not, he's a not, he's a fine young man. And so we may not see that much difference after he's baptized. I suspect some, because we just don't see, do we? So God's always seen him righteous, but I tell you what's changing today, what changed when he believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, is Christ is gonna dwell in his heart. He's got the spirit of Christ. And by that spirit, we call him our brother. The Lord's not ashamed to call him his brother. And so we delight and rejoice with him, with everybody that loves him. We all rejoice together in the mercy of the Lord. So Jackson wants to confess his sin, his absolute belief, confession of Christ. This is how you confess Christ. There's no need to come down here and tell me you've made a decision and I'll read you some stuff that you can answer yes to or whatever. Somebody, I don't know who made that up, but I know who made this up. I know how God says to confess your sin and to confess him. And what a delight to do that very thing this morning. I'm thankful.