As we saw last week, a group of trouble-seeking Pharisees came up from Jerusalem. They were probably under orders to find things about Christ which they might use against Him. Jesus Christ was becoming far too popular, and much of what He taught was contrary to the current administration down there in the Israelite capital. On this occasion the accusation was that Christ’s disciples were constantly breaking the Jewish tradition about ceremonial hand washings before meals. Our Lord’s reply, ignored the accusation and turned the tables on the Jews by pointing out that some of their traditions were designed to circumvent and destroy the clear commands of God in His Word. Jesus called His accusers “hypocrites” and then quoted the Old Testament prophet Isaiah. “This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.”
Immediately Jesus turned His back on the men from Jerusalem and addressed the multitude who had come to hear Him – or to see some miracle from Him – or to receive some sort of miracle. Once again He reversed the accusation of the Jerusalem Jews. “It’s not what goes into our mouths which defiles us, but that which comes out.” What sort of things come out of our mouths? Jesus wasn’t referring to spit or a bit of night-time drool. He was talking about the lies and false doctrines which the proud Pharisees taught.
I will come back to this in a minute, because this is my theme for this morning, but please notice verse 12. “Then came his disciples, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were OFFENDED, after they heard this saying?” As I said last week, I think that Jesus was intentionally sharp in his reply to the Pharisees. I think He intended to put those men in their place, and He didn’t care if their feelings or egos were hurt. When His disciples said, “Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended” the word that they used was “skandalizo” (skan-dal-id’-zo). They were scandalized by Christ’s reply. No sir, when it came to sin and false doctrine; when it came to false teachers leading others into the very wrath of God, Christ Jesus could be full of wrath Himself. He was not always the meek and timid little lamb of God.
This morning I’d like us all to consider Christ’s statement to the crowd in verse 11. “He called the multitude, and said unto them, Hear, and understand: Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.” The words “hear and understand” imply that this is worth our serious consideration. Even if we haven’t been trapped by the Pharisees lies, as some of those people in Jesus’ audience, this is still important information and instruction.
First, we have to understand the word “DEFILE.”
“It’s not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.”
Last week I said this had nothing to do with eating with dirty hands. The Pharisee’s problem was not dirty hands and the possibility of germs getting into the mouth. The Pharisees’ meaning was all about a ceremonial rinse. They had no desire to rub or scrub their hands; there was no soap and no lather. The hands and forearms were dipped into and out of pure water. Seventy-five percent of whatever dirt they had on their hands remained on their hands when this washing was finished. This was all about maintaining a particular religious ceremony which had become one of their traditions. It is not unlike the ceremony of sprinkling a little water on someone’s head and telling them that they had been washed from their sins.
This had nothing to do with being “defiled” by a little dirt on someone’s hand as they ate their supper. “Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, THIS defileth a man.” This Greek word “defile” is found fifteen times in the New Testament and ten of those occasions are here in Matthew and in the parallel account in Mark. The other five occasions help us to understand both the Pharisees’ and our Lord’s meaning.
For example, one day the Apostle Peter was invited to the home of a man who was not a Jew. The Pharisees had convinced good Israelites that they shouldn’t enter the houses of the Gentiles. And even more, they should never even think about eating with non-Jews, because they would be “defiled” by what they ate. Before the invitation arrived, God’s Holy Spirit began to prepare Peter to accept it – despite the rules. Initially Peter argued with the Lord, but “the voice spake unto him again the second time, What GOD hath cleansed, that call not thou common (defiled).” Was God talking about Cornelius, the Gentile, his house or his food? Whatever it was, the Lord declared that the Jewish traditions about these things were null and void.
Another example was when the Apostle Paul was visiting the Temple. The Jewish crowd that day made a bad assumption about the situation, so they grabbed Paul, ”crying out, Men of Israel, help: This is the man, that teacheth all men every where against the people, and the law, and this place: and further brought Greeks also into the temple, and hath polluted this holy place.” “Polluted” is the same word is used by Christ – but here it is used to describe the ceremonial defilement of the temple.
My last example comes from the last chapter in the Bible, and it speaks about Heaven – “There shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” There will not be any one in Heaven, who is not spiritually clean. Only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life shall enter there. That forces me to ask the question – “Is YOUR name written in the Lamb’s Book?” “What makes you think that you are not defiled in the sight of the Almighty God?” We will come back to this in just a few minutes.
It is not WHAT GOES INTO the mouth which defiles.
In Christ Jesus’ explanation to Peter He said – “Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught?” This says exactly what it seems to say. The body takes what you might eat, processes the nourishment in it, and gets rid of the rest. Of course, this has nothing to do with poisons and other useless materials which we might ingest. There are dozens of different poisons and then there are different kinds of poisons. There is arsenic, strychnine and that kind of stuff, but there are also alcohol and drugs. The Lord is not saying that such things cannot hurt us. What He is doing is reaching back to those earlier arguments of the Pharisees.
Doesn’t this also take us into one of the really favorite common areas of Jewish life? The Jews had, and many still have, strict dietary laws. For example, not only were some meats strictly forbidden, but even the permitted meats had to be prepared properly, or it was said that they “defiled” the eater – they became ceremonially unclean. I will grant you that Christ did not address this issue right here, but it appears that He left the door open for a Jewish menu with a lot more pages.
And again, I take you back to Peter and Cornelius in Acts 10, part of which we read earlier. Cornelius was a Roman Centurion, but one whose the heart the Lord had touched. The man was longing for the grace of God – for salvation and the forgiveness of sin – peace with God. When the Lord gave him a vision of Himself, he was told to invite Peter to come down from Joppa, so that he could learn the truth. In the mean time the Lord was preparing the heart of Peter to go to the house of an hated Gentile. That preparation included a vision of various foods – both clean and unclean. Peter was told by God to prepare himself a meal with the food that was set before him. “And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat. But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean. and the voice spake unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common. This was done thrice: and the vessel was received up again into heaven.” At that point Cornelius’ invitation arrived, and the Apostle knew that he was being sent to the house of a Roman. The thing that I’d like you to see at this point is that the Lord told Peter that the food eaten by the Romans was no longer “common or unclean.” “The voice spake unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common (defiled).”
Was the Lord telling the disciples back in Matthew 15 that the Jewish dietary laws were no longer in effect? Whether it does or doesn’t, that was not our Saviour’s primary point at that time. Christ was telling US ……
It is not what GOES IN, but what COMES OUT of a man’s mouth which defiles him.
Again, Christ is not talking about spitting tobacco – as disgusting as that might be. The Lord is not condemning halitosis, or exhaled cigarette smoke, or spitting out a broken tooth. He clearly tells us the source of this evil, oral discharge – “Those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the HEART; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: These are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man.” Remember that what so infuriated the Lord were the lies, false doctrines and human traditions which disannulled the commands of God. These sorts of things had nothing to do with their food, but with the condition of their hearts.
This brings us back to one of the foundational doctrines of Bible Christianity. This is not one of the doctrines of the modern day, watered-down, traditionally-destroyed Christianity, but that of the Bible and of the Lord Jesus Christ. One of the foundational doctrines of Bible Christianity is the corrupt nature of the human heart. I won’t try to prove this to you once again, but when our first father sinned, he defiled all his descendants. As a result, not only were Cain and Abel sinners, but so were their children, their grandchildren and all of the rest of their generations. That is why as early as the sixth chapter of the Bible – Genesis 6:5 – we read, “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.” Children are not basically good, but a few fall into sin and crime. No, children are all sinners, and they all need a Saviour. Speaking of all humanity, the Psalmist David said, “Every one of them is gone back there altogether become filthy (defiled); there is not that doeth good, no, not one.” We may do good before the eyes of our parents and neighbors, but before the eyes of God, we can’t. He knows what our hearts look like, and He looks at everything we do from that perspective. Through Isaiah, the Lord has said, “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags…” And the Apostle John declared, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”
Those Pharisees who were trying to entrap Christ Jesus, were not any different from all the rest of the people of the world. By nature, we all love to deceive ourselves into thinking that we are not sinners. Even if by the force of argument, we convince ourselves that our sins are not really very bad, the fact remains that our sins have defiled us and made us unfit for Heaven. Do you remember that verse from Revelation which I quoted earlier? “There shall in no wise enter into (Heaven) any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” There will not be so much as even one defiled sinner in Heaven. And the Bible has declared us all to be sinners. “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way…” “Who can say, I have made my heart clearn, I am pure from my sin?” Absolutely no one. “Every one of them is gone back there altogether become filthy (defiled); there is not that doeth good, no, not one.”
This sounds like an hopeless situation; actually it is an hopeless situation. Except for one thing – or perhaps I should say, one Person – the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember the statement of the angels at the time of Christ’s birth – “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was born with the purpose of becoming our Saviour. Later John declared, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.” And Paul said, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” On that day in Matthew 15, Jesus basically told the multitude that all their hearts were wicked and defiled. “And that every imagination of the thoughts of (their) hearts (were) only evil continually.” As the prophet Jeremiah said, “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” – defiled.
But Christ was there to provide a solution. “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the (punishment necessary for) our peace was (laid) upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” Writing to a group of Christians Paul declared, “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.” “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed [is] every one that hangeth on a tree:” “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.”
That day so many years ago, when the Pharisees were attempting to destroy the credibility of Christ, the Lord Jesus turned to those who would listen and He said, You – all humanity – have defiled hearts – condemned hearts because of the sin which lays within. It’s not what you eat which poisons you; you are already defiled and that poison constantly pours out. You need a Saviour – someone who can deliver you from your sin and from the wrath of God for your sin. As He says elsewhere, you need to be born again – born from above. And you can be, if you will respond as God speaks to your heart. You must recognize your wicked sinfulness, and you must recognize your need of a Saviour. You must understand that there is only one Saviour and that is the Christ Jesus – the Son of God. You must understand and believe that He came into this world in order to become God’s perfect and eternal sacrifice for YOUR sin. You must humble yourself before God and these Biblical facts. And you must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, trusting Him as your only hope for deliverance from the defilement of your own heart. Without Christ we all will end up with these Pharisees in the Lake of Fire. “Repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.”