Verses 33-37 can be, and should be, developed into a gospel message. What Christ said was directed toward the wicked, blasphemous Pharisees. But there are principles laid out here, which apply to the Christian as much as it does to the Pharisee. “A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things. But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.” There are universal principles expressed here. Please bear with me as I state the obvious.
Conduct is the fruit of life – a product of the heart.
Many of us have a pet or two at home, and if we don’t right now, we’ve had them in the past. We have had pet dogs, cats, fish, birds, lizards, or perhaps even frogs. Some of you might remember when it was the rage to have a pet rock. How many of you had a pet rock? (No one wants to admit it.) Assuming that you know someone who had a pet rock, do you remember the personality of that pet? It might have been painted in some wild colors, with plastic eyes and perhaps hair. Maybe your pet rock (I mean your friend’s pet rock) was dressed and had a nest of its own. You might have played with it, or just looked at it from time to time. But what kind of personality did it have? When it spoke was it with a soft, lilting voice, or was it loud and disconcerting? Did it run around the house disrupting people’s day-to-day lives? Did it eat, slurping or crunching its food? Or did it take its meals quietly and demurely? Of course, I am being silly. Something without life has no personality – there is no activity – no conduct – no thinking – no speech.
But because the Pharisees had physical life – they could reason, and they could speak. But how well???? Can a pet fish think as logically as a cat or a dog? It’s difficult to say. And I’m sure that we could debate about whether a cat thinks more logically than a dog. (I have my opinion, but I think that I’ll keep it to myself.) Are some varieties of dogs smarter than other varieties? What about cats? What about people? Can some people think more rationally than others? Why is that? And why did the Pharisees say these wicked things about the Son of God? They were only spouting the evils which lay in their wicked hearts. “An evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.” They were a generation of vipers, speaking blasphemies, because their hearts were only evil continually – verse 34.
People’s conduct is a fruit of their lives – a product of their hearts.
And as a result, the heart of a person can be judged by that person’s conduct.
Judy and I were talking about this other day – have you ever met people who made friends wherever they go? I think that you can expect friendly people to be friendly. When the heart of a person is friendly, you find that they are generally friendly people. Conversely, you can expect unfriendly people to find reasons not to be friendly towards you or others. We come to expect liars to lie, and we aren’t surprised when people we know to be thieves steal things. “A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.”
So what should we think about the heart of a man, when we know that he has uttered a series of lies? I’m not talking about a one time offense, caused by some pressing circumstances. I’m not condoning this sin, because lying is clearly sinful, but in this case that particular lie might have been something out of the ordinary. Unlike that man, what should we think about the man who constantly lies? Shouldn’t we conclude, among other things, that the man is a liar? Lying abides in his heart. And what should we conclude about those Pharisees, who were deliberately calling Christ “Beelzebub?” At the very least they were spiritually blinded, and at the most they are Satanic ambassadors themselves. They couldn’t see Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of God, because their hearts were darkened, “lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should shine unto them.” The tree was bad, and so the fruit of their lives was rotten.
Obviously, the context of Christ’s words was the blasphemy of these specific Pharisees. What if we changed the context to that of the Sadducees? The Sadducees were quite different from the Pharisees in their theology and politics. They were liberals, denying what the Bible said about angels, eternity, miracles and many other things. Despite the differences, the principle remained the same – “A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.” Changing the context again, we could talk about the Romans, whose religion and philosophy was entirely different from any of the Jews. And the Greeks were different again. But the principle that the fruit of the tree proved the nature of tree always remains the same.
And what about you and me? We have our day-to-day activities – our vocations, our responsibilities, our hobbies, our friends – our lives. We could picture our lives as being lived in one house with many different rooms. We have a room for our job, a room for our hobby, a room for church, a room for sleeping, etc. Some of those rooms are larger and more important than others. Some are more comfortable, some more utilitarian, some more homey. And there are the closets with their doors closed, hiding the mess that we’ve put inside. Most houses look generally the same – walls, roof, windows and doors. But what are the colors of your house? How does the yard look? Is there a garden? And the roof, is it flat, steeply pitched, tiled, shingled or is it made of steel? Are there lots of big windows, or are they small and curtained? As they say on the home and garden shows – “Does your house have curb appeal” or is it repulsive?
The Lord uses trees as an illustration of His principle – but which tree? Does it matter? Some trees bear fruit; others nuts; others grow seeds without either fruit or nuts. Some trees are beautiful, while others are not so much. And the appearance and fruit of those trees tell the observer what kind of tree that it is. The general characteristics of the tree tell us what kind of tree it is.
“But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak,
they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.”
Since the day of your salvation – have you ever told a lie? That one lie proves you to be a liar; your are guilty – but should the rest of us think of you as a liar? Remember that “the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.” Your testimony is that you have been redeemed, born again, regenerated, and that you are no longer a liar. That being true, how do you explain that lie?
What other sins have you committed lately – during the past week? Does your neglect of prayer mean that you have been forbidden to access the Lord’s throne of Grace? Does your periodic covetousness mean that you are an idolater? “Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” And then there is that streak of worldliness in you – does that make you an enemy of God? “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.” I could probably go on long enough to finally get to your sin.
How do you respond to the fact that there is some rotten fruit in your life? You probably say that just because some of the fruit is rotten, those are the exceptions – not the rule. And in your case I won’t dispute that fact – it is the exception. But I’ll point out that there aren’t supposed to be any exceptions. If the Lord has created you to be an apple tree, then you are supposed to produce the most luscious apples possible. Crab apples don’t belong on the Golden Delicious tree. And we are to do our best to keep the bugs and diseases off our flowers and out of our fruit.
So what is the general character of YOUR life? What does the Lord think about the professing Christian, whose mouth is often filled with vulgarity? What should the world think about the professing Christ whose jokes all come from the late night TV show? What have you got hidden in the closet of your life? Pornography? Drugs? Hatred? Covetousness?
Have you noticed an apparent inconsistency in our Saviour’s on-going argument?
“But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.” The Lord talks about the fruit of our lives giving evidence of the state of our hearts. If wickedness is the general tone of our lives, then we must assume that the heart is wicked and unredeemed But then He says to us “that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.” In other words, don’t think that just because your heart has been made good by the grace of God that your little indiscretions are inconsequential. The Pharisees’ constant attacks, blasphemy and unbelief proved their wicked hearts. But it’s not just the aggregation of sin that will come up before the Lord. “Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.” You don’t have the reputation for gossip, but that little piece of malicious slander which you whispered the other day has already come up before the Lord, and you will hear about it again. And that temper of yours – sure you have it under control – but you did loose it again the other day, and the Lord has not ignored it.
Christ says that we shall be judged for every the little, inane, casual comment. But there is something else about idle words that we need to consider. Sometimes idle words more clearly reveal the heart than purposeful words. How many people profess the right things, when the going is easy, but they change their tunes when the going is tough? How many people were praising the Lord in Matthew 12 were cursing Him by Matthew 26? Professions and promises are easily made when the circumstances are right, but they are just as easily forgotten or cast aside. Sometimes it is the slip of the tongue which reveals the true condition of the heart. I have read enough lawyer novels to know that the investigator asks that important question again and again and again, because he knows that if there is a lie in there, a slight variation in the answer is going to reveal it. That one idle word may be enough to convict that murderer.
I’m going to close knowing that I am breaking one of the rules of hermeneutics. But I bring it to your attention because it’s true and because it is important. “Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit.” The word “make” is exactly the same in both cases – “make the tree good,” and “make the tree corrupt.” Theologically, the tree doesn’t need to become corrupt or made to be corrupt. “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.” The natural man is depraved and wicked though his parents – he is a corrupt sinner by birth. He does not need to be “made” corrupt. But that wicked heart needs to be proven to be wicked, declared wicked, and condemned as corrupt.
My hermeneutical inconsistency is in this – I want to use the word “make” differently in the two cases. There is only one way for a wicked heart to be “made” good – by the grace of God. There is no reformation sufficient enough to make a crab apple tree into a Fuji or Macintosh. That tree has to be recreated by the miraculous power of God. The only solution to the Pharisee’s problem was regeneration – the salvation of God. And it is our only solution as well.