I'm going to swear, so get ready, okay?
It's just a mild swear, because I wasn't
good at swearing at all.
Okay, you ready?
Damn!
Alright.
Now, that wasn't hard, was it?
It wasn't hard for you.
But still, it's, it's, apart from an illustration,
it's still wrong.
Doesn't matter whether it was hard or not.
It's just as wrong as committing adultery, because
Jesus said you shouldn't swear by anything in
heaven or anything on earth, and you shouldn't
commit adultery.
So it's still wrong, apart from using it
as an illustration.
But still, why, even apart from that, did
you feel, yeah, it wasn't too bad?
I mean, why did all of us feel,
well, yeah, it's kind of a surprise for
you to say, but it didn't seem too
evil, really.
Now, why did it not seem too evil?
Why?
Why, why did it not, especially to you,
who didn't even say it, why did it
not seem too evil?
And would you not say, well, I mean,
your heart wasn't in it.
Your heart wasn't in it.
You were just saying it because you wanted
to illustrate something to us, and your heart
really wasn't in it.
And that is right, isn't it?
I mean, my heart wasn't in it, and
your heart wasn't in it.
Now, that still doesn't make it right.
It's still wrong, even if your heart isn't
in it, apart from using it as we
did as an illustration, it's still wrong.
It's still something that God has commanded us
not to do.
But still it is helpful, loved ones, to
make a distinction between temptation and sin, because
that is part of the distinction between temptation
and sin.
You see, just the way that word that
I spoke came to you, and you weren't
worked up about it at all.
Well, it just came to you.
It didn't find any response in your heart.
You just heard it and you said, oh,
that's interesting, surprising, but interesting.
But it just came to you.
So, all through the day, you're in situations
where thoughts from the mental atmosphere around you
insert themselves into your head, where emotions from
the emotional atmosphere around you inject themselves at
times into your feelings.
And as long as your response to them
is as detached as your response to my
damn was, then there is no sin.
You see that?
As long as those thoughts can come in,
or those feelings come in from outside, and
you are as utterly detached from them as
you were to my swear this morning, then
there is no sin.
As long as you can say, well, that's
interesting, I have no interest in it, but,
yeah, well, there it is.
Well, that's a thought, I know where it's
come from, but I don't want to think
it myself, I don't want to dwell on
it another second.
Well, that's an interesting feeling that is passing
through our office.
I'm observing it academically, it has no answer
in my own heart, no response of court
in my own heart, but that's a feeling
that obviously is present in our office or
in our family.
Then as long as that's the attitude, you're
dealing with temptation and not with sin.
But if I tell you, you know the
vacation you're arranging?
Well, your travel agent made the reservation for
the wrong date, so you can't go on
vacation.
Or if I say to you, you know
your car?
Well, there's a drunk driver just totaled it
a moment ago.
Or if I say to you, you're fired,
the company's closing down, and then there's a
dam rises out of your heart, then that's
sin.
So do you see, there is a distinction
in the two things.
A sin is what comes from the heart
of a person, what comes from the very
innermost being of a person, that's what sin
is.
And whether we like it or not, we
live in a world that is full of
sin, and there are all kinds of sinful
acts and thoughts and words going on all
around us.
And they may even pass for a moment
through your head.
They may even pass for a moment through
your emotions.
As long as the moment you're aware of
them, you turn against them, and you regard
them as alien, and you regard them as
something that is separate from you, then it's
not sin.
But when your heart rises and embraces the
picture, or embraces the thought, or embraces the
feeling, or your mind commits itself, or your
will commits its emotions to thinking or feeling
at a second second, then that's sin.
But sin is what comes out of the
heart.
And that's what Jesus said.
He said, it isn't actually the thoughts that
come into your head from outside that are
sin.
It isn't even the feelings that come in
from outside that are sin.
It isn't even the food that comes in
through your mouth.
But it's what comes from inside.
Now, maybe you'd look at that verse, because
it does put it very plainly.
Matthew 15.
Matthew chapter 15.
And it's page 849 in that Revised Standard
Version.
849 and Matthew 15.
And you see verse 17 there.
Do you not see that whatever goes into
the mouth passes into the stomach and so
passes on?
But what comes out of the mouth proceeds
from the heart.
And this defiles a man.
For out of the heart come evil thoughts,
murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander.
These are what defile a man.
But to eat with unwashed hands does not
defile a man.
So you see in verse 18, what comes
out of the mouth proceeds from the heart.
And this defiles a man.
That's it, loved ones.
It's not what you eat or even what
you drink or even the thoughts that other
people pass on to you that defiles you.
It's what comes out of your heart and
mine.
That's what dirties us.
That's what defiles us.
It's sour.
Sour milk.
And the whole life, you know, is filled
with it.
Just filled with it.
And you meet Jesus and you know that
it's wrong.
And you repent and you pour it out
in repentance.
And He puts fresh milk in.
Except that before He put the fresh milk
in, after you poured it out, your heart
was like that.
In other words, you know what was coating
it.
Still some of the sour milk.
Still some of the old, spoiled, rotten stuff
was still in your heart.
So, He came in and He poured His
Spirit in, in on top of that.
But because that stuff was still there, of
course, it isn't long before the new, fresh
Spirit of Jesus is contaminated and your life
is as full of sin as it was
before.
That's the situation with so many of us.
We have.
We've received the Spirit of Jesus.
In a sense, He's made us alive.
He's made us aware of God.
We actually even have great respect for Jesus
and some acquaintance with Him.
But our heart was never cleared of the
sour stuff that was still at the bottom.
And actually, you know fine well, there's only
one way to make that bottle fit to
contain fresh milk and to keep it fresh
for a long period of time.
There's only one way in which fresh milk
can abide in that bottle without becoming contaminated.
And that is that I pour out the
sour stuff and then I put it under
a faucet and I wash it right out.
And I wash all the sour stuff out
from the bottom of the heart.
And then I bring in the fresh milk.
And then there is every possibility that the
fresh milk will remain sweet and fresh.
And the tragedy with so many of us
is we haven't gone that far.
We've received the Spirit of Christ in some
sense into our hearts.
But He is not able to dwell there
and abide there.
Because there is sour self-spirit that has
never been cleaned out of the heart, from
the bottom of the heart.
And so, we find that our life is
like that.
Up and down.
Every time we get a new filling of
Jesus' Spirit, it kind of overwhelms the sour
stuff at the bottom of the heart.
And we walk for a while in victory.
Then we begin to take another dip as
the sour stuff spreads all over His Spirit.
And then it comes Easter time and we
get another infusion of His Spirit.
And so we walk in victory for another
little while.
But really our life is like that.
Up and down, switch back.
And actually the truth is that our nature
has never changed.
Our nature has never really changed.
Our heart, deep, deep down, is still unclean.
Our heart has never been cleansed by the
Holy Spirit.
And we have a sense of aliveness to
God.
And we have a sense of our sins
being forgiven.
But our heart is still unclean and continues
to contaminate Jesus' Spirit every time He pours
it in.
And so, in a way, our nature has
not been changed.
It's just been overwhelmed from time to time
by Jesus' Spirit.
Now, loved ones, that's why we cry that
cry of despair so often.
Even those of us who are children of
God.
That cry in Romans 7.15, I do
not understand my own actions.
I do not do the good I want,
but I do the very thing I hate.
The only mistake is this.
We're confusing the issue by using I in
both cases.
In actual fact, there is something deep down
in your heart that does do what it
wants.
And that's what actually produces the evil in
your life and mine.
It's the unclean heart that still wants what
Jesus doesn't want.
And it would be better for us to
say, well, I don't understand my own actions
because Jesus wants to do certain things in
me when He comes in, but my own
heart doesn't want to do those things.
And, loved ones, that's the situation with many
of us, I'm sure, here in this room
this morning.
That we have, in some sense, been acted
upon by God's Spirit.
And, in some sense, we're a little further
on than the Jew.
We are at least regenerated and we're aware
of God and alive to God and we
know that He's forgiven our sins.
But, actually, we're very like the Jew in
that our nature, deep, deep down, is still
unchanged.
And our heart is still unclean.
And that heart continues to send up sin
as we try to walk progressively with Jesus.
There is a verse, you know, in the
Old Testament that I think makes it very
clear and will help you to understand it
if you look at it.
It's Ezekiel.
And it's a verse where God is describing
the New Covenant to the Jewish people.
And it's Ezekiel 36.
It's page 746, loved ones.
Ezekiel 36 and verse 26.
Page 746.
See at the very bottom of the right
-hand column there.
Verse 26 of Ezekiel 36.
God is describing the New Covenant.
A new heart I will give you and
a new spirit I will put within you
and I will take out of your flesh
the heart of stone and give you a
heart of flesh.
So, God will do two things, you see.
He'll give us a new heart and then
He will give us a new spirit.
And the new heart is explained a little
more in the next verse.
In verse 27.
And I will put my spirit within you.
That's how He'll give us a new heart.
He'll make our own spirits new.
He'll put a new spirit within us.
He'll renew our spirits.
He'll regenerate our spirits and make us aware
of God and aware of Jesus so that
we'll have some acquaintance with them.
But then He'll put His own spirit in
us, you see.
And I will put my spirit within you.
My Holy Spirit.
He will dwell with you and stay inside
you and He will create a new heart
inside you and cause you to walk in
My statutes and be careful to observe My
ordinances.
So, there are two parts to the new
covenant.
One is a new spirit.
And many of us have entered into that.
Many of us have had our spirits renewed
and regenerated and that's why we come to
church here.
We know that it's true.
We know that God is real.
We know that Jesus died for us.
We know that our sins are forgiven.
And our spirit is renewed.
But we know also an inconsistent Christian life.
An up and down life.
It seems when that little renewed spirit gets
its way, we're in victory.
But it seems there are other times when
that spirit isn't getting its way.
And that's because we have not entered into
the second part of the new covenant where
God said, I will put My spirit in
you.
My Holy Spirit in you.
To dwell in you and abide in you.
And He will create a new heart in
you.
And He will enable you to walk in
My statutes and observe My ordinances.
And loved ones, the fact is there are
many of us who call ourselves Christians who
have entered into only one part of the
new covenant that God gave us in Jesus.
And that's the part that we find in
1 John 1 and 9.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful
and just to forgive us our sins.
We haven't entered into the second part and
cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Our hearts are still unclean.
But we walk in the first part of
the new covenant.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful
and just to forgive us our sins.
And so, it is amazing.
If you're a child of God and you're
in that situation, if you keep confessing and
repenting day after day, and you keep getting
shots of God's Spirit from Sunday services, and
you keep getting encouragement from other people's fellowship,
you will be able to walk in a
fair degree of obedience for a while.
But soon you will begin to see a
nosedive taking place in your own life because
the Holy Spirit does not dwell in you.
He does not abide in you.
He is not at home in your heart.
He acts upon you from outside and at
times is able to speak within you, but
He does not dwell within you because you
have not allowed Him to prepare a dwelling
place for Himself.
And loved ones, the fact is, the Holy
Spirit cannot dwell there.
He cannot dwell there.
That's why He is called the Holy Spirit.
He is holy.
And unless your heart becomes holy, it's another
crucifixion for Him.
Do you see that?
It's crucifixion all over again.
It's not just that He chooses not to
do that.
It's either He lives or you live.
It's either He dies or you die.
So, He cannot come in a heart that
is not prepared, a heart that has not
been cleansed.
That's why He has to, as it were,
jump in and out.
Act upon you.
Act upon you from outside.
That's why you're up when you're at service
on Sunday.
That's it.
Do you see that?
That's why you're up when you're at service
on Sunday.
Because the Holy Spirit is all around you
and all kinds of different people and He's
acting upon you and He's strengthening you.
And then you get away from the service
and you get into the middle of the
afternoon or you get into the middle of
the week and you begin to feel yourself
weak in your relationship to God because the
Holy Spirit is not dwelling in you.
And so you're not getting any shots from
outside.
That's why, loved ones, as long as you're
reading your Bible, as long as you're praying,
then you are in victory.
But as soon as you're on your own
in the middle of a work day, then
suddenly you sense a lack of God's presence.
It's because the Holy Spirit is not dwelling
in your heart.
And that's why, of course, so many of
us are able to abstain from outward sin
but not inward sin.
You remember those things that Jesus spoke about
that come out from the heart.
Many of us are able to abstain from
fornication, but our heart wants to fornicate.
Many of us are able to abstain from
adultery, but our heart wants to commit adultery.
Many of us are able to abstain from
murder, but our heart wants to murder.
We find a rising from within us that
would do damage to a person if we
possibly could.
That's why we're often able to abstain from
theft, but our heart wants to thief.
We're often able to abstain from slander, but
our heart wants to slander.
And, of course, the last two are what
usually give away those Christians whose carnal nature
is still alive inside them.
That is slander and backbiting.
And that explains also why so many of
us who are really carnal Christians with unclean
hearts are so complacent about our state.
Because most of the church is afraid of
what the law can do to us or
what society thinks of us.
So many of us who have become aware
of God don't want to have our reputation
spoiled by getting into trouble with the law,
so we abstain from murder and theft and
adultery and fornication.
But there are no legal penalties for gossip
and backbiting and slander.
And that's why so many of us in
churches expose our unclean hearts not so much
through the fornication or the adultery, but through
the slander and the backbiting and the gossip,
through the talking about other people behind their
back.
And, loved ones, that's how you can tell
if you have an unclean heart.
Have you ever found yourself talking about somebody
behind their back instead of going to them
in love and sharing with them what you
can see or what you think?
If you do that, if you talk about
people behind their back, then your heart is
unclean.
And you'll continue to allow that unclean heart
to take you in an up-and-down
Christian experience for the rest of your life
if you can last throughout the rest of
your life.
Because, increasingly, that unclean heart clouds the voice
of God just as that does.
It clouds the voice of God.
And it clouds your sight of God.
And the more years you walk with that
unclean heart, the more difficult it is to
hear His voice.
And that's why you'll find as you go
on in Christian life without having your heart
cleansed, you'll find, I don't seem to hear
Him as clearly as I used to.
I see men but as trees walking.
And you haven't been touched the second time
to be able to see them clearly as
real men.
That's why many of us find that we
talk about people behind their back.
We say things about other people that seem
to be different from us.
We get into those little negative complaining groups
where we point at the other people who
are maybe stupid or who are not very
wise but are trying to serve Jesus.
And have you ever found yourself in one
of those little negative complaining groups where everything
you say, you know, is, oh, this is
wrong and that's wrong and I'm complaining because
they should do this this way.
Loved ones, if you find yourself doing that
kind of thing, it's because your heart is
unclean.
Your heart is dirty.
And that heart of yours will continue to
send up that kind of motivation to you
as long as it remains unclean.
Now, how do you get a clean heart?
Loved ones, it is not by psychology.
And it is not by reading those improve
yourself books.
An unclean heart is something that only God
can deal with.
No man can deal with it.
And all you're doing with those books is
putting cosmetics on an old barn that doesn't
look too good and trying to make it
look better.
Unless you go to the heart of the
problem, you'll never be delivered from that unclean
heart.
How do you get a clean heart?
Well, you'll find that, loved ones, it's gloriously
simple.
It's Acts 15 and 9.
Acts 15 and 9.
And Peter is explaining what happened at the
house of Cornelius.
And it's page 962, loved ones, 962.
Acts 15 and 9.
Maybe you'd look at verse 8 too.
Acts 15 and 8.
And God who knows the heart bore witness
to them, giving them the Holy Spirit, just
as He did to us.
And He made no distinction between us and
them, but cleansed their hearts by faith.
That's how.
You get your heart cleansed by the Holy
Spirit through your faith.
That's it.
It's not a long, long series of trying
to train yourself.
It's not years and years of trying to
re-route the thoughts and feelings of your
heart.
It's not years and years of psychoanalysis trying
to track back where you got these wrong
feelings or these bad feelings.
It's not trying to get a group who
will treat you nice and will treat you
right.
It's not that, loved ones.
It's what the Bible says.
You get your heart cleansed by faith through
the Holy Spirit.
Faith is belief plus obedience.
When you were born of God, when the
Holy Spirit acted upon you and made you
aware of Jesus and made you aware of
God and of the realities of heaven, you
knew what you did.
Obedience for you was repentance.
It was turning from the things that were
wrong in your life.
It was stopping them.
Stopping them there.
And then it was believing that Jesus had
died for you and God was willing to
forgive you.
Now, it's exactly the same for a cleansed
heart.
It's faith, belief plus obedience.
Except that the obedience in this situation is
consecration.
Not repentance.
Not turning away from the things that are
wrong, but giving everything of your life to
God.
Consecrating it wholly and absolutely and complete and
full surrender right from the top of your
head to your feet.
Right the whole way down to the deepest
part of your heart.
It's giving it all to God and saying,
Lord, I want the Holy Spirit to come
in and to rule my heart and to
do what He wants.
I want Him to make His wishes my
wishes.
I want His will to be my will.
I don't want to even think a thought
or turn an eye where He doesn't want
to do it.
I want to give myself wholly to You,
Holy Spirit.
You take over this whole being of mine
and even the thoughts that I think are
harmless, if You say I've not to think
them, I won't think them.
It's full consecration of love.
That's such a deep thing because you remember
what the Bible said in Genesis.
It said that the heart of man is
deceitfully wicked above all things.
And it is.
Your heart.
You know the garbage that comes out of
there.
You know the poison that it's capable of.
You know how it spews it up and
you wonder what sewer did it get it
from.
And we kind of like to excuse ourselves,
you know.
Oh, well, it's what you said, Pastor.
It's just something coming in from outside except
we know fine.
Well, this stuff is coming up like a
fountain.
This isn't stuff that's coming in from outside.
This stuff comes up repeatedly in our lives.
Loved ones, your heart is so deceitful that
it is actually an enemy of God.
That's what Romans 8 and 7 says.
The flesh is enmity against God.
It is not subject to God's law, neither
indeed can it be.
Loved ones, you keep thinking your heart is
just a little astray.
That's it.
That's the error you make.
You know, you keep thinking, Oh, well, Pastor,
it's just a little in the bottom.
Loved ones, that's bluff.
While it has that little in the bottom,
it knows it can spread it throughout the
whole life, anytime it cares to.
The heart is deceitfully wicked above all things.
It will continue to deceive you and make
you think, Put up with me, put up
with me.
It's only a little bit of wrong.
That won't do you any harm.
Loved ones, it's poison.
The Bible says it's enmity against God.
It is not subject to God's law, neither
indeed can it be.
Wouldn't you testify to that?
When you testify that, when you lose your
temper, you feel, There's something insane inside me.
I can't control this.
I can't control it.
It's like another person inside me.
And that's what God's Word says.
It's not subject to God's law, neither indeed
can it be.
And loved ones, the first step in getting
rid of it is consecrating your whole life
absolutely to God and giving Him the right
to run every part of it, the innermost
part of your being.
Do you keep that private spot for yourself?
Do you?
I mean, that's what I did.
I kept a private place right inside which
none of you knew about and nobody else
knew about, and I kept that for myself.
Even from God, that was a place where
I could do what I wanted to do.
Have you a place like that?
That's your unclean heart.
And consecration is opening even that up to
God and saying, Lord, I give what seems
to be my very self.
That seems to be making it terrible.
That seems to be our self.
Dear help us.
But I give to you my very self,
my deepest place, the place where I alone
know.
I give that to you, Lord.
I consecrate that to you for you to
rule as you please.
Run it like a cathedral if you want.
Run it like a nunnery if you want.
Run it like a monastery if you want.
Run it like the purest thing in the
whole universe if you want.
Lord, I consecrate it to you.
That's the obedience.
And then the belief is belief that all
that old heart of yours was crucified with
Christ as it was.
Was crucified with Christ and He has already
given you His clean and pure heart.
In other words, faith like that springs up
in your heart the moment you've consecrated everything
to Jesus.
That's how love works.
And then the Holy Spirit comes in and
cleanses your heart by your faith.
And keeps it cleansed as you continue to
have faith that you were crucified with Christ
and as you continue to submit to the
Holy Spirit.
And it's a miracle.
It's a miracle.
And it outdoes all the silly books.
And all the psychological games we're going through.
And it deals with the heart of things.
And instead of trying to excuse your anger
or justify it or justify your criticism or
your sarcasm or your jealousy or trying to
justify the things that you know are sin
but you try to make them out to
be personality traits.
Instead of justifying them you find they don't
even rise in your heart.
That's what a clean heart means.
And honestly, you know, you may want to
push me on it.
You may want to say, Brother, don't you
mean don't you mean that those things still
come up but you have more power to
suppress them?
No.
And I don't care if you get me
down here and kick me to death.
I'll still say no.
No.
It is not suppression.
It is not repression.
That's the old game that we're all involved
in.
It is cleaning.
Cleansing.
That's the word that the Bible uses.
Cleanse their hearts by faith.
The Holy Spirit was given to them and
God cleansed their hearts by faith.
That means wash the stuff right out so
that it's clean.
Washed it right out.
Didn't hold it down corked so that it
couldn't get out but cleansed it right out.
Washed it out so that your heart is
clean.
So that at last there's nothing coming up
from inside but beauty and love and purity.
Can you then see it's your own fault
then if you sin?
I mean you're just dumb if you sin
then.
It's just your own fault.
But you know the situation before that.
You feel, well, it's hardly even my fault.
It is still your fault.
But you feel, well, I can't help it.
I can't help it.
It's coming up from inside.
But loved ones, the full new covenant that
we have available to us is that God
will cleanse our hearts.
You've got a clean conscience.
Do you want a clean heart?
Because the new covenant is a clean conscience
and a clean heart.
Loved ones, will you begin to ask God
to show you where you stand in regard
to this?
Now, I'll try as He gives me grace
to explain it more through these Sundays of
July.
But would you begin to ask God to
show you where you stand?
And is there something rising up inside you
that doesn't like this?
Is there?
Is there something inside you that's saying, Oh,
no.
It's not true.
It can't be.
Nobody can be like that.
That's your unclean heart.
And that unclean heart can take you all
the way down to hell if you don't
allow God to deal with it as He
promised.
So, you know, be prepared for it.
And be prepared for opposition inside you.
There'll be plenty of opposition because the enemy
is within you.
Even though Jesus is also there, the enemy
is within you.
And deal with them.
And I would say, deal with them according
to this dear Word.
Read Acts 15 and 9.
And say, now, does it mean that?
Does it mean that God can cleanse my
heart by faith?
Does it mean there's a miracle that can
happen inside me that can clean me out?
And that's what it means, loved ones.
Dear Father, we realize that we've made all
kinds of excuses for ourselves over the years.
What harm does a little bit of gossip
do?
A little bit of criticism.
Lord, we've always tried to justify it as
somebody needs to put things right.
But, Lord, we see there is only one
who is responsible for conviction of sin and
that's the Holy Spirit and the leaders that
He appoints and anoints for that.
So, Lord, we would stop excusing ourselves.
Lord, we've often got used to the low
level of holiness and obedience that is present
in so many of our churches in our
society.
And we've excused ourselves and said, as long
as we don't do something wrong on the
outside, we're alright.
But, Lord, we know that it's this stuff
on the inside that causes us the pain
and the shame in Your presence.
And, Lord, it's this stuff that rises from
our unclean hearts that makes it so difficult
to obey You even outwardly at times.
So, Father, we ask now that by Your
Holy Spirit You will come, dear Holy Spirit,
and begin to counsel us.
We need Your counseling.
No other person knows us as You do.
We ask You to be the counselor and
to reveal to us the depths of our
unclean heart and take us down to the
very bottom of that heart.
Take us down to the very end of
all the old, sour, spoiled stuff.
And then, Holy Spirit, enable us to give
that all over to You and allow You
to take up Your residence there permanently.
We apologize for so often expelling You when
we wanted to do something that we wanted
to do.
Holy Spirit, we want to come to the
place where this is Your home and You
never need to be expelled because nothing dirty
is ever done there.
So, dear Holy Spirit, we ask You to
help each one of us these coming weeks
to come to a place of full and
absolute consecration where we give not only our
outward life, but we give our inward heart
to You for Your rule and for Your
leadership.
And now the grace of our Lord Jesus
and the love of God and the fellowship
of the Holy Spirit be with each one
of us now and evermore.
Amen.