but the things which go forth out of the mouth come out of the heart, and those defile man.
The argument began over unwashed hands, but Jesus takes it far past table manners. He traces every defiling word back to its source — not the food a man eats, but his heart.
The mouth works in two directions. Only one of them tells you anything about the man.
The mouth both takes in and gives out. It is the avenue to the stomach and the outlet for the heart. The wise man has said: "All the toil of man is for his mouth" (Ecclesiastes 6:7). In this he spoke truly. The Pharisees of our Lord's time were more fussy about what goes into the mouth than about what comes out of it.
A change of setting cannot cure a defilement that starts inside. But a setting can draw out what is already there.
The washing of hands and cups and pots deals only with defilement from the outside. But moral defilement springs from the evil inside the heart. This cuts at the root of all worldly religion of the flesh, which deals only with outward things and leaves the heart untouched. God works from within and deals with the conscience and heart. The real source of defilement is not a man's environment but himself. It is true that man is a fallen creature. If he goes into scenes of evil and temptation, his surroundings will stir up the lusts inside him. But even then the evil comes from within. An angel can pass through Sodom and stay undefiled; Lot could not. There was no evil heart in the angel to answer to sin; there was in Lot.
The trouble is in the spring, not the stream. So a cleaner outward record puts no one in a better position.
Here we are all in the same case, whatever the apparent differences in outward life. "Every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" describes more than the world before the flood. It is the truth about the heart of man everywhere and at all times. It is the defiled spring of everything that defiles.
A popular idea says people only need better surroundings and better training.
It is mainly the religious leaders who busy themselves with tradition. The great general snare is denying the evil of men. The deception Satan uses now is the idea that man is not so bad that moral training cannot improve him. The progress of the world is astonishing, they say. There are societies for every charitable cause and for the improvement of man. People look for the fault in a person's circumstances and surroundings instead of in the man himself... The real secret of man's deplorable condition is his heart. This affects all that comes out.
The list Jesus gives next — evil thoughts, murder, adultery, theft, false witness, slander — is not a description of criminals only.
This is what both your heart and mine contains, dear reader. If the worst of these evils have not broken out in us, we owe it to the mercy of God in the setting where He has chosen to place us. But the evils are certainly within us. They are only waiting for an opportunity to show themselves in all their ugliness. What stronger proof could we have that what men need is not reformation but a new creation!
When the disciples report that the Pharisees were offended, the answer is sharper still — and it points to the only cure.
But our Lord answers still more sternly: "Every plant that My heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up." There needs to be a new life from God, not an improving of the old one. A plant of heavenly origin must be planted, and the heavenly Father must do it. Every other plant shall be rooted up.
- Speech. The mouth takes in and gives out. Only what comes out reveals the man, because it comes from the heart.
- Spring. Defilement rises from inside a person, not from his surroundings. An angel walks through Sodom untouched; Lot does not.
- Sameness. Every heart in every age has the same polluted spring, whatever the outward differences.
- Snare. Satan's standing deception says man is not so bad that moral training cannot improve him. So people blame the circumstances, never the man.
- Solution. Man needs a new creation, not reformation. Only what the heavenly Father plants Himself will stand.
For out of the heart come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witnessings, blasphemies;
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