What is Defilement?

Defilement or All In

When you think of defilement, what do you think of?

Defilement is the action of spoiling something or someone so that things or person is less beautiful or pure.

Synonyms: degradation, debasement, spoiling, sullying, impairment, pollution, corruption, tainting, tarnishing.

When you think of these words, what do they mean to you?

Let us look at the word spoiling, that is when something has gone bad, like milk, fruit, meat.

There is something that happens when something spoils, it starts to wrinkle and rot, ooze nasty drainage and then it begins to smell, but what is worser is that it will spread its defilement to what is around it.

Matthew 15:1-6

Matthew 15:1–6 ESV

Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,” he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God.

The Message of Matthew The Future of the Jewish Church (14:13–15:20)

It concerns the worship God wants. The setting is controversial. The Pharisees come to Jesus with their perennial query: ‘Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!’ (15:1). In the way Jesus responds to them, two main things emerge, both highly significant not only for Jesus’ controversy with the Pharisees of his day, but also for Matthew’s controversy with the Pharisees of his.

The Message of Matthew The Future of the Jewish Church (14:13–15:20)

The first point Jesus makes is this: God’s word, not human tradition, is the basis for authentic worship.

The Message of Matthew The Future of the Jewish Church (14:13–15:20)

The second point Jesus made in this passage is that inner purity, not external ceremony, is what matters. The Pharisees, with their emphasis on ablutions, held the view that what entered into them could defile them (10–11).

The Message of Matthew The Future of the Jewish Church (14:13–15:20)

The main point of controversy was this. The Pharisees had developed a whole ‘fence’ of traditions and additions to protect the law.

The the Pharisees they saw oral traditions of the elders in higher reguard than the Word of God.

The Pharisees were holding to tradition and not the Word, how many of us hold to traditions more than to the Word?

In the following verse we see what happens when we allow things to come between us and our worship to the Lord. Things that hurt and destroy our relationship with the Lord.

1Corinthians

1 Corinthians 3:17 ESV

If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.

The word here destroy is the same as defiled.

Revelation 21

Revelation 21:27 ESV

But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

The words unclean and detestable or false are the same as defiled!

Titus 1:15 ESV

To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled.

Titus

Matthew 15:7–9 NKJV

Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying: ‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth, And honor Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ”

Jesus is quoted here!

Matthew: An Introduction and Commentary vi. Dispute with Pharisees and Scribes over Defilement (15:1–20)

The dominant idea here is of the inconsistency which professes to aim to please God, but in fact opposes his will. Isaiah’s words (29:13) related originally to the people of his own day, but Jesus sees a correspondence (‘typology’) between their false religion and that of his own contemporaries which makes his words in effect a ‘prophecy’ about them too

When people set aside God’s Word for the sake of tradition, we put our desires before Gods plan are.

Jesus dismisses their worship because their hearts were not aligned with their lips.

Proverbs 16:23 NKJV

The heart of the wise teaches his mouth, And adds learning to his lips.

We need to ask ourselves what we do that do not line up with the heart of Jesus?

Mark 7:14–16 NKJV

When He had called all the multitude to Himself, He said to them, “Hear Me, everyone, and understand: There is nothing that enters a man from outside which can defile him; but the things which come out of him, those are the things that defile a man. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear!”

Mark 7:14-16

Jesus wants us to really hear what He is saying to us! this is why He stress the point to hear Him and then He says he who an ear let them hear!

There are too many times we hear what we want to hear and not what we are suppose to hear!

Matthew 15:11 NKJV

Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man; but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man.”

Matthew 15:11

What you take in again is not what defiles you, but it is what comes out of the mouth!

Matthew 12:34 NKJV

Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

We know how to talk the talk, but can we walk the walk!!!

but can we walk the walk!!!

The Message of Matthew The Future of the Jewish Church (14:13–15:20)

Judaism had almost become a religion of ‘works’ designed to win the approval of God. And Jesus says, ‘Never!’

Judaism had not started out that way. It was a religion of sheer unmerited grace from God to Abraham. It flowed with love and trust and obedience.

The Message of Matthew The Future of the Jewish Church (14:13–15:20)

And that is an attitude Jesus powerfully repudiates. ‘Works’ are a beggar’s refuge. For one thing, we could never keep every letter of the law day and night all our lives, and so we could never earn the coveted reward. Secondly, even if we could, the whole principle is sub-personal. One could do it all without a living relationship with God.

Matthew 15:16–19 ESV

And he said, “Are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.

Matthew 15:16–17 The Message

Jesus replied, “You, too? Are you being willfully stupid? Don’t you know that anything that is swallowed works its way through the intestines and is finally defecated?

The Message of Matthew The Future of the Jewish Church (14:13–15:20)

It does not consist merely in external things. Unclean foods could not defile people. They go into the stomach and pass out the other end. What defiles people is the stuff that comes from within: evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander (19). These are what defile people; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile people (20). The human heart is ‘deceitful above all things and beyond cure’. No palliatives will heal it.

Matthew 15:16

Matthew 15:18–19 The Message

But what comes out of the mouth gets its start in the heart. It’s from the heart that we vomit up evil arguments, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, lies, and cussing.

Matthew 15:

Matthew 15:20 The Message

That’s what pollutes. Eating or not eating certain foods, washing or not washing your hands—that’s neither here nor there.”

The Message of Matthew The Future of the Jewish Church (14:13–15:20)

Those two characteristics are what God is looking for in his worshippers. His word is not to be emasculated by human rules. And inner purity, not external rectitude, is what delights the heart of God.

James 4:7–8 NKJV

Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

Matthew 15:16-

So what is the Lord looking for in His followers that they be “ALL IN” not half hearted and living in both worlds, we need to be true to our love for God!

Are you and I (ALL IN) ?

Isaiah 29:13 ESV

And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,

Isaiah