Now may we turn to Matthew, please, chapter 15 and verse 10. In our preaching through the New Testament, we come from time to time to preach on a passage of Scripture, and then in rethinking it after it's already been preached in preparation for going on the next one to the next one, to realize that there was something especially good in there that you couldn't get in in just one sermon, and I find it necessary to go back and pick it up. And there is a passage of Scripture in the 19th verse that Jesus spoke that I want us to look at in context and to talk to you about tonight for just a few moments at the close of this beautiful Easter day. We shall begin in the 10th verse, Matthew 15, verse number 10. And 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. Then came his disciples and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended after they heard this saying? But he answered and said, Don't worry about the Pharisees. Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up. Let them alone. They be blind leaders of the blind, and if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch. Then answered Jesus and said unto him, I'm sorry, Then answered Peter and said unto him, Declare unto us this parable. And Jesus said, Are ye also yet without understanding? Do you not yet understand that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly and is cast out into the drop? But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile the man. And this is the text. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witnesses, blasphemies. I want to read that 19th verse again. I should like for you to read it with me. Share your Bible with one nearby. Verse 19 aloud together. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witnesses, blasphemies. I'm glad that the Lord's only son was a preacher because I preach the preaching of Jesus. What he said and what he did is my constant text. And he, being a preacher, knew that preachers who would preach him would need all the help they could get. And he always outlined what he said. I have never found anyone to preach as easy as Jesus. Everything that he does and says is done in a simple but obvious grouping. An obvious outline is always there if you will just take the time to think about it, to categorize it, and to find it. In this 19th verse, Jesus suggests eight different things which defile a man. They are grouped under three categories. First of all, let me say to you that all of them boil down to one problem. Thievery, stealing, robbery, taking what is not rightfully yours. We shall see that that is the essence of sin. First of all, I would suggest to you that Jesus says there is the category of what one man steals from another man. Now, Jesus gives us three indications of the things that a man can steal from another man and thus defile himself. For one thing, he suggests stealing physical things because he says you defile yourself when you commit thievery, when you take as something that doesn't belong to you physically from someone else, a material possession. I don't know when, if ever, I've heard a sermon on the downright meanery of stealing. But I think it needs to be said and it needs to be said often. Gerald, the night we were supposed to go the next day and leave for Africa, went home about 10 .30 with Trevelin and they had all of their cameras and mine and their passports and their billfuls and their credit cards and their suitcases everything packed everything led laid out and they walked in and found they had been robbed and the upstart of the thing as is sometimes the case they almost know who did it but of course you can't do anything about it to go and accuse somebody it's a terrible thing it is an awful thing to think of someone in your car someone in your home in your possessions hardly a week goes by that something is not pilfered and stolen from the first Baptist church and I say that this happens in almost every church in the world especially downtown churches where people just walk in off the streets we do a good job I think of building security but it can never be perfect people have snuck in and spent the night they rob you from the inside sometimes some of your own people steal from you we have known about people stealing things that we knew who they were and rather than accusing them have prayed for them it's an awful thing for a man to have the audacity to tangibly take someone something from someone that doesn't belong to I really can't think of a worse thing boys and girls children young people listen to me if you starve to death if you go without if you have to go naked you don't take something that doesn't belong to you it is an awful thing it is a terrible sin and I say that the person is who is a thief whether it be stealing a nickel whether it is stealing a purse whether it is stealing something much greater than that is a young person who is never going to make it in life if you are not basically honest to respect what belongs to someone else you're going to be a loser all your life if you're not honest you're not anything a woman called me into the choir room this morning one of our dear ladies a lady who lives at allen parkway it's government housing and it's for people who don't have as much income as some other people and she showed me bruises on her wrist and and and bruises on her on her knees and on her ankles and a torn purse where today as happens almost every week this morning at nine o 'clock coming out the door on the way to Sunday school somebody jumped her and threw her down and twisted her purse from her hand and took what was her stealing thievery it is an awful thing it is so awful that Jesus Christ warns that the person who is a thief defiles himself now it's just a simple truth but one that we need to remind ourselves of and you know sometimes we justify stealing they tell us that most employees most employees steal from their employers sackowitz foley's sears dime stores and they rationalize it like this i make 280 an hour i'm really worth four dollars an hour so i've got a dollar twenty an hour coming to me that's really mine i work for it i earn that i deserve it and so i'll steal that much a day it's really not stealing it's mine after all i hope if this old -fashioned simple sermon doesn't do anything else for us tonight it will help us just again to remember some of the simple but awful truths about sin we live in a day in which sin is so glossed over and so excused but i want you to remember that sin is still sin and stealing is one of the worst sins which defiles a man what men calls acts of sins accidents god calls sin an abomination men call sin a blunder god calls a blindness men call it an effect god calls it a disease men call it an error god calls it enmity men call it a chance god calls it choice men call it fascination god calls it fatality men call it infirmity god calls sin iniquity men call sin luxury god god calls sin leprosy men call sin liberty god calls sin lawlessness men call sin trifling god calls sin tragedy men call sin a mistake god calls it madness men call it weakness god calls it willful transgression jesus says one of the things that devils a man is to take the physical possessions that belong to another man but he says there's something else under the category of taking from another man that which is not yours rightfully and that is in taking his life and he says another thing that defiles a man is murder. I want to say very simply to you that the commandment thou shalt not kill is that thou shalt do no murder. I do think that the Bible distinguishes between different kinds of killing. You talk about capital punishment friends God has been in the capital punishment since the year one. He's been in the capital punishment business and he's going to stay in the capital punishment business. When the wicked shall be cast into hell and all nations that forget God. That's not capital punishment. I don't know what is. The Bible talks about God killing Ananias and Sapphira because they lied to the Holy Ghost. About Christians whose lives were a lie who were getting drunk at the Lord's supper table unworthily handling the things of God and adds for this reason some are sick among you. God had taken their lives. They were killed. Capital punishment. It's an awful thing for a man to murder but there's a difference in hatred and murder because murder is a hatred in the heart. It is malice. A soldier may kill because he has to. A policeman may kill because it is a responsibility but it doesn't mean that he hates. Jesus said the heart is the thing. It is the intent of a heart and it is so awful to hate a man in your heart that Jesus said you have as good as killed him if you even hate him. That's far worse than a man who doesn't hate but who does kill because he has to kill. And Jesus said there's another kind of killing. There's another way of taking something from a man that doesn't belong to him which I think is far worse than taking his physical possessions or taking his life. When he says thou who speakest ill of your brother. Look at that verse again. Matthew chapter 15 verse number 19. He says we thieve when we take a man's possessions. There's the kind of thievery which takes a man's life. But he says there is a kind of thievery which is a false witness which lies about a man. You may not take a man's life but far better than you did than that you take his reputation and that you destroy his self -confidence. You steal from the man his reputation, his standing in the community, his image with his family, his job, his good name. When you take his name, when you lie against him, you have taken far more than when you take the man's life physically. Far better to be dead with honor than to live with a name that has been shamed by a false witness. And so Jesus says the first category of sin that defiles a man is for a man to steal from another man. But there's a second grouping here in this passage of scripture. It is that which a man steals from a woman. And there are certain sins which are that, sexual sins, which are just plain robbery. For one thing, Jesus says there is that which a man steals from a single woman. The words are sometimes used interchangeably but primarily adultery means an immoral sexual relationship between married persons. And fornication means the same kind of relationship between persons when one of them or both are single. In a day that we live in a promiscuous society, I want to just go on record again as saying young men and women, the Bible says thou shalt not commit adultery. And the soul that sineth it shall die. Why does God forbid illicit sin? Why does God forbid the sin of fornication? Why does He say the vessel is to be possessed in honor? Why does He say not to be joined to a harlot? Know ye not that the twain shall be one flesh? And your body, especially as a believer, is the temple of the Holy Ghost. And you allow the Holy Spirit to be evolved in that kind of a physical defiling relationship in the sin of fornication. It is an unspeakably terrible thing. And I say to you that the young man who steals the purity, the virginity, the holiness, the wholesomeness of a young woman steals from her something that can never again be replaced. And you lose something that is unattainable again. I'm not placing all of the blame on the boy. It's just as bad on one as it is the other. But let me tell you something, young man. You need to know that women love much deeper than men. That it is much more possible for a man to experience a sexual relationship out of love and marriage than it is a woman. But when a woman gives herself to a man in a sexual relationship, she is giving much more than her body. She is giving her heart. She is giving her soul. She gives her ego. She gives her will. She gives her self -respect. She gives everything that nothing again can ever replace. And you steal. You rob from her the possibility of a guilt -free life. The possibility of the beautiful future of a wholesome relationship. The possibility of being able to look at God and look in the face of a husband that she adores and children that she has borne in honor and integrity before God. She carries something to the grave from which she will never, ever again be the same. I say to you that the personality is deeply and lifelong, eternally scarred in a fornicated relationship which affects most of the time and scars that personality and warps that soul in the life of a woman, life of a young girl, far worse than a young boy. Some years ago a boy who was often drunk in a city, the town scoundrel came home, has been breaking his parents' heart and his mother took him upstairs and opened the door to the closet where there was a big red heart. She said, son, every time you came home living wrong, you broke my heart and I've been driving a nail in that heart. Every day you did something wrong and you've been like you've been driving nails in my heart. Look at it! Dramatically she flung it open and there was a red heart in the back of the door filled with hundreds of nails. The boy was heartbroken. He said, mother, I'm so sorry, I'll do right. She said, all right, every time you do right, I'll pull one of them out. Years went by, finally they were all gone. One Christmas day he took her aside and said, mother, let's go look at that door. She said, look, son, enjoy, they're all gone. They're not there anymore. The nails are gone, boy, isn't it wonderful? The young man picked up his little mother in his arms, trembling, and said, yes, mama, the nails are gone, but the holes are still there. And I am saying simply to you that the scar that is left in the life of a young woman is worse normally than that that is left in the life of a young man. And listen, boy, you say to me, to that girl, if you love me, you would. But I say to you, if you really love her, you won't. But, because love seeketh not its own. If you love that girl, if you adore her, if you honor her, you want the best from her and you will not steal from her that one thing which is immaculately and unspeakably precious and important to her well -being. And he says there's another kind of thievery. The kind of thievery that a man takes from a married woman. And he says simply, from the issues of the heart proceed the issues of life, and one of them is adultery. I've come to realize that there is a very positive approach to the commandment, thou shalt not commit adultery. Listen to me. Young married couples, listen to me. God does not forbid the sin of adultery because he doesn't want you to enjoy life, but because he does. Adultery is not wrong simply because God forbids it. That would be sufficient. But God forbids it because it is wrong. Because a situation in which everybody loses, when all parties are the loser, is a situation that hurts people, and God wants to protect you, and you can't come out of an adulterous relationship without being hurt. Oh, it's high time for us to understand that the playboy philosophy is not a right, that sex for sex sake is not where it's at. Listen to me. The sexual act must exist in the boundary and confines and context of certain psychological and emotional facilities which are impossible outside of a marriage. And when it does not exist in that situation, it is not the fulfilling, beautiful thing God intended it to be. It is a relationship in which people only get hurt, and God says, I love you. I don't want you to get hurt. I've come to realize some things. I am saying to you, and understand, that merely the sexual act which exists apart from the context of the blending of personalities and hearts and souls and wills and a commitment of being is not possible and is a frustrating, disappointing failure. You see, sex demands more than sex. For a woman, sex demands security, psychologically, emotionally. Everything about her is saying in this act, I am depending on this man, I trust this man, I rely on this man to take care of my children, to buy my insurance, to be my defense, to be my security, to be my provider, to be my shield, to meet all of the emotional and physical and spiritual and financial needs, which he is not able to fulfill if he cannot assume them in the context of marriage. Not only does sex define true fulfillment, demands security for a woman, but sex demands responsibility for a man. If the man is not able to go beyond a simple act of a sexual relationship, to be the covering for the woman in every area, to be her shield, her provider, her defender, if she is a once a week, 30 minute motel relationship, if it is an office party relationship, sex for sex sake, that does not exist in the context of the man being able to defend and assure the competent future of all the needs of the responsibility of this woman, then psychologically and spiritually and emotionally and every other way, it fails and frustrates and disappoints us. It cannot exist out of the context of responsibility for a man. And a man cannot assume the responsibility of a woman for whom he is not married. You say, but a man can have a lover, he can have a little love nest, he can send her a thousand a month and take care of her. That's not all there is to it. Because I have found that it is true that for both persons, sex demands confession. It demands public acknowledgement. When two people love each other, when the body, mind, heart, soul, will, destiny, purpose, the totality of two emotionally, psychologically involved bees, have been blended in a sexual relationship. They want to live together. They want to know each other. They want to wear each other's wedding ring. They want to dress alike. They want joint bank accounts. They want to walk down the street together. They want to shop together. They want each other's names. You know, some of these computer dating services which match up people's likenesses are a farce. They both like Spanish food. They both like the opera. They're both from New Jersey. So they're compatible. Baloney. I say to you that if that person does not bring into that relationship some differences which are counterparts, opposites to yours, in which you fulfill each other, then marriage doesn't do either of you any good emotionally or psychologically. You both give. You both contribute. And you're never psychologically and socially and spiritually whole and full and complete unless you are one. Part of that demands a public acknowledgement and confession and togetherness to the world of the totality of the image, the relationship in which the twain are one and are never whole and complete unless they are one. And that simply cannot exist in a sex -for -sex -sake -out -of -marriage relationship. It's a jiff. Everybody loses. I say again, God does not simply forbid the sin of adultery because it is wrong. It is not simply wrong because he forbids it. He forbids it because it's wrong. It hurts people. It disappoints people. And I'm telling you that young women whose first sexual experiences are like that come away with a deep psychological scar which is always at the root and the base of their relationship, which begins to gnaw on their emotion and their psyche and their well -being when there is always the myth, there is always the haunting fear, the understanding that it really isn't all it's cracked up to be. Of course, it cannot exist out of that kind of a context. So Jesus categorizes the sin of what a man steals from a man, what a man steals from a woman. And a married woman, a married woman, he says something else here. He talks about what a man steals from all women. Evil thoughts. Why don't you think about something? The mind is a great computer. The mind is a great movie camera. Able to create, able to produce, able to play and to replay and to re -experience and to recreate endlessly. The mind can do anything. Jesus said, guard your mind. Watch your mind. Had David, when sin entered into his mind, turned his head and said, God cleansed me in the blood, forgive me, and kept walking, he would have been all right. But he stopped and rolled as a morsel beneath the tongue, the taste of the forbidden fruit. The thought became an obsession, and the obsession became a sin, and the sin became a destiny. Why? Because of his mind. They hang people. They execute people. To this day, in many countries, for rape. Rape is sexual relationship with a woman against her will. Now you listen to me. The adulterer in his evil thought, who denews, who possesses, who destroys, who takes a woman in his mind, not only against her will, but against her knowledge, is twice the offender. That young woman would be horrified if she knew how she is pictured in your mind. Every move, every thought, every act, every word, that in her purity and holiness and beauty, she has never done, said, or even thought. And yet you have done. And you have stripped her and denuded her and destroyed her of her modesty. Because you have taken liberties with her, against her will, and even without her knowledge. I say to you that the man who steals from anyone, her modesty, her virtue, against her will and against her knowledge, with evil thoughts, is thrice guilty. It's an awful sin, and it defiles the heart. But the last thought is this. Jesus reduces all of the issues of life which defile the heart to that which a man steals from another man, to that which a man steals from a woman, and to that which a man steals from God. And he adds all of it up in one word. Blasphemy. Blasphemy. The word blasphemy means to insult something sacred. It is used in the New Testament as being synonymous with the unpardonable sin. The Holy Spirit is in the world for one purpose, to create the desire and the will, Paul says, both to will and to do his good pleasure. That is the desire to want to serve God and the ability to serve God when the desire has been consummated into an action. That it is God that does that inside of a man and to insult God by disallowing him to do the only thing he's in the world that he wants to do with you as a believer is to insult him and is thus blasphemy. It is an insult to God, it is a blasphemy before God, because blasphemy which disallows God from being God in our life, steals from him the right of God to balance and bless our relationships. For he said that our religion is both vertical and horizontal. Thou shalt love the Lord God with all thy heart and thy neighbor as thyself. And it steals from God the right to be the boss, the master, the Lord, and controller of our life, and says, in essence, with impudence, you don't have the right. You don't have the know -how to run my life. I can do that better than you. Please, Lord, I'd rather do it myself. And it steals from God blasphemy, which is a way of life that acts independently from God, which is the nature of sin, biblically. It steals from God the glory, the honor that is rightfully his. Yes, I recall to your attention that the original sin from which all sinful acts stem today, and of which every sinful action is but a symptom of a root problem, was the sin of stealing from God his glory. One day, Elizabeth, with pomp and audacity, said, I'm taking over heaven. I'll be like the Most High God. I'll rise above God. I'll be God. I'll exalt myself to the stars of the north. I will rise above God. The glory that is God shall be the glory that is mine. Is it any wonder that Paul says in Romans 3 .23, for all have sinned and come short, literally means have taken away thereby, have missed, have destroyed, have disannulled, have caused to be ineffectual and even not in existence. The glory of God by their audacious and proud simple attitude which says simply I'll act independently of God. I will therefore be my own God. I'll do my own thing. And that's what sin is. An attitude which wishes God did not exist. That a man would say I will steal God out of heaven if I can and make myself God. Jesus said that to eat with unwashed hands, a little, little dirt ceremonially going to your body on a piece of bread because your hands weren't washed. 99 and 44, 100 % pure soap. That doesn't defile a man. The kingdom of God is within you.