Matthew 15:8 KJV
This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.
Matthew 15:18-19 KJV
But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man.
For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:
The issue I want to address today is the heart. John Gill says of this passage,
"...they had no true love to God, nor faith in him, nor fear of him; they were not at all concerned for his presence with them, or for communion with him, or for his honour and glory; their hearts were in the world, and after their covetousness; they made religion a tool to their secular purposes, supposing gain to be godliness; sought the applause of men, and contented themselves with bodily exercise; having no regard to internal religion, powerful godliness, or where their hearts were, so be it, their bodies were presented to God in public worship; and what they did it was to be seen and approved of men, not caring what the searcher of hearts knew concerning them..."
These people had both the talk and the walk of the believer. But they were missing the key to it all, they did not have the heart of a believer. Christianity is more than talking and walking for Christ. All of that is external and can be engineered by human means. It is the heart that is the key to all that is Christianity.
The heart is the seat of affections. The issue of faith is an issue of what we love. So the question of the sincerity of one's faith is answered not in what he says or even in how he lives, it is in what he loves. And that is nothing man can fabricate.
This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.
Matthew 15:18-19 KJV
But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man.
For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:
The issue I want to address today is the heart. John Gill says of this passage,
"...they had no true love to God, nor faith in him, nor fear of him; they were not at all concerned for his presence with them, or for communion with him, or for his honour and glory; their hearts were in the world, and after their covetousness; they made religion a tool to their secular purposes, supposing gain to be godliness; sought the applause of men, and contented themselves with bodily exercise; having no regard to internal religion, powerful godliness, or where their hearts were, so be it, their bodies were presented to God in public worship; and what they did it was to be seen and approved of men, not caring what the searcher of hearts knew concerning them..."
These people had both the talk and the walk of the believer. But they were missing the key to it all, they did not have the heart of a believer. Christianity is more than talking and walking for Christ. All of that is external and can be engineered by human means. It is the heart that is the key to all that is Christianity.
The heart is the seat of affections. The issue of faith is an issue of what we love. So the question of the sincerity of one's faith is answered not in what he says or even in how he lives, it is in what he loves. And that is nothing man can fabricate.
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