The problem within us is the problem which is described by Jesus here, the problem which is within the heart, which defiles a man.
I came across this quote from a Walt Disney film. I’m sure it’s ‘Cinderella’ and I think that’s a pretty innocent sort of piece but just listen to what it says here:
Who is to say the rules must stay the same forevermore? Whoever made them had to change the rules that came before. So, make your own story; show the beauty within. When you follow your heart there’s no heart you can’t win.
Walt Disney’s ‘Cinderella’
Is that good advice? It’s terrible advice! It’s actually wrong!
There are certain rules which must stay the same. They are the rules which God has given us.
Now, the rules of men those can change, but the rules of God don’t change. And you don’t change the rules of God to try and fit in with what your heart wants to say.
If you do that, you’re in big trouble. That’s why we’re in big trouble today, in this society, because that’s exactly what we’re doing. We are trying to follow what’s in our hearts and say that what’s in our heart, what I feel like, what I want for myself is right.
Therefore, I can go against the rules of God, against the Commandments of God,
show the beauty within; follow your heart. Your heart good and are you basically good.
That is what humanism really wants to tell you. The problem is not outside, it is inside. They say that we are good people, but that we are messed up by a bad society.
That is NOT true! The problem is within us.
Jeremiah chapter 17 says,
“The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked;
Jeremiah 17.9
Who can know it?
That is the problem of the heart Paul wrote about in Romans chapter 7
For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find.
Romans 7.18
And our passage from Matthew
18 But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. 19 For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. 20 These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.”
Matthew 15.18-20
God’s rules don’t change. You can question who made the rules if it is a (human) person but you can’t question God’s rules, they do not change.
The Bible says that God has given us rules which don’t change, which are for our good, and we don’t have the right to change them.
So, if we want to change God’s rules in order to follow our heart, we’re actually in trouble.
I wholeheartedly agree. We can so easily become our own god. Either making up our own set of
‘ rules’, according to our own moral standards of right and wrong, or making a god in our image, who agrees with us. This is so evident in issues like the LGBTQ etc movement where many reject what God has said and ‘ follow their heart’. This is the reason so very many unsaved people choose Frank Sinatras ‘ My Way’ for their funeral and applaud it’s sentiments as heroic. Heaven forbid. ‘My way’ is the broad route to death and destruction. God’s way, in repentance and belief in the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus the Messiah, is the narrow way to abundant life and joy forevermore.
Hebrews 9:27-28
And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.
We need to repent, turn from ‘my way’ and believe in the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
For best results follow the makers instructions. In this case more than a broken kettle is at stake.
Footnotes
Amen!