Guard Your Heart

Luke 6:43-45

Welcome my friend to our Bible study In Search of the Lord's Way to become a Christian--and to prepare for heaven. We are so very grateful for your interest in the study of God's Word. People who say no one is interested in the great doctrines of the Bible any more, well, they are just mistaken-- probably honest, but just mistaken. Your tremendous response to the doctrinal message which we have had, and your many requests for certain others, is ample evidence that they have an interest in those things. While we don't want to make this a "question and answer" program, we are planning to respond to your many requests for studies in premillennialism, miracles and worship, and, well, some other doctrinal subjects.

I just want to take a moment today to publicly say a big "thank you" to a group of 50 to 60 people in the Edmond, Oklahoma Church who work in this ministry without pay to do-- well, just things such as prepare mail-outs and other things. They are a vital part of this ministry, serving the Lord behind the cameras-- unseen and unheard and unpaid. What a great spirit they have! And we are thankful for them.

Jesus Christ is the only world leader of religious thought who seeks to control human behavior by changing the hearts of the people. Proverbs 4:23 says, "Keep (or guard) your heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life." Others may scorn the idea, but it has merit. We are going to study this idea today as Jesus Christ enlarged upon it. We are calling the message, Guard Your Heart. Ken Helterbrand is going to lead us in a hymn and then I will be back for Bible reading and prayer.

We are going to be reading today from the gospel of Luke, chapter 6, and we will begin at verse 43 and read 44 and 45. “For a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” Now let us go to God in prayer. Holy God and our righteous Father in heaven, we are so thankful to You for sending Jesus to this earth, letting Him live here for a period of years and teaching as He did, and we thankful for the preservation of those teachings from which we have just read. We pray Your blessings upon the reading of those scriptures and would You be with us now as we study them. In His name we pray, Amen.

Who can deny the truthfulness of Jesus' statement that we just read before the hymn? One of the reasons He is recognized as the Master Teacher is because of the simplicity with which He spoke.

We don't gather figs from thorn bushes or grapes from bramble bushes; do we now? Learned men, educators and philosophers may deny the existence of absolute truth if they like until they turn blue in the face from exhaustion, but that, my friend, is an absolute truth. It is that way now; it has always been that way; and it will always be that way. And it follows with equal force that "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil of his heart brings forth that which is evil..." So we must guard our hearts.

We hear people saying such things as, "Well, he may be guilty as charged. He was convicted alright in a court of law, but he is so sincere and such a good person, what he did really doesn't matter." It isn't that way, friend. Jesus' solution to the evil in the world is to make the heart good and the life won’t be otherwise. His formula for a good life, then, is to put a guard on the heart.

Be careful and cautious and guarded about what is permitted to enter into the heart. As we mentioned earlier, the wise man said, "Keep (or guard) your heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life." That is Proverbs 4:23. In Proverbs 23:6 and 7 He said, "Do not eat the bread of a miser, nor desire his delicacies; for as he thinks in his heart, so is he. Eat and Drink! He says to you, but his heart is not with you." Those two passages, while they are widely separated in the Old Testament book of Proverbs, are closely akin.

The idea is not to refuse to be a dinner guest of the evil man (while that may not be advisable either) but the thought of the sermon is he is talking about receiving instruction from such a person. Don't let evil people dump their intellectual trash into your heart. Their dainties are only evil. In their heart these people are "not with you," He says, meaning they are not solicitous of your good. They have their evil agendas. Put a guard on your heart so as to not be indoctrinated by them. What is in your heart controls your life, friend.

Culture is always evil. Some cultures have been (and some still are) more evil than others to be sure, but culture always runs counter to the righteous will of God. Therefore, the church doesn't need the culture dictating its faith and its practice. Christ intended the situation to be just the opposite. He meant for His teachings to impact the cultures of the world just as light does darkness, never that the world cultures were to alter the understanding and the practice of His teachings. In the very first chapter of the gospel of John the Holy Spirit says of Christ, "In Him (that is in Christ) was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it...That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own received Him not. But as many as received Him to them gave He the right to become the children of God, to those who believe in His name." That is John chapter 1, verses 4 through 5, and 9 through 12.

When I was a child on the farm before the days of government Rural Electrification programs, our houses were lighted by kerosene lamps. Some of you probably will remember that when the globes on the kerosene lamps were blackened with smoke from a badly trimmed wick in the lamp that the lamps didn't put out much light. So it is with the Christian. When the light of the world is blackened by the darkness of the world, the whole room is steeped in darkness.

When Jesus sent His apostles out on what is called (and rightly called) the limited commission, He warned them of cultural conflict. "Behold," or look, He said, "I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore, be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to the councils and scourge you in their synagogues. You will be brought before governors and kings for My name’s sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles" (Matthew 10, verses 16 through 18). But, He continued in verses 32 and 33 saying: "Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I also confess before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, him will I deny before My Father who is in heaven." He was warning them of the bitter opposition they would encounter on their mission, but they must always remain faithful to Him.

What I am saying is that there has always been-- and by design or intention-- a clash between Christian thought and the thinking of the culture. By its very nature, so far as the world is concerned, the Lord's way is-- well, too demanding. Although Jesus invited and encouraged everyone to come, receive His teachings and follow Him-- prostitutes, murderers, thieves and thugs, all sinners, not everyone could be His disciple. The ones who would find His way most difficult, however, would not be that kind; they would repent. And that is what I am trying to say today. One day "...A certain scribe came to Him and said to Him, Teacher; I will follow you wherever You go. And Jesus said to him, Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head. Then another of His disciples said to Him, Lord, let me first go and bury my father. But Jesus said to him, Follow Me, and let the dead bury their dead" (Matthew 8, verses 19 and 20). He was simply saying to this fellow: "There is a sharp distinction between My way and the world's ways, and you are just not made of the kind of stuff it takes to live that distinctive kind of life in the present culture.” People who are looking for acceptance without repentance, and ease without plenty responsibility, oh, well, and commitment, and perhaps persecution; well, you just can't be My disciples. Contrary to popular opinion, discipleship is not about receiving but giving. A kind of "extremism" isn't it?

"Extremism"-- that is our culture's way of evaluating "the Lord's way"-- pure Christianity. While strongly demanding tolerance of its own tyranny of secularism and individualism, our present American society is totally intolerant of the Christian community's free practice of the basic teachings of Jesus. The Christian faith is culturally acceptable only as long as its adherents don't practice it openly like praying at school events or trying to teach or "impose" it in their words on other people.

So, some who would like to be accepted in both the Christian and the secular communities; fail to recognize the source of the teaching to the contrary, compromising convictions of their faith to secular demands. For example: I was at university football game awhile back and that was during the time that it was permitted-- it was announced that there would be a prayer. But for very obvious reasons, there was no mention of God or of Christ in the prayer. It was assumed, I suppose, that to address the prayer to God would have violated constitutional rights of any atheists that might be present. Had it been addressed to "Our Father who art in heaven," as Jesus taught His disciples to pray in Matthew 6 and 9, it could have incurred the wrath of the feminists, who would have protested that it should have been "Our Mother who art in heaven." So it was just put out in the wind for anybody-- if there should be anybody out there listening-- to hear it and answer it. It isn't likely anyone seriously thought it would be answered anyway. Yes, I am grateful that number one: those who planned the program recognized the appropriateness of prayer; number two: it was otherwise a good prayer; number three: the stadium, though virtually filled with maybe seventy thousand people came to complete silence for that moment. I believe the masses were reverencing God, most of whom would have suffered no offense had it been addressed to God in the name of Jesus Christ.

Christians are losing the battle for the minds of men, simply by permitting themselves to be intimidated. Yes, in view of our cultural standards of morals and ethics today, the Lord's way is extremism. But, along with the apostle Paul "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God to salvation; to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek" (Romans 1:16). The Lord's disciples fail Him, they disappoint, even grieve Him, when they think they can be neutral in the warfare between culture and Christianity.

There is that oft-quoted passage for Christians in Romans 12:1 and 2, which says, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service (or your spiritual service). And be not conformed to this world (meaning culture): but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind (or your heart). (That word that makes this statement a statement of purpose is the word “that”), that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." The message here is not to stop bathing because bathing is a culturally accepted thing to do; or to spike your hair because most people comb theirs. Rather he is saying don't let the carnal world tell you what to think, or what to believe, what to be and what to do. With a mind that is renewed by the Spirit, a disciple can demonstrate to the world the Lord's good, acceptable and perfect way to live.

Well, many human current innovations in Christian teaching and faith and worship, therefore, many of the departures from biblical teaching and faith and worship, are the results of cultural demands upon churches to be accommodating to them, and the church's acquiescence to those demands. When confronted with such things, churches as well as Christians should be asking, "Is this from God or from man? Is it from God who loves me or is it from someone whose heart really is not with me?" as Solomon said in the passage that we gave you a few minutes ago. We might even want to ask, "Why even confess Christ or become a Christian, if it isn't supposed to make a difference in our behavior?" If indeed, the church has acquiesced to the world, surrendered itself and its principles to cultural demands, so that it has lost its distinctive faith and character, what real attraction does it have for me?

You see, my friend, Jesus Christ not only offers forgiveness from the gross errors of our sinful past, but along with that the total relief of all the guilt, but He proposes a better way also to live through a renewed heart. Well, I hope you are a Christian, uncompromisingly committed to Him and His high and noble principles of living and worship and service for Him. But, should that not be the case with you, I pray you will confess Him (Romans 10:10), be baptized into Him (Romans 6:3 and 4); and I hope you will do it immediately. I hope I may assist you? Let us pray. Holy Father, we are thankful for the message that Jesus left us and for the challenge that He gives us to be of a good heart and prove it with a good stand that we take for righteousness and truth. In His lovely name, we pray. Amen.

Our present culture has been described as "morally deregulated", which is a rather polite and polished way of saying it, I think. Anyway, it is clearly the inherent result of several causes, most of which are attitudinal. The modern mind has been conditioned by those who persistently preach personal freedom, tolerance, and nonjudgmentalism, to accept evil in its worst forms. It is impossible anymore to get a consensus on the sinfulness or the depravity of any kind of behavior-- even such evils as the holocaust or mass killing of more than a million little innocent, helpless pre-born and partially-born American babies every year. Such things as family and honesty, truthfulness and chastity and responsibility and common courtesy, just simple decency in dress and decorum in our interpersonal relationships, and all that sort of thing are no longer important. None of that really matters to people who are convinced that the great dangers of the evils are intolerance and judgmentalism.

That sort of thing has so persistently pounded away on the constraints of religious faith and Christian morality, that many professed followers of Christ as well as lots of churches have simply capitulated to it. They have been intimidated into silence if not acceptance. These were the vanguards of righteousness, but they are no more. Well, we will just have to guard what we entertain in our hearts for out of them are the issues of life.

CDs or audio cassette tapes of this program are available to you, of course. We gave you our address and our telephone number and all of that information before. So if you would like to have one, they are free to you; please let us hear from you. We will be back with you next week; hope you will, too. God bless you.