#1266 Matthew 12 Part 5 Naranjas Malas

 

33 “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. 34 You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. 35 The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. 36 I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, 37 for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” Matthew 12: 33-37 ESV

Matthew 12: 33-37

Either make the tree good and its fruit good - This comes right after they have accused Him of doing good by Beelzebul. He is doing the works and miracles associated with Messiah, healing, not pretending to heal, not selling holy water or handkerchiefs, and He has even raised the dead, but they attribute all this to Satan. You don't see character assaults against Him based on being a liar, they never caught Him in that, a fornicator, a lazy man, but if He sips some wine or eats some food, all of which is not forbidden, then they say He is a drunk and a glutton, accusing Him of excess when all they have seen is in moderation. He fasted in the wilderness for 40 days, this Man has remarkable control over the appetites of His flesh. 

…31At this, the Jews again picked up stones to stone Him. 32 But Jesus responded, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone Me?” 33“We are not stoning You for any good work,” said the Jews, “but for blasphemy, because You, who are a man, declare Yourself to be God.”… John 10: 31-33

For the tree is known by its fruits - My great grandmother had orange groves, and when I was little we asked to pick some oranges off of a tree in her back yard, it was rather tall for an orange tree, but she had this picker on the end of a pole. She said, Okay, but the fruit on that tree isn't good, she called it a wild orange. It was the base tree, a cold resilient, disease resilient tree that is usually grafted to another type of orange that was developed for taste. This tree apparently lost those branches a long time ago, so she called the base fruit a sour orange. It wasn't desirable for market, but she would make orange pie or other things with it that needed a sour, citrus note. That tree was defined by the fruit it produced. So now, these Pharisees have witnessed the fruit of Christ's life, the healings that were indicative of the Kingdom, the miracles that were indicative of the power of God, raising the dead and calming the Sea, and they attribute it to Satan. He warns them because He is doing all these things by the power of the Holy Spirit, the Son of God has humbled Himself to being a servant, doing what He sees the Father doing, through the Holy Spirit, so they have insulted the Spirit of Grace. Sadly, they also know who He is regarding His upbringing, and they know how He has lived among them, it is not hidden and it would be easy to ask about Him. What kind of child was He? What kind of man is He? He has preached and taught among them, but He goes by the Word of God, and they favor their own traditions.

…45When they could not find Him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for Him. 46Finally, after three days they found Him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47And all who heard Him were astounded at His understanding and His answers.…

…48When His parents saw Him, they were astonished. “Child, why have You done this to us?” His mother asked. “Your father and I have been anxiously searching for You.” 49“Why were you looking for Me?” He asked. “ Did you not know that I had to be in My Father’s house?” 50But they did not understand the statement He was making to them.…

…51Then He went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But His mother treasured up all these things in her heart. 52And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. Luke 2: 45-52

You brood of vipers - A viper is a venomous snake, and a pain because of it's camouflage. It can blend in, be picked up accidentally in a pile of sticks, like in the case of Paul. These vipers, the religious elite, Pharisees, hypocrites, they dressed to appear religious, practiced a works based method of confusing religion, spoke of Moses and the prophets as if they followed the same God. They were ecstatic about having Abraham as their father, but what they taught actually kept men from entering the Kingdom, and damned them to hell. They blended in, posed as the moral and theological guides who would show men the way, but they really just wanted followers, to be esteemed by their peers, and it shows, because when God appears they call Him Satan. Their words are like venom, you don't want that flowing through your veins, it is destructive. 

Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks - Your words will eventually betray who you really are. God looks at the heart, and Jesus is teaching this from every sort of angle. The Pharisees claim to be of God, know God, follow Him, and they have plenty of access to His word. These men think they are righteous, but even with all the evidence they have about Christ, in their hearts they hate the revelation of Him. You can talk about God, call yourself His follower, and yet find that all you really have is this little idol you have carved with your imagination, a god in your image. So when the true God comes, the Messiah, the Savior of the world, and He doesn't look like your image, well then you only have two choices: One, you hold on to your idol and reject logic, reason, the evidence that is before you, or two, you repent, accept that this Jesus fulfills all the demands and prophecies that the OT has spoken about Him. Whatever you choose you will eventually proclaim. As Lewis said, "He is either, liar, lunatic, or Lord." 

And then after that greeting to them, He says this, “How can ye, being evil, speak good things?” And He applies His parable. “How could we expect anything else out of your mouth than blasphemy? We wouldn’t expect anything else because you are evil.” Now notice the statement being evil. That is a monumental theological statement. That is a statement of the depravity of the human heart. They didn’t just do evil; they were evil in their very being. And that is the legacy of the fall of Adam, that men are born into the world in sin. And that is why Paul says, “All have sinned.” That’s why Paul says to the Ephesians, “You were dead in trespasses and sins.” In other words, man is born in sin. David said in Psalm 51:4, “In sin did my mother conceive me.” Jeremiah said, “The heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it?”

The Bible, from Old Testament to New Testament, chronicles the heart of man. It shows his heart in all times, in all climates, in all circumstances, and his heart is ever and always evil. The depravity, the corruption of the sin nature is passed from Adam down through every man as poison is carried from the fountain to the bucket that draws it. And so all man born into the world is evil. As Isaiah said, “The whole head is sick, the whole heart is faint.” And man without God abides in that evil being and produces only evil products, only evil fruit. As 1 Samuel 24:13 so well says, “As saith the proverb of the ancients, ‘Wickedness proceedeth from the wicked.’” So Jesus says, applying the parable, “We would expect vile things from vile people,” and that is the case. They speak because of who they are.

From there, He moves to the third thing, which we’ll call the principle, at the end of verse 34. And here He directly states the principle that He has in mind. “For out of the abundance of the heart” – what? – “the mouth speaketh.” Whatever you are on the inside is going to come out of your mouth. That is the major principle of this passage. The Pharisees blasphemed Jesus; they came to condemn Jesus. Jesus turns the table right around and says, “You can’t condemn Me. I do good, therefore I must be good. Your vile blasphemy shows that you condemn yourselves because if that comes out of your mouth, then that is what is in your heart. And we could not expect anything different from you, being evil.” This is one of the most definitive, one of the most far-reaching, one of the most important, and one of the most practically applicable principles in all of Scripture. - J Mac

Every careless word they speak - Our words don't go away, and believe me, there are so many that I wish I had never said. They were useless, mean, illogical, arrogant, unedifying, gross, but I said them, and they are out there. There is only one hope here, and that is that Jesus is a Savior, that I confess this to Him and that He will forgive me, granting me repentance by the life of the Spirit. Whenever you find someone who has been born again, you find a knew tree that brings forth good fruit. It loves and is nourished by the Word of God, it grows and produces edible fruit, good fruit, sweet fruit. If we don't come to believe in our heart and confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord, then like that orange on my great grannie's tree, it looks good, it looks like an orange, but when you eat it you find it to be bitter, and you spit it out and throw it away.

By your words you will be justified - It's like the Apostle James states, "faith without works is dead", it never happened. In other words, true believing faith, saving faith, will always produce the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit will give evidence of the type of tree. 

Therefore, we come to the fourth point, the punishment, verses 36 and 37. “ I say unto you, every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account of it in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.” Now some people have a problem understanding that we will ultimately be judged on our works and on our words. We saw that in Romans chapter 2 where it says that God will render to every man according to his deeds. And here it says He will judge men according to their words. By your works and your words will come your eternal judgment. What this says is not to obviate or negate salvation by grace through faith, but simply to show you that salvation by grace through faith will demonstrate itself in good works, good words, so that they become the objective criteria by which God can make that judgment. The words of men are accurate gauges of their hearts. If you have a transformed heart and Jesus Christ has come into your life and transformed your heart, then you will speak words by which God will justify you. If Christ has never changed your heart, then you will speak words by which God will condemn you. - J Mac