Matthew 12:33-37 | Pastor Kyle

The Rejection of Jesus and the Need for Foundation

A father saying, this is my son of my love in whom I am well pleased. We see that same spirit of God lead Jesus into the wilderness to be tested by Satan, to be what Israel failed to be in the desert as they wandered and did not rely on the word of God when they failed.

Jesus becomes the true and perfect Israel by answering the enemy with the word of God under the power of the Holy Spirit. We see Jesus presenting the greatest sermon in history, the Sermon on the Mount by the power of the Holy Spirit.

We see him cleansing lepers. We see him healing the sick, the paralyzed, the blind, the mute. We see him calming the storms, expressing his lordship over the elements, and we see him casting out demons, exercising his victory over the spiritual forces of darkness in heavenly places.

He commissions his disciples to do the same, to take the gospel of the kingdom to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and proclaim this good news. We see him denouncing cities for their unbelief based on the works that he is doing.

We see the message of the good news of the kingdom fall on the ears of some, and they accept it. And then we see that same message fall on the ears of others, and they reject it. In Matthew's account, we see where Jesus heals the man oppressed by the demon, or possessed by the demon.

We see the collision course that Matthew is taking now in the middle of the book to talk about the rejection of the religious leaders of Jesus' day, of his kingship, that he is, in fact, the Messiah. He's the promised one that was prophesied about in the Old Testament.

He proclaims himself as the substance of the Sabbath. He proclaims himself as the substance of the temple and everything in the Old Testament he embodies and is the fullness of. He tells the Pharisees, if I cast out demons by the spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has indeed come upon you.

What is their response to this except to attribute what he does to the works of Satan? To attribute what the spirit of God does and casting out a demon from a man as the activity of Satan? Jesus answering the fool according to his folly by saying, no kingdom divided against itself can stand.

Will Satan begin to cast out his own members? Jesus answered the fool according to his folly as the ultimate presuppositionalist. We see Jesus shortly after that, Jesus calling his audience in attendance to make a decision.

For him, the time has come to decide, you are either with me or you are against me. If you do not gather with me, then you scatter those who are. There is no middle ground. There is no neutrality with Jesus.

Jesus clashes with the Pharisees and the Sadducees and in particularly the Pharisees. And in order to get into this passage today, we have to do a little bit of foundation building. We know that the Pharisees often are painted in the modern evangelical church as the bad guys, right?

However, we see through the life of the apostle Paul and the revelation of scripture, just how rigorous their commitment was to the law of God. However, their focus was on the external obedience of the rituals and the customs and thus the basis of the clash between them and the Messiah is such that their focus on external observance to the law of God will not save them.

The outward appearance of good does not justify them or any of us before a holy God that has come to examine our fruit, to determine whether or not we have been made new. They were passionate about details of behavior because they wanted to keep their side of the covenant that God had made with his people.

They were prepared to die for the law of God, trusting him to bring them to resurrection. The Pharisees demonstrated a rigorous commitment to the law of God. They could quote it. They knew it by heart.

But the question ultimately, as they come into contact with the son of the living God is do they know him? Do they recognize that the substance of the law, the champion of God's law, is now standing directly in front of their eyes, demanding no neutrality, condemning them in their words, saying that their words have found them out in the presence of God.

He's here now and the Pharisees say, no, it's by the prince of demons, Beelzebub, that he cast this demon out. And so that ultimately brings us to the head of this collision where we start our expositional study in verse 33 of what Jesus says next.

A Tree Is Known by Its Fruit

So verse 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. So Jesus has already demonstrated that there is in fact no neutrality when it comes to him.

In the day and age that we live in today, people will say things like, it just can't be as black and white as you're making it. Life just doesn't work that way. There's ultimately a lot of gray area that you don't understand.

It just can't be as black and white. We hear that a lot. But you see, my friends, one of God's attributes is his simplicity. He is the one who is clear about his standards, about what he has said. We are the ones with shades of gray.

We are the ones who are uncertain and filled with doubts. We are the ones who fall short of observing his ultimate standards. The confusion lies with us. The confusion does not lie with God who speaks clearly from his word.

Jesus gives the picture of a tree in verse 33. And we know that through the revelation of scripture, that trees as a symbol represent both salvation and judgment. We see the tree of life in the garden of Eden that again shows up in the book of Revelation.

We see trees being symbols of judgment as is constantly attributed to the fig tree that Jesus uses in the New Testament over and over many times. So Jesus comes to his adversaries, to his opposition after they've just remarked and attributed what he's done to the activity of Satan.

And he says this, make the tree good and its fruit good. So suppose a tree is good. Its fruit will follow that it is good. But suppose a tree is evil and it has evil fruit. Now we see this testimony of Matthew's revelation in chapter three in verse seven.

Let's go ahead and turn there. Matthew three, verse seven. John the Baptist giving us baptism for repentance and the Pharisees and the Sadducees show up on the scene. And so what does he say? Three, seven through 10.

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, you brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance and do not presume to say to yourself, we have Abraham as our father.

For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the ax is laid at the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

What is this good fruit that we see in this picture? This good fruit is that which is morally pure. That which is beautiful in God's sight. That which is good at its core. Not just aesthetically looking good, pleasing to the eye, but that which actually has the seed of goodness within it.

Now let's flip over to Matthew 7, 17. This will open that thought up a little more. This comes right in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount and Jesus is talking about false prophets. And he says in verse 17, so every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.

So we can see the difference between the fruit, right? In this verse. What is the bad fruit? Rotten, diseased, and polluted. Worthless, useless, and literally good for nothing. And as we just said, the good fruit is looking good, not just aesthetically, but that actually has the seed of goodness in it.

The point that Jesus is making is quite necessarily, if the tree is good, there won't be anything wrong with the fruit. If the tree is bad, not only will the tree be overthrown, but even the root will be uprooted.

The source of the tree's nourishment will be uprooted. It's the same thing that John the Baptist alludes to when he's talking to the Pharisees. The ax is already laid at the root of the trees and every tree that does not bear good fruit will be exposed and will be uprooted and will be thrown into the fire.

Those truly in Christ are attached to the life-giving resource of the tree. The tree which is the root. Jesus says in John chapter 15, five and six, where he's speaking to his disciples, I am the vine and you are the branches.

Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me or remain in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers. And the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned.

The message of Jesus to his disciples or to his people is that some of you are in danger of being destroyed if you fail to produce fruit. And my concern in reading this scripture like this is that there are some within this church, that there may be some within this church.

There may even be some here within this room that are in danger of being thrown out into the fire. Because God tells us what the problem is. It's the sinfulness in our hearts. And that's where that actually comes from.

And he is telling us, and he's giving us this picture of a tree. And if you're bearing fruit, that means you have the right root and thus the right seed. But if you're bearing bad fruit, that is an indication that something is systematically wrong.

So are you bearing fruit, Christian? Are you bearing fruit? And if so, what kind of fruit is it? Is it morally pure? Is it beautiful in God's eyes? Or is it worthless? Does it demonstrate the heart that has indeed been changed?

Mark 11, verse 12 through 14 says, on the following day when they came from Bethany, he was hungry and seen in the distance a fig tree in leaf. And he went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves for it was not the season for figs.

And he said to it, may no one ever eat fruit from you again. And his disciples heard it. So we see shortly after this account in Mark, what does Jesus do? He goes into the temple and drives out the huskers and the money changers because they were turning God's house of prayer into a den of thieves and robbers.

The judgment of God coming perfectly in accordance with what Matthew has told us. And how does the Old Testament end? What does it say, brothers and sisters? The forerunner will come followed by the Messiah and he will bring judgment and salvation.

Judgment on the covenant breakers, salvation on the true people of God. So I have to ask, and who are the true people of God? Are they those that are ethnically connected to Israel? Are they the ones that claim and express to be the children of Abraham by his heritage?

The ones that express they have the law? Ones that externally devote themselves to all the customs and rituals? Or is it the ones who are pure in heart? The ones who verify that they're poor in spirit, that they have nothing to offer to God.

As Jesus tells us earlier in the Sermon on the Mount, the tree that Jesus approached had an appearance of fruit. It was in leaf. It looks good from a distance. But when the Son of God approached it to crave and satisfy his hunger for his glory, no fruit was to be found.

And so he curses the tree and says, no fruit will ever come from you again. That parallel is similar to the collision that has taken place in our passage here between the Pharisees and Jesus. If I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

It's come upon you suddenly. You weren't expecting it. It looks different than what you thought. But rest assured, I am the fulfillment of the revelation of Scripture. The Son of God is standing in front of them when he says this.

The Heart, the Mouth, and the Poison of Vipers

So let's flip back to our chapter, chapter 12, verse 34. A tree is known by its fruit. Verse 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.

So the Greek word here for known is the same that we see in a passage like Romans 1, when it says that they knew God, but did not give him the honor that belongs to him. We see it again in Luke 16, verse 15, which says, and he said to them, you are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts.

For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God. Verse 34 again, you brood of vipers, how can you speak good when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

Jesus makes it very clear that the problem with humanity is not what our current culture and society tells us. Because we're told today that the problems of humanity are all outside of us. They're all external in nature, that they all have to do with our environment, that they have nothing to do with our upbringing.

They have to do, that they have to do with our upbringing, that they have to do with the circumstances that befell us, that caused us to be the way we are. Jesus points right to the root of the problem.

He points at the heart, and he says that the problem is in there, in the heart. In scripture, we know very well, the heart is the substance of our being, the desire of our minds, our will, our emotions, the center of who we actually are.

Jesus points to that and says the fundamental problem is there within your heart. It's not something external. He calls the Pharisees a brood of vipers, brood of vipers. Now, why would he use this terminology?

It's awfully harsh, isn't it? You brood of vipers. What the text literally means is you generation of vipers, you offspring of serpents, you offspring of snakes. Children of the serpent is what you are.

There goes Jesus being in the gray area again, instead of black and white. He uses this terminology that's described of venomous snakes in the words of the Pharisees. They tried to pollute what Jesus did in the casting out of a demon, polluting the ears of the people that were there who recognized what was going on.

They said, no, this is the activity of Satan. The poison of asp is under their lips, Romans 3 .13. They were a generation of vipers and it's important to note why Jesus calls them that. We've already seen earlier in chapter three, John the Baptist used the same thing and then he says something shortly after, I do not think that just because you have Abraham as your father, that you're safe.

You're not, you're a generation of vipers. Proverbs 10 .11 says, the mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence. Isaiah 32 .6, for the fool speaks folly in his heart and for the fool speaks folly and his heart is busy with iniquity to practice ungodliness, to utter error concerning the Lord, to leave the craving of the hungry unsatisfied and to deprive the thirsty to drink.

That's what's going on in this passage. Jesus, the wellspring of eternal life, whose words are eternal life to those who hear them. We see that those in attendance who sought to attribute to him the works of Satan, poisoning the well of his audience, try actively to keep people out of the kingdom.

Jesus says, how can you speak good when you are evil? How can you speak good when you are evil? How can you? Jesus was condemning them for the same thing we see in the book of Isaiah five, in verse 20 and 24.

And that says, woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Verse 24, therefore, as the tongue of fire devours the stubble and as dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root will be as rottenness and the blossom go up like dust, for they have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

That's what's happening in this passage. You may be thinking to yourself, wait a minute, I thought the Pharisees loved the law of God. How can you say this? How can you use the scripture like this to support that claim?

My friends, you can observe the law of the Lord without loving the Lord of the law. And the Pharisees demonstrated that when they had God in flesh standing in front of them interpreting the law, giving them its true application, restoring it to its proper place, not based on their traditions, not based on their abuses of it, not based on their improper misapplications of it.

The reason that we can say that with confidence is because we see it in the passage. People committed to external observance of the law, people who appear to be good outwardly, but on the inside are no more saved than the next person, lost and gone.

And the Bible tells us the direct words of Christ that if you do not bear fruit, you are at risk of being cut down and thrown into the fire. The Pharisees appeal to their ethnic heritage, noting that they were the seed of Abraham.

The revelation of the scripture that is now because of Jesus Jew and Gentile alike are united in him by faith. God, as it says in Ephesians 2, has broken down the dividing wall of hostility between Jew and Gentile and made one new man in place of the two.

That's the good news of the gospel. That there is no claim to ethnic heritage. There is no claim to these things because those who are the children of Abraham are the children of Abraham by faith. As the book of Romans tells us, not the ones who are circumcised in the flesh, but the ones who are circumcised in the heart, they are the children of Abraham.

John 8, 43 and 44. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my words. You are of your father, the devil. Your will is to do your father's desires. And he goes on to say, you can't hear me because you're not born of God.

You can't even hear my words. Jesus says in John 3, unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. It's not even a possibility. You must be born again. You must have the living and abiding word of truth within you, the seed of eternal life.

First Peter 1, 23 through 25. Since you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable. Through the living and abiding word of God, for all flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass.

The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever. And this word is the good news that was preached to you. So earlier we talked about the heart being the center of who we are.

And if the heart remains unchanged, we can never expect to bear any fruit, any good fruit. Jesus says, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. So what is your heart full of? What your heart is full of will be manifested in the words that you speak.

What your heart is full of, literally there's so much pressure there. You cannot help to overflow with what's inside you. As Christians, we want Jesus to be the abundance of our heart, amen. We want Jesus to be the fullness that's within our hearts.

There's an illustration of a bottle of water. So imagine there's a bottle of water in front of me. Bottle of water is full. And now I flick it off the podium. And water spills out all over the ground.

Why did the water come out? Was it because of a reaction based of what made contact with it? No, water came out because that's what was in the container. That's what was in the bottle. So let me ask you, when the things of this life, when circumstances make contact with you, when the unforeseen things come upon you, what comes out of your heart?

Does Jesus come out of the abundance of your heart? Do his words come out or does bad fruit? Next verse, verse 35. These last three verses should go pretty quick. 35, the good person out of his good treasure brings forth good and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.

Treasure in the Heart and the Call to Sanctify Christ

We're talking here again about the good man, not on the surface, but at the center. Talking about the treasure of our hearts. This word either refers to what we find valuable or where we keep our valuables.

We see it earlier on in this gospel. Jesus says, do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Do you value the things of God more than you value the things of this world? Do you value the applause of man over the praise of God? We'll find out as we continue studying.

God wants your mouth to be set apart. He wants what you say to be set apart. But that means that your heart has to be set apart. And in order for your heart to be set apart, Christ and his word have to be set apart in it.

First Peter 3 .15, sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being prepared to give a defense and apologia for the reason of hope that lies within you. Set Christ apart in your heart as Yahweh, as Lord.

Recognize him as God, set him apart as the greatest treasure, as the abundance in your heart. Don't make him common, set him apart for he is holy and worthy to be set apart. Matthew 15 .18 -20 says, but what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart and this defiles a person, not for out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.

These are what defile a person. So it's not about what you take in that defiles you, it's what comes out of you. It's what's in your heart that makes you common, which what it means to profane something, by the way, to use it as common.

In the Lord's prayer when we pray, God, holy your name in all the earth, hallowed be your name. God set your name apart as holy. Why? Because we don't want his name to be common. We want it to be set apart, to be honored as holy.

Judgment, the Tongue, and Justification by Christ

Next verse 36. I tell you on the day of judgment, people will give account for every careless word they speak. So there will be a day of judgment. Hebrews 9, 27 and 28 says, and just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ having been offered once to bear the sins of many will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

So what do we know about the day of judgment? Well, we know that scripture tells us it will be executed by the son. Second Corinthians 5, 10 says, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

We know that in the day of judgment, we know that the day of judgment will be carried out in accordance with the law of God. In John 15 through 18, which says, you judge according to the flesh and I judge no one.

Yet, even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the father who sent me. In your law, it is written that the testimony of two people is true. I am the one who bears witness about myself and the father who sent me bears witness about me.

So he commands all people everywhere to repent because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed and he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.

We will render an account, all of us will, believers and unbelievers. What Jesus is saying essentially in this text, what the text says in regarding an account is that we're going to provide a list of every word that we've spoken to Jesus.

We will provide that for him, every spoken word. Every spoken word in the name of God, in the name of our profession will be judged in the light of the divine logos, the divine word and what he has said.

The revelation of scripture will be our standard by which we're judged every careless word. Psalm 139 verse four, even before a word is on my tongue, oh Yahweh, you know it altogether. So how are your words?

Are they fruitless? Do they return void? God's word never returns void. Isaiah 55, 10 through 11, for as the rain and snow come down from heaven and do not return there, but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater.

So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and shall succeed in the thing of which I sent it. So finally, verse 37, for by your words, you will be justified.

And by your words, you will be condemned. This passage in its use of the term justification is talking about justification in the same sense that Paul does. Does that mean it will only be our words on the day of judgment by which we will be judged?

Of course not. What does the book of James tell us? Faith without works is dead. It's a lifeless faith. It's not actually alive. It's dead. The actions that we do to vindicate ourselves before men based on the change that's taken place in our life by a transformed life through Christ.

Our actions that bear the true fruit of repentance will follow. Jesus is saying essentially, what you are in your heart is what matters. And the careless words that we speak or what reveal our true nature, they give people an indication of what we actually are.

For by your words, you shall be justified. What the word justify here signifies appears by the word condemned, to which is opposed. God will pronounce sentences for or against men in the last day, not only according to their other actions, but accordingly as they have used their tongues.

If there were no other texts in the Bible to prove that, we have need of another righteousness than any of our own, wherein to stand before God, this text alone would be enough. James chapter three talks about the nature of the tongue, how it sets the world ablaze, how it can't be tamed.

You see, my friends, the evidence or the basis that you and I can't be made right, we can't tame our tongues, we can't give ourselves clean and pure hearts of our own accord is the basis and the reason for why we need Jesus.

We are all dead and lost sinners. And apart from him, we're dead in our transgressions apart from him. This is why the message of the gospel is so crucial. The message of the gospel, repentance and faith not in my own righteousness, not in my own words, but a foreign righteousness that's given to me as a gift through faith apart from any work of the law.

God becoming a man and the person of Jesus living righteously, living obediently from the heart to the law of God, not just by external observance to ritual and custom, but actually loving the Lord God from his whole heart as you and I have failed to do.

We've all fallen short of that standard, haven't we? Jesus lived that righteous standard. He went to the cross, tried unjustly as a criminal. Though he had committed no wrong, no deceit was found in his mouth.

He was the one with the truly pure heart. He died on the cross for rebels like you and me. He rose again from the dead and he commands men, women, and children everywhere to repent and believe the gospel.

Repentance, Faith, and the Final Prayer

So in closing, my call to you is this this morning. Turn from your sin, turn from your fruitlessness, turn from your evil fruit and come to Jesus, the living God in the flesh, who will give you a pure heart so that you can actually love the law of the Lord from your heart and obey it and carry it out.

Come to Jesus Christ and live. Church, the most dangerous thing that you and I could ever do is to go through our lives living with an appearance of religion, an appearance of having fruit. And then when the son of God comes on judgment day and we rendered that account before him, there's no fruit to gather.

Everything will be found out on that day. Every word you've spoken and every thought you've had, every action you've committed in this body, everything will be found out. There will be nowhere to hide.

There will be nowhere to run. There will be no apology or defense given on that day. Many will say to him, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not do all these things? And he will say what?

Depart from me, I don't know you. You act like you know me, but then you act like I never gave you a law to obey. There's no neutrality. You are either with Christ or you are against him. You either gather with him or you are a scatter of the sheep.

You either have a pure heart given to you by God that you didn't deserve or you have an evil heart that you died in your sins with. So come to Christ, get pure hearts, and then you will have pure words and pure lives.

Amen, let's pray. Father, I thank you for this word. Father, apart from your spirit, we can do nothing. Apart from your son, we are nothing. There's nothing we can bring to him except our sin. And I thank you for, because of the work that was done on the cross, that you have made us right with you.

That because of your spirit, through the regeneration of the spirit, turning our hearts of stone into a heart of flesh, we can do what is pleasing in your sight, all because of you. We love you, Father.

We love your son. And now I pray for this supper we're about to take, that it will be a reminder of all that, Father, that every time we take it, we are pronouncing the death of Jesus Christ. And we look forward to the last day, to the supper feast, where we can feast together with him.

I pray that you would bless this. In Jesus' name, amen.