Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - With a Religious Crowd

Episode Date: December 4, 2023

Jesus debated. Jesus fought. Jesus argued with the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Herodians, the teachers of the law, people we would call religious and civil elites today. But Jesus never picked a fight unnecessarily.  In Mark 7 Jesus argues about the clean and unclean laws, the ceremonial washings, the ablutions the Jews observed. We might think it’s an antiquated point, but Jesus never debated something that wasn’t a universal, profound principle.  We see three basic things here: 1) that we all have a problem with a sense of spiritual uncleanness, 2) that we all find a particular way to try to clean ourselves, and 3) why our ways of cleaning ourselves will never work, and what will. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 16, 1997. Series: The Real Jesus Part 2: His Life. Scripture: Mark 7:1-23. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel in Life. We like to help you prepare your heart for the Christmas season by sending you a free daily devotional during the Admin season. To sign up, just visit GospelInLife.com slash Admin to receive an email each day from December 3 through December 24. Again, to sign up, just go to GospelInLife.com slash Admin. Now, here's today's teaching from Tim Keller. The rather long passage on which the teaching is based this morning is printed in your bulletin. It's Mark chapter 7. I'll read verses 1 to 23.

The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were unclean. That is unwashed. The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing holding to the tradition of the elders.

When they come to the market from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash, and they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pictures, and kettles. So the Pharisees and teachers of the law ask Jesus, why don't your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with unclean hands?" He replied, Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites. As it is written, these people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain, their teachings are but rules taught by men.

You have let go of the commandments of God and are holding on to the traditions of men. And he said to them, you have a fine way of setting aside the commandments of God in order to observe your own traditions." For Moses said, "...honor your father and your mother, and anyone who curses his father and mother must be put to death." But you say that if a man says to his father and mother whatever help you might otherwise have received from me as Corban, that is, a gift devoted to God, then you no longer let

him do anything for his father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down and you do many things like that. Again, Jesus called the crowd to him and said, listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a man can make him unclean by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him unclean. After he had left the crowd and entered the house, the disciples asked him about this parable. Are you so dull, he asked? Don't you see that nothing that enters a man

from the outside can make him unclean? For it doesn't go into his heart, but into his stomach. And then out of his body, in saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean. He went on, and then out of his body, in saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean. He went on, what comes out of a man is what makes him unclean. For from within, out of man's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, ludeness, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly.

All these evils come from inside and make a man unclean and this is God's Word. Now what we're doing every week here in the morning services is we're looking at typical events from the life of Jesus out of the history of Jesus life which we find in the gospels and we're in a sense building a biography and we really can't go through a series like this without at least bring out one of what you might call Jesus controversialist events. Jesus debated, Jesus fought, Jesus argued with the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Herodians, the teachers of the law, people we would call religious and civil elites today.

And so often when you look at the argument, it's so easy, superficially, when you read about these debates to say, wow, this is not very relevant for us today. It's a purely antiquarian interest. Who cares about the clean and the unclean laws and the ceremony of washings and the ablutions that the Jews observed? Who cares about that sort of thing?

But Jesus never picked a fight unnecessarily. Jesus never debated something that wasn't important to universal, a profound principle, and that's what we have here. Now there's two ways, you might say, why did he choose such a large passage? And there's two ways to do a passage like this. One is to try to deal with every single individual thought, which would take us too long. The other thing is to see the general gist. And what you have here is in this very long passage, three basic sections.

And the first section, verse 1 to 5, we are introduced to the fact that we all have a deep sense of spiritual uncleanness, moral defilement. The Pharisees were not just obsessive compulsive, always washing. There is such a thing as obsessive compulsive disorder, but it's an aggravation of something that is universal. We all have a sense of uncleanness of defilement. And that's what we see in the first few verses.

Then from verse six down to at least verse 13, Jesus gives us an example. One particular example of the way in which all of us are trying to deal with that uncleanness. Everybody, using different forms, tries to do self-cleansing. And Jesus shows a particular pattern that particular pattern to the self-cleansing. So first of a particular pattern that particular pattern to the self-cleansing.

So first of all, we're shown that we all have a problem with this sense of spiritual uncleanness. And we all find a particular way of dealing with that uncleanness, trying to clean ourselves. And then lastly, verse 14 to 23, we're told, why that will never work and what will. Now, first of all, let me take a look at those three parts with you. The first part, look at verses one to five, we have here this discussion about the ceremonial washings.

Pharisees were very upset because Jesus' disciples did not wash. And we're told here in verse three, the Pharisees in the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing holding to the tradition of the elders. Now, let's talk about the issue then, but then immediately see why this is an abiding issue. The issue then was that the Pharisees were very strict about holding to the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament and particular the clean laws.

Now, when you read the clean laws in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, they're really quite confusing to modern people, and they seem so unnecessary, and there's many of them, and I'll just give you some basic gist of them. In the Old Testament, you were not allowed to go into the tabernacle, or into the temple, to worship God, if you had been in much contact with dirt

disease or decay. Dirt disease or decay, for example, the priests had to wash their hands and wash their feet before they came into the sanctuary. Here's another example. If you touched a dead animal or a dead person, if you touched any dead animal or person, you could not go into the tabernacle to worship God for a week. Here's another one, and this is really where it gets weird. If you had diarrhea, had an infectious skin disease.

If you had a hemorrhage so that some part of your body was producing blood or pus in response to some sort of infection. In fact, if you even had in your home, on your clothes or on any of your utensils, mildew, you couldn't go worship. There were also a set of foods you weren't allowed to eat, especially for example, and many of the foods we know now, like the shellfish that were forbidden, were foods that before refrigeration were particularly prone to infections and things going.

In other words, if you had relationship to dirt, disease, or decay, you couldn't go in. And the thing that immediately strikes you today, you know what it strikes you as, actually for the first time, it really began to hit me as I was studying for this, that worship in the Old Testament, the worshipper in the Old Testament essentially had to have the same relationship to dirt that a doctor has going into surgery. You'll never see, for example, a doctor going from an autopsy and just going into brain surgery from there. He would have to, she would have to go through the rights of purification.

In other words, you have to scrub up to go into God in the Old Testament. There had to be all kinds of rights of purification. If you had any contact with decay, if you had any contact with anything that even might be decay or might be disease or dirt, you had to scrub and scrub all over the place, you had the same relationship in the Old Testament to God and to the Tabernacle worship excuse me, as the doctors today have to go into surgery, why? And see, we're already getting there. The point is, the clean laws were there to teach something extremely important.

God was saying, and actually, it's easier for us to see now than it was for them, because we understand something about dirt and disease and decay, more than the people in those days did. And that is that sin, sin does the same thing to the soul that dirt disease and decay do to the body. Sin defiles the soul, the way dirt disease and decay defile the body, defile now.

What does that mean? Here, for example, let's think, how does dirt disease and decay defile a body? Well, let me give you three ways. First of all, dirt disease indicate a filo body? Well, let me give you three ways. First of all dirt disease indicate to file the body in a sense that it isolates you It alienates you if you go on to a subway car and you may see a very poor person there Maybe a probably a homeless person and even if your worldview is incredibly simple makes you very sympathetic to that person is incredibly sympathetic to that person. Tremendously sympathetic to that person.

In a no way to think ill of that person, you can't get within ten feet of him. Why? Because the urine, because the feces, because the vomit, because all the stuff that's on the clothes, you can't even get near them. There's hardly a culture in the world that doesn't say this. If you want to meet people, if you want to get close to people,

wash. Clean up. Because dirt defiles you. And of course, infection defiles you. You can't touch somebody that's infectious, see. So it defiles you. And God is saying, sin does the very same thing to relationships. Secondly, give you another quick example.

Very quick. What does dirt disease and decay do? It eats away your insides. It's cancerous, literally. I mean, actually, my wife explained this to me. I didn't know this, but actually dirt on clothing actually makes the clothing wear out faster. If you don't keep your clothes clean,

because the dirt gets in and wears out the fabric through the friction and so forth. But you see it's, but of course, infection and decay literally pulls the body apart, makes it break down. And God is saying, sin does the same thing. It makes the soul fall apart. It puts it at war with itself. Instead of cohearing, it disintegrates. And one more thing, dirt disease and decay, discolor, stain, mischaping,

disfigure, just like cancer, just like mildew, just like these same things. What is God saying? God is saying, why do you have wars? Why do you have divorce? Why do you have conflicts at work? Why do you have internal dissension? Why do you have conflicts within your soul? Why is there twisting and perversion of your own humanity?

Why do you see the things sin as what else in the world? Now, do you believe that? That sin, you see, defiles you. It alienates you, it stains you. Now you might not believe that. I only have a couple minutes. I got to move on to the next point here. What I'll tell you this. I know that that's not a very this whole idea that's sin. Marley defiles you, stains you, makes you unclean. It's not very not very sophisticated view. I noticed this week, I saw Woody Allen, quote, quip in the New York Times. Somebody asked Woody Allen, is sex dirty?

And Woody Allen said, only if you do it right. And what he was doing, he's making fun of the very idea that some things are dirty, some thoughts are dirty, some actions are dirty, some words are dirty. We're grown up people now. We live in New York City. we're grown up people now. We live in New York City, we're over 30 years old, we're over two adults. And yet, you know, you can't just clip this stuff away because over the years there is

almost a universal and abiding testimony that people do not, when people in spite of themselves feel stained by sin. Of course, you know the most famous one, is that place where Lady Macbeth is, she takes part in murder. And afterwards, her guilt, the sense of defilement, is so strong that her mind cracks under it. And she walks around one of the most pathetic figures in all of theater, of course, and she walks around and she says, out. She's pushing, she's washing her hands, she looks at her hands and she's stained.

And she sees the blood on her hands and she walks around and she can't get rid of it. And she says, out, out, damn spot, out, I say. And then she says, ah, hell is murky. Hell is muddy. All the perfumes in Arabia cannot sweeten this little hand. And you know, Macbeth watches are going crazy under the sense of defilement her husband. And he turns to a doctor and he says,

Can't style not. Cleanse, oh yes. Can't style not with some sweet oblivious antidote. Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff, which so waste upon the heart. Oh, yes, can't style not with some sweet oblivious antidote. Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff which so ways upon the heart. She's not clean. She needs some sweet oblivious antidote. She realizes that hell is murky.

What's that mean? Hell is muddy. I did something wrong. I did something wrong. And I'm stained. I'm disfigured. I'm alienated. Now, you say, well, murder, all right, that murder.

But, you know, I don't feel you have to decide what is dirty for you. Listen, why does so many of you, why are so many of you such perfectionists you can't delegate? You don't want anybody to do it wrong. Why are some of you so driven to succeed? Now I've got to be, I'm trying to be general here. Why are some of you so obsessed with, with look, with sleekness that you've got an eating disorder? Why is it that many, many of you are full of bitterness because you're desperately trying to blame somebody else why your life is going the way it's going? I'll tell you why, you're washing. You're washing. Look, Ross Kolnikov, member of the,

he was the great protagonist or whatever he was, the central figure of crime and punishment by Dusty Fsky. And he said, you know, morality is all in the mind. And he kills a woman who is bitter, who is hateful, who has hated abused abused, power, Rich old woman, and then he feels defiled and he can't get rid of it till he confesses. And Raskolnikov and 50 years later Jean Paul Sartre in 50 years after that, Foucault, and they all say, Be bold,

create your own reality, things are only dirty if they're dirty to you. You see, write your own scripts, decide what's right for you and yet. And you're doing it. A lot of you are doing that. And yet you can't get rid of a sense of condemnation and defilement. And there's a voice that calls you, a coward calls you, a fool, and you're washing. Come on. It's there. It's not just the Pharisees. Don't laugh at the Pharisees. This is how they dealt with it. They're always washing. So are you. So is Lady Macbeth. So are we all.

That's the first point. Send the files, and we know it. And we know we're defiled. Now what are we going to do about it? Well, the second point is here, in verse from 6 to 13, Jesus gives a very, very interesting analysis of how the Pharisees deal with that sense of uncleanness and therefore actually a pattern for us all. Again, I'm not going to let us look down at the Pharisees today because what Jesus is saying to us is the things

that He does, they do, so do we. Now, He gives an example. The issue back then then the issue now. The issue back then was that the disciples, Jesus disciples, were going against the tradition of the elders. And the tradition of the elders, which Mark makes little aside, you can tell here that the gospel writer Mark though he was Jewish, was writing to Greeks and Romans who didn't know much about this. That's why he has these little parentheses. but here's what we can tell. You know, the tradition of the elders, which is the teachers of the law, decided to elaborate on what the law said about ceremonial purity. For example, in the Old Testament, if you go back to Exodus, only the priests had to wash their hands and feet before they went in. Only the priests, nobody else had to.

But the teachers of the law said, well, if the priests have to do it, wouldn't it be safe for us all to do it? And then they went beyond that. And if you have to wash your hands before going into God at the tabernacle, wouldn't it be safe if we always washed our hands before we ever prayed? And next thing you know, what came up around all the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament

was a vast, vast, huge number, very, very specific and all comprehending rules and regulations which were called the Halakha, which means the fence around the law. And it's the tradition of the elders. And it wasn't in the Bible. it wasn't something God had said, it was just a whole lot of rules and regulations around that. But Jesus points out, first of all, that not only do they raise up many of their traditions and they make them,

every bit is absolutely necessary to obey as the law of God, but then, along with his obsession about rules, comes the neglect of certain principles of God's law. And one of them, but then along with his obsession about rules comes the neglect of certain principles of God's law. And one of them he mentions here is this. He says, you're supposed to honor your father and your mother. Now, without going into much detail, Leviticus 27 says that God owns everything you own. God's claims on all of your wealth supersedes anyone else's claims.

And on the basis of Leviticus 27, there was a tradition in the elders' tradition that you could declare all of your wealth, gods. And therefore not be able, feel like you say, well, I can't give to the poor, I can't give to my parents, I can't help other people because this is gods. It would be very similar to somebody today giving 30, 40, 50% of their income away and then neglecting their own family. And what Jesus is getting at is something that is much more universal. It's not, you look at that and say, what's that got to do with us?

Everything. Here's what Jesus says, how did you do with your uncleanness? Same way they did. You look at the law of God and the law of God is very broad. Jesus mentions a whole slew of things in verse 23. You know that long list there at the end? These are all aspects of the Ten Commandments. Don't murder. That's murder and malice, you see.

Don't lie, that's deceit. Don't commit adultery, that's ludeness and adultery. Don't steal, that's envy and theft. Don't covet. That's arrogance and greed. Now, if you look at any list of everything God's law says, you will always find something in there that you feel is very, very important. And a lot of other things you don't feel is important. And here's what everybody does. We all do what the Pharisees do. Let me give you a quick example in our modern day.

Let's talk about the culture wars. Just for a second, there's three approaches to the culture wars that I know. I've been it covers almost everybody, and I don't know where that leaves us. First of all, you've got the liberals, and then you've got the conservatives, then you've got the beyondists.

Here's what a liberal does. A liberal says, well, there's certain things in the law of God that I consider hateful and defiling. Greed, materialism, and prejudice. They're in the law of God. So we lift that up, and we also put a whole lot of other rules and regulations around it, and we say, our kind of people, and only our kind of people are inside our boundary. And people outside of this, we bash,

we look down our nose at. The conservatives, well the conservatives are doing the same thing. Conservatives, they take part of the law of God, they take the sexual immorality for example, you know? They take certain things, they take heresy, and they lift that up and then they add all sorts of elaborations and they kind of ignore things

like materialism, greed and prejudice. And you see, whenever you lift up part of God's law and elaborate it and you neglect other parts, you create a manageable law, a law you can obey, a law that you can get on top of, a law that's doable. And then with it, you bash other people who are not doing it to justify yourself. And then of course, you've got the beyondists. And you know the Beyondists are? Beyondists are people who are saying, I'm beyond the liberal and conservative. You see,

I'm beyond politics. I'm beyond ideology. I'm too creative for that. And of course what you're doing is you're looking down, you know, as it them, which is what you have to do in order to deal with your uncleanness. It's a way of washing. And Jesus says, you do many things like that. And we all do it. And we're desperately trying, but it doesn't work. We'd like to help you prepare your heart for the Christmas season with our free Advent devotional series. Each day of Advent, you'll receive a devotional with a daily

meditation on a Bible passage that points you to the meaning of Christmas, that Jesus came into this world to reconcile us to our Heavenly Father. It's our prayer that these daily devotional will help you focus on the hope, joy, peace, and love we have through our Savior's birth. To sign up, just visit GospelOnLife.com-advent to receive a daily email from December 3rd through December 24th. That's GospelOnLife.com slash Admin. In addition to the daily emails, you'll also receive a previously recorded video every Sunday with an Advent Meditation from Tim Keller, followed by a brief discussion with Tim and Kathy.

Again, to sign up, visit GospelOnLife.com slash Admin. May the hope of Christ's birth be a source of joy and encouragement to you this advent season. And that's the last point. Jesus says, it's very intriguing. You know, I suppose you say, well, that's all extremely intriguing. You all do that. We're all trying to cleanse ourselves in these ways, but it doesn't work in here's why.

First of all, Jesus points to lays down the principle. He says because, he says at verse 15, 17 and 23, he says it is not what goes into a person that makes you unclean, but what comes out. It's not what comes in that defiles you from it. It's not from outside in, but from inside out. And this is incredibly profound. Listen, nobody understands this. Unless you

really grasp the gospel, nobody else understands it. This is a radical principle. This would change the world. First of all, nobody understands this. Let me give you some examples. The philosophies of the world don't understand this. They don't understand that you can't cleanse yourself because the FOMENT does not come from outside in. Let me give you one example. It's easy to pick on. I'll try to be nice. Marxism. Now the reason I, it's easy to pick on Marxism because socialism and communism virtually have collapsed. But you know, I've been thinking about this lately. When the people I read who were the disciples of Marx were not villains, they were not fools. They cared about people. And you know, it's easy for us to laugh at it since we live in America, but there's vast millions

populations of people that have been in absolute serfdom and peasantry and poverty for years and years, and there's no way they're going to get out. There's no upward mobility. And you know, see, the people that read Marx said, we got to do something about this. They weren't fools. They weren't villains. But what was Marx's mistake? He thought the filament came from outside.

He said, you know, the means of production were in the hands of the capitalist. If we put it in the hands of the workers, things will be different. And you know what he did? They did. And what happened? Did greed, did deceit, did arrogance, did murder, did theft? Did they go away? No, because they, what?

My goodness, why didn't they go away? Because they don't come from the outside. The world's philosophies don't get it. The world's religions don't get it. And again, I'll try to be sensitive here. When you see people going down the river Ganges to wash, when you see people following the fivefold, the eightfold path to enlightenment through Buddhism, when you see the people trying to use the five pillars of Islam to honor God,

if you believe that the pharma comes from the outside, then self-effort will be enough. Really work. Really work hard. Rules and regulations. The Bible says, and only the Bible says, your problems are too radical for that. Let me go one step further, so you don't think I'm beaten up on everybody.

Christians don't understand that the filament does not come from the outside in. A lot of people look at, there's a lot of Christians that hate cities. When they meet somebody from a demon, I say, what are you doing living in New York City? That's a terrible place for a Christian to live. What are you doing raising your children in New York City?

They don't believe, verse 15, they don't believe, verse 17, they don't believe, verse 23. They believe that the city defiles you. But see, Jesus' radical principle is that you are defiled, it comes from the inside. The radical principle is no matter how fast you run, you can never get away from your shadow. No matter how fast you run, you can't make one millimeter, one millimeter of progress to

make distance between you and your shadow, it comes from within you. Again, let me give you one more with qualifications. There's very often when a person becomes a Christian in New York City here at Redeemer It's not long before they start to say things like this. I Can't be a Christian where I work There's so much sleeves There's so much doggy dog. Maybe I'll go into full-time Christian ministry and you know look at I'm not against going into full-time Christian ministry. Some of you definitely are called to do that. I mean, you know, it has to be some.

And I'm also not saying that you shouldn't leave a job if the temptations for you to center too great. But don't you see, if you leave a job because the temptations for center too great, it's because of the weakness of your heart. What really becomes a problem is when you forget and you think there's something defiling about the finance industry. There's something defiling about the finance industry

There's something defiling about the fashion industry. There's something defiling about the media industry. I can't be a Christian and The sin is in you This is a radical principle you will never get rid of it. You will never wash it. You will never by running from things See Christians, but here's so so radical, Christians should be the least squeamish people in the world. Remember, I don't understand how this game used to work, but when I was a kid, we used to have a game called Cudies.

And if anybody had Cudies, everybody had to run away and couldn't touch them or you get the Cudies too. And Christians very often feel, oh my gosh, in the city, there's so much sleaze over there, I'm going to get the kudis. How am I going to be able to be a Christian? Christians ought to be the least squeamish people. We should go places that moral people say you can't go there.

That would defile you. You're already defiled. Marks didn't understand it. The religions of the world don't understand it. Christians don't understand it. You can't clean yourself. It'll never work. Well then what will work? What will work? This is what will work. Jesus said, thus he declared all foods clean. Okay, stay with me because this is going to be fast.

with me because this is going to be fast. How could he do that? At that point, Mark was saying he declared all foods clean. That is not going against the tradition of the elders. That's going against the Word of God and the Old Testament that said some foods, some things, are unclean. How could he do that? Come on, Jesus. Don't you say that not a jot or a title of the Word will pass away

till all is fulfilled? Doesn't the word of God as an Isaiah say the grass fades and the flower fails, but the word of the Lord will endure forever? How can you do that? Well, the answer is, Jesus said, I do not come to abolish the law, I come to fulfill it. And when he said that, that means when he said he declared all foods clean, he wasn't saying, well, now God overlooks these things. Jesus is not saying, here's how you deal with Phariseism. You know, the trouble of the Pharisees is they were too legalistic, that meant they put too much emphasis on the law, they put too much emphasis on holiness, but we know that's

not important anymore. God accepts you just as you are. Is that what he's saying? No, you know why? Because the problem with Phariseism, whether the liberal type, or the conservative type, or the beyondist type, is not that it has too low of you of the law, never.

Phariseism, legalism, always is too high. Did I say high? They don't have too high of you of the law. They have too low of you of the law. Phariseism comes from having too low of you, whittling it down. It's the high view of the law. Ferriscy is from having to love of you, whittling it down. It's the high view of the law. Are you following me? After I made that little non-sequitur, it's the high view of the law. It's the only hope for you to find the way of salvation, the

gospel. You don't make it lower. That's what the Pharisees have done. They whittled it down. They made it doable. You make it higher. Jesus is therefore not saying that. He's not saying, well, the clean laws are gone. In fact, you don't really, as long as you just go to God and you try your best, no, what is he saying? There's another way to be clean. He is not saying that sin doesn't defile you. You know it does. He's not saying that. He is saying there's another way to be clean, a way that the clean laws pointed to and what is that way? The Old Testament there's one place and only one place that really shows What the clean laws are about a friend of mine and a couple of you I see around

It was an Old Testament professor man who's died unfortunately Fairly young age his name was Ray Dillard, and he used to preach on a passage in Zechariah, and he used to call it the gospel according to Zechariah. And whenever he would preach he'd burst into tears, and it was a great thing to watch and to listen to. And the passage was this. It's a very strange vision in the Old Testament. It says, Zechariah suddenly had a vision, and it says, then I saw Joshua, the high priest standing

before the Lord, and Satan standing at his right side to accuse him. For Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes, and the angel next to him said, take off his filthy clothes. And then he said to Joshua, see, I have taken away your sin so they put clean turbines on his head and clothed him. Listen, oh high priest, said the Lord, you are a symbol of things to come.

I am going to bring my servant to branch, and I will remove this sin of this land in a single day. Now, here's what was so astonishing to Zechariah. Zechariah sees Joshua, the High Priest, this is the High Priest at the time, standing before the Lord. Now, that could only happen on one day. You know what day that was?

See the temple had three parts to it, the outer sanctuary, and the temple court, I mean, where everybody would pray. And then you had the most holy place where the priest did their ministry, but then behind the veil, there was this very small tiny place called the holiest of holies. That's where God himself dwelt, that's where the Ark of the Covenant was, and no one went there except the high priest one day of the year, and only one day of the year, Yom Kippur, the day of Atomun. And so when Zechariah saw, Josh was standing before the Lord, he would have known that it

was the day of Atomun. But he was absolutely astounded to see what he saw. And here's why. We know quite a bit, and I remember Ray Dillard when he would preach on this, and he was a Semitic scholar. He knew much of the information about what happened on the day of Atonement from the Talmudic and the Mishnah writings. And here's what we know would happen.

A week before the day of Atonement, the high priest would go to an apartment in the temple. He'd leave his family so that he didn't get into contact with anything unclean. During that entire week, he spent the entire week practicing for the day, and on the night before the day, he did not get a good night's sleep. He stayed up all night. He was supposed to stay up all night, and on shifts, the other priests would be there to help them pray all night and read Scripture to them and support him and help him to purify a soul. And on the day of, he went about his rituals. He washed five times from head to foot in public, behind a screen, but in public. Because it was that important for the people to know that their advocate, their high priest,

their representative before God who was going to atone for their sins was absolutely pure. And he did not dress in the normal high priestly garments, but in perfect white linen, absolutely pure. And first, he made a sacrifice for his own sins, and then he would bathe and get changed again. And then he could make a sacrifice for the sins of all the priests that were helping him on that day, and then he'd go back and bathe and change again. Finally, they killed two goats. Part of me, you bring out two goats, he killed one goat, and they gave us right. They laid hands on the other goat, and they sent it out out of the camp, the scapegoat.

They laid their hands on the goat, they confessed their sins and so the goat in a sense received the sins of the people and it was thrown out of the camp. And the other goat was killed, not two goats, one goat was killed, and the blood of that goat, killed. And the blood of that goat, now the high priest, multiple cleansings, multiple praying, right? Multiple purification. He took the blood of that goat and went back before the Lord, and that was the day that was the moment in which the sins of the people would be atoned for. And that was the moment that Zechariah sees Joshua the high priest and to his absolute astonishment, it says he's clothed in filthy garments. But that's just what the NIV translation says. You know what the Hebrew says?

He was clothed in garments covered with excrement, with urine, with feces, with all of this stuff. And you imagine the emotional impact on Zachariah when he saw that. But what God was doing was he was opening his eyes to show him what we look like before God. All the purification, all the washing didn't matter because it's the heart, the heart, the heart. Anybody who knows your own heart knows what God sees, but instead of God smiting Joshua, he gives him clean clothes and he says, I'm going to take away all the sin of this land, not multiplying it over the years through all kinds of sacrifices, but in one day through

the branch, my servant, the branch. And I'm sure Zachariah wanted to know what in the world was that, but we know. Because we know a perfect one that came. But when he showed up to be our high priest, when he showed up to be our high priest, when he showed up to make the sacrifice for us, what happened to him was exactly the opposite of what happened to Josh, where the high priest in that vision, exactly the opposite. He had a week of preparation, too, before his sacrifice.

And the night before his sacrifice, he stayed up all night, but nobody was supporting him. Nobody was praying with him. They were all falling asleep clueless, and even the father turned away from him. And then, when he went to make his sacrifice, he was not clothed, he was stripped. And he was not given a perfumed bath, but his ritual bath was the spit of the people around him. And then finally, he did not get beautiful garments put on him, but what was laid on him

was the filth of all the sins of the world, the excrement of all of our records, and where was he killed, outside the camp, the place of the skulls, Calvary, the place of dead things, the place of defilement, and he was killed there. Exactly the opposite happened to him. Why? So the week it could be clothed in linen. Because you know what we're told? In Revelation 19, it doesn't, in Revelation 19, there's this wonderful spot where John has another vision and it says, let us rejoice and be glad for the wedding of the Lamb has come and his bride has made ready.

Fine linen, bright clean, is given to her to wear and that's us. See, we're cleansed because he was spit on. We're cleansed because he was smeared. We're clothed because he was stripped. And now we can stand before the Father. Absolutely beautiful. Do you understand that? Thus, he declared all foods clean because that's not the way that you can be cleansed. What does this mean? Just remember these things. Number one, practical application,

stay away from sin. It does defile you. It does. Don't do it. Don't do. Stay away from sin. It does defile you. Don't do it. Don't do the things that are wrong. It will misshape you. It will discolor you. It will eat you away. It will alienate you.

Stay away. 2. However, make sure if you feel guilty, you're not feeling guilty because you're breaking the tradition of the elders. Make sure you're breaking the scripture. Can I just show you something quick? You know how liberating it is to actually believe the Bible? How are you going to know the difference between true guilt feelings and false guilt feelings? How are you going to know the difference between true defilement and false defilement? How are you going to know when you actually have really defiled yourself or whether you've

just sinned against the tradition of the elders? Your customs, what your family said You know what your cultures is how do you know? You're in trouble if you don't believe in this Why what are all guilt feelings false? Are you gonna say everybody who feels guilty as false? Are you gonna talk to Hitler? Oh, that's okay false guilt feelings. No, you're gonna say that's true Well, if there are true guilt feelings, you're gonna say all guilt feelings are true. No. Well, how are you going to know? How do you know the difference? You believe the scripture. Make sure if you feel defiled,

it's true to filament. Then lastly, lastly, there is a sweet oblivious antidote. And it doesn't matter what you've done. And it doesn't matter what has happened to you. There's a great list of terrible degrading sins in 1 Corinthians 6 where Paul says you did this and you did this and you did this and then he says, but you are washed. You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. 1 John 1, 8, 9. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanses us from all on righteousness for the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sins.

Don't try to cleanse yourself. But anything will come out. There's a Graham Green novel about war in Indochina, two men, a fouler and pile, I think are working in the underground. And at one point, a fouler has to kill pile, even though he's his best friend, and he does. And he's racked up with Kilt. And he says, if there was just somebody to whom I could go and say, I'm sorry. There is.

Don't be squeamish. Be careful. You don't feel the filed when you're just gone against the ruling of the elders. But if you have been, there's a sweet oblivious antidote. The blood of Jesus, let's pray. Our Father, we want to be different. We do not want to fall into the mistakes and the ideologies. We don't want to fall into the squeamishness of Christians who have allowed themselves

to be affected by this sort of Phariseism. We don't want to be continually trying to cleanse ourselves of defilements that aren't real, and we also don't want to be sinking under defilements that are. And therefore, we know that this long but important passage has so many, so many secrets to it, as so many important and key principles that we need right now. And Lord, I see out there a thousand people and every one of them needs this to be applied in a different way. I cannot do it. Would you do it through your spirit? Show every person what this has to say to them, to him, to her. Apply this by your spirit and answer our

request through Jesus Christ and His name we pray. Amen. Thanks for listening to Tim Keller on the Gospel and Life Podcast. The Advent season helps us prepare our hearts to focus on the birth of our Savior. We'd like to send you a free daily devotional from December 3 through December 24. Each devotional has a daily meditation on a Bible passage that points you to the true meaning of Christ's birth. To sign up, just visit gospelandlife.com-slashadvent. Again, that's gospelandlife.com-slashadvent. This month's sermons were recorded from 1994 to 1997.

The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel & Life Podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Brideemer Presbyterian Church. you