The Pure in Heart

Have you ever been to the grocery store, went shopping, purchased your favorite item, came home, and then got into that item, only to realize that the manufacturer had changed the amount that they had put in that container and what you previously had purchased? Now, if it increases, then hooray, right? But one of the studies I looked at, because of course this is something in the industry, this is something that's known, it actually has a term, for every, I believe it was for every one item that decreases, or no, every one item that increases in size that you get, like, more product, there's a hundred that decrease.

So, you can see, and you've been, you've witnessed this, you've experienced it yourself. It actually has a term that is called shrinkflation. Shrinkflation.

It's the practice of reducing the quality or size of consumer goods while maintaining sticker prices. Companies employ this practice in order to maintain or increase their profit margin without alienating the customer who would be more sensitive to a price change than they would be to a lesser amount in the container, right?

So, if you go shopping and you're about to buy your favorite fill in the blank, and you see the price has gone up, instantly you're like, ugh! Angry about this, I'm frustrated. But if you get home and you're halfway through your ice cream when you realize that they've made it a little bit smaller, you're like, well, I'm not happy, but I do feel pretty good right now. I'm eating my ice cream, right?

And so they've realized if we shrink the package sizes down, and you'll see this, when they will re-bottle something, they change the container it was originally. They will also come out with a new marketing scheme. They'll often connect the two together.

This is like anybody who's ever taken a marketing class, you're like, yep, check the box, check the box, this is what they do. There's all these different creative ways that they go about doing this shrinkflation, and we pay a little bit more each time we buy something.

The first time I ever noticed this and realized it was actually something that was real was when I was a kid.

We went to the grocery store, and our family bonded a particular brand of ice cream, and we would mix up the flavors and have fun with that.

This brand of ice cream came out with candy bar flavors that they started adding in. M&M, Snickers, you could get these different flavors in the ice cream. After begging and begging my parents for a while, they said, fine, go ahead and pick whichever flavor you would like to have. I'm excited now because I'm getting a candy bar inside my ice cream. We get home from part of a larger family, so we're auditioning up the bowls and everything.

I wasn't the first one to get it. I don't remember why, but when I finally got over to it, it's almost gone. I'm looking at everybody else's bowl and being like, what did you do? You took all the good ice cream that I got to pick. I was pretty upset, but then as I was looking at the bowls and moms coming over to calm me down and everything else, we all realized it wasn't any more than anybody normally took out of a container. It got us wondering, what happened here? Did the dog sneak in and take a bowl or something? Where did it go? Then we were looking at the container, and I don't remember who, but realized, I think it's a different shape. Something's off. We held them up next to each other. They're the same shape. They're the same size. When we looked at the actual ounces, sure enough, it was a smaller amount in the candy bar flavored, which of course broke this guy's heart. All my siblings got my ice cream. What they did was sneaky. Same size container, and this is not it. This is just an example to show you. Same size container. You hold them up next to each other on the ice cream shelf. You can't tell any difference.

You can see how there's an indent on the bottom of every container. When we compared the container from our normal brand to the one that was less in it, this fake bottom was bigger. The gap was larger, which then decreased the amount of space inside the container. Pretty sneaky, right?

Somebody's going to have to answer to God. Whoever came up and started messing with people's ice cream, there's a special place for those who mess with ice cream.

We've just spent a lot of time these last several weeks considering the inside of our thoughts, our hearts, our minds, the motivations that go on within. But we've also looked at the things that are on the outside as well. It's been a time of self-examination. It's been a time of revelation, I hope.

Looking at ourselves, asking God to show us a few things, and then He shows us, and we're like, okay. This is another area that needs a little bit more work. This has been on the forefront of our minds this week as we have observed these days of unleavened bread, as we've taken in the unleavened bread of Jesus Christ. Some things will be different starting tonight or tomorrow than we've experienced in the last seven days. We're going to leave here at sunset, and you will have the ability, if you feel like it, to go to the grocery.

And to buy some pizza, or some cookie dough ice cream, or some of these other things that you want to get from the store. Maybe you'll wait until sunset, and you'll order a pizza. I'm not going to ask for a show of hands, but I know some of you guys are out there. I know that. Things are going to change as we exit out of this week.

But God doesn't want everything to change, does He? He wants those things that we've talked about, and I appreciate the messages. All four of these messages, none of us gentlemen talk to each other and ask what we're sharing, but you'll see a connection in every single one, as God is the one who brings these messages forward. But God has asked us to make changes in our life. He did this as He was doing His initial calling, and He was showing us a way to walk.

Before we were ever baptized, many of us started keeping the Sabbath, the Holy Days. We took out the cookie dough and the cookies and cream ice cream during the days of Unleavened Bread. Some of that was a shock because when you start, you know the very first one or two days of Unleavened Bread you kept, you scoured the house only to then find out other things that contained leavening, or other things that had yeast in it.

And you're like, what? And then all of a sudden you realize there's nothing I can eat all week except for mozzo. But then you talk to others and you start thinking through things. You're like, well, there is still quite a bit that we can eat. There is something else I hope that is different in our lives from the previous week or months, or even maybe years prior to this Feast of Unleavened Bread that is about to conclude. And I hope it's that the spiritual things that we have made changes to in our lives will stay with us as we continue to go forward.

As we exit these days, that we don't just go back and go to the grocery and we buy the bread and the pizza and we get back into those things. God says it's not a sin when sunset hits the night to go and do those things. But He doesn't want us to forget the spiritual lessons that He's added this year. He doesn't want us to forget those spiritual revelations that He's shown you and me about ourselves.

Some of those things, I think, if we were to categorize them, would be some minor things. God brings things to mind. But I believe He's brought some big things to our minds as well. I know He has for me this year. We've spent the last several weeks considering what is commonly referred to as the Beatitudes in Matthew 5. The word Beatitude is a 15th century word, meaning ultimate blessing or supreme happiness.

We see that at the beginning of Matthew 5 that these are the blessings that God wants us to receive. What is kind of strange about these blessings is, as I shared in that very first initial sermon, if you and I went out to our community, we went out to our schools or places of work, and we asked our co-workers, do you want to live a blessed life? They would say, absolutely. We would then ask them, what would be a blessed life for you?

They would start to go down. A lot of the physical blessings, most people would start with the physical ones. Good health, a good job, money in the bank, a car that runs and doesn't break down, and that's dependable. Families that get along, things that fill our hearts and make us happy. Then if we started reading through, okay, God gives us the physical, He gives us these things for our lives.

But then if we said, hang on a second, let's go and see what Jesus said would be a blessing for your life, and we started reading through the beatitude list to them, and we get to some of those aspects which we'll look at in just a minute, I don't think our co-workers, our neighbors, the teachers that we may have, would have considered and thought about these blessings.

And in fact, they may think that we've gone off the deep end for calling these blessings. But that is exactly what they are. Jesus came, and in His life on this earth, He flipped the world upside down. He magnified the law. He went after and said, it's not enough what you're doing. You're doing it from a wrong motivation at times. You're doing it with selfish motivation. And He says, we've got to flip this upside down. We've got to change our thoughts.

We've got to go about things completely different. And Jesus Christ Himself, our Heavenly Father, wants us to reconsider what blessings that God really wants to give us. And so today, we'll finish looking at the individual beatitudes by examining one that I believe fits very well with this holy day that we are observing and these days of Unleavened Bread that we will be exiting tonight. Turn with me to Matthew 5 in verse 1.

This is the beginning of the Sermon Mount, of Sermon on the Mount, which we've been already in a little bit today. But we're going to go all the way to the very beginning of this message. And again, consider how Jesus opened this sermon and this message with these beatitudes. It says, And seeing the multitudes, He went up on a mountain, and when He was seated, His disciples came to Him. Then He opened His mouth, and He taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit. Again, think about talking to your neighbors, your coworkers, and say, This is the blessings that God wants you to receive. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who are humble, who see themselves as God sees them, who are not haughty, who are not lifted up, prideful, but recognize how pitiful we really are and how desperately we need a Savior. He says, The blessing is the comfort when our hearts hurt, when we're grieved by various trials, by losses in life, or that we're grieved by the sin of the world around us and its impact. He says, Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Those who show that strength under complete control, that strength from God. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. For the way that you and I seek first after God and His righteousness, His truth.

We hunger for it. We thirst. We are uncomfortable if we don't have it. He's saying, they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. And we praise God for His mercy with us. But are we as quick to give mercy to others as we ask God to be merciful with us? But it says, if we are, then we will obtain mercy as well.

And we get to verse 8, and this is the beatitude I skipped over last weekend with everybody, and I said I'd come back to. And I appreciate God allowing this to come forward and to be here with you today. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the pure in heart, and the blessing, they will see God. There's many ways that we see God in our life, of course, right? Through His Scriptures. He has shown Himself to us through understanding ourselves better. We know that someday we'll get to see God face-to-face. And often we'll talk about those questions maybe we want to ask God, or those thoughts that we might want to share or understanding. He says we'll see Him face-to-face. We'll be present. We'll be able to have that relationship as a father and a mother would as with their children. That closeness, that connection. Blessed are the pure in heart. Finding something in this world that is naturally pure is not very common due to how physical life works. And when we do come across something that is physically pure, because someone has normally put a lot of work into it to achieve that level of purity. We walk around outside and we don't really breathe or drink pure air. We don't breathe pure air or drink really pure water. We dig up in our backyard and it's a whole mixture of all these different dirt and rocks and different elements that are in there. None of these things are really pure. But if we want to get down to a root level of something that is pure, it often takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of effort. So, walk with me a little bit on something. Companies that refine products, right? So, they draw oil out of the ground. That oil is not what ends up in our engines. That oil is also not what ends up in our gas tanks, right? Or in our plastics. They start refining this oil and then separating out. They make it more pure and then eventually, at some point, it ends up in our cars because it's been refined enough. But it takes a lot of energy. It takes a lot of work to make that oil pure. Or precious metals is another example. You don't just dig gold out of a mine or out of the ground and all of a sudden fashion it into a ring. It takes a lot of heat. It takes a lot of work to smelt off the impurities. The things that none of us want on a ring or none of us need in something that should be gold plated. They refine it. They clean it up. When we refer to water or air, that takes a lot of effort, too. A lot of cleaning goes into cleaning the air from some of the factories. They have scrubbers that they call them that they put on the smokestacks, which help take some of the impurities that would pollute our air, takes them out so that they can be thrown away in a dump or reburied back into the ground.

Then you get to our water. We recognize that there's a lake nearby here. None of us, unless we were really hurting, would go down to that lake with a cup and just dip in and start drinking, would we? Some of our kids might, because they don't realize the dangers of it. But most of us would not. We would be careful of it. Even if you have a boat or you go skiing or you go swimming in it, often we try not to drink too much of it.

A little get in your mouth, that's okay, but don't go drinking it like it's a whole pitcher of water. But if we wanted to make it pure, there's ways to do it. You run it through filters. Those filters we have to purchase. Those filters have to be put together and designed. Or you use a reverse osmosis system, which actually moves water through a very thin membrane. And then the water that goes through this membrane is then pure. But there's about four to one ratio of water that is wasted for reverse osmosis. It's something I never realized until I started considering buying a system. How much water is wasted to make one gallon of pure water, about four gallons, is wasted. Or if you want to go the boiling method, distilling water, which also gets rid of the impurities. But you boil water, it turns into vapor, and then you capture that vapor, and it turns back into water droplets, and then you have pure water. But then that takes a lot of energy, too. How are you going to have a fire? Are you going to use electricity? It takes a lot of time as well, so it's an investment. Or things such as olive oil or essential oils. They come from other products, like olives, have to be smashed in order to get that olive oil out of them. And the same thing with a lot of our essential oils, like rosemary or lavender. Same thing. Same process. Smash it down. Figure out how to get that precious oil out of that plant. It doesn't just happen naturally. And so, purity often comes with a cost. It comes with effort. It comes with a purpose.

It doesn't just, more times than not, occur naturally in our lives.

From Google AI, in considering what is pure and what is a definition of pure, in a scientific context, pure refers to substances that are composed of only one element or one compound. Meaning they are not a mixture of different substances. Examples include elements like gold or copper, oxygen or chlorine, and compounds like water and salt. In general sense, pure also refers to things that are uncontaminated, unadulterated, or lacking impurities. I think you probably have a pretty good idea where I'm going with the sermon, don't you? There's a mixture of things that are out in society. There's a mixture of thought. There's a mixture of motivations and goals that the average American goes after in our lives. Things that we should seek to have a happy life and a productive business or productive job. But it's a mixture, right? It's a mixture of truth and a lot of error that come in and pollute a lot of the ways that mankind leads their lives.

Going on from Google AI, it says, here's a breakdown of pure in different contexts. It says, pure substances, as in chemistry, would be elements like gold, copper, oxygen, chlorine, and diamonds. It could also be compounds like water, salt, and baking soda. But then they say, in a general sense, lacking impurities would be things like distilled water or 24 karat gold.

For us, God desires that we become pure in heart as the Beatitude State. This refers to our thoughts, our motivations, our intentions, our integrity, our character. It refers to relationships, how we interact with one another, our honesty with one another, the trust that we have with one another, the respect that we show one another.

Are these things pure? Do these things originate from a pure source from within us? Often, when the Bible refers to our heart, God is speaking about, again, our innermost being, that source of our actions, our thoughts, our motivations, again, as Mr. McGuire shared in the sermon. Why is it that you and I do the things that we do? Why is it that we think the way that we think?

Turn with me to Mark 7, verse 1. Again, another touchpoint sermon. Today we were in Mark 7. I'm not going to go where Mr. McGuire went, and thankfully, Mr. McGuire did not go where I was going today. See how great God is? This is the beginning of Mark, chapter 7. Mark is writing to a group that really doesn't understand a lot of the Jewish traditions and ways, and so he adds some additional context here, which we're blessed to be able to see a little bit of insight because Jesus is about to share some of his teachings. As Mark captures this, it's very profound, and it shines a lot of light and a lot of depth and meaning for us. Mark 7, verse 1, in Mark's writing, says, Then the Pharisees and some of the scribes came together to him, having come from Jerusalem. Now when they saw some of his disciples eat bread with defiled, that is, with unwashed hands, they found fault. For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands in a special way, holding the tradition of the elders. So the Pharisees had added hundreds of laws to God's original written law. They had added a lot of their own traditions that they then elevated to on the same level as God's commandments and his teachings. And they mandated that this oral law, these traditions, to be required for the believer. If you didn't do it, they would look at you from a side-eye, and they would look at you as, Why are you here? I mean, you either do this and you're part of us and you're righteous before God, or the door is over there. We don't understand why you would do and pick certain things. They had elevated these traditions. They had elevated this oral law to the same as God's own written law. Jesus was not against traditions, but he was against men being held to their traditions while they themselves break the spirit of God's own laws. Back to Mark again. He goes on to say in verse 4, When they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash, and there are many other things which they receive and hold, like the washing of cups, pitchers, copper vessels, and couches. The disciples in this situation did not just show up from working in the farm or working in the field with dirty hands. They did not come in and just start grabbing meat and food with mud dropping off their hands.

Their hands were not physically dirty, but the Pharisees took fault with them because they did not go through the ceremonial washings. They did not go through these traditions that they had added. Nowhere in Scripture are you going to find where God said, Thou shalt wash their hands up to thou elbow. But that is what the Pharisees would do.

If they did not wash their hands, but all the way up to the elbow, because where is this delineation? So let's go to the elbow. It is a safe bet. We have the arm and the hand covered. But if somebody would have just washed their hands, they would have been like, That is not enough. You are breaking our tradition. You are not going far enough. And this is where they found fault. They would also wash pitchers and dishes, like they said. They would go to the market and buy things. But I do not know if a Gentile touched this cup before I picked it up. So it could be unclean. So let's wash. Let's cleanse this cup. And let's ceremonially make it clean. They would go through all of these traditions, and they had this certain way that they would operate. Mark is outlining the issue here. Verse 5. Then the Pharisees and scribes asked him, Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands? And then Jesus Christ answered and said to them, Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites. Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites. Before we go any further, we need to understand this word, hypocrites. The word hypocrites comes from the Greek word hippocrates. In ancient Greek theater, actors would wear masks while performing productions and plays. And there were only men in these productions. Women were not permitted. So if you had a cast of people, or maybe even just a couple, two people maybe, performing this play as entertainment for you today, they would hold up masks to represent the character that they're playing. And then they would speak through these masks, and if the character was happy, there would sometimes be a jovial smile on the outside of the mask. And then they would be laughing as they share this production with you. And then maybe the other person is acting as a female, but it's a male, so they wear a female mask with hair looking designed into the mask.

And they would talk with an elevated voice so that you knew it was a female. And then if somebody was sad and there was a tragedy going on, the mask would have a downward smile or downward look. You could see the pain in the mask that the character would put on and would wear. So this is what they were used to in the Greek theaters. This is what they would see people do in their performances. And we see this even in the design or the logo for a lot of theater productions today. If you go to a theater school or if you look up theater references, it's the two masks. You might see this in a music room because they do theater as well. One mask is smiling, the other mask is frowning, or has this face that is showing like it's distraught, it's sad. It's the two masks. And we see this with theater production still today as part of their symbol and their icon. The hypocrite was the one who was wearing the mask. They were play-acting. The real person was the one who was behind the mask. That's the real person. That's the real human being.

Over time, the word hypocrite evolved to describe someone who pretends to be something that they are not, often with a moral or religious connotation. This is seen, of course, in its usage in the Bible, where it refers to those who falsely profess religious beliefs. Jesus was telling the Pharisees that they were play-acting.

They were just wearing masks covering up who they really were on the inside. Let's go back to Mark 7 and verse 6.

Not God of men. Commandments of men. He goes on to verse 8, For laying aside the commandments of God, you hold the tradition of men, the washing of pitchers and cups, and many other such things that you do. It wasn't just the cups. It wasn't just the hand-washing. Jesus is saying, you've got your laundry list of items that you have raised to the level of God's teaching, God's instructions, and you did it by also ignoring His commandments.

Ignoring His Word. And He said to them, in verse 9, All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition. And as we heard in the sermon this morning, the next passage He gets into talks about what defiles a man from the inside. It's not the food that we eat. It's the motivation that comes out of our heart. The selfish desires that come from within.

This is what defiles a man. This isn't the only time Jesus addressed the Jewish leaders as hypocrites. Turn with me to Matthew 23, verse 1. Now, many times we've read accounts in the Gospels, and we'll refer to parallel accounts. This is the same account, but in different writings. This is not a parallel account to what we read in Mark, chapter 7. Jesus talked many times to the Pharisees about these issues. He was critical many times with the religious leaders, because of the way that they propped themselves up and puffed themselves out, but yet broke God's own laws.

This is a separate account from what we read in Mark 7. Matthew 23, verse 1. Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to his disciples, saying, The scribes and the Pharisees, they sit in Moses' seat. This was a very specific seat in the synagogue. It was considered the best seat. The one with the most education, the one that had the highest education, the one that had the highest degree of rabbiseness. Help me out if you know what that is. We'll talk afterwards. They were the most respected person in the room when it came to being a teacher or professing God's Word. They would sit in Moses' seat, right?

That was almost the equivalent of God following Moses, and following his teachings, was almost on the same level as God in a lot of their minds. The scribes and the Pharisees, they sit in the best seat in here. Therefore, whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, Jesus didn't say, ignore every single thing that they say, but he says, if they read from the Scriptures, then listen, because the Scriptures are not theirs, they're mine. They're God's. So he says, whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do according to their works, for they say, and they do not do.

For they bind heavy burdens, again referring to these oral traditions that they heaped on top of God's wall, right? You could only walk so far on the Sabbath, you could only tie a certain type of knot on the Sabbath. There were many things that they continued to add. You couldn't spit on the ground. We've talked about this before, because that would be plowing, because it disturbed the dirt and made a little valley, and so that was work.

It's all of these things that they added nowhere in Scripture do you find thou shall not tie a knot with two hands. But they created a wall that said, if you could tie a knot with one hand, that was okay. But if two, that meant work.

It's comical. It really is, as you consider some of these things. But don't let your mind go too far on the comedy side, because it's actually the tragedy, right? And we can fall into similar thought patterns as well. He says, for they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear. God's wall is not a bird, and it's not hard to bear, but what they added to made it so difficult.

And they lay it on men's shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. Meaning, these oral traditions become so important that mercy went out the window. If a situation arose where something happened, and somebody's like, I have to tie this knot with two hands, they'd say, well, if that's what you think God would want you to do.

And they're like, but this depends on it, or this is a hard situation that I'm in. Yeah, we've all had hard situations at times in life, and you know what? Sometimes we just have to continue to follow God, don't we? It wasn't following God's written word. They weren't really following God. They were following these traditions that they had elevated up. And in doing so, lost mercy. They lost understanding. They lost that pureness of heart that God wanted His people to always maintain. Verse 5, He says, But all their works, they do, to what? Be seen by man. They make their phylactries broad.

Their phylactries were these strips of leather that they would wrap on their hands. So they would make a little, usually a little leather box, and they would take a little piece of parchment. They would write certain scriptures on it. They had their traditions for what could be written in and what could be put in this box. But if we put a little leather box on our hand, it's not going to stay there.

So they would attach this long leather strap, and would then wrap it in a very ornate and specific way around their hand. Often, if I can't remember now, I should have researched it.

I think it was these two fingers that the box would be here and have to wrap around these fingers twice, and then through the hand, up onto the arm. And then I believe it had to make seven loops as it continued, or seven wraps as it continued to go up the arm. Where's this in Scripture? But they would do it, and then they would make the straps broad so that everybody, from a mile away, we were talking about the light that can be seen, that candle, how far it can be seen from a distance.

But, boy, these broad straps, everybody, it's kind of like your Rolex watch. Look at how righteous I am before God. I'm doing exactly what we've added on, or what He wants us to do, and make sure you know that I'm doing it the way that we're supposed to. It goes on and talks about, they enlarge the borders of their garments, being the tassels, or the tzitzis that they would wear on their clothing, so that everybody could, again, see from a far off, they've got their tassels on.

They're making sure that they're following God. And notice, verse 6, He says, they love the best place at the feast. This is something that makes them happy. This is what motivates them.

They love the best places at the feast, the best seats in the synagogues, greetings in the marketplace, He says that they continue to love. Hello, Rabbi! And they love to be called by men. Rabbi, Rabbi. These are the things that motivated them. These are the things that they loved, Jesus says here in verse 6. And then in verse 23, He goes on to say, Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, play actors, make believers, mask-wearers. For you pay tithes of men and anas and kumen, and have neglected the weight of your matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith.

Again, you can't walk that far in the Sabbath. You can't tie a knot that requires two hands, but the situation is needed. The situation warrants it. I don't believe God would be upset with this. Well, you can make your own bed. You're going to have to lie on it. They lost justice. They lost mercy. And they were no longer faithful.

They were faithful to the things that they loved. They were faithful to their own teachings, the traditions that they had elevated and raised. And Jesus says, these you ought to have done without leaving the others undone. They were destroying the people's capacity to have a true, heartfelt, and wonderful relationship with God.

He goes on to say, blind guides. These are the people that were leaders. They should have known better. They should have been handling themselves appropriately. He calls them guides, but he says, you're blind. You're blind guides who strain out a gnat. Why? Because you don't want to eat a gnat. And swallow a camel, which was unclean. You put all this effort, all this work into getting a little gnat out of your water, but then you just gorge yourself on this camel.

And he's saying, can you not even see what you're doing? Do you not even recognize the depth of how lost you are? How sad the situation has become. Verse 25, he says, Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside are full of extortion and self-indulgence.

Blind Pharisee first cleansed the inside of the cup and the dish, that the outside of them may be clean also. Then verse 27, woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, play actors, mask wearers, for you are like whitewashed tombs, which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.

In Jerusalem, they didn't have typical grave sites and graveyards like we often see around our area today. It was not easy to dig down. They didn't have traditional dirt and grass. So they would build tombs, above-ground tombs. Like we see some of these, I forget what they call them, not mausoleums, but what do they call them? Like above-ground places where they could put a body in, like we see at some of the graveyards and the grave sites. Well, they would have these tombs that they would have erected, or they would have tombs where they would cave into a kind of a hillside that was made out of stone, and then they would go in and place bodies there and seal them up. Well, to know if a tomb had, because there was a lot of holes in rock and things like that, because they're preparing for tombs for future, and some people owned tombs that were empty, so that when they or their loved one dies, they have a place to bury them. So the tombs that held a body, they would whitewash and make very shiny and white, especially before the spring holy days, because it was one of the pilgrimage times of the year. They come into Jerusalem. It's a time of a lot of visitors. It's also a rainy time, a time of a lot of storms and wet weather. And so, as people are wandering through Jerusalem and downpour comes, they may jump inside this cave to get out of the rain, right? But you don't want to do it if there's dead bodies inside, because now you're unqueen. Now you cannot partake in any of those other events that you want to through the rest of your week in Jerusalem, right? The holy days going and giving your offering. You can't do those things. So they would purposely whitewash this tomb that had a body in it, so people wouldn't accidentally stumble into it or go into it. And he's saying, you are that tomb with that dead body. You look nice on the outside. You're a warning to other people. You're sharing God's Word effectively, saying, I'd be careful doing this. The Scriptures say this. But he goes inwardly, you're full of dead man's bones. You're dead on the inside. You're not alive. There's no real life in you. I can only imagine... Now we see why they wanted to kill Christ, right? Now we see why they were angry in those instances where they were just ready to grab and seize Him. But he's saying, you of all people should understand this. You of all people should have mercy. You of all people should walk with truth.

And this ties around back to us today, right? God has shown us so much in our lives. I appreciate, again, the messages that we've heard because it's just so clear to see God's inspiration. He has done so much to show us a way to go. He's blown the doors off on salvation for us through the giving of His Son.

Through the giving of His Holy Spirit, we have the down payment on eternal life. And so with it comes responsibility to not go our own way, to not get trapped up in the muck of society around us. All the layers of dirt and filth and things that He says, avoid. And He says, be pure of heart.

Take off the mask. These are hypocrites. These are people who should know better. He goes, and He's talking to us now. These masks have to go.

Verse 28, He says, even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

There's a third instance where Jesus was questioned again about washing before eating. This is not a parallel account again. So a third time where He was questioned and He said in a similar fashion, Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like graves which are not seen, and the men who walk over them are not aware of them. So this would be like walking out into a field here in Michigan. We walk out and have no idea that somebody's buried underneath here, and if they would walk over top of these graves, they would be viewed as unclean. So that's why they would have markers and things, and He's saying, you guys are just walking through life, trampling, and being unclean, and have no idea underneath these dead bodies. You have no idea how far you have fallen.

Jesus says, blessed are the pure in heart, and the blessing, for they shall see God. The Pharisees, they put on these masks, pretending to be righteous before God, but they harbored hatred and pride. They were arrogant, and they looked down on others as less than themselves. They wanted to be seen as righteous, but they were actually just wearing a mask.

And here's the rub. There's a level of double-mindedness in every single one of us.

There's a level of where we all want to be seen as one seeking after God and making the right choices.

We may not outwardly come out and say, well, I'm going to wake up today and put on my best mask so everybody at church thinks I've got it all put together.

But the truth is, sometimes we do that exact thing.

Sometimes we harbor thoughts of ill will towards others because, well, they did something to me, and I'm not... It wasn't very nice. It wasn't kind. They're a hard person to get along with. And so, when I get to services, let's avoid that person and then find the ones that make me feel good each week.

There's the six days a week I'll do what I want, watch what I want, behave how I want. But on the Sabbath, when I wake up in the morning, I'll put on my clean suit, my nice dress, come to church, and act like everything's been great all week long, and then counting off the time until sunset finishes up. So I can go back out and hang out with my friends, and I can go and maybe watch movies I shouldn't be watching, and go and hang out at establishments I really shouldn't be at because it gets me into trouble, and the people that are out there are making fools of themselves, getting drunk, doing other things. But I can put this mask on after sunset and go and hang out.

Or come to church and on the way, had a horrible blowout fight with your loved one, and then just walk in like nothing happened without ever apologizing or acknowledging that we were the problem.

We need to be honest with ourselves and be aware of this double-mindedness because it doesn't come without consequence. The biggest danger with play-acting or putting on the mask is that if you do it long enough, you can't tell the difference between the play actor in you and your real identity anymore.

There's times where Scripture talks about that searing of the conscience, right? You do something enough, times the sting disappears. The uncomfortableness of it goes away. There may still be a quiet voice somewhere in the back of your head, but it's really quiet.

It's not grabbing your attention like somebody who just cut you off in traffic. It's not grabbing your attention anymore like a dangerous animal that just popped out of nowhere. Anybody gone for walks in your neighborhood and you're just walking along, having a nice conversation, and out of your peripheral view, a doll comes running at you, and you have no idea if it's on a leash or a chain or if it's got an electric fence, one of those underground fence. If you have a watch, check your heart rate at that point because it probably just went through the roof, right? It grabbed your attention!

But if we're not careful, we'll forget that we're wearing that mask.

We'll show up to church with that mask still on that we forgot to take off and leave in the car.

We shouldn't do that either, but you see where I'm going with this. And then all of a sudden, everybody else can see the mask you're wearing, and they're like, Ooh, I didn't realize that they were struggling in that way. Or, I don't know where that attitude came from, but man, I think they've had a bad week or something's going on. Maybe we should pray for them because that's not how they normally act.

And maybe it is because we had a bad day or a rough time or we just fell short, right? But what if it's because we're now keeping that mask on when we don't even realize it anymore? That's a whole different problem than occasional sin or falling short or not reaching the standard that Christ has set for us. We all fall short. We all make mistakes. None of us are perfect.

But becoming comfortable wearing this mask to where we then forget who we really are is an extremely scary and dangerous place to find ourselves.

The reality is that sometimes we are two different people.

You and I are in the process of becoming a new creation in Christ, but sometimes the old man reaches up and grabs our pant leg and tries to drag us backwards into our past life, into our past way of thinking, or even our past behaviors that kind of became routine.

We are trying to fill two different desires at times in our life, but they are two totally opposite desires that we should have.

This is why God has us rehearse these days of Unleavened Bread every year, because we need to continue to be reminded to look at ourselves in the mirror and to really compare our lives to the example of Jesus Christ.

Are we really flipping our lives upside down like Christ has asked us to do?

Or do we just kind of tip it around a little bit? Watch it go one way and another and say, we see the movement inside the glass, and we're like, we see the water moving. It's enough.

Are we physically turning that glass upside down? It's like our bags in life, right?

I don't know how many of you cleaned out your backpack, your church bag, but sometimes we take it outside, right?

Because we don't want to just dump it upside down in our house, because now we've got to mess on the floor.

So we take it outside and we shake it. We give it a good shake.

My church bag, I had no idea how filthy it was. I was digging through it this past week to make sure everything was out of it.

And all of a sudden, I got crumbs and stuff underneath my fingernails, and I'm like, that's gross!

I pulled out the vacuum, and I'm like vacuuming the inside of my church bag. I don't eat meals inside my bag.

I don't know where all this junk came from, but it somehow showed up.

Over years, it came. I can't help but think about Kelsey's diaper bag over the years.

Like, any of you parents with kids, you understand this. The stuff you find in diaper bags will blow your mind.

The stuff at the bottom of it, because you keep just recycling it, putting new diapers in, grabbing a couple onesies.

You put it in there, you grab your snacks, drinks in there.

And then when it comes time to clean out that diaper bag, you're pulling out remnants from, I don't know where, sticky stuff, granola bars, like chocolate chip granola bars that are stuck to the side.

You're like shaking that bag to get it all out, and you're almost just shocked at what you find in those kids' diaper bags.

Are we really flipping our lives upside down like we would our kids' diaper bag?

Or a backpack that you haven't, that you just see all the crumbs inside? Are you taking it outside and really giving it a shake?

Because I think we all do that this time of the year. There's rugs we pull out of our cars, we pull out the mats, we shake them all over the yard trying to get it off, then we vacuum them.

Then we look at it, and there's still more stuff, so we vacuum again. We got the minivan with the, oh, not triscuit, but the wheat then, thank you.

Jam down there in the rail. There's been a few of those in my life, too, especially underneath a kid's seat. There's all kinds of stuff.

You recline the seat in the little crag, and then there's all the crumbs, and you're just going to town with the vacuum. You feel like you make progress.

The car is clean! Then you don't want to drive it, because then you tell the kids, don't get your shoes in there, and then you wipe your feet off like a gazillion times before getting in the car.

Do we do that with our life? Do we go to the same effort of trying to find those areas that we're harboring?

Some of those masks that we continue to wear, are there masks we forgot that we keep on our face all the time? And it's just kind of who we are.

We would all look at each other and say, no, you can't wear that mask. But have we forgotten we're even still wearing one? Because you know what? It's okay. This is just who I am.

I'm X years old, fill in the blank. I don't know that I can change. I don't know if I want to change. Change is hard. Change is uncomfortable. It's difficult.

You mean I've got to go and apologize to people for my behavior for the last, fill in the blank, years? People maybe I've hurt? That's uncomfortable. That's not fun.

Are there masks that we continue to put on, even though we go through our life acting like we've got it all put together?

As we exit these days, we must remain aware of our tendency to be double-minded, or we will become hypocrites.

Turn with me to Psalm 139, verse 23.

I've told you many times, these beatitudes are not easy.

These beatitudes have hit me right across the forehead, like somebody just hit me with a 2x4.

It's really made me pause and consider some heavy aspects of my life, things that maybe I hadn't looked at before, quite the same.

And I've tried this spring to more, maybe a little bit, I don't know.

This mindset here that we see in Psalms has been a mindset I've tried to establish these past eight weeks as I've worked through these beatitudes, because very quickly, God really kind of grabbed me and shook me a little bit.

And so I ask God to walk with me, as David did, and we have recorded here in Psalms 139, verse 22.

And before you think anything, I'm not a horrible guy. I'm not going and murdering people and not committing adultery. I'm not doing those things.

It's the same things that we often just work through in our own lives.

But this is something that David asked God to walk with him on.

And it's something that you and I can walk and ask God to walk with us on.

This is a good prayer, a very good prayer. This is a good aspect to consider, Psalm 139, verse 23.

He writes, Search me, O God, and know my heart.

Try me and know my anxieties, know my fears.

Sometimes change evokes nervousness.

Sometimes we're afraid of opening a box.

Or afraid of taking off the mask.

Because we're not sure where this is going to take us.

We may be afraid that we'll fall and trip. We'll take the mask off, put it in a box, or just put it in the yard, bury it.

And we have a great day of Unleavened Bread, but what if at the end of Unleavened Bread I mess up and I put the mask back on?

So sometimes we'll just decide, I won't even take the mask off because I'm bound to mess up again. I'm bound to continue in this behavior. So just, might as well just keep it on.

Sometimes we can avoid taking off the mask. We can continue play-acting because of the fear it evokes. The uncertainty, the uncomfortableness of it.

And David says, Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my anxieties. If there's fear, help me with it. If there's uncomfortableness, help me with this.

Verse 24, And see if there is any wicked way in me. And then he says, And lead me in the way everlasting.

Show me a way out, as we heard in the sermonette this afternoon. If there's something that you're harboring, if there's a sin that you've kind of put makeup on to make it look nicer and you're just continuing to kind of live life because it's messy, it's difficult.

I don't know if I can overcome this. I don't know if I can quit this. I don't know if I can change.

God says, David prayed, Lead me to the way everlasting. Show me an avenue out.

And if I've got fears that I'm harboring to keep me from making a choice, take those fears, God, take those fears, and you carry that. You carry that on your shoulders.

You take my fears. You take my uncomfortableness. And show me a way out is what David prayed here.

This is a powerful prayer to pray. This is where God wants us to come to, but he's not going to make us. He won't, because he says, I need you to want this as much as I want this for you.

It's as if God reaches up around, looking at us, walks up to us, and puts his fingers around the mask that we're wearing, and takes it off our face.

He can help us in that way if we ask him to. When he takes that mask off, he sees the tears, right?

Because we're not happy. We know this is not where we really want our lives to go. He sees the shame in our expression. He sees the guilt. He sees the embarrassment.

He sees everything that's ugly behind that mask.

Then we may try to take that mask back from him, and we put it back up, because we don't want God to see us this way. It's uncomfortable. It's ugly.

I should be doing better. I've been in the church for how long? How many years?

I know too much to continue to be struggling. So God, just give me the mask back. I feel more comfortable with it.

I'll keep on trying, but I'm not there yet.

We'll take the mask back sometimes, and we'll cover our face for all variety of reasons. We'll put it back on.

Or a different one, because it seems like we have a lot of choices to choose from sometimes.

Just like those actors on a stage, that one may be portraying themselves as a child, and then the next scene they're a woman.

Sometimes we have multiple masks.

But God doesn't want us to wear these masks, because He knows it's not really us.

But sometimes we wear masks, because we just don't like what we see in ourselves.

But God says, I can change that, but I can't change it if you keep wearing the mask. I can help you. That shame, the guilt, the embarrassment.

When God takes that mask off, and He can just breathe it on our heart and on our face, He says, I can fix that.

But if you're going to take that mask and put it back on again, I can't fix that. Turn with me to Galatians 5 and verse 17.

This is about becoming pure in heart. Because we read through those passages about WOTU, the Pharisees, the hypocrites, and we're like, boy, they're getting what they deserve. But there's so much of this mask wearing that we sometimes find ourselves in as well. We can't be blind to this. We just can't be blind to it.

Paul writes in Galatians 5 and verse 17, this battle that you and I face is that the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh.

These are contrary to one another. We know the battle that is within us. He says, so that you do the things so that you do not do the things that you wish. Paul has almost a whole chapter in Romans chapter 7 talking about this exact subject, this battle that war is within him. The things he does that he doesn't want to do and the things he doesn't want to do, that's what he practices.

He talks about literally a war going on, an ugly war. Not just a skirmish, not just two siblings who are having a disagreement. He's talking about a fierce war that is going on inside of each of us because of our nature trying to battle God's nature. And God's nature is saying, come on, we can do better. You're not weak. You're not without power. You can do this.

But then our nature says, but I like the mask. I'm comfortable with the mask. I know I shouldn't wear it, but I'm not out murdering people. I'm not out killing people. I'm not out robbing people. There's a lot worse people in society, and I'm not one of them, God. So in the end, it's not the worst thing. That's just me and you playing games with ourselves. That's just us trying to convince ourselves that this is okay. When deep down, we know it's not that voice behind her in the back of our head that continues to talk and say, Mike, what are you doing? Leave me alone. I like the mask.

He says, I'm not going to leave you alone. I'm going to keep bugging you on this. I'm going to keep bothering you on this. You're going to continue to feel the guilt. You're going to continue to feel the shame. I want to take that from you. But you've got to take off the mask, and you've got to let me take and heal your heart.

This is why God wants us to be real. He wants us to be authentic. This is why Jesus says, bring me into your life and let's go in a new direction. Blessed are the pure in heart. The Apostle Paul also talks about being single-minded and ties this aspect of God to the days of Unleavened Bread and into our lives today. This is 1 Corinthians 5 and verse 6. We'll look at one more, what I think is a profound example that Paul wrote here to kind of shine this mask wearing from another light.

1 Corinthians 5 and verse 6.

There's an issue in the church in Corinth. A man is taking his father's wife, and the church is kind of turning a blind eye to it. And the man doesn't seem like he cares that this is a sin before God.

Paul writes in verse 6, your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Therefore, purge out the old leaven. Cut it off, as we heard in the sermon today. As the Sylvester's found that food, get it out of here! Get it out! Quick!

Purge out the old leaven. It's like those thoughts that sometimes pop in your mind. You're driving down the highway. And just to be blunt, it's an evil thought that comes in your mind. And you yourselves recognize it as an evil thought. And you're like, where did that even come from? God, get this out of my head. This is not even what...this is just nothing that I want in my head right now. And we pray that prayer right away, and God removes it. And we're like, I don't even know where that came from. Purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed, Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore, let us keep the feast, not with the old leaven, nor the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. The Apostle Paul understood that there is more to these days of unleavened bread than simply going seven days without eating crackers, bread, cookies, pizza, fill in the blank. The physical is important, and we have already completed the physical removing of these items. And we've just spent seven days trying to avoid these items and to keep them out of our life. But we all know that all these things to God that are more important are the spiritual aspects. The physical serves as a help and as a tool, and we do it because God has said that we should do these things. But God is so much more focused on the spiritual. He is so much more focused on our heart and our walk with Him and being a heartfelt follower of Christ. The church in Corinth was not keeping these days with the bright heart and mind. They were not being sincere and truthful in the way that they were doing things. And Paul recognized this, and he was concerned. Again, repeating verse 8, Therefore, let us keep the feast, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. The word malice can also mean ill will or wickedness. That is not a shame to break laws. This reckless abandonment would be maybe another word, right? Just carelessly going through life, doing whatever life brings at you. There are no consequences. Wickedness means evil purposes and desires. We know that. Sincerity, though, means purity or clearness. Freedom from hypocrisy, purity of motive. And truth, of course, means that mind which is free from pretense, making something appear true that it's not. A mind that is free from falsehood, a state of being untrue or of I or lying. A mind that is free from deceit.

There is no shams, no faking, no hiding things if you are a truthful person. I think we'd all agree that it's harder to find the values of sincerity and truth in a society around us in the lives of many of the people that we interact with. It's difficult to know who is sincere and who is telling the truth. Who is wearing a mask and who is not. A question for us to ask, are we living lives that are sincere and truthful? Or are we living a life of pretense, presenting a side of us that we want others to see, but is not really representative of the life we live on a regular basis? Are we play-acting? Are we double-minded? Are we, again, wearing a mask? Let's keep these questions on our mind as we dive deeper into the word sincerity. Again, sincerity means purity, clearness, freedom from hypocrisy, purity of motive. In the Greek, the word sincerity is made up of two words, which is alel, which means sunlight or rays of the sun, and crania, which means judging or discerning right from wrong. So you've got light and you've got judgment. You've got light and you've got discernment. In English, the word sincere is derived from the Latin word sinceres, which is composed of sin, which means without, and then sera, which means wax. So, without wax is the origin of the word sincere. What's interesting is wax would often be used in biblical times and Greek times as they would create statues or they would create pottery. I've never worked with stone, but I've seen some amazing creations made, amazing depictions that when you see it, you're like, that can't be stone. How long would it take to make that object? It's artwork, right? I can't imagine the countless of hours that go into making those things and how many times the artist hits that stone with a chisel and with a hammer and everything goes fine. Then at 3 a.m. one night, as he's continuing and getting near to finish up and he doesn't want to go to bed, and then one false bang, and he's like, the nose just went off.

The finger, like the hand, this ornate hand just lost the finger, and he's staring there, looking at all these hours wasted, the value that has now been lost in this artwork, this creation, this thing that he had just or she just spent hours on.

If you were a person that this was your livelihood and that you were cranking these out a lot and you were selling them in marketplaces, you may have the tendency to look around and see if anybody's looking over your shoulder and that nose that fell off.

You may put a little bit of wax on the back of the nose and then put the nose back on and then just kind of polish it up, make it look all nice as best you can, and you're like, that's going to market tomorrow.

And then if there's another imperfection and a vase or something else and you can cover it up with a little bit of wax on that crack, that little divot that's missing, and then put a little paint on it, nobody will know the better, right?

That's the origin of this word, sincere.

Because then you and I come to the market tomorrow and we want to buy something nice. We want a pot that we can hold water or something else in our home.

But we don't want a pot that as soon as the sun shines on it, it's going to melt that wax and now we've got a hole in our pot, right? Or in our pitcher.

So we going to the market as knowing that not everybody is honest, right?

So we would go to the marketplace we're walking through and it's in an alley, they've got their awnings, it's kind of dark, we can't really see very well here. You pick it up and it looks like a good solid vase or pitcher.

And so you're like, but I don't want to ruin my money, I don't want to waste my money.

So you say, hang on a second, I'm going to walk out to where the sun is and I'm going to hold it up to the sun.

And the guy says, no, no, no, it's good enough. You don't need to do that.

And you're like, no, I need to check if this is whole, if this is the real deal. And so they would go out and then they would hold it up to the light and they would see if they can see an imperfection and they could see if there was wax used.

They could see if it's not what it's really meant to be. I'm not getting the real deal. Without wax, sincere. This is the sincerity that Paul's talking about, sincerity and truth.

Would we hold up to the light of God shining on us, or would it cut right through and would all those imperfections, that whitewashed tomb, the nice suit, the beautiful dress, looks, hair's in the right place, those of us who still have some, mine's not to where Mr. McGuire's at yet. I gotta go a little bit.

It's thinning, though. I'll catch up in time, probably. Is that light of God cutting through and showing areas of our life that need to be cleaned up?

Areas of our life that we need to turn over to God?

Areas of our life, as we heard in the sermon at, where we need to invite God in and say, God, I can't do this, but I know you can. It's ugly. I'm not proud of it.

I got some fears. I got some trepidations. I've got anxiety.

But you can carry all that. You can take every ounce of this. I know you can.

But then Satan says, are you sure he can? And then doubt comes back in, right?

God wants, and he has paid the price for his son that we are whole before him. But he says, you've got to stop bringing those masks back on, then. I've forgiven you of your sins. I've forgiven you of your past. I've given you a new way to live and to walk in life.

But you've got to break those masks. They can't keep coming back.

Turn to Ephesians 5 and verse 8.

Ephesians 5, Paul again, with this mindset, without wax, holding up. Will it last and show in the sunlight whether there's cracks, whether there's holes?

Ephesians 5 verse 8, Paul says, For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth. And he goes on to say, finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. Just like we would go to the market and say, hang on, before I pay you for this, I want to hold it up to the light. If we open up and we say that prayer that we read in Psalms, we're asking God to show us what's acceptable in our lives. Uncover the darkness. Find those cracks. And not just for one week, dear, and unleavened bread. But continue whatever there is to continue to do that you've learned through this week, and whatever God will continue to show you as you exit these days. He says, and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. Hold it up to the light. Hold our lives with God's help up to the light so that we can see those cracks. For it is shameful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret. Those masks that we put on when we hang out with our friends, those masks that we put on when we're in private, and we watch things we shouldn't be watching. He's saying it's shameful to even speak on those things which are done by them in secret. But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light. For whatever makes manifest is light. We have to exit these days, living a life that is sincere, without wax. We have to continue holding up our lives to the light of God and ask God to show us our cracks, to help us no longer turn to the masks that we have worn in the past. And again, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see. This isn't just, you'll feel happy, you'll be comforted, you'll be fed. You will see God. You will see God. As we exit these days of Unleavened Bread, there is a physical aspect that these days will come to a close at sunset. But as we've looked at over the past year, God is not as worried about the physical as He is about the spiritual. We are part of a very small number of people who God has demonstrated His desire and shows His purity to. We are not a big room here full of thousands of people. A lot of other things have been going on. When you went out for lunch, you passed a whole bunch of people that they had no idea that this was a Sabbath or a Holy Day. God has shown us a very small group a better way to go. He has given us so much. We are precious and valuable to Him. He looks at us like we would look at a precious diamond or a metal, something that was pure. Something that we acquired that took a lot of work and effort. That's how God looks at you and me.

I encourage us all to continue to heed the spiritual prompting of our wonderful Father that He has placed in our thoughts over these past several weeks. Continue to seek after the spiritual things He wants to be our focus. Continue to reflect how Jesus came and flipped the world upside down. In doing so, encourage the believer to flip their mind upside down as we think differently about our lives and our walk with God. Let's close in Romans 13 and verse 11.

Romans 13 and verse 11. Paul writes, The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore, let us cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light. The New Living Translation says, So remove your dark deeds like dirty clothes and put on the shining armor of right living.

Verse 13.

The ways and thoughts of mankind have been deteriorating since sin entered in thousands of years ago. The physical universe is aging and deteriorating as our own physical bodies are as well. There is a contrast in the physical and spiritual that God wants us to see and understand. The physical is here to serve us on our journeys to the spiritual. Let us exit these days. Let us continue to put the past behind us as we go forward to our eternal spiritual existence with God. May we become pure in heart and may we see God.