6. Pure and Clean from the Inside Out

6. Pure and Clean from the Inside Out.

“The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to His temple, and the Messenger of the Covenant in whom you delight, behold He is coming, says the Lord of Hosts. But who can endure the day of His coming, and who can stand when He appears? For He is like… a fullers’ soap.” (Malachi 3:1-2).

The Messenger of the Covenant is the Messiah, who brings Yahweh’s message of faithful love and salvation to His people. This Messenger will surely succeed in purifying His people. Fullers’ soap was the process then of using very strong lye to wash dirty clothes as they beat the clothes on rocks with sticks or trampled on the dirty clothes with their feet before hanging them out to dry. God demanded inner purity, and there was human effort involved as each person participated in God’s cleansing process. “God’s coming is both a delight and a difficulty. It’s a delight because He comes to us. It’s a difficulty because He comes to us in order to cleanse. Using the strongest of soap, He’ll scrub us like dirty laundry. Washing us. Rinsing us. Wringing us out. Then repeating the cycle over and over again until we’re clean. Which raises a question: “Who can survive His coming?” And there’s only one answer to that question: The one who submits to the soap and the suds and the scrubbings.” (Eugene Peterson).

1. “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites and play-actors! You have become so pretentious in your hypocrisy. You are proving yourselves blind once again by being more concerned about ceremonial cleanliness than inner purity. It’s as if you think your job is done when you wash the outside of yourself, ignoring your filthy inside self. You just care about appearances, forgetting that God can peer inside you with perfect vision. And He won’t like what He sees! You want a religion that helps you look good at a superficial level but is unconcerned about things like greed and gluttony at a deeper level. Learn to scrub your insides, purify yourselves, so that it matches the spotless outside, and your religion will really mean something. (a paraphrase of Matthew 23:25-26).

In Other Words: Do I care too much about appearing squeaky clean to others, and not giving enough attention to my inner character? Is my clean image, my spotless reputation, more important than the status of my heart? Why do I focus so much on appearances, on being impressive, and not on how God sees me? Am I more concerned with outer purity than inner purity? Do I deep down believe that I am earning my salvation with good behavior?

2. “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites and pretenders! You are acting holier than thou so you can hide your sinfulness. You look like saints to the people, but you are corrupted when God scratches beneath the surface. You appear to be law-abiding, but your inner character is committed to lawlessness at the heart of your Faith. You’re like a tomb that is whitewashed so it looks pretty, but walk into that tomb and all you see is a dead man’s bones and the worms eating rotten flesh. You pretend to be pious and full of religious life, but instead you’re self-righteous, dead to God. You holy ones are merely the Great Pretenders. (a paraphrase of Matthew 23:27-28).

In Other Words: Am I a holy-roller, someone who wants everybody to think of me as some kind of saint? Do I make myself sound holier when I pray in public? Is it important for me to appear pious at church, at public gatherings? Do I go to prayer meetings to pray, or to be seen as a holy prayer warrior? Does my private devotional life match up with my public persona? Am I honest with myself when it comes to my spiritual maturity?

More cleansing thoughts from Scripture: “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; Put away the evil of your doings before My eyes. Cease to do evil, learn to do good; Seek justice, rebuke the oppressor; Defend the fatherless, and plead for the widow… Though your sins are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” (Isaiah 1:16-18). “O Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness, that you may be saved. How long shall your evil thoughts lodge within you?” (Jeremiah 4:14). “Purge me with the shrub of purification; Un-sin me, that I may be purified.  Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow… Create in me a pure, clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” (Psalm 51:7, 10). “Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” (James 4:8).

Why is God So Intent on Washing Us Clean? Because He Is Disgusted with Crooked Hearts. “The crooked and devious in heart are detestable to the Lord, an abomination; but He is delighted with those whose ways are innocent and blameless.” (Proverbs 11:20).

ABOMINATION: (Hebrew, “towebah”) = An activity that God considers morally disgusting; a detestable behavior; any action or attitude that is loathed with a passion by God; behavior that God has judged as spiritually abhorrent and unacceptable; something that God hates and finds deeply repugnant; something that is deeply offensive to God’s sensibilities; any action or attitude that God thinks is repulsive, revolting and utterly alien to God’s nature.

Our Loving God Hates? As we continue to grow in our relationship with God, we discover that we yearn to progress in loving what God loves and hating what God hates.  If we are not growing in those two areas of God’s character, it’s doubtful we even have a relationship with God to begin with. Following the example of Jesus in the gospels, loving the sinner while hating the sin itself is crucial to our growing in the character of the Lord. If God finds certain behavior morally disgusting, but we find it acceptable, then we are not where we should be. It might be surprising to realize that God can have hate in His heart. We know that God is full of love, that He is in fact Love. But hate? That is a difficult concept to digest. But think about it more, and it starts to make sense. Like the Father He is, God loves us so much that He hates whatever might be destructive to us, whatever might come to harm us or our relationship to Him. God’s hatred for evil comes out of His eternal protective instinct. Another thing to think about… God is purely righteous, virtuous, filled with goodness through and through. Out of His goodness, He established a moral universe. Since the profoundly tragic fall of mankind, the overall moral universe remains, but immorality has to be dealt with and judged. Because of the way God created the world, there are rights and wrongs, the moral and immoral, the righteous and the unrighteous. God hates the wrongs. It’s no wonder the early Christians called them the ”deadly sins.” God wants to give us life, the evil one wants to give us death. God hates whatever might be deadly to us. God hates whatever in the world was not a part of His righteous plan for the world. Simply put, God’s hate comes out of His righteous love for us and His world. Yes, God hates. But He hates whatever is worth hating. God speaks plainly in His Word about what He loves and what He hates, about what God embraces and what He rejects. The category entitled “Divine Disgust” is intended to be a biblical catalogue of what God hates, what God finds abominable. Naturally, as we are becoming aware of what God hates, we will also learn what God loves. The truth is, if we are being transformed into the likeness of Jesus and thus the character of God, we show our fearful love of God by joining Him in detesting what is wicked. (Proverbs 8:13). Or as the Psalmist says, “Let all those who love the Lord hate evil! (Ps. 97:10).

In Other Words. In that passage from Proverbs 11:20 above, there is no mistaking the fact that the Lord finds crooked hearts detestable, and blameless hearts a delight. Here are a variety of ways to say the same thing:

• They who are perverse in heart are extremely disgusting in the eyes of the Lord, but He is very pleased with anyone who walks with integrity.
• Deceitful hearts are utterly vile to the Lord Yahweh, but those who are undefiled are a source of pleasure for Him.
• God will stand against those with a twisted mind, but He will take pleasure in those with a sound, healthy mind.
• The Lord detests the people who have purposely developed a perverted heart, but he takes joy in those with unblemished hearts.
• Yahweh will remain in opposition to anyone with a warped or distorted heart, but He will extend goodwill towards the person who is sincerely upright in his ways.
• The Lord will be an enemy of anyone with a deceitful mind, but He will show favor to the person who follows the right way.
• Depraved hearts are abhorrent to Yahweh, but dear to Him are those whose hearts are wholesome.
• God can’t stand those who are perverted, but He relishes those who are upright.
• Devious people are disgusting to the Lord, but He favorably accepts those who are innocent and genuine.
• The Lord hates the stubborn heart bent toward evil, but He treasures those whose ways are pure.

We all need to take our hearts to God’s laundromat every day as we ask Him to purify our innermost beings.