Inner defilement.
"But unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled." This is the worst Nemesis of evil; it hurts the man. We can injure the physical senses—the eye, the ear; so we can injure the mind and the moral senses.
I. THE DESCRIPTION OF CHARACTER. Why this couplet? "Defiled and unbelieving" seems at first a strange combination of ideas. Not so. To defile is to march off—to file away from. So men leave the King's highway of holiness, purity, truth, and righteousness; and they do this because they are unbelieving. They will not accept the revelation of God, that sin is loss, shame, misery, death; and that holiness is happiness and life eternal.
II. THE DREAD ISSUE. Nothing is pure. All waters take the color of the soil over which they pass. The stained windows make a stained light. An impure heart colors everything—thought, imagination, observation, conversation, and common life. And this is the doom! Their mind and conscience are defiled. They feel it. They know it, and at times they confess it. Many shrink from themselves who have never had resolution to seek him who can "create a clean heart and renew a right spirit within them."—W.M.S.
HOMILIES BY D. THOMAS