Let's be turning to Luke chapter
12. Luke 12, we're looking at the end of the chapter in verse
54 to verse 59. Now, our Lord has been speaking
primarily to his disciples, those that minister the gospel, those
that would be ministering the gospel, declaring the kingdom
of God to the people. And now, He turns his attention
to the people that are there, that have been gathering together
around Christ, that have seen his works, that have heard him
speak. Many of these people were there
when he was rebuking the Pharisees and the scribes, pointing out
their hypocrisy. And now he's speaking to them. He's calling them to account. for the things which you have
now seen and heard." He's calling you, us, to account for the things
which we have seen and heard, testifying of him. And he does this because we're
willingly ignorant by nature. We're ignorant by nature and
we're unwilling to come to Christ. We won't hear him. We will not
come to Christ that we might have life. And so he speaks to
us because he's calling his sheep. He's shaking us out of our stupor,
out of our deadness. He's delivering us from indifference,
which is what we are by nature. And so what he's doing here is
making us to see that we're diligent and wise to the things of this
world. We are diligent in civil matters. We're diligent in our lives.
We're diligent in the things that interest us. But we, by
nature, have no concern, no care of eternal things. We ought to
be diligent of eternal things, of our eternal affairs, so that
we would come to Christ. Now, our Lord begins here speaking
of the time that is at hand. This is the day of your visitation,
the day of visitation. in the preaching of the gospel
is the day of visitation, and he's calling you to account for
the things which you've seen and heard of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and he uses the weather. That's one of the most frequently
spoken about things. It's one of the things we talk
about with people when we don't want to talk about anything important. But he brings up weather, because
we're all weather-wise. And he says, verse 54 through
56, he said also to the people, when ye see a cloud rise out
of the west, straightway ye say, there cometh a shower, and so
it is. And when you see the south wind
blow, ye say there will be heat, and it cometh to pass. We're
familiar with that, because that's how the weather flows for us,
too. It comes out of the west, and rain often comes that way.
Once in a while, there's blowing from the south, from the Gulf,
and it's warm weather then when it hits us like that. Sometimes
there's even rain and precipitation it brings up, but we're aware
of that. And then he says, ye hypocrites. ye can discern the
face of the sky and of the earth. But how is it that ye do not
discern this time, this time of Christ's coming, that this
is the promised Messiah? Hear him, hear him. Matthew tells us that When our
Lord said these words, as recorded in Matthew, it was the scribes
and Pharisees that were present. And Luke puts a number of things
between the scribes asking for a sign and the Lord calling them
hypocrites here, in that they seek for a sign. but that they're
hypocrites. And so these scribes and Pharisees
are here as well. And this discourse is following
after what he said about exposing the hypocrisy of man and the
self-righteousness of man by nature, that we would hear him.
God's not impressed with our own self-righteousness. He's
not impressed with our works under the law. He's not impressed
with our form of religion by tradition and the customs of
man, but that we would hear the Lord Jesus Christ. And so he
closes these words of warning there in Matthew telling us that
the only sign we're going to see is the sign of the prophet
Jonah. That's what they would see, Christ
rising from the dead on the third day. And quoting from Matthew
16, 3 and 4, where they had asked him for a sign, he calls them.
He says, ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky,
but can ye not discern the signs of the times? A wicked and adulterous
generation seeketh after a sign, and there shall no sign be given
unto it but the sign of the prophet Jonah. and he left them and departed. And what the Lord is teaching
us is that his salvation is a miracle of grace. It's a miracle of grace. This is a spiritual salvation. This is not a work of the flesh,
but rather a work of the Lord in our hearts. There's an old
way that we do things. But in the Lord Jesus Christ,
all things are become new. And we see the miracle of God's
grace. We see his miracles all the time. Every time a new believer, every
time a sinner comes to faith in Christ, that is a miracle
of his grace. Because faith and hope and love
in the Lord Jesus Christ is not of this flesh. If it is of the
flesh, it will die. But if it's of him, if he's given
us that hope that he's my righteousness, that I am accepted of God because
of Christ, and I hear his word, I see his promises, and I believe
him, I have no other hope of righteousness by what I do, that
is a work of the spirit in you. And every time that you come
here and it's made new and fresh to you, where you hear Christ
and rejoice in Him, where He strengthens your hope, gives
you confidence in Christ, strengthens your faith, gives you love to
Christ in your heart, that's a miracle of His grace, because
He's overcoming this flesh and the deadness of this flesh and
the hypocrisy that is so familiar to us by nature, as we see in
the Pharisees there. And so, faith and hope, it's
not of this flesh, it is born of the Spirit of God. And I'm
certain of it. In fact, he tells us, the apostle
John writes, moved by the Spirit, in John chapter one, verse 12
and 13, But as many as received him,
how did they receive him? How do we receive Christ when
so many reject him? Why do we receive him? Because,
he tells us, to them gave he power to become the sons of God. Who? Them that believe on his
name. You that believe Christ, that
have received him and believe him, that he is your righteousness
and acceptance with God is because God gave you that power. It's
not of this flesh. Verse 13, which were born, not
of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of
man, but of God. That's entirely contrary to what
much of so-called Christian religion teaches us today. That if you
just believe, if you just make your decision for Jesus, if you
just make your will, believe him and accept him, you'll be
born again. No, you would never, if that's how the order of things
is, we would never come. We need the power of God to deliver
us. And so these men here, we see
salvation is not a thing of wisdom and of intelligence. Many of
us are base. We're weak. We're not rich. We're not wealthy. Many of us
are poor and weak in understanding and in our thoughts and in our
how we speak and how we say things. We're not wise unto salvation
except God make us wise. But these people had a a natural
intelligence, they could see the sky, and through years of
observation, they could put two and two together. They could
see, well, every time I see a cloud arise up out of the sky there
in the west, before I know it, the rain comes. And so they can
see and observe that and understand But they could not see and they
could not receive Christ believing that he is the Messiah spoken
of and testified to by the law and the prophets. Though they
had those things, they would not believe him. Religion is
that same way, right? They speak nicely of Jesus, right? Even totally different religions
call Jesus a prophet. They speak nicely of him. And
in Christianity, they speak nicely of him, but they have no confidence
in his word of promise, which says, I am your righteousness.
I will teach you and lead you. I will provide for you and keep
you in all things. but they have no confidence,
and so they turn away from Christ back to the law for their righteousness,
to try and please God. They're striving and laboring
for a righteousness which they've made because they don't hear
what Christ is saying. We do the same thing that the
Pharisees were doing back then, we just are willing to talk about
Jesus. That's the modern-day church,
so-called. But notice that Christ's coming
does testify that this Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, and
all that he said he would do, he does it. The first thing that
we see is that the scepter, the rule of the civil government,
was to be passed from Judah to someone that was not a Jew. And
that's what happened when Christ came. the prophecy was there in a Genesis
49 verse 10 when Jacob was blessing his sons he said of Judah that
the scepter shall not depart from Judah nor a lawgiver from
between his feet until Shiloh come and Christ is Shiloh peace
the peace of God for his people him in whom we have peace with
God till he comes and unto him shall the gathering of the people
be." Well, that happened now. Herod was the ruler over the
Jews appointed as such by Rome, and Herod was not a Jew. All
right, that's one. Also, we're told that Elijah
would come. In Malachi, the last prophecy,
the last prophet, before there was silence, before John the
Baptist came, we're told that Elijah would come. Behold, I
will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great
and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall turn the heart of
the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to
their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse."
And then what happened? John the Baptist comes, a voice
crying in the wilderness, just like Isaiah said, prepare ye
the way of the Lord, make straight his paths in the desert. He cried. And Matthew tells us that in
those days, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness. in the wilderness, a voice in
the wilderness, crying unto the people, showing them the hypocrisy,
and preparing their hearts for the coming of the Lord, that
they would hear him, that they would stop trusting in the things
that they were doing for salvation and hear Christ, hear him, hear
him whom the Father sent. And then there's also what Daniel
wrote of Daniel's 70th week. This was now the conclusion.
All right, Daniel speaks of 70 weeks. 70 weeks are determined,
that's from Daniel 9, 24, 70 weeks are determined upon thy
people and upon thy holy city. He's taught those 70 weeks are
490 years. There's seven days in a week,
70 weeks, each day is a year. So seven times 70 is 490. So
490 years later after Daniel wrote this, saw this, Messiah
came and finished the work. He finished the transgressions.
It says that he came to finish the transgression, that is the
transgressions of the people were laid upon him. He laid down His life to make
satisfaction unto the Father for our sins, for what we had
done in offense to God and to His law. He made satisfaction
and carried them away, putting them away forever. and to make
an end of sins. That is, he abolished forever
by his satisfaction, by his salvation, that he bore the guilt and punishment
of his people so that no charge can be brought against us. No
charge can be brought against us to condemn us. He's secured
our pardon, you that believe in him and hope in him. and to
make reconciliation for iniquity, so that the Lord Jesus Christ
restored that which he took not away. All our sins, transgressions,
sins, and iniquities, Christ bore them away. He made an end
of them, brethren, and to bring in everlasting righteousness.
true righteousness, a sure righteousness, which is Christ's righteousness,
in whom no guile was found in his mouth. Not your righteousness,
not my righteousness, not my goodness, not my cloak of hypocrisy
that you're looking at. It's Christ's righteousness.
He's our hope. He's our confidence that we are
accepted of God in Him. He came to seal up the vision
and prophecy, that is, to fulfill it. All that the prophets and
the law spoke of Christ, He fulfilled it. Some of those prophecies
looked at and spoke of of his person and the offices that he
would fulfill in his coming as the Christ of God, as the high
priest of his people, as his people's sacrifice, as the servant
of God. All these offices he fulfilled,
which were written of him. Others spoke of his coming into
the world, the time in which he should come, as we read earlier.
about the scepter passing from Judah, and that's when Shiloh
would come. Some spoke of where he would
be born in Bethlehem, and the manner of his coming, of his
poverty, of his coming without the pomp of this world and things
that people look to. Others spoke of the redemption
that he would accomplish. Other prophecies spoke of him
being the Savior of the world, that is, that he's not the Savior
of the Jews only, and that there's another Savior of the heathen
Gentiles. No, there's one Savior, one Savior
of the world, the Lord Jesus Christ. If you're saved, it's
by the Lord Jesus Christ and him alone, Jew and Gentile. Others spoke of his miracles,
others of his sufferings, and the glory that should follow.
All these things were spoken of, and he fulfilled them all. And to anoint the most holy,
that is to establish the covenant of God's grace, being perfumed
with the blood of Christ, the blood and sacrifice of Christ. And then, on top of all of that,
we have his miracles, which they saw him performing. Even Nicodemus,
a Pharisee, came to Christ by night and said, Rabbi, we know
that thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these
miracles except God were with him. We can't deny it. And so by these manifold testimonies,
the unbelieving Jews were revealed to be hypocrites. And as I said,
we see miracles of his grace all the time. in the hearing
of the gospel, in the receiving of his word, turning us from
dead things, dead form religion, dead letter religion, to the
living God, to know him, to seek him. And so the Lord does this
though, he shakes our hope in dead things, our love of religion,
for that to crumble and fall, that we might love Christ in
its place, that we would hear him and believe him, right? Son of man, cause Jerusalem to
know her abominations. And that's what he did when he
declared these men hypocrites and then testified why they're
hypocrites. and all the practices that they
were doing. When left to ourselves, we despise the salvation of God. We don't know it's the day of
our visitation. We don't hear Him. We don't receive
Him. But he's made us to see, right?
These guys were weather-wise. We see the trouble in our day.
We see difficulties and troubles. And we see that, man, after thousands
of years, after the fall of Adam, with all that he's done and built
up, his technologies, his laws, his governments, all these things,
we're not any better. We're no better now than when
Adam sinned. We've not improved at all. We've
not gotten better. If anything, we've gotten worse.
Our sins, our iniquities are worse and worse and worse. And so it's a new birth by the
spirit of our Lord that we need. And he gives us this gift by
the giving of the Holy Spirit to seek out the sheep, to bring
this word, to make you to hear this word, to see that it's not
the form of religion that God is pleased with or looking for.
He looks for those that worship him in spirit and in truth. who
seek Christ, who need Christ, who cry out to him for the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so he does this to turn us
from our own wisdom to see, yeah, I understand the things of this
world, but I don't understand the things of God. Lord, have
mercy upon me. Lord, save me, deliver me. So
the next thing he says then is in verse 57. If the Lord has
made you to see your sin, to see your trouble, he says, verse
57, yea, and why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right? He's gonna bring in a legal case. Now, we've all seen, showcased
on TV, or heard of trials going on, and you hear of a deal, a
plea deal, being put before the criminal, and you're thinking
to yourself, You better take that deal, because you're guilty. If you don't want this thing
to go to trial, because if this thing goes to trial, and you're
found guilty, you're really going to get it. You're going to get
it. You don't want this thing to go to trial. Take the deal. Well, verse 58, when thou goest
with thine adversary to the magistrate,
as thou art in the way, give diligence that thou mayest be
delivered from him. He's taking you to trial. Be
delivered before you go before the magistrate, lest he hail
thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer,
and the officer cast thee into prison, I tell thee, thou shalt
not depart from there till thou hast paid the very last mite."
Well, who's our adversary? And who is the magistrate? And
what is this way that we're in, right now, spoken of here? Well,
in the context, the Lord's warning those, the Pharisees, the scribes,
the Sadducees, the people who are looking to their tradition
of the law. and their customs in the law,
and their practice of the law of Moses, thinking this is our
righteousness, this is our acceptance with God. We have the law, we
have the prophets, we have the history of all these things. This is our salvation. Surely
the things that you're saying, Jesus, are not the truth, right? Because we have all these things.
And the Lord is showing that the law is their adversary. That law, which they thought
was their friend and going to testify on their behalf, was
their accuser. Christ said in John 5, 45, do
not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one
that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom you trust. There's your
accuser. There's your adversary. Now because
of our fallen Adam and the corruption of our sins, we don't keep the
law. We have to make things up to
pretend that we keep the law perfectly in all its righteousness,
in all its perfections. That's why the more you look
into the law, if you're honest, the more you see I'm a sinner.
I've offended God. I've transgressed his law. I've
sinned against him. I'm full of iniquities. Lord,
save me. We see more and more the darkness,
the blackness of our own hearts by nature. And so men in religion
think, I'm doing it. I'm going to church each Sunday.
I'm doing the things that please God. I'm trying to improve my
life. I'm doing the best that I can. And Jesus will just make
up the difference here. No, no, it's not your righteousness
plus Christ's righteousness. We come hoping in the blood and
righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ alone. He is our salvation. He's the salvation. He's the
one that delivers us from the hand of the law. When you look
at the law, We find that, again, if we're made honest, we find
that we are lawbreakers because of the weakness, because of the
corruption of this flesh. Because we are born of Adam's
corrupt seed, we need a savior. We need salvation. Romans 3.19
tells us that whatsoever things the law saith, it saith to them
who are under the law to shut our mouths. and to make us to
see our guilt before God, to make us to know that we are guilty
before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the
law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by
the law is the knowledge of sin. That's why God gave the law.
to show us our sin, to show us our need of a savior, to show
us the need that we have of God to be merciful and gracious to
us because we're not going to work our way out of this. We
need a new salvation, a savior from beginning to end entirely. And this magistrate is the judge,
which is God Almighty seated on his throne. So do you think
that you're good enough to fool God? God who sees the heart,
who knows our motivations, who knows why we did that appearance
of a good thing, he knows we're not fooling anyone. We're not
fooling God. He knows. And so is it not time
to give diligence to these things that thou mayest be delivered
from him? Is now not the time to hear? to cry out to Christ to save
us, before he hail thee to the judge, and the judge deliver
thee to the officer, and the officer cast thee into prison. Do you really want to take this
thing to trial? You really think that you're
good enough to impress God by your works? We don't want this
thing to go to trial. Waiting till we're standing before
the judge is too late. Now is the day of salvation.
Now is the day of visitation. Hear Him. Hear the Savior. Hear Him who was sent to the
Father, fulfilling all that the Father said that He would fulfill
so that we would know Him. Hear Him. He is the Savior. He
is the one that delivers us by satisfying the law, so that the
law has nothing to accuse us of to the Father, because the
law is satisfied. And we're dead to the law. It
had nothing more to say to us. Because if it goes to trial,
then our debts must be settled by us in full, interest and principle,
then and there. There's no working it off, no
whittling it down. There's no making deals then.
It's done. It's done. And he says, till
thou hast paid the very last mite. That officer is one who
will take you according to the full rigor of the law. And you'll
be bound by that until you've paid every last mite. And because
we don't pay nothing, because we don't have anything to pay
it with, it's an eternal death. It's an eternal payment. It's
an eternal suffering that we can't pay off or do. There's
only one way to settle our debts. interest and the principle of
it, and that is by the blood and righteousness of the Lord
Jesus Christ." That's what he's saying. You've seen these things.
You've heard my words, he's saying. You've heard the gospel. This
is the day of salvation. Go to him. Cry out to him. Look to him. Beg him for mercy. Ask him, show me, Lord. Show
yourself to me. Let me see and hear. And I know
it's a work of faith. I know it's a spiritual work.
Lord, do this for me, because I can't do it for myself. Please
open my ear. Please draw me to yourself. Give
me the cry of faith. Give me a cry, Lord, in my heart
to seek you, to be satisfied with nothing but you. because
he's the full satisfaction of the father given to settle the
debt as the shorty, as the kinsman redeemer to pay everything that
we owe and to provide all that we need in and by him, the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so those who come to the
father through Jesus Christ, we do so because of the grace
of God. We do so because he works that
in us and gives us that heart. We're dead to the law in Christ.
It says in Romans 7, 4, Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become
dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married
to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we
should bring forth fruit unto God. And so, he reveals the salvation. To you that are his, he reveals
it by the giving of his Spirit, who testifies of Christ to your
heart, of your need of him, of the only salvation and satisfaction
is to be found in him. The Spirit does that as a down
payment, as a testimony given to you to know that Christ died
for me, that He is my hope. And the Lord blesses that word
which He has started all the way to the end. He keeps you,
growing you in the grace and knowledge of the Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ. All right, so that we continue
in him, that we continue hearing him and walking by faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ. So don't refuse Christ. I know
that we would by nature, but we say that knowing that God
takes that word, the spirit takes that word and makes it effectual
in your heart to hear him, to receive him, to cry out to him,
to know, I need you, Lord, I need you. So Peter warns this in closing,
1 Peter 2, 6 through 8, wherefore also it is contained in the scripture,
behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect precious,
and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded. You
won't be ashamed trusting the righteousness of Christ when
you stand before the judge. because he is the one whom the
Father sent. He's the precious one. Unto you,
therefore, which believe, he is precious. Christ is made precious
to you. My hope, my confidence, my strength,
my faith, my love, it's all of him. But unto them which be disobedient,
who do not hear the command of God, the stone which the builders
disallowed, that is, they rejected him, Well, that one whom the
self-righteous reject and despise, he's the exalted one of the father.
He's the head, the chief stone, the cornerstone upon which the
building is built, is on him. And a stone of stumbling, right?
They cast him down, and they stumble over him. and they're
destroyed. A rock of offense even to them
which stumble at the word being disobedient whereunto also they
were appointed. So reconcile with your adversary
through Jesus Christ the Lord. He silences the law against you
so that the law has nothing to accuse you of, nothing to say
to you. that you might stand in His righteousness,
being accepted and approved of the Father for Christ's sake.
Amen.