And that was pretty music, all
the way around. Turn to Luke chapter 18. Sometimes these conferences,
they pick up kind of a theme without anybody knowing what's
going on. Sometimes they accuse us preachers
of colluding with one another to preach along the same things,
but that's not the case. But our brother just brought
a wonderful, blessed passage of scripture on what faith believes
and who faith believes. And I'm going to bring one on
faith also. So maybe it's a needed message,
I don't know. Many years ago, Henry Mann told
me that he wrote a book on faith and took it to a publisher. And
the publisher said, we don't want to publish that, nobody's
interested in that anymore. And that's true. We have a passage here in Luke
18 that you're very familiar with. It's a passage about the
parable of the Pharisee and the publican. And it's about faith. That's what it's about. A parable's
never about a parable. A parable's always about something
else. It's a comparative story to teach one specific thing. Look into Luke chapter 18 and
verse nine. Our Lord said, or it said of
our Lord, and he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in
themselves that they were righteous and despised others. Two men,
and this is the parable, two men went up to the temple to
pray, the one a Pharisee, the other
a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed
thus with himself, God, I thank thee that I am not as other men
are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week. I give
tithes of all that I possess. And the publican standing afar
off would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven. but
smote upon his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. And I tell you, this man went
down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone
that exalted himself shall be abased, and he that humbled himself
shall be exalted. Now the Word of God declares
that all men have not faith. Meaning that some have it and
some do not. And the faith being addressed
in that passage is the faith that our brother was talking
about this morning. That is believing wholly and
completely in the Lord Jesus Christ and trusting the Word
of God. Faith is subjective. When it
has an object, it's the Lord Jesus Christ. But we believe
what has been written. We believe what God has said.
We can't prove anything else. We can't prove that we have faith.
We can't produce evidence of it. Because we believe in what
is written, not in what is seen. We walk by faith and not by sight. So this speaks, that passage
in Thessalonians speaks of a God-given faith. And that's the only one
that is true faith. And that faith is given to all
the elect of God, all whom He's chosen from the foundation of
the world. And it's given to trust in and fix upon the person
and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ alone. In the natural
realm, men think very little of spiritual faith. Because all
men and women believe something. They believe in something and
the belief is in themselves or in their own natural faith. People
say that, I've not lost my faith. That's the way they talk. I have
my faith. Even those who call themselves
atheists hardly do believe that there is no God, though that
belief is akin to that of the devil who believes God and trembles. I don't believe atheists believe
there is no God, I believe they just don't want there to be one.
Their best hope is that there is not one they'll have to face. There is one true faith that
trusts and leans wholly upon Jesus Christ, and there are innumerable
malaise of beliefs and faiths that have no interest in Christ
at all. However, since the gospel is
simple and is singular, since Christ is the way, the truth,
and the life, since salvation is just one thing, all other
beliefs are gathered into a single category in the Word of God,
and that category is unbelief. Everyone on earth fits into one
or the other of these categories. Everybody. In those categories,
belief is in Christ, and unbelief is belief in something other
than Christ or someone else. Unbelief is not the lack of belief,
it's the lack of believing God. Now, the Lord gave this parable
of the Pharisee and the Publican to answer the rhetorical question
He put forth in verse 8. He says this, I tell you that
He will nevertheless avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when
the Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith in the earth? Now,
our Lord is not asking for information. He knows the answer to this. This question is based on the
fact that the Lord will avenge the elect who pray to Him in
faith day and night for help. So that question is based on
that importunate prayer of the elect. Revelation 6 says, And
they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord? How
long, O Lord? Holy and true dost thou not judge
and avenge our blood, saying, How long? And the answer to the
question that's posed in verse 8 is yes. He will avenge his
elect, and he will find faith on earth when he comes. and he'll
find both kinds. That's what the parable is about.
He'll find both kinds of faith. He'll find the faith of the elect,
represented by the character, the publican, and he'll find
the faith of the unbeliever, unbelieving faith, if you will,
of the Pharisee. And he gives this parable to
reveal this singular truth, that when he comes here, When He returns,
He will find it as it is now. He will find faith in the earth,
the true and the false faith. And everyone here today, and
everyone that walks upon the top side of God's earth right
now, has one of these two kinds of faith. But you have a faith. everyone does. The faith that
prays to God in utter need or the other that prays within himself
in utter confidence and self-righteousness. He spake this parable to those
who trusted in himself or in themselves that they were righteous
and despised others. So he spake this parable to those
who would never understand this parable. They didn't understand
what he was saying. They would never get the meaning
of it, and he spoke it for the benefit of the elect. That's what the Bible is for.
When the disciples at another time ask him why he's spaking
parables, He says, because it's given unto you to understand
the mysteries of the kingdom. And it's not given unto them. So it's a you and a them situation
that he sets forth. And it's about the faith. The
faith he will find when he returns. He's baked this parable unto
certain who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and
despised others. And those two things always go
together. If you are righteous in yourself,
you despise others. In fact, in order to be righteous
in yourself, you've got to find somebody you think is lower than
you and build your righteousness upon their ruins. The word trust
is synonymous with faith. When we say faith, we speak of
trusting Christ. These certain have faith, but
not God-given faith. These Pharisees have faith. Don't
doubt this man is a faithful man. The man of faith. But it's not God-given faith.
For that faith worketh by love, and this faith that he has causes
him to despise others. So that's not true faith. Natural
faith, which trusts in itself that it's righteous, and the
result is always somebody pays for that righteousness. Somebody's
going to get beat up because of it. Human righteousness. Natural
self-righteousness is hateful and cruel and is always about
distinguishing and exalting self at the expense of everyone else.
That's what the Lord said. God said of such, they say, stand
by thyself. Come not near unto me, for I
am holier than thou. God says these are smoke in my
nose. They burn God's eyes. He spake
thusly for the benefit of the elect, but the words were directed
to those who would never believe what he said. And if you're out
here this morning and you're trusting in yourself, that's
your righteousness. what I'm going to say this morning
and what our Lord says about these two men will go right over
your head and you'll never believe or understand a word of it. This
book is God's book written for His people as a divine communique
that only they, only they can understand. Part of the great
thing that God did for His people as explained in Ephesians chapter
1 was that He gave them wisdom. And they all have it. They have
divine wisdom. They don't know what it is until
they open this book and then they understand it. They understand
what the book says. They've been given an unction
from on high. They understand all things. The natural man receiveth
not the things of the spirit. Their foolishness do them. Neither
can he know them nor discern them, because they're spiritually
discerned. But the spiritual man discerneth all things, yet
he's discerned of none. He understands. Isn't it a wonder? He was talking about the miracle
of faith. The full assurance of faith,
the full assurance of knowledge. God has given his people faith
to believe this word. And they can't believe it unless
they understand it. So they understand what he is
saying. And the parable he spake was
a comparative or distinctive story designed to teach a single
truth. And the single truth is that
all men believe something. Some men believe the truth. Some men believe to the saving
of their souls. Others believe to the destruction
of their souls. And teaching thus, he defines
faith that he will find when he returns. Even Bob Dylan understood
it. In his album, Saved, he said,
everybody's going to serve somebody. And that's true. Everybody going
to serve somebody. And we'll all here today find
our faith in one of the these two men in the words that they
speak. Everybody here is going to find it. Two men went up to
the temple to pray. Two men. Now the Lord chose these
characters in this parable, and these are characters in a parable,
in a story. He chose these two characters
for this parable that no one would doubt that these men are
polar opposites, a Pharisee and a publican. to the world, one
was exemplary, had an exemplary life of rectitude, a man who
lived what he believed. He was a righteous man by all
human standards. He exemplified what men in the
world would say is faith. The other was the quintessential
felon. The two characters could not
be more opposite. One was a theologian, the other
was a thief. One was lauded, the other was
lambasted. One was clean, the other was
corrupt. There could be no more polar
opposites than these two characters. And he chose these two characters
to show what true faith is. and what false faith is. Both men were praying men because
both men prayed. One is a Pharisee, a noble, that's
what the word Pharisee insinuates, renowned, uber-religious, upright,
self-involved man who trusted that he was righteous and he
had reason to believe that because he presented righteous evidence
to others in his life all day long. And yet he despised this
other man. When he was in there, he said,
I'm not like that publican over there. I'm not like him. The other fellow was a publican.
Now if you read the scriptures, you'll find that publicans are
the lowest of the low. You might be called a sinner
in the New Testament, and that's a bad thing. But if you were
called a publican, you're worse than a sinner. Because a publican
was a tax collector who made his living stealing from his
own people under the guise of being an occupying government's
employee. He stole from his people. He
did usury. He was a thief. And he was the
lowest of the low. He was the scum of the earth. He was the worst thing ever,
worse than a sinner. He was despised by the society
on every level. He was the offscouring of the
universe. He was the dregs of humanity. And the first mention
is He to whom this parable is spoken. This publican don't even
get to speak first. Our Lord speaks about this Pharisee
first in verse nine. He says, and he spake this parable
unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous
and despised others. And this man's prayer was a tell-all. It was a tell-all. Made his prayer loud and long. Our Lord said they did that to
be seen of men. Because you see, if you're self-righteous,
sooner or later you're going to have to find somebody to prop
you up. You're going to have to find
somebody to agree with you that you are a righteous person. You're
going to have to do things so people will see them, so they
can give forth some kind of evidence that you indeed are who you say
you are. That's necessary. So his words
were loud and long. He made his prayer that way.
Pharisees are described as making loud prayer to be heard and seen
of men. He especially wanted this Republican to hear his prayer
because he even mentioned him in his prayer. He didn't come,
this fella, this Pharisee, didn't come into Asheville on the back
of a turnip truck. When he showed up, he made sure
everybody knew that he was a great man of faith, securely invested
in himself. He wanted people to know that.
In verse 11, the Pharisee stood He stood and prayed thus with
himself. He stood upright and bold and
tall and eyes lifted to the ceiling and brazen self-importance. Back
home a number of the natives get a kick out of white folks.
He says, all you have to do to get a white folk to think you're
really special is just kind of look off a thing. You should never think you're
spiritual. That's what this fellow was doing. I could just see him
lifting his eyes to heaven. Oh God, yeah. Oh God. He stood. And it says he prayed
thus with himself. That word with means unto. He
prayed unto himself. It means to. He prayed to himself. It means for. He prayed for himself. That's who this prayer was for.
He prayed for the advantage of himself. He believed this prayer
by virtue that it was he who prayed it thusly would be an
advantage to himself. That somehow he would gain something
from it. He believed his prayer was meritorious. Meritorious that it gained him
gravity and acceptance with God and with men. He believed that
this was one fine prayer. One fine prayer. And God was
bound to hear it and was obligated to hear it and answer it and
do something about it. This is how his prayer was. And
the mark of this prayer is entirely about his own merit revealed
in two things. What he is not and what he does
do. This is self-righteous. What
I am not and what I do. What I do. This is what he did.
He used the name of God It's hard to make a prayer without
doing that, but he used the name of God, but since he was praying
to himself, we know who God was in that scenario, don't we? He
was the God he was praying to. He prayed to himself, God, I
thank thee. I thank thee. That's poor thanks,
isn't it? That's the thing about Thanksgiving
and praise, the two things that we offer unto God, the fruit
of our lips, is that they remove us from the equation. You can't
thank somebody and yourself at the same time, can you? You can't
do that. It's impossible. If Jim gives
me something and I say thank you, I don't say thank you and
me. Forgiving me that. And if you praise someone, you
can't praise someone and praise yourself at the same time. It's
an impossibility. That's why that is the fruit
of our lips. We offer praise and thanksgiving to God because
He's done it all for us. This man thanked himself. I thank
God, he said, but he was thanking himself. He prayed to himself, God, I
thank Thee. I'm thankful that I'm not as
other men. I'm not as other men. I actually
heard a fellow say that one time. in a prayer, in a tri-state conference
he prayed that way. I think we're not like other
folks. Well, we're all Pharisees at heart, I suppose. I'm not
like other men. I don't drink and smoke and I
don't go to the movie show. I don't go on the internet and
I don't do this. And he said, I'm not unjust.
What was he saying? He must be saying I'm just if
he's saying I'm not unjust. He's declaring that he's just
and thus is justified in himself by what he does and what he is
not and what he does. And that by his works, though
by works shall no flesh be justified, this claim will be utterly destroyed
by the Lord. Now our Lord is going to utterly
destroy this whole man's religion with just a few words. He said,
I'm not an adulterer. I'm not an extortioner. I thought
of the story of Scott Richardson told me years ago he was at a
Bible conference somewhere and a preacher from Virginia, not
Jim, but another preacher from Virginia,
I think around Appomattox somewhere, seemed to me someone told me
he had a boat named Visitation. And every time they would call
his wife and ask him where he was, she'd say, he's out on Visitation.
But anyway, that preacher, Evidently, there was some adultery going
on in his church. And he was mad about it. And
so he came to that Bible conference and he just preached up one side
and down the other about adultery. He raked everybody over the coast
and just ripped them to shreds. And after he finished, he was
back behind shaking people's hands as Scott went out and said,
I'm not going to do that no more. I'm not an adulterer, he said.
I'm not an adulterer. I thank God. I thank me that
I'm not like this publican. He despised others. Then he prays
to himself in Thanksgiving for all that he does. He said, I
fast twice a week. It was only once a week, but
he fasted twice a week. And he did it. He did it. He's
not lying. I fast twice a week and tithe
of all I have. I go above and beyond the duty
in order that God will be obligated to bless me above other men.
I give tithes of all I have. This is not required by law,
but he did it, and it's obvious why. So he could tell folks that
he had done it and then obligate God to bless him for it. That's
why he did it, that God would recognize him. And our Lord said
this is the sin of his people over in Isaiah chapter 58. He
said this is their sin. Look over at Isaiah 58 for a
moment. In Isaiah chapter 58, how many
times have you been to revival meetings as a kid in false religion
and heard this first verse preached and you got straightened out
about all them bad things you was doing? Cry aloud and spare
not. Lift up thy voice like a trumpet
and show my people their transgression and the house of Jacob their
sins. Why, you bunch of drinking, tobacco-chewing, movie-going-to
folks. I remember this when I was a
kid. I remember this text being preached about every revival
there was. And I ended up down front crying because I was guilty
of most of what the place ever taught me. Well, what's their sin? Listen
to what he said. Yet they seek me daily. They delight to know my ways.
They come to the sanctuary. They delight to talk about God. As a nation that did righteousness,
they don't transgress like other men do. They forsook not the
ordinance of God. They do all those ceremonies
and all those sacrifices. They ask for me, the ordinance
of justice, when they find sin, they want somebody to be straightened
out about it. They take delight in approaching
unto me. They love to pray. That's their sin. Why? Look at the next line. Because
they say this. Wherefore have we fasted, say
they. And you don't pay attention. We don't get nothing for it.
Why hast thou fasted? We fasted, and you see it not.
You see it not. Wherefore have we afflicted our
souls, afflicted our souls, and thou takest no knowledge. Now
the affliction of the soul in the Old Testament means self-denial. Not denying oneself, that's a
whole different thing, but self-denial. What they would do is say, we've
stopped doing this, we fasted. We've prayed a long time, we've
given of ourselves, we've given our time, we've doubled up on
our time, so we've really done things for God, or we've kept
back from doing things that we liked, like the Roman idea of
Lent, you know. I'm gonna give up ice cream,
because that'll please Jesus. Please, wake up and smell the
coffee. But that's the idea. That's the
idea. Why haven't you paid attention
to us, God? Why haven't we had some kind
of a material or temporal blessing that we can say God is blessing
us? Our Lord says, Behold, in the day of your fast, you find
pleasure in exact all your labors. You
do it so you can hold it over men. You can hold it over men. Behold, you fast for strife.
and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness. Ye shall
not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on
high. Is this such a fast that I have chosen? God said no. If
you go on to read the fast that He's chosen, it sets people free.
It takes the shackles off their hands. Feeds them when they're
hungry. Clothes them when they're naked.
Gives them bread. That's the fast that God has
ordained. But these Pharisees have taken to this place and
said, look, this is what I do. And that's why our Lord said
in Matthew 6, when you give your alms, don't give them before
men. Give them in secret. When you pray, don't pray openly
before men so they'll say, wow, what a fine prayer. I had a person
say that to me once. You ever had them say that to
you? I was asked to pray at a had a function that Debbie was a
teacher's, somebody was retiring or something, and they asked
me to pray. You know, they ask a preacher to pray, and I just
hate to do that. But what I did, I just stood
up and quoted about eight or nine scriptures and said, amen.
And a lady come up and said, that's the finest prayer I ever
heard. I thought, boy, I missed that. I missed that. Praying to be seen. But men, that's what they do.
That's what they do. And our Lord said, when you pray,
don't do it in public. Don't do it out loud. Don't do
it where people will take notice of who you are and how good you
are at it. When you pray, go into your closet
alone with God and speak to Him from your heart. He said, I'll
reward you openly, but if you pray the other way, you'll get
your reward because people will pat you on the back and say how
great a prayer you are. And when you fast, don't come
out of the chamber after you've fasted and look like you've fasted. Don't come out all wore out and
say, man, I look so hungry and I'm unshaven and unkempt and
I just look bad. He says, before you go out after
you've fasted, go and wash your face and shave and comb your
hair and change your clothes. Come out looking like nothing's
ever happened. Because we don't do what we do
to be seen of men. And we don't do what we do to
be recognized by God. The child of God does what he
does because he believes. Because he believes. These two
men went up to the temple to pray. One of them was
a Pharisee. He told God all that he did.
People do that. And I'll be honest with you,
I'm a legalist in recovery. I'll be honest with you. I'm
still, there's a whole lot of Pharisee in me. I can remember
many times over the years, men have said things to me and I've
said things to men that were so wrong. One time a dear brother
of mine, after he just began to learn the gospel, he had been
in one of those religions, he cried a lot, you know, called
it a Holy Spirit religion, and they wept all the time, and they
talk about being beaten down by the Holy Spirit and crushed.
And he called me one night from a trailer out in his yard. He
couldn't sleep, so he went out to his little trailer. He called
me on the phone and said, Brother James, he said, I've just been
up all night struggling, struggling with these things. And I said,
well, how about that? And he told me later, he said,
if I'd had a gun, I'd have killed you by then. Another preacher
called me. Well, actually, I called a preacher
one morning. And just to see how he was doing, because I heard
he was sick, and I called him about eight o'clock in the morning.
He answered the phone, and I said, well, how you doing? He says,
I've been with Jesus for two hours. I said, well, how's he
doing? Short conversation. We hate self-righteousness, especially
when we see it in ourselves. Old Herbert Brown. I can't think
of his name. No, not Herman Moore. Herbert
Wilson, pastor of Rosemont years ago when I was a member there. He said we talk He said if a preacher preaches
on adultery all the time, he's probably got a problem with it.
So that's why most of us preachers preach on self-righteousness
all the time because we got a problem with it. This man gained his righteousness
or his own thought of his righteousness by looking down on everybody
else. But remember, a Pharisee is a sincere, heartfelt, religion and their
prayer is a prayer of faith be it false faith. This man believed
what he was saying and he believed what he was saying
about himself was true. That's one of the men. The other
man was a publican. And he set forth as a man of the other kind of
faith. The other kind of faith that
the Lord will find when he returns to this earth. This man, this
hated fellow, stood afar off. This is in probably reverence
to being in proximity to the Pharisee. He didn't want to be
near that guy. He dared not get too close to that holier-than-thou
fellow, lest he be further disdained and publicly humiliated and scorched
by the flame of the Pharisee's zeal. He would not even lift
his eyes. He bowed down under some weight
of sin. He wasn't mad at nobody. He didn't despise others, but
rather he abhorred himself. He trusted nothing about himself. He smote upon his breast, it
says, where his diseased and deceitful heart resided. His
fingers not pointed outward, it's pointing inward. He's not
scoffing at others, he points his finger at himself. He does
not have time to judge the Pharisee, his sins are all over him. like
a great and mighty torrent, and his prayer is not filled with
great swelling words. It is a short and precise and
concise utterance, seven little words long. No theological treatise
here. Nothing that will fit the scheme
of higher academe here. No braggamony meeting, nothing
about what he is not or what he does. Seven little words,
a perfect encapsulation and enunciation of true faith and true prayer. Takes his headquarters in the
dust and cries, God, be merciful. Oh, how merciful. God, be merciful to me, the sinner. One man said, He said, God put
the blood on the mercy seat for me. God propitiate yourself for
me. So few words, yet it's a prayer
recognized by the Lord as the prayer of true faith. The reason
for so few words is this, that no matter the circumstance, no
matter the plea, no matter what you're asking for, true prayer
is always basically this, God be merciful to me, the sinner. Nothing more, nothing less, and
nothing else. This parable was heard. and it
was heard and understood by the elect even to this day. The Lord
explains the truth of the faith that he will find in the earth
when he returns and does so in no uncertain terms. He said,
and I tell you, after he had made the parable, I tell you
concerning these two men, this man that would not so much as
lift his head, but smote upon his breast, stood afar off and
cried, be merciful to me, the sinner. This man went down to
his house justified. What about that Pharisee? The words and works and prayer
of self-righteousness of the Pharisee is summed up in utterly
dismissive language. What about that Pharisee? Christ
is rather than the other. Totally dismissed. Rather than
the other. This is the epitaph engraved
in eternal literature upon the gravestone of Pharisees rather
than the other. He had said He was just, but
He was not justified. He was thankful that He was not
like the other, but God said He's the other. He trusted in
Himself that He was righteous and despised others, and God
said He's the other. Which faith is your faith? One
of these two. Which faith will Christ find
in you when He comes? The same one that's in you right
now. the sinner pleading for mercy or the other. God bless you.