Luke chapter 11 and verse 37. And we're speaking about the Lord Jesus, the Lord has been ministering and whether it's following these exact words or whether it is on a previous occasion when he had been speaking, Luke tells us here that, and as he spake, a certain Pharisee besought him to dine with him. And he went in and sat down to meet. And when the Pharisees saw it, he marvelled that he had not first washed before dinner. And the Lord said unto him, Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter, but your inward part is full of ravening, ravening, and wickedness. Ye fools, did not he that made that which is without make that which is within also? But rather give alms of such things as ye have, and behold, all things are clean unto you. But woe unto you Pharisees, for ye tithe mint and rue, and all manner of herbs. and pass over judgment and the love of God, these ought ye to have done and not to leave the other undone. Woe unto you, Pharisees, for ye love the uppermost seats in the synagogues and greetings in the markets. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye are as graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them. Amen. May the Lord bless to us this reading from his word. These are These are strong words from the Lord. He obviously felt it necessary to severely rebuke these men with his language on this occasion. It isn't clear why this Pharisee invited Jesus to dine with him. Perhaps In some way he was genuinely impressed at the speech of the Lord Jesus. Some way attracted by the Lord's charisma. Maybe he was looking for an opportunity to more personally discuss the Lord's doctrine. It does appear from time to time that certain of the Pharisees were affected by the things that they heard from the Lord. And we know, for example, that a man like Nicodemus and a man like Joseph of Arimathea, who were both Pharisees, were true believers. Or maybe it was a ploy on the part of this Pharisee to get Jesus separated from the crowd so that he could be examined more rigorously in a concerted way and in a private manner without the Pharisees being made to look foolish when the Lord, as he invariably did, skillfully exposed their false arguments and their hypocrisy. For the Lord's part, it's interesting that he was willing to accept the Pharisee's invitation. Of course the Lord knows the hearts, he knew the mind, he knew the thoughts of all of those around about him, but he was willing to accept this invitation and I think that that was characteristic of the Lord throughout his ministry. He was amenable to accept hospitality from those who ostensibly showed kindness, even if he knew the true motives of their heart. Of course, this was not the first Pharisee's house that the Lord had entered in order to have a meal, nor was it the first one in which he had been ill-treated and judged. Nevertheless, the Lord knew what he was doing. And in some respects, perhaps, it shows that despite their opposition, the Pharisees continued to be puzzled by the Lord. He remained an enigma to them, that here was one who was so God-honouring in the things that he said, and yet distanced himself from the practical outworkings of the rituals of the Pharisees. Whatever the reason, it seems that there was a critical element in the Pharisee's motivation because he at once found a reason to fault and to disapprove of the Lord's conduct. We might suppose that having been invited to eat, and it appears the dinner being prepared and ready, ready to be consumed, that the Lord at once sat down and began eating. didn't stand on ceremony or fulfil the ritual washings of the Jews or of these Pharisees before food. These Pharisees had become accustomed to follow these rituals, they were They were not enforced by the Law of Moses, they had been developed as practices but they were felt to be important and this was part of the ritual and the ceremony of the Pharisees' conduct. And the Pharisee, whatever his name is, he noted, at least in his own mind, and he marked it down as a fault against the Lord, that the Lord had not been ceremonially washed. He had not washed. And I don't know whether that was publicly mentioned or not. It might be that it was that something audibly was mentioned and spoken about, if only because of the strong response that it drew from the Lord. It gave the Lord opportunity to condemn the hypocrisy of the scribes and the Pharisees. and to teach, at least by implication, the necessity of justification and an inward purity of spirit before God. The Pharisees, they attempted to appear outwardly holy. ceremonially righteous and altogether superior to other men. But the truth was that they were deceitful and devious and wicked to the core. And the Lord confronted them with their hypocrisy and he showed that while they polished the outside of the cup and the plate, inside it was full of corruption. They polished their utensils, but the food and drink that they served from those utensils, that which they consumed was stolen and obtained by corrupt means. Outwardly, they pretended to be clean and spotless. Inwardly, their hearts and their souls were full of ravening and wickedness. And that's the natural state of every human heart. The Bible is clear about that. It tells us that all have sinned, that there is that innate antipathy towards God, there is that inherent rebellious nature in every man towards God, notwithstanding all the religious practices that men can bring to their lifestyle. The Pharisees spent their time studying the law of God, and carefully scrutinising every part in order to discover what pleased God. And then they built a framework of what they imagined was perfect obedience. But it was just a sham. It merely covered a heart of sin. They laboured to appear righteous while glossing over and ignoring the filth that ought to have been their greater concern. And that's how all man-made religion works. You get a few people around you that will agree to a common standard of behaviour. You find ways to fulfil that standard, making it as easy or as difficult as the group determines. And then, presumptuously, you claim to have pleased God by doing so. And you tell one another that God is happy, that your reward is assured. that you can be at ease, you placate your own conscience with the applause of your fellow hypocrites. And people spend their whole life being deceived and deceiving others. And at the end of their life, their priest or their pastor or their minister or their imam or their elder, celebrates their success and pronounces them happy entrance into their heavenly paradise. And so the error, the hypocrisy, the wickedness perpetuates. All of this man-made religion and mutual back scratching and back slapping means absolutely nothing. as far as true peace with God is concerned and salvation by Jesus Christ is concerned. And well might the Lord Jesus call these men fools. He says, you fools, That man truly is a fool who labours all his life to look good to others on the outside while his heart remains vile and corrupt on the inside. We might think of the uppermost seats in the synagogue as positions of honour in the church. What will it profit a man to be a church elder? or a church deacon or a moderator or a minister if he has never met Jesus Christ and known his sins forgiven? What will it profit if a person has a fine reputation in the town as a big church man or a faithful worker or a regular attendee if they are strangers to grace? These people are like hidden graves. They're dead and they're buried in their soul and outwardly no one can tell. But what eternal benefit is there in carefully tithing and strictly managing and precisely practising all the rules that a church sets before you? What we eat, what we drink, how we dress, what we watch on TV or the internet, what we say and how we say it. All these things can be carefully sieved and strained, and in the end, all we are is a straight-laced fraud. These men were hypocrites because they told themselves that pleasing God consisted in what they did outwardly without considering for a moment that it was their very being that was corrupt and offensive to God. Let me wrap up these thoughts by setting before you a simple request. Please, please, don't make the mistake of imagining that there is anything in you, outside of Christ, that is in any way pleasing to God. It just isn't. Too many churches have for too long stressed that the way we live changes God's opinion of us. How can what we do or don't do change God who is unchangeable, who is immutable? Rather, the gospel is this. If a person is in Christ, if a man or a woman, a boy or a girl is cleansed by the blood of Christ, covered with the righteousness of Christ, reconciled by the death of Christ and accepted through the mediation of Christ, then they have peace with God and God views that person to be as righteous as Christ himself. They are imputed with the very righteousness of God and you can't better that no matter how hard you try. And how does a person know if they are in Christ or not? Well, that's easy. People make it hard, but it's easy. They have faith in his finished work. It isn't about feeling happy and joyful in the Lord. It isn't about having a clear conscience. It isn't about never having any doubts. It isn't about having victory over sin. It isn't about maintaining a good reputation in the world or being fruitful in your witnessing or being respected by your neighbours. Amen to all of that. But I can show you an example in Scripture that contradicts every one of these characteristics. And yet the poor soul involved was one of the Lord's lambs, one of the Lord's little ones. It's faith in the sufficiency of Christ. What does that mean? It's believing that no matter what you've done, or indeed what you will yet do, Christ's blood is sufficient to cleanse every sin and Christ's righteousness is sufficient to cover every need. And what if your faith is small? What if it is variable? What if it sometimes doesn't seem to have any object at all? What if sometimes you're not even sure if you believe at all? It isn't your faith that matters. It isn't your constancy that counts. It is the faith of Christ and the faithfulness of God that brings God's people home to glory and Christ's church to perfection. It might sound odd for me to say this, but I am so glad, I rejoice, that Elijah got depressed and wanted to give up and die. Because it shows me that when I feel like that, I need not fear that God has turned his back on me. and he'll still speak in that still small voice. I get comfort from realising that Abraham and Isaac and Jacob were all devious men that exhibited conduct that no self-justifying man would admit to. And yet they were under the covenant grace of God. And they are in heaven today, sitting with all the other sinners whom Christ has cleansed with his blood. Thomas doubted. Peter denied. Saul killed and tortured believers in God's name. Paul and Barnabas fell out and couldn't get on with each other. Moses lost his temper. David committed adultery and slew an innocent man. We could go on and on and on. And friends, I'm not advocating sin that grace may abound, but I am trying to show you that it is not the works of man but the grace of God that matters. It is not what we are or are not or appear to be on the outside, but what we are in the heart, in the soul, in the new creation. It is that that matters. May the Lord bless these thoughts to us today. Amen.