The lesson this morning will
be taken from Luke chapter 14, verses 12 through 15. Luke 14, verses 12 through 15. And the subject is lessons in
life. Let's read these verses together.
Luke chapter 14, verse 12. Then said he also to him that
bade him, when thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends,
nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbors,
lest they also bid thee again. These guys are looking for something
in return. The supper has an end to it.
And they're looking for a return, and the Lord said, when you invite
your friends, then they're going to invite you, and you're just
going to break even. That's what He's telling them. Lest they bid thee again,
and a recompense be made thee. But when thou makest the feast,
call the poor, and the maimed, and the lame, and the blind,
and thou shalt be blessed. For they cannot recompense thee. For thou shalt be recompensed
at the resurrection of the just. And when one of them that sat
at meat with him heard these things, he said unto him, Blessed
is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God. These are
lessons in life. And what I mean by that is eternal
life. The life of faith. We have life. We've been raised
from death unto life. There's a difference. This world
walks around in spiritual death. They live in spiritual death.
They're not aware of it. It's all they've ever known.
They don't know anything about eternal life. They've never been
born of God. Nicodemus didn't understand anything
that Christ was telling him. Because our Lord was talking
in spiritual terms. And he told him at the end of
it, he said, well, what should I do? Crawl back in my mother's
womb, be born again? I don't know what you're talking
about, a new birth. And the Lord said, Nicodemus,
I used earthly terms to tell you these things. What if I'd
have used heavenly terms? What if I'd have rose above you
as I can and declared things too high for you to understand.
What if I had done that? I condescended to tell you something. An eternal life that the Lord
gives us is what enables us to hear and understand these things. These are lessons in the life
of faith and these things are not true in regard to achieving
greatness in this world. Don't use this formula thinking
you're going to achieve greatness in this world. To get ahead in
this world, you must push your way up. That's the only way you're
going to get ahead. You can lay back and do what
you want, but it's not going to do you any good in the world.
I'm talking about in the world, how the world operates, the principles
upon which the world functions. If you want to sit in a high
seat, you're going to have to take it. It's the only way you're
going to get it. And if you're willing to settle
for little, you're sure to get it. That's the world. And that's how things work in
the world. But these are lessons for believers, lessons for them
that are crucified to the world. and the world unto them. Their
eyes are on the kingdom of God. Their hearts are in the citizenship
of that promised land, a city that hath foundations, whose
builder and maker is God. And this book that I'm taking
this lesson from is a spiritual book. Its words are spiritually
inspired. I can, without apology, say Paul
said, because Paul did. Paul wrote, I can say Peter said,
and I'll be correct. I can say Isaiah said, and I
can be correct. But I can also say the Holy Ghost
said, and be just as correct. God spoke through those holy
men of God. This book is the children's bread.
This book will always be a controversy until God quickens a man's soul,
and then it becomes a personal letter to him. You read those
promises and they're promises to you. That's what happens when
he quickens his soul. It becomes your, it's your bread.
This is God's word to you. And people tell me all the time,
well you think everybody that disagrees with you is lost. Disagreeing
with me is not the issue. It's disagreeing with God. That's
the issue. He that believeth not God. Now he said this over in 1 John
5, if you want to read it for yourself. He said this, having
said, having talked about the testimony of God in this world,
which is through the gospel. And then he said, he that believeth
not God. This is the record God gave of
his son. I'm not telling you things that
I said around the thought of. I give you references all the
time for things that I say. These are things that God said,
and he that believeth not God, John
said, hath made him a liar. And these lessons are contrary
to the ways of the world. Our Lord is addressing a house
full of wicked, self-righteous, worldly legalists who'd sell
out their grandma for a higher seat in religion. And let me tell you something.
The man who will sell out God for a seat will sell your soul
in a heartbeat. He'll sell your soul. They call
them in the Scriptures merchandisers of men's souls. Through covetousness, he said,
shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you. That's
2 Peter 2.3. These were religious rebels,
those whom our Lord and John the Baptist called backers. When
he saw them walk in in their broad phylacteries and their
dress and with their religious speech and noses in the air,
he said, you vipers, why are you here? Why are you here? You need to go home and come
back with repentance. Can men deceive men? Can they do these things? They
cannot. They cannot. It takes an act of God. And these
men will con me and deceive me and reprobate concerning the
faith. And they had prepared this great feast and invited
all their friends and all their rich neighbors. There was only
three men there that day. Two, possibly three, that would
benefit from this supper. Our Lord, He'd benefit in it
because He's the only one there with the power to help a poor
sinner and to feed a hungry sinner. He's the only one there. He'd
benefited from it. And that poor sinner would benefit
from it being made whole by the Lord. He'd benefit from it. But there was another who sat
out there in the crowd and when he heard these things he said,
that will eat bread in the kingdom of God. And he benefited being taught
of God. Try to picture, if you will,
a carefully planned dinner. Have you ever been to one of
them, a company has a dinner and they got special seats and
special guests and, you know, this was a carefully planned
dinner party. And all the who's who was there
and each seating themselves as they saw themselves in their
own mind. Well, I'm probably the wisest
and the best guest he's got, so I'm going to sit in this seat.
And our Lord was watching them. He was watching what they did,
watching how they did. Now, I don't know if you ever
thought about it or not, but he watches us. He watches how
we act, how we think, how we prepare. He's watching. And he watched them. And our Lord was there in their
own eyes. He's just going to be another
feather in their cap, just another step up the ladder. They're going
to use him like they were going to use that man with the palsy,
or I mean the drops. But the Lord spoiled their dinner
party big time. He begins by stripping them of
their so-called religious coverings. especially their pride. What
do self-righteous religionists really love? What do they set
their affections on? What do they really love? They
love the praise of men. They dress for it, they talk
for it, they prepare for it in schools and get all these diplomas
and hang them up. They love the uppermost seats.
They love to be ushered in. My in-laws used to take Kathy
and I out to dinner. And way up in northern Ohio,
there was a, I guess there was a chain of them across the land,
but it was called the Brown Derby. And we'd go there and we'd get
steak. And we'd go there in a big old line. There'd be 25 or 30
people in line. We'd be standing there in line.
And all of a sudden, a group would come in, and you could
tell they was somebody. And they'd come in, and he'd
go and whisper something to the maitre d', and the maitre d'
would take them, and he'd usher them back to a private room,
open the door, and they'd go right in and eat. And they were
well-known. They were doctors, lawyers, probably
office holders in the city, the mayor, managers of businesses,
and so on. Men love the uppermost seats.
They love that. They live for it. Luke 11, 43, and chapter 20 in
Luke, verses 46 and 47, he'll tell you that. That's exactly
what he says. They love the uppermost seats.
He tells you what they love. And then he exposes their exploitation
of the weak and the poor. They were using this poor guy
with the dropsy. This man was helpless. He was
all swollen and red and weak and here he is. And they're going to use him.
They're going to use him for their gain. They're just going
to use him. He's not there because they felt sorry for him or loved
him or anything else. It's nothing but exploitation
of the weak and the poor And then he exposes their condemnation
of those less honorable than themselves. They condemned others. Now, if you don't think this
is true of religion, you go hang out with them for a while. Anybody
who don't measure up to their standards. I ain't talking about
what the Word of God says. I'm talking about to their standards.
Anybody who don't measure up, you're out. You're out. That man don't know God. He don't
measure up. exposes their condemnation of
those less honorable than themselves. And they'll always pick somebody
more ignorant, more weak, more uneducated than they are. And
then secondly, he turns to the master of the house. This was
the honored guest that he was talking to. Now he's going to
turn to the guy who hosted the supper. He turns to the master
of the house, the host of this great feast. And he uncovers
his motives. It's to get the advantage. It's
taking advantage of his friends. That's what he hoped to do. He
honors them to be honored by them. Everything he did, he did
for his own interest, not for the good of his guests and not
for the glory of God. This was a religious gathering.
These were religious men. This wasn't just a supper. This
was a religious gathering. And our Lord had nothing for
worldly religion but rebuke and warning. Yet right in the middle
of these rattlesnakes, right in the middle of it, He teaches
His people these valuable lessons. And I pray that the Lord will
teach them to us as He did for them. The first lesson taught
is that His coming into the world was to seek to serve and to save
poor needy sinners just like you and I. That's the first lesson. You know, we used to, in religion,
we'd think about people with the most potential. And then
we'd go out into the neighborhood and we'd go to their houses.
We didn't go down there to the ghetto. We didn't go down, you
know, somewhere Like that. We didn't want to add any problems
to the church. We'd go to those who had some
potential. We'd go to them. Or we'd just
know some people, and they were a little more religious than
these, so they had the potential, so we'd ask them to come. Well, this is the first lesson
he teaches us. The worst man there, probably
the most ignorant, most needy man in the room was the man with
the dropsy. And the Lord came to save him
that day. He came to save him. Oh, great God in heaven, allow
us this morning to look through the fog of this flesh and this
world and see the exceeding riches of His grace. Think of it. Think of it. Think of the hundreds of thousands
and millions that he passed by and called you. Huh? Humbling, isn't it? Surrounded by Antichrist religion,
our Savior brings relief and joy to this poor suffering sinner.
And he suffers their sneers and their soft-spoken chides and
all these things. He suffers their proud thoughts
of rejection and their awful pretense of religion. Don't religion
make you sick now? Now that you can see through
it, I've had to go to a few weddings. And I went to a Catholic funeral. My father-in-law was Catholic,
and I went to his funeral. I tell you, it just made me want
to throw up. I watched that guy prance around
and listen to him talk in his Latin and, you know, it just like fingernails on a blackboard
to me. I just, I can't stand it. But in spite of all their
efforts, in spite of the influence of Satan who was using them the
same way they were using that man with the drops of Our Lord
ministers the mercy and grace of God to one given him by the
Father. He saves that poor lost sinner. Ain't that how he works today?
Don't he work the same way? Isn't this the story of every
poor sinner saved by grace? I tell you, it's my story. My friend, apart from the intervention
of God in Christ, the maze, I'm going to call it a maze because
it's so confusing. But apart from the intervention
of God in Christ, the maze of false religion would swallow
up this world. Swallow it up. If the Lord, by
His grace, didn't choose to save some, and by His power save them,
and give them eyes to see and ears to hear, that religion would
swallow up this world. Look at them. Their churches
cover three and four blocks in the city. No one would be saved. But He
did come, and He did minister. And He did bring comfort and
salvation to some. Listen to this, over in John
chapter 6, verses 39 and 40. He sums up the reason for His
coming into this world. And He does it in these two verses.
In verse 39, He tells us it was to preserve, to save, and to
raise up at the last day all that the Father had given to
Him. That's why He came. He's going to get them, He's
going to save them, He's going to preserve them, and He's going
to raise them up at the last day. And then in verse 40, He
said that everyone that seeth the Son and believeth on Him
may have everlasting life. That's the will of God, and our
Lord is going to accomplish that. He's going to accomplish that.
And He said that they shall be raised up at the last day. Our Lord's showing us by personal
example the very heart of God's redemptive will. It's to save
sinners from whom he could never be recompensed. There's nothing
you could ever do to repay him for what he did. Nothing. Nothing. Grace is so incalculable
by this world. You just can't The longer you
look at it, the deeper it gets. Every sinner our Lord healed
is a picture of the real sinner. All of them together give a good
picture of the sinner. They're blind. Scripture said
their understanding being darkened because of the blindness of their
heart. They're blind. They're paralyzed. What can a poor sinner do for
himself? Christ said, without me, you can do nothing. He's
dead. You hath he quickened who were
dead. We're demon-possessed. We walk, Ephesians 2.2, according
to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now
worketh in the children of disobedience. We're all lepers, dying from
the inside out. Issues of blood, lame, dumb, and the list goes
on. Poor sinners. Every poor sinner
that our Lord healed is a picture of the sinner. He came into this
world to save sinners. That's the first lesson in spiritual
life. Why did Christ die on that cross? Paul said, this is a faithful
saying and worthy of all acceptation. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners, of whom I am chief. And then secondly, he
came to save poor sinners. In order to save these poor sinners,
he had to take the lowest seat. He had to go to the bottom. He
made himself, listen, Not a poor reputation of no reputation. Isaiah writes in the power of
God's Spirit, he is despised and rejected of men. Talking
about when our Lord appears in this world, hundreds of years
before he actually came. And by the Spirit of God, he
wrote and he said, he is despised and rejected of men, a man of
sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we, just like them, hid,
as it were, our faces from Him. He was despised, and we esteemed
Him not. I was talking to Yvonne about
it this week. I cannot imagine the distance
from the throne of glory to the death on the cross. Can you? He who thought it not robbery
to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation. How
far down did he stoop? Oh, my soul. We ought not have
any problems, stupid, should we? No. From one equal with God to one
forsaken by God. And is there a more striking
passage in all of Scripture than our Lord's own words, I came
down from heaven. I came down. Satan came down
from heaven, never to see it again. A third of the heavenly host
kept not their first estate. They were cast out of heaven.
They're reserved in chains of darkness under everlasting hell. Never to see the light of Christ
again. But this man came down from heaven, bore the wrath of
God, then ascended back into glory and took his seat at the
right hand of God. Humility is a gift of God's grace. And you can't serve God with
fleshly pride. You just can't do it. You know, he came down from heaven.
He who thought it not robbery to be equal with God, made himself
of no reputation, took on him the form of the servant, and
become obedient unto death. And here's what it says, being
found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself. I saw. It was humbling just to appear
in the form of a man. He's lower than the angels. And then to humble yourself as
a man. And become obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross. Christ is the pattern for all
humility. When I walk humbly before my
God, he's my pattern. And his humility was voluntary,
it was uncoerced, it was selfless. He didn't humble himself to be
exalted, he humbled himself out of the love of his people. That's
why he humbled himself. And he humbled himself for the
glory of God. And I'll tell you this, the grace
of God experienced in the heart is what humbles men. It's a humbling
experience to learn what you are by nature. Everybody thinks they have potential. Everybody thinks there's something
in there. There's a spark in there. There's
something in there. And if I fan it enough, I can...
There ain't anything in there. It's the biggest black hole you
ever peered into. There's nothing there. And it's a humbling experience
to learn what you are by nature and by choice and by practice. They all had spiritual dropsy,
but only one was made to experience it, to feel its effects, to stand
helpless in its grip. Will we serve God? Let us learn
to take the lowest seat. True love, don't you hear me
now, gives itself. That's what it gives. It gives
its greatest gift, it gives itself. Not a part of yourself, all of
yourself. Christ loved the church and gave
So our Lord comes down from heaven to save chosen sinners, and to
do so he willingly took the lowest seat. And then the third lesson
in life is to live with our mind's eye on eternity. He didn't evaluate the situation
looking at the situation. He evaluated the situation with
the eyes on eternity. There's coming a resurrection
day, a day when the hidden things of darkness will be brought out
into the light, when the redeemed shall be caught up to meet our
Lord in the air, and the wicked and unbelieving shall be cast
into the lake of fire. That's what the Scripture said.
Everything our Lord did, he did in the light of eternity. Eternity,
to some degree, is beyond our comprehension. We were born, we live out our
days as creatures of time, don't we? But our souls are eternal. And eternity is not just another
word for everlasting. Eternity has a quality about
it. It has to do with our eternal
God. There is no eternity apart from
God. God is eternity. He is the eternal God. And eternal
life is to know God, and eternal hell is to be separated from
God forever. And for chosen sinners saved
by grace, we're assured that when this earthly tabernacle
is destroyed, when death comes to this body, we have a building
of God. A house not made with hands,
now listen, eternal in the heavens. In the heavens. And we also know
that all those who believe not shall not see life, but the wrath
of God abideth on them. Even now, even now in this day
of grace, in this day of mercy, he that believeth not, he shall
not see life. And the wrath of God abideth
on him. And all men everywhere are commanded
to repent, because he is appointed a day in which he will judge
this world in righteousness by that man. That man whom he hath
ordained, whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that
he hath raised him from the dead. And when he says assurance, he's
not talking first of all about an assurance of life. He's talking
about an assurance of judgment. Christ died for our sins and
then God raised him from the dead. But he's also an assurance
of life because he didn't stay in atonement. God did raise him
from the dead. Well, let me ask you something. If Christ must die for the elect,
Will He spare the wicked? No, sir. No, sir, He won't. If judgment come upon Christ
our substitute, will He spare those who believe not? He will
not. He will not. May the Lord be
pleased to teach us these lessons of life. What our Lord came to
do. What He did. and how he did it,
and where he's at. He's in eternity. The next advent
of our Lord will be to come and receive us unto himself. Every
eye will see him. Every eye will see him. It'll
be so fast, so quick, you won't have time to think.