Well, it's good to see everybody
back. Been kind of skimpy around here
for a week or two. Everybody's been sick or in quarantine
or something. If you will, take your Bibles
and turn with me to Luke chapter 7. Luke chapter 7. And let's read
together verses 31 through 35. Luke 7, 31. And the Lord said, Whereunto
then shall I liken the men of this generation? And to what
are they like? They are like unto children sitting
in the marketplace and calling one to another and saying, We
have piped unto you, and ye have not danced. We have mourned to
you, and ye have not wept. For John the Baptist came neither
eating bread nor drinking wine, and ye say, He hath a devil. The Son of Man is come eating
and drinking, and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber. a friend of publicans and sinners.
But wisdom is justified of all her children. Now, the lesson
this morning is justifying the wisdom of God. What's he talking about when
he talks about the wisdom of God? Well, Christ is our wisdom. If you go through the book of
Proverbs and you see it's all about wisdom. Wisdom, he said,
is the principal thing, therefore get thee wisdom. And he talks
to his children about this wisdom. And if you'll go through the
book of Proverbs and just lift that word wisdom out and insert
the word Christ, it'll give you an accurate rendering of the
book of Proverbs. Christ is our wisdom. of God
are ye in Christ, who of God is made unto us, what? Wisdom. Wisdom. He's our wisdom. So when
we're talking about justifying the wisdom of God, we're talking
about getting on God's side in this thing of Jesus Christ. Now
the last two verses in the lesson last week spoke of two kinds
of hearers. All those who heard him, both
John and Christ, justified God being baptized with the baptism
of John. These are believers. These are
those given ears to hear. Blessed are your ears for they
hear. It's not given unto them to know
the secrets, the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but unto
you it's given. It's given. These are believers.
And then the second kind here are those who heard, they heard
the Lord Jesus Christ preach. What would that be worth to you? Every now and then I'll have
a little liberty in a message and somebody will write me or
call me or something and say, boy, I really appreciated that
message. That was a good message. God spoke to my heart. Can you
imagine hearing the Lord Jesus himself preach? No doubt about
what he's saying. Might be reservations about what
I say, and I exhort you, whatever I say, go home and prove it.
Go home and look it up in the Word of God. But with him, you didn't have
to look it up. You knew every word that proceeded out of his
mouth was accurate. He is the Word. And they'd heard
these things, and they rejected the counsel of God which was
contrary to them, it says here, against them. And they refused to justify God
being not baptized of God's servants. And it is to these kinds of hearers
that these verses are given. Whereunto then, having reference
to what he'd just spoken, shall I liken the men of this generation?
I've told you about the two kinds of hearers, and how shall I liken,
how can I picture, so you can get an accurate view, how can
I picture the men of this generation? Now there's another phrase here
that I've overlooked for years and years, and somebody pointed
it out to me, and I went and looked it up, and I'll give you
all the references that I took. And the phrase is this generation. I always took that as if you'd
use that, if I were to use that term this morning, what would
you think? You'd think about all the people of our age, wouldn't
you? If I talked about this generation,
you'd say, well, he's talking about people born about the same
time he was or a little later, you know. That's what he's talking
about. This generation. And if I were
to use that phrase today, In common conversation, that's what
men say. It's just men of our time. But with some careful consideration,
I've seen that this phrase, this generation, is always taken to
mean this unbelieving world. Now, if you have a pencil, jot
these scriptures down. Psalm 12, verses 1 through 8. Psalm 71, 12 through 18. Matthew 12, 41 and 42, and Matthew
23, verses 29 through 38. And this is just a few, just
a few of the verses where he uses this word, this generation,
to mean the very thing that I just told you. Though it does carry a reference
to the present, it has a stronger reference to all generations
of men who have continually generated children that hate God. Stephen
said to the unbelieving Jews in Acts 7.51, you stiff-necked
and uncircumcised in heart, you do always resist the Holy Ghost. Now listen, as your father's
dead, so do you. So do you. you always resist the Holy Ghost. Which of the prophets have not
your fathers persecuted? And they have slain them which
showed before the coming of the just one. Peter in Acts chapter
2 verse 40 said, save yourselves from this untoward generation. This generation who talks about
knowing God, talks about loving God, but they don't know God
and they don't love God. It's an untoward generation. And they're called a generation
because they're naturally generated children of Adam, children under
the curse of God. And let this sink in. This generation
is made up of unregenerate men, those who have heard with the
hearing of the ear and rejected the counsel of God. And this
generation is the generation of anti-Christ religion. It's
contrary to Christ. Just as it was contrary to John
and contrary to Jesus Christ, it's contrary. It's anti-Christ. The natural men. What's he saying,
1 Corinthians 2.14? But the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God, Well, you couldn't say
he didn't receive the things of the Spirit of God if they
weren't preached to him. And that's what he's talking
about in the verse above it. Read the two verses above it.
We've received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit
which is of God. That we might know the things
that are freely given to us of God. And these things we've preached,
not in the wisdom which man's wisdom teaches, with the Holy
Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things to spiritual, but the
natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God,
their foolishness unto him. These are those who will not
bow to God. They're not going to bow to God's
Christ. They're not going to do that. They're not going to
bow to God's means, and they're not going to submit to God's
man. Paul described them in 1 Timothy
6, 5 as bringing perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, always
wanting to argue, always trying to throw something out. And you
look at it and you say, wow, I've never heard anybody say
that before. And they'll sit there and dispute
and argue about it, hours and hours and hours. Bringing perverse disputings
of men of corrupt minds destitute of the truth. They don't know
the truth. Desiring to be teachers of the
law, understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm.
And this generation takes in the immediate company of the
scribes, which are called lawyers back in our text, and also of
the Pharisees who were promoters of self-righteousness and legalism
and ceremonialism. This generation has been in every
generation and it will be until the Lord returns. We're always
gonna have people of this generation. In the world, he said, in the
world. In general. Where at in the world? In the world. I don't care where
it is. You shall have trouble, tribulation. And it's to this evil and adulterous
generation that our Lord gives this simile. He's gonna draw
us a picture of what He's saying. He's gonna give us a likeness.
And first of all, He likens them to children. To children. Children in a public place, in
a marketplace, in a crowd of people. Now before I get into
this, let me say this. Our Lord said if we don't become
His little children, we can't enter the kingdom of God. We must become as little children,
meek and humble and inoffensive and trusting, depending completely
upon our father. We must do that. Our Lord took
a little child and set him on his lap and he said, except you
become like this little one, you're not going to enter the
kingdom of God. There's a sense in which children have a good
place, a good place, and they picture a good thing. But false
religionists of this generation are not adorable, sweet children
who trust their father, they're peevish brats. That's what they
are. They're brats. Christ compares
them to perverse, rebellious children which nobody can please. The two characters of John the
Baptist and Christ are pictured in the wedding pipes. He said,
we pipes, but you wouldn't dance. You wouldn't dance. You heard
about the wedding. You heard the music. You saw
everybody dancing, but you wouldn't dance. You wouldn't partake. You wouldn't enter in. You wouldn't
dance. And John come leading a strict
and austere life, separate life. of self-denial and he preached
to dead sinners about the death of man and a promise of life
in Christ. And Christ came preaching and
eating and drinking and they said he was a gluttonous man
and a wine beaver. A friend of publicans and sinners.
A diversity of characters but the same gospel, two different
lifestyles but one message of life eternal. But these are children, these
peevish brats, they're children who come to a public place to
make a show. That's why they were there. They
didn't come there to hear. They didn't come there to worship
God. They didn't come there to learn. They thought they knew
it all. They had all these letters before
their name. They were doctors of the law,
Pharisees. But to make a show like Brady's
children do, they neither danced or mourned. They didn't weep. They heard
the people mourning, they saw the death, but they wouldn't
weep. They were totally unaffected
by the gospel they heard. What seemed to one the greatest
news ever heard by others was totally foolishness. And they rejected it with no
consideration at all for others. And it wasn't done in the privacy
of their home, done in public. It wasn't done as a private disagreement,
but they wanted to make a public statement A man came up to Brother
Don's church in Danville, interrupted services, walked right in in
the middle while he was preaching, and began to deride the pastor,
began to call him down and accuse him of wrongdoing. Right in the
middle of services. Now these men knew they didn't
believe what John or Christ preached, but rather than ignore them and
avoid them, They came to where they were and made a public show. Is this not always the way of
this generation? It's always the way. They persecuted
the prophets. They put men to death who showed
before the coming of the just one. And then thirdly, I want
us to look at what our Lord said in verse 35. He said, but wisdom
is justified of all of her children. Believers and unbelievers both
manifest publicly their attitudes concerning the gospel of Christ.
They do it publicly. In Psalm 2, the Lord tells us
about those who took counsel together against the Lord and
His anointed. They said, let us break their
bands asunder. Let's get shed of them. Let's
get separate of them. Let's separate ourselves from
them. And those who would sever all ties from the Lord, you better
know this, God'll laugh. That's what he's gonna do. He's
gonna laugh. You can't picture God laughing, can you? Those
who publicly deny Him and say, we're going to do this and we're
going to do that, puny little man, he'd be like a maggot, kind
of curling up on his tail and looking up and telling you what
he's going to do. God'll laugh. He'll laugh. Proverbs 1, 25 and 26 says, but
you have said it not, all my counsel, and you would
none of my reproof. I also will laugh at your calamity. Now listen, I'll mock when your
fear cometh. It's coming. It's coming. And he goes on to say, the Lord
shall have them in derision. The closest thing I can give
you To a picture of that is in the old days when they put men
in stocks. They put their head in there
and their two hands and they shut that little thing down and
there they sit and people throw rotten tomatoes at them and stuff. They sit on public display to be ridiculed. The Pharisees
and scribes wanted to pretend a relationship with God but still
serve their father Satan, whom they didn't know they were serving,
but they were serving him. And this is an utter impossibility. The Lord shall have them publicly
manifested and ridiculed. Is religion to this world not
a joke? Huh? Sure it is. Sure it is. Anybody that's ever been in a
public place, a funeral, anything like that, you're going to hear
unbelieving men of this world. And they're going to listen to
what these people are saying and it's going to be a laughing.
It's just something to laugh at. They laugh at it. They shall all voice their true
beliefs and then be judged. by God and men. In 2 Thessalonians
2, he talks about the spirit of antichrist that rules natural
men and all generations. Verse 9, even him who's coming
is after the working of Satan. Now, if you wanna know what that
means, you go to 2 Corinthians, and I can't remember the exact
chapter, 10 or 11, somewhere along in there, and he talks
about what Satan does with men. He transforms them into ministers
of righteousness. That's his work. He makes you
think you know God. He makes you think you're righteous.
He'll convince you of it. He'll convince you that you have
to keep the Sabbath day. You have to keep it. You have
to celebrate Christmas. You have to celebrate Easter.
You got to do all these things. You have to be circumcised. That's
what it was in Paul's day. Even him who's coming is after
the work of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders.
Here's an old drunk. That's all he's ever done his
whole life, is drink. Now he's a preacher. And he'll
talk about what a sinner he used to be. If you actually told him
what a sinner was, he'd be ready to fight. And with all deceivableness of
unrighteousness in them that perish, because they would not
receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And
for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they
should believe a lie, and be damned for believing it. He'll
take away the restraints. He'll let them have what they
wanted. This is what you want? There it is. And all those who believe a lie
are gonna take a public stand for it and be marked out for
what they truly are. You believe not, our Lord said,
because you're not of my sheep. I told you plainly. You said,
tell us plainly. I told you plainly. I told you
who I was and you rejected me. He that believeth, he that believeth
and is baptized shall be saved. Do I need to take half of that
out? I don't think so. It was put in there under the
inspiration of God. Why would I want to take it out?
He that believeth is going to be saved. That ain't what it
says. You better be careful about taking things in and out of the
Word of God. You don't think so, you go to Revelation, the
last chapter, and read in there what it says. You're not gonna
add to or take away from this book. This book says what it
says, and it means what it says. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved. And all those who truly heard
the message of John and of Christ justified God, justified his
wisdom, and pictured it in baptism. Now you try to picture the death,
burial, and resurrection of Christ and taking a little bit of water
and sprinkling it on the head of a baby. The only thing that
you've illustrated is your ignorance. God's having you in division.
Here's this man standing up there in public, got on a robe that
he wasn't commanded to wear, got rings on his finger, got
things all up hanging in back of him, all his diplomas and
church recommendations and all these things. And here he sits,
and you bring up this little baby, and he takes that baby
and takes a little water and sprinkles it on his head. Huh? You can't picture that in
sprinkling. And you can't take a cup of water
and pour it over his head and call that baptism. That ain't
how God saves sinners. We're saved through the death,
burial, and resurrection of Christ. That's how we're saved. In this
man, as our representative, bore our sins in his own body on the
tree. He died. What proof do we have
of that? There's no end to the proof.
But they sealed him in a tomb for three days. And then raised him from the
dead. And with witnesses looking on, he stepped onto a cloud and
ascended up into glory. How did I know he entered in?
How did I know God accepted him? He sent the Holy Spirit. That's
how I know. If I don't go away, if I don't
go, the Holy Spirit is not going to come. He's not going to come. Wisdom is justified of all her
children. They justify Christ with everything
He did. And it's the wisdom of God to
save chosen sinners through the person and work of His dear Son. His righteousness alone. You can't be saved apart from
a righteousness and you can't generate a saving righteousness.
So how are you going to be saved? Through the righteousness of
Christ. Being justified, Paul said, freely
by His grace, through the redemption of Jesus Christ. His righteousness alone, His
marriage alone. You still going back and looking
at something you did? You better take it out and throw
it on the dung heap. The only merits I have is those
merits of the Lord Jesus Christ that he gives to me freely. That's
all I have. What right do you have to enter
into heaven? The merits of that man right
there. That's it. I don't have any. I don't have
any. And it's his grace alone and
his blood And those who are truly children,
truly heirs of God, are all taught of God, and being taught of God through the means of preaching,
they're taught of God. They learn of Christ, and they
come to Him, and they bow at His feet. In coming, they justify
God. They say Amen to all God's counsel
and will. They're brought into full agreement
to all that he has purposed, and they willingly bow to God's
will in all things. Not my will. I don't care how
bad I want it. I don't care how severe my petition
is. I've been there. I've lost a
wife. No one closer to a man than his wife. And I'm telling
you, I don't care how severe it is, you're gonna wind that
prayer up and say, not my will, but thy will be done. And when his will is done, you're
gonna praise him for it. You're gonna praise him for it. You're gonna say amen. Amen. Wisdom is justified of all her
children. And having stated our salvation, Beginning in eternity past, all
the way down to the present in Ephesians 1, Paul next tells
us in verse 8, wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom
and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of his will,
according to his good pleasure, which he had purposed in himself.