Alright, brethren, Luke chapter
18. Our Lord is speaking and He was
speaking to some Pharisees. We're told that back in Luke
17 20, He was demanded of the Pharisees when the kingdom of
God should come. And there were still Pharisees
standing around him when he was speaking this word. And our Lord
often spoke in parables. That's what he's doing here.
A parable is an earthly story that gives a heavenly lesson. And that's what he's using here
as a parable. And in the very first words that
we read here, We found out the definition of
a particular sin. Now when you think of sin, do
you think of somebody who deals unjustly with people? When you think of sin, do you
think of somebody who commits adultery? When you think of sin,
do you think of somebody who is an extortioner? Those are all sins. But let me
tell you about sin that's far worse than that. Those things
you can recognize to a certain degree. This sin that we're talking
about here, that the Lord is talking about, is not as easily
recognizable. Listen to this. He spake this
parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were
righteous and despised others. Now that's who he's speaking
to. He's speaking to certain men which trusted in themselves
that they were righteous and despised others. That is a great
definition of the sin of self-righteousness. And that is a good description
of what self-righteousness does. Self-righteousness is to trust
in yourself that you're righteous. And what self-righteousness always
does is despise others. And you know who they despise
first and foremost? You know who the Pharisees despised
above all others? The Lord Jesus Christ. Now let's read this parable and
we'll just take it verse by verse. Two men went up into the temple
to pray, the one a Pharisee, the other a publican. Now, if
you looked at these two men, One of these men just outwardly
and by his way of life looked much better than the other man.
The Pharisee would have looked, just outwardly looking, he would
have looked like a man of good character and a man of not immoral. He was a moral man.
He was a religious man. The Pharisees were known for
being righteous in everything they did, as far as outward righteousness
goes. And when our Lord would deal
with the Pharisees, He often dealt harshly with the Pharisees.
The only people He dealt harshly with. But He also often put them
in the position, in His parables, He would put them in the place
of what was wrong. And then this other man is a
publican. If you looked at a publican,
he was a tax collector and what they tended to do was if they
took one dollar from you, they'd take two for themselves. They were thieves mostly. They
were sent by Rome to gather up taxes and they extorted men for
their money. That's what they did. And they
stole people's hard-earned living. So if you look at the Pharisee,
he appears to be outwardly a righteous man. You look at the publican,
this appears to be a sinful, immoral man. Well, they both
went up to the temple to pray. They both go up to the temple
to pray. That tells us that both of these
men had an interest in God, at least it appears that way. One of them went up to pray as
a religious exercise, as a self-righteous religious exercise. The other
one went up to pray to God. Why have we come here today?
Have we come here today to go through a religious exercise?
Have we come here today to put on a good front in front of others
to make others think we're a certain way? Are we trying to keep up
appearances and that's why we're here? Or did we come here to
truly worship God? We need to find that out about
ourselves. Why am I going to that place? Do I think that my going to that
place is going to earn me some sort of credit with God? Is me
going to that place and engaging in an outward religious exercise,
is that going to somehow make God accept me? Or am I going
there because my only acceptance is the Lord Jesus Christ? And
I have to hear about him. Well, it says here, the Pharisee
stood and prayed thus with himself. And that's very important words. Our Lord here has meaning in
every one of his words. And this Pharisee stood, that
tells us something about his spirit, something about the pride
of his flesh. He stood. He didn't kneel. When scripture speaks of worshipping,
it means kneeling down. You know, they show the leper
came to our Lord Jesus and he worshipped him. He came and he
kneeled down in front of him. This man didn't do that. This
man stood. He's a proud man. And he prayed
thus with himself. He wasn't praying to God, and
God wasn't engaged in this prayer. This man was praying thus with
himself. Here's what he said, God, I thank
Thee. Those are nice sounding words. They're humble sounding words.
But as you continue to listen, you realize he really wasn't
thankful to God for anything. He says, 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. Not
just once, I do it twice. And I give tithes of all that
I possess. I don't give my tithes off the
net, I give my tithes off the gross. All that I possess. Was this man not as other men? He said, I thank thee God that
I'm not as other men. Was he not as other men? Who
makes men to differ? There's only one that makes men
to differ. That's God. And the only way He makes us
to differ is by His grace. By giving us what we do not deserve. In fact, grace is what we have
demerited. And yet it's grace. Free, sovereign
grace. and we can't glory in anything
because we don't have anything but what we receive from God. That's the only way men are different.
And yet here's a man that's saying he's different from other men
and the reasons he gives is he's not an extortioner, he's not
unjust, he's not an adulterer, he's not like this publican,
He fasts twice a week. He gives tithes of all that he
possesses. There's a lot more involved in keeping the law than
just that. And fact is, he hadn't kept the
law in those things. Was he different than other men?
Go with me to Romans chapter 1. Just a moment. Romans chapter
1. As Paul finishes up talking about
homosexuals and idolatrous men, he comes over here to this description.
In verse 28, he says, Even as they did not like to retain God
in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind
to do those things which are not convenient. Now listen to
this description. being filled with all unrighteousness,
fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy,
murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whisperers, backbiters, haters
of God, despiteful, proud, bolsters, inventors of evil things, disobedient
to parents. without understanding, covenant
breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful, who knowing
the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are
worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in
them that do them. And then, Paul, as it were, speaks
to the righteous-looking, holy-looking Pharisee. In verse 1 of chapter
2, he says, Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever
thou art that judges. For wherein thou
judgest another, thou condemnest thyself. For thou that judgest,
doest the same things. That means every one of us were
just described in this description right here. Every one of us,
brethren, are filled with all unrighteousness. fornication,
wickedness, the whole list there, every one of us are full of those
things. And so we can't stand and say
that we're not like other men at all. We're exactly like all other
men. Because all other men, and us
included, fell in our father Adam. We all fell in our father
Adam. And when Adam disobeyed God,
we disobeyed God. And when Adam died spiritually
and passed this corrupt seed on to us, we were conceived in
sin and came forth from our mother's womb speaking lies. That's me,
you, and everybody else in this world. So if I want to stand
up and I want to judge a man and say I'm not like this man,
I don't do the things this man does. You're a liar. You do exactly what that man
does. You do it in your heart. I do
it in my heart. It's what I am in my nature,
my fleshly nature. It's all I am. And it's all I
can produce. And the same is true of you. Back in our text, Luke 18, this man said, I'm not as other
men are, extortioners. You know, this man's religion,
works religion, is all about extortion. That's exactly what
it is. It's all about using others and
trying to extort others and getting others to do what you want them
to do or else you're going to tell on them. You're going to
expose their sin if they don't do what you want them to do.
That's extortion. And that's what all religion
is. Oh, you give enough and you'll get a pass. You keep yourself
in the pew, you'll get a pass. You give enough, you might even
get your name on a plaque out in the parking lot. Why? What's the motivation? I don't
want to be one that he judges. I don't want to be one that they
bring up on church watch. I want to do these two things
because this is what they mainly are concerned about is tithing
and keeping the Sabbath. I want to do those two things.
That will keep me out of trouble. That's extortion. That's extortion. This man said, I'm not unjust. Do you realize what he's saying
is unjust? What this man was saying right
now was unjust. By saying he wasn't like other
men and he wasn't like this publican, what he had in his heart was
unjust. Justice would have said, I'm
exactly like this publican. Justice would have said, I've
never done a good thing in my life. Justice would have said,
there's no good thing in my flesh whatsoever. Everything he's saying
is unjust. Adulterers. I'm not an adulterer,
he said. Remember, our Lord said, adultery
is not just in the act. Adultery is in the thoughts. If you've looked upon a woman
to lust after, you've committed adultery. You see, sin is within. Those Pharisees were eating and
washing their hands before they ate, and they saw the Lord's
disciples not washing their hands, and oh boy, now that was a no-no. You're going to defile yourself
by eating without washing your hands. And our Lord said, it's
not what goes into the mouth that defiles a man, it's what
comes out of his heart. Because out of his heart proceed
all these sins. Out of his heart. Out of his
heart. This man was playing the adulterer
right now. Christ is the husband of his
people. Christ is the husband of his
people. And this man right here was committing
spiritual adultery. You might say, well, Christ wasn't
his husband. The law was his husband. I'll
go with that. The law was his husband. And
he was committing adultery on his husband because he wasn't
being faithful to his husband. He was an adulterer in his heart.
You go down the Ten Commandments. Go down the Ten Commandments.
And I can tell you this, if you go to that law and you're trying
to keep any one of those commandments to come into God's presence,
you're breaking exactly what that commandment says not to
do. That's right. have no other gods
beside me. If I go to that law and I try
to earn a righteousness to come to God by it, I'm saying, I'm
better than God. I don't need Christ. I can do
it on my own. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Go to that law for righteousness and by breaking that very law,
you're committing spiritual adultery. Thou shalt not steal. If I go
to the law and try to come to God by my works, I'm stealing
the glory that belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ alone. So yes, this man was guilty.
And then he has the audacity to look at this publican. You
know, self-righteous folks love it when they can find somebody
that's more sinful than they are. They love it. They love
it when they can find somebody that's guilty of committing some
outward acts of sin. Because they can use that person
to exalt themselves. They can use that person to say,
I don't do what he does. I don't do what he does. We're
going to see in a minute, he sure didn't do what that publican
did. He sure didn't. I fast twice in the week, I give
tithes of all I possess. That was his hope. That was his
hope. What he did, what he worked out,
that was how he expected to come to God. Listen to me. Scripture
says, there is none righteous, no not one. If you've ever heard
me preach, you know I've said this every single time I've preached. Maybe not these exact words,
but this is my message. Whatever you do, don't try to
come to God in your own righteousness. You don't have one. I don't have
one. not of myself. And God will not
accept us because He's holy. God is holy. Do you realize that's
why our Lord Jesus came down from heaven's glory? The reason
holy God sent His only begotten Son into this earth, the reason
Christ took flesh and was made of a woman, made under the law,
the reason He did this is because God is holy. He's other than
we are. Everything we are, He's not. And everything we're not, He
is. He's other than we are. He's
holy. And because He's holy, He can't
receive a sinner. He can't receive a sinner. If
you're going to come into God's presence, if I'm going to come
into God's presence, we have to be as holy as God is and as
righteous as God is before God will receive us. And I can't earn that. I can't
work that out. That's why Christ came. The Lord
Jesus Christ came down and was made under the law and He is
the head of His people. All God's elect, those God loved
before the foundation of the world, those He chose by grace
in Christ Jesus, those He blessed with all spiritual blessings
in Christ before the world was made. They were in Christ. You believers were in Christ. His elect were in Christ. The Hebrew writer told a story
about Abraham. When Abraham came to Melchizedek,
Abraham paid tithes. Well, Levi wasn't born for years
and years and years later. But he said, when Abraham paid
tithes, Levi paid tithes. Why? Because he was in Abraham's
loins. And we were in Adam. We all came
from Adam. And what Adam did, we did. But
brethren, for God's elect, we were in Christ. And what Christ
did, we did. We did. As perfect as Christ
did it, we did it just that perfectly. It's not God's going to treat
you like you did it perfectly. No. We were in Christ. Did Christ
do it perfectly? Then we did it perfectly. We
sure did. And Christ went to the cross
and bore all the sin of all His elect throughout all time. And
he hung there and God in justice poured out wrath upon our substitute. And when he bore that in his
body and was crucified and said, it's finished, it was finished. And he went into the grave and
the law said, I'm satisfied. Whenever President Kennedy was
shot, Everybody was, they arrested Lee Harvey Oswald and whatever
you think about that, but Lee Harvey Oswald was, all eyes were
on him. And whether you like Kennedy
or not, he was the president. People used to respect the office,
whether they liked the man or not. And because he's the president,
everybody was looking at Lee Harvey Oswald. And thinking,
justice has got to be poured out on this man. He killed our
president. And when Jack Ruby stepped out
of that crowd and he shot Lee Harvey Oswald and killed Lee
Harvey Oswald, the law said, satisfied. Can't do anything
to him now. The full penalty of the law was
carried out on him. He died. No sense setting him
up in a courtroom now. He's dead. It's over with. And when we died in Christ on
the cross, the law said, satisfied. We fulfilled the law completely. In Christ, by His perfect love
to the Father and His perfect love to His people, we fulfilled
the righteousness of the law. And in Christ on the cross, by
Him bearing the penalty of God's wrath and perfect justice, we
satisfied the justice of God. We have given the law everything
the law demands. And we gave it in Christ our
substitute. That's why Paul said, I am crucified
with Christ. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me. How are we going to be made alive
so that we can enter into this that Christ has done? We are
dead sinners. We have to be made alive. Our God comes and crosses
our path with this incorruptible seed, whereby the gospel is preached
unto you, and the Spirit of God enters in, and there's life conceived
in there, and there's a new man. And He's not conceived in sin.
He's conceived in the incorruptible seed. He's created in righteousness
and true holiness, all from our Redeemer. And that new man is
given faith and repentance from God. And that new man is given
all things that pertain to godliness. And that new man lays hold of
Christ, beholding Christ as all. And he does not look anywhere
but to Christ. Christ is all. What do you mean, Christ is all,
preacher? What do you need? Do you need righteousness? Christ is all. You need holiness? Christ is all. You need wisdom? Christ is all. You need liberty
from the law? Christ is all. You need reconciliation? Christ is all. You need to be
sanctified? Christ is all. Everything you
need, Christ is. And when you have Christ, you
don't look anywhere else. You've come to Him who is the
end of the law. You've come to Him who is the
end purpose for which the law was given. The law was given
to teach sinners we're sinners and to shut our mouths in guilt
and make us flee to Christ and away from ourselves. And when
you come to Christ, you have all. Now, let's look at this
publican. Here's a man who in this parable,
this is a man who you would say had been born of God. This is
a man who had heard this gospel and who sin had been revealed
to him by the Spirit of God. And now let's see what happens.
And the publican standing afar off, he didn't come up front. Apparently
the Pharisee must have come right up front, right up boldly to
the front. This man didn't. This man stood
far off. And it says, he would not lift
up so much as his eyes unto heaven. What? He wouldn't lift up his
eyes to heaven? Why is that? What's the point
that he wouldn't lift up his eyes to heaven? Let me read this
to you from Ezra chapter 9. Listen to this real quick. At the evening sacrifice, I arose
up from my heaviness. This is Ezra. And having rent
my garment and my mantle, I fell upon my knees. And I spread out
my hands unto the Lord my God, and said, O my God, I am ashamed. And I blush to lift up my face
to Thee. I blush to even look to You. My God, for our iniquities are
increased over our head and our trespass is grown up unto the
heavens. And that's why the Pharisee wouldn't
lift up his eyes to heaven. He was ashamed. When our children were younger,
little babies or little children, and they would do something that
they weren't supposed to do and when you spoke to them, called
their name and said, are you doing that? First thing they
would do, put their head down. Why? Ashamed. Have you ever been ashamed? Ashamed
of what? Of you? Ashamed of what you are before
God? This was a sinner. This was one
who knew he was a sinner. And his face was toward the ground.
And it says, verse 13, And he smote upon his breast, saying,
God, be merciful to me, a sinner. A lot of difference between what
this man said to God and what that other man said to God. A
lot of difference in their spirit. A lot of difference even in their
outward appearance. Here's a man standing afar off
who won't even lift up his face to heaven. He's blushing, he's
ashamed, and he's smiting up on his breast. His heart's broken
within him. He's got a contrite, broken spirit. And all he asks God for is mercy. No, he didn't ask God for mercy. He's begging God for mercy. That's what true repentant sinners
are. We're mercy beggars. And he's
begging mercy from God. And all he has to say about himself
is everything he could say about his entire history is summed
up right here. A sinner. That's it. What happens if you come to God
with this broken, contrite heart that this man came with? Confessing
yourself to be nothing but a sinner. Confessing that the only way
you can be saved is if God has mercy on you. How will God receive
you? Verse 14, I tell you, this man
went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone
that exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth
himself shall be exalted. Oh, would God help us get this
lesson. If I exalt myself, if I start picking out your sin
and saying, I'm not like that. If I start condemning you for
your sin and saying, I'm not like that. If I start trying
to beat you down and exalt myself, if I'm trusting in myself that
I'm righteous and I'm despising you, I'm exalting myself before
God. And if I meet God in that condition,
God will cast me down to hell for eternity. But if you've been humbled down
to God's feet, broken and contrite, O God, thou will not despise.
Broken in a contrite spirit, Lord, you will not despise. And
you come to Him and all you can do is beg mercy. All you can
do is confess yourself a sinner. Just a blushing sinner. An embarrassed sinner. An ashamed
sinner. God will exalt you. In fact,
if you come, you'll find out He's already exalted you. Whenever
Christ arose from the grave and sat down at God's right hand,
you'll find out that you went there and sat down with Him.
If you come to God this way, every sinner that comes to God
this way finds out, my life is seated at God's right hand. There
I am, seated in Christ. And one day He's coming back
for me and I'm going to be there with Him in body and spirit,
perfectly conformed to His image. And I won't have this sinful
flesh anymore. I will be the new creation that
our Lord Jesus Christ created in righteousness. And there won't
be any sin in me or in anyone there. Perfect in Christ. Self-righteousness is what makes
you sit there and watch the news and say, can you believe they
did that? You know what you're saying?
I wouldn't do that. This is what we need to be saved
from. Your sins, what you think are your sins, your immorality
and even your sins of your thoughts and all that, that's not what's
keeping you from Christ. What's keeping you from coming
to Christ is you think you are righteous. That's what's keeping
you from Christ. Because when you find out you're
a sinner, we just saw what he does, he comes to Christ. bowed down, begging mercy, confessing
he's nothing. And God, He'll raise that man
up. I pray today God would humble
us down to Christ's feet and make you cast all your care on
Christ. I mean everything on Christ. Confessing to God you're nothing
but a sinner. In due time, in due time, God
will exalt you. In due time. Now today we're
going to baptize a young believer who, that's what he's confessing
today. He's confessing