May it please Almighty God to
bless us together this morning as we meditate in His Holy Word. Let's turn to the Gospel of Luke,
chapter 6, and we'll read the last four verses. That's from
verse 46 to verse 49. So the Gospel according to Luke,
chapter 6, from verse 46 to verse 49. These are, of course, the words
of Jesus. And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things
which I say? Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth
my sayings, and doeth them, I will show you to whom he is like. He is like a man which built
a house, and digs deep, and laid the foundation on a rock, And
when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house,
and could not shake it, for it was founded upon a rock. But he that heareth and doeth
not is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon
the earth, against which the stream did beat vehemently, and
immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great. We have here an account in this
chapter of Jesus preaching to his disciples and to the multitude
and on this occasion he was, as we're told, on the plain.
Obviously it was a a fairly flat area and he was preaching whereas
if we read what we refer to as the Sermon on the Mount in the
Gospel of Matthew that's from chapters 5, 6 and 7 that was
not on the plain, that was in the mount but it was a very similar
sermon to that which was recorded here and also it had a very similar
ending so we're thankful therefore to God that he's given us, if
you like, a copy again to remind us of the importance of these
things and you know how easy it is for us to forget the truth
of God's Word and how easy it is for us to pass by those things
which are very relevant to our lives which bring blessing into
our lives and bring honour and glory to our God. How often we forget, and I'm
never weary about reminding people that the life of the children
of God on this earth is to highlight and to set forth the honour and
glory of God. We're not here on this earth
just to wander through and to please ourselves. The Lord's
placed us this earth for a specific reason it should be very humbling
to you and me to realize that great truth each one of us is
on this earth for a specific reason and therefore we're not
to go around and just pleasing ourselves we are to do the will
of our great and glorious master the Lord Jesus Christ and he
is a very gracious and kind and wonderful master and to think
that we have such a God who has condescended to come into this
sinful world and to pay the price for our sins and the cost of
that was to give his own life so that by His grace, His free
unmerited favour, we might be found at last in glory with Him
for eternity. Well, we should desire to have
such truths riveted into our hearts and minds to influence
us every moment of our life. We have encouraging directions
in this chapter, but as we come down to the end and the verses
that we've read for a text today, the Lord speaks very solemnly,
really, and this 46th verse tells us, and why call ye me Lord,
Lord? Well, perhaps we all call, God,
Lord, Lord. Perhaps when we pray, and I hope
we do pray, and how do we pray? Do we pray to God and do we come
to him as Lord? And it's very easy, isn't it?
To pray to the Lord and seek for these favours and these blessings
and so on and so forth. And yet the Lord says here, Why
call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? It's a very simple statement,
isn't it? It's a very true statement. And we should not pass it by
and think, well it doesn't affect me and it's not relevant to me.
It is important and it is relevant to you and me. So as we read
this account here, the glorious words of the Saviour, and there
are many words here of things that the Lord directs us in. the things that we should do
and the things that we should say and do we therefore come
in guilty that we're not doing the things which the Lord says. So you and I must answer before
God because God and God alone knows what you and I think I
don't know what you think, you don't know what I think. We don't
know what the person next to us is thinking. We may think
we know, but be sure of this, we don't know. But God knows. And therefore, let us be amongst those who hear God's
word and it has a gracious and glorious effect upon our souls. you know if we had grace to follow
through the pattern and the words that we read in this account
and also in the account in those chapters in Matthew and what
a difference it would make would it not in our lives and yet you
see we carry on often thinking that perhaps we don't have to
worry about it thinking perhaps well we have a merciful God who
will deal with us in mercy and love well that's very true and
we do have a merciful God but the Lord's given us these words
of gracious instruction not to be ignored and so he goes on
to say whosoever cometh to me and heareth my sayings Well we've
all heard God's sayings this morning. Whosoever cometh to
me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will show you to
whom he is like. So the Lord gives us a statement
amongst those who do God's will, and then also he comes and gives
us a statement but he that heareth and doeth not and he gives us
a statement with regard to the condition of such people so we
should understand that here we are today before God with two
statements and you and I fall into one or other of those statements
therefore what a blessing it is if as we should realize how
wonderful it is God's given us his word well we often think
perhaps what a wonderful thing it is and it is it's a glorious
truth and glorious favor but do we understand it? do we take
heed to it? does it affect our lives? does it really affect the way
we think? does it really affect the words
we say and our actions it's very easy you know to pass by and
that sometimes we're not careful we we say well that's not relevant
of course to me because I only want to hear the Gospel. I don't
want to hear words like this. Well, the Lord tells us here
very firmly and very sternly, we should recognise this is God
speaking to his church. He, whosoever cometh to me and
heareth my sayings and doeth them, I will show you to whom
he is like. And the description, of course,
is very wonderful. For those who do God's will,
let's just read the description of what it is. He is like a man
which built a house and digged deep and laid the foundation
on a rock. The benefit of that was when
the flood arose and the stream beat vehemently upon that house,
could not be shaken, for it was founded upon a rock. So the great question is, if
you and I have heard, have read God's word, have read it this
morning, and has it had a good effect upon us so that we have
heard his sayings and are doing them? are doing them and doeth
them because if we are doing them then we shall be numbered
amongst those who are within this verse who have digged deep
and laid the foundation on a rock well first of all the word is
that we've digged deep that means it's not a superficial situation
it's not a shallow dig we might say spiritually it's not a shallow
work it's not something which is on the surface it's not something
that we can just carry on with and enjoy all the other things
of this life but it is a digging deep now To dig deep naturally
is not easy. If you've got to dig a hole in
the ground, it's very easy to dig the first little bit. But
the deeper you go, the harder it is. The more difficult it
is for the access to the hole. The more difficult it is to excavate
and take out that which perhaps we've loosened. so that we can
dig further. It's not easy. To dig deep is
not easy. And so it is really in spiritual
life. It's not easy. We can look superficially
at the great truths of the gospel, but to dig deep means to desiring that we may understand
if you like, the deep that coucheth beneath that which is not on
the surface and that which is of course deep is when the Lord
reveals to us the evil of our heart the sinful nature of our
being we don't find that if we just tickle the surface but when
by God's grace we desire to dig down into our heart and to find
out if there are perhaps what we might term secret sins sins
that our heart enjoys no one knows about them but you see
our heart can sometimes enjoy evil therefore what a blessing
it is when God gives us grace to dig deep into our heart to
discern what is there and to observe whether we are following
the gracious precepts, the gracious words that Jesus has spoken. That's the effect of digging
deep. Well, it may cause us to realise
how we fail in our religion. Well, we haven't time this morning
to, of course, go through this whole chapter, or to go through
the longer account in Matthew's Gospel, but nonetheless we hear
what the Saviour tells us, And it's interesting that he starts
in a very similar vein to that which he does in what we term
the Sermon on the Mount. We're told he lifted up his eyes
and said, blessed be ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
And of course we can take that naturally, but I think it's better
also to remember the spiritual side of these things. And to
let us to realize that we are poor, we are poor sinners and
we need the grace of God to enter into our hearts we are poor sinners
I wonder this morning if that touches your heart and my heart
that we realise that the Lord commences blessed are ye poor
when it's a mercy of God has directed us to realise that we
are poor sinners And we need the mercy of God. And we need the favour of God. And we must have the mercy of
God. And we must have the favour of
God. And that's why the Lord goes
on to say, if we are blessed with this spiritual knowledge,
He says, for yours is the Kingdom of God. Well, that's an eternal
blessing. It is to be known and felt on
this earth, but it is, of course, an eternal blessing. And then
he says, Blessed are ye that hunger now, for ye shall be filled. Well, are we hungering after
the things of God? We may know what it is to hunger
after things naturally, But it's much more important to hunger
after the things of God. And the things of God is really
to have a greater knowledge of our great and glorious Saviour,
the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed are ye that hunger now. Hunger after spiritual knowledge. Do we do that? We often have
a want list, don't we, in prayer. We want this and we want that
and we want the other. But do we really come in this
way? Blessed are ye that hunger now. You and I know whether we're
hungering after spiritual blessings Do we desire to grow in grace
and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ? Is it a real concern? And do
we look back in our lives and are we able to perceive that
spiritual growth? That greater knowledge of ourselves? That greater knowledge of the
Saviour? What a mercy that is, while the
Lord's telling us that such are blessed. And we may desire that
we might be blessed. It's perhaps a common expression
that God will bless us. I wonder if we really understand
what that means. Blessed are ye that hunger now,
for ye shall be filled. And blessed are ye that weep
now, for ye shall laugh well what does that mean? surely that
means that we're really sorry for our sins we weep over our
lack of spirituality perhaps we lack we weep over the fact
that we go after the poor carnal things in this world we weep
over it Well, it's a blessing if we are amongst those who weep. He says, blessed are ye that
weep now. For ye shall laugh, ye shall
be pleased with God's revelation to us. It's a mercy if God's
dealing with us. It shows us, therefore, what's
in our heart. Yeah, what's in our heart, deep
down, digging deep. right down, tucked down there,
things that perhaps we wouldn't dare let anybody know is in our
heart. And yet, you see, what a mercy
when God makes us dig down, they can't be hidden. They're revealed
to us and we realize how we need God to come and to deal with
them. Well, blessed are ye then when
men shall hate you, And when they shall separate you from
their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as
evil. Now there's a very great qualification
here. For the Son of Man's sake. For Jesus' sake. You know, you
and I won't understand this situation if we've hidden our light, if
we're effectively ashamed of Jesus. Such a situation won't
have developed in our life. But what a mercy if we understand
what the Saviour says here. Blessed are ye when men shall
hate you. That's not a pleasant thing,
is it? We don't want people to hate us, do we? We want people
to love us. Well, if we show forth the evidence
of Christ's life in our life, it will show that we don't go
along with all the things of this world. We don't embrace
all the vanities of time. but we're separated from them
and willing to be separated from them because they separate us
from God they separate us from fellowship with the Saviour what
a blessing there therefore if God gives us grace then to cling
close to the Saviour. Blessed are ye when men shall
hate you, when they shall separate you from their company. Again,
that's pretty painful, isn't it? When we're, if you might
say, ostracised, when they follow in a group and don't want us
because of what we say and what we believe. And you know, if
we have a right spirit, We won't say things in a dictatorial tone. We won't be in a self-righteous
spirit. We will say things with a concern
and a love for the souls of those we meet with. And that is showing
forth the grace of God. And then, you see, we are willing
to walk the path that God ordains for us in this way, when we are
separated, when we bear reproach, and when we're cast out, because
we are a child of God. What a mercy then, to read such
statements as this. And don't forget, here we have
this condition, Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings,
and doeth them, I will show you to whom he is like. What a mercy
therefore today, if you and I follow this good and right way. He goes on, and he says, Rejoice
ye in that day and leap for joy for behold your reward is great
in heaven. Isn't that wonderful? That's
a great blessing isn't it? For in light manner did their
fathers unto the prophets. Well we have an encouraging word,
isn't it? To think if we have the evidence,
therefore, that we are following the gracious words of God, we're
not afraid of the testimony of our Saviour, we're willing to
be joined with Him, we're willing to enjoy that fellowship with
His sufferings as the Apostle Paul so craved after. in that glorious statement in
the third of Philippians. And so we're told here this great
truth. And then he says, but woe unto
you that are rich, for ye have received your consolation. Woe
unto you that are full, for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that
laugh now, for ye shall mourn and weep. Woe unto you when all
men shall speak well of you, for so did their fathers to the
false prophets. Well that again just gives the
other side of things and to recognise the relevance of it for you and
for me today. And so the Lord says, but I sound
to you, having made those statements about being blessed and woe,
He says, but I sound to you, which hear, remember He's addressing
those who hear and we've heard, 1. To you that hear, love your enemies,
and do good to them which hate you. It's a very difficult word
of reproof, isn't it? To love our enemies. and to do
good to them which hate us, and bless them that curse you, and
pray for them which despitefully use you. And unto him that smiteth
thee on the one cheek, offer also the other. And him that
taketh away thy cloak, forbid not to take thy coat also. Well, that's a test of true religion,
isn't it? not to be passed over to meditate
upon and you see we come across these grand truths if God gives
us grace to dig deep into our heart and to see whether we are
following the kind and gracious instructions that our Saviour
has given to us It's easy to pass by, easy to think, well,
I think I'm getting by all right in this world. Don't seem to
have too much problem. Well, probably not, if you and
I are following the wrong dictate. But what a blessing if, therefore,
we are doing that which is right. And so the Savior says, give
to every man that asketh of you, and of him that taketh away thy
goods, ask them not again. That's quite a hard statement,
isn't it? It's very hard sometimes when people ask us for money. It's very easy to turn them away
and say, no, I'm not giving to you. Well, we have to be very
careful if we're disobeying the Word of God. Give to every man. It doesn't say give to needy
people. It says give to every man. that asketh of thee, and of him
that taketh away thy goods. Ask them not again. You know,
that's very contrary, isn't it, to what you and I think. Contrary
to the way you and I act. And yet it is the gracious words
of the Saviour. And we are told, therefore, to
be like those that do these things. Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth
my sayings, and doeth them. Not those who ignore what we're
told. Not those who say, well, I'm
not doing that. I'm sure that person doesn't
deserve it. I'm sure that person doesn't need it. The Word of
God tells us here how we should act and how we should respond. Give to every man that asketh
of thee, and of him that taketh away thy goods, ask them not
again. And as ye would that men should
do to you, do ye also to them likewise. Respond in the way
that you and I would like to be treated. The standard of the
Word of God is pretty tough, isn't it? It's pretty high, isn't
it? And often We, as what we might
term prophetic Christians, don't follow the Word of God. We follow our own inclinations. And I suppose we should conclude
that our own inclinations are influenced by the devil, who
doesn't want us to obey the great statements that we have in the
Word of God. and so the Lord goes on for if ye love them which love
you what thank have you? it's easy isn't it? to love someone
that loves us not difficult is it? we respond and we think we
have great union and it's so wonderful but he tells us for sinners also
love those that love them and if ye do good to them which do
good to you what thank have ye for sinners also do even the
same and if ye lend the same but love your enemies and do
good and lend hoping for nothing again again it's pretty tough
statements aren't they you know you and I might lend somebody
something but We're very keen to receive the money or whatever
it is back, aren't we? We might chase them around and
next time we meet them, we'll say, well, where's the money
I gave to you? And then hoping for nothing again. And then what does God say? And
your reward shall be great. Heavenly rewards. Your reward shall be great. And you know, one of those rewards
is this, the answer of a good conscience, the answer of good
conscience, to think that we're doing the will of Almighty God. And your reward shall be great,
and ye shall be The children of the highest, for he is kind
unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be you therefore merciful,
as your Father also is merciful. What a statement, isn't it? Again,
to align ourself with God's mercy toward us. What do we deserve? When we ask God to bless us,
When we ask God to do this and that for us, God graciously and
gloriously hears us and wonderfully answers our prayers. As you and
I look back in our lives, to recount perhaps the many favours,
the many blessings that God has granted us. It's of his mercy,
it's of his goodness, it's always wonderful favour toward us and
yet you see we don't operate in our lives in the same way
that God has operated toward us well it's solemn isn't it
really And so easy it is to think that, well, of course, this was
written in an age when it was very different from what it is
today. No, this is applicable to you and me today. And so here
we have the statement, whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my
sayings, and doeth them, I will show you to whom he is like. He's like a man which built a
house and digged deep and laid the foundation on a rock. Well, you know, if you and I
dig deep, we'll come right down, won't we, to that glorious and
wonderful example of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's digging
deep, isn't it? And we see there his wonderful
example that he set when he was on the earth. I don't have to
go through it, do I? You can read the New Testament
and read the glorious example of the Saviour. It's very humbling. It's very wonderful to think
that he was the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings, living
in this sinful world, an absolute, complete opposite to the glory
that he was willing to leave in order that he might redeem
our souls. That he might give us that good
hope through grace of his eternal life. And he's left before us
a wonderful and glorious pattern as to how we should organize
our lives. The responses that we should
make And we shouldn't lean to our own understanding. We should
lean to the Word of God, which clarifies to us very clearly
what we should do. Well, we are therefore to come
right down to this rock, the Lord Jesus Christ. And there
you see, the Lord says, and laid the foundation on that rock. When you and I get down to that,
it's not easy, it's not superficial. We have to dig through a number
of layers, perhaps hard digging, to make ourselves submissive
to the will of God, give us that grace to obey the word of God,
and give us that humbleness of spirit To not please ourselves? How different it is when we follow
the Word of God and come down to this situation and dig deep
and lay the foundation on a rock and then we're told when the
flood arose and the stream beat vehemently upon that house it
could not be shaken for it was founded upon a rock. You see,
our feet are firm on Christ. We have the glorious example
of the Saviour and that's what we are on and by his grace we're
there and humbly we can thank him for the grace given to us
which enables us to have dug down and got down onto what we
might term bedrock, the glory of Christ. Well we haven't got
time really to just go on to the next verse but just very
very briefly. But he that heareth and doeth
not, that might be like us, is like a man that without a
foundation built an house upon the earth, against which the fell and the ruin of that house
was great it really means this our religion perhaps didn't cost
us very much very superficial and therefore when anything comes
into our life and it knocks us down as it were we remain there
because we don't possess that God-given faith well my friends
this is a wonderful account really and it's worth pondering And
it's worth thinking about. And it's worth going home and
checking whether what I've said is right or wrong. And desiring
therefore, as I trust every true believer is, to do that which
is right. And don't forget the first verse
I read says, And why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the
things which I say? It's a searching statement and
may you and I be given much grace, which we need, much grace to
follow the glorious example that we have in the Word of God to
live our life in accordance with the blessed Word of God. Amen.