Good morning. It is a pleasure
to be with you all. If you would, open your Bibles
to the book of Luke. Luke chapter 18. Luke chapter 18. The title of the message today
is The Difference Between Two People. The Difference Between
Two People. Now, if we took any two people
here this morning and put them next to each other, it would
be very easy to find differences. One of them might be tall. One
might be short. One might be a boy. One might
be a girl. One might have brown hair. One might have blonde hair.
We could go on and on. But if we couldn't look at them,
maybe we just hear their voice. We could tell them apart from
their voice. That's something that when you answer the phone
from someone, especially before we had cell phones where we knew
everybody before they called, but you answered and that person
said hello and you just knew immediately who it was. Maybe
we could tell from listening to what they said. how smart
someone was or what their interests were, it would be so easy to
find as many differences between each one of us that we wanted
to, almost countless. But that's not the difference
I want to talk about this morning. The difference I want to talk
about this morning is the difference between two people, one of which
is saved and one is lost. The difference between a person
who has a hope and a person who's hopeless. a person who will one
day be accepted as opposed to cast out. And thankfully, something
our Lord has done is He's given us many illustrations in the
Scripture where He took two people, put them side by side in an example
and showed us one who is saved and one who is lost. And this
morning I want to look at those, a couple of those examples. And
because I'm a person who didn't like tests and didn't like going
in not knowing the answer, And I used to always hear the question,
sometimes from my grandmother after church when I was little,
would be something like, well, what was the message about? Or
what was he trying to say? And I remember just being a deer
in headlights like, oh, no, I don't know. Well, the difference between
two people is the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the difference
between a person who is saved and one who is lost. It's the
only difference. despite our lives where we spend
so much of our time trying to make a difference between us
and someone else. We spend so much effort becoming
smarter, going to school, making money, learning things, all the
things that ultimately we're just trying to differentiate,
make a difference between us and someone else. And those differences
just don't matter. In the end, they will be for
naught, they'll be for nothing, and they won't even be remembered.
But one of the stories we're going to look at here is in Luke
18, and it's between two people that we don't know their names.
They simply are both given a title based off their occupation. This
story is the Pharisee and the Publican. And it's a very familiar
story. And first, what I want to do
in each of these stories is I want to see the ending. If we're going
to look for the difference, we've got to see who ends up where
at the end of each of these stories. So in Luke 18, look at verse
14. It says, I tell you, this man,
or the publican, went down to his house justified rather than
the other. So as we look a couple minutes
at this story, let's remember this. The publican was justified
and the Pharisee was not. What that means is the publican
was found to be in good standing. The publican was looked at and
accepted as opposed to the Pharisee who was not. He was not justified. He was looked upon and found
to be guilty. So let's start in verse 10 and
let's look at a couple of things that weren't the difference.
Verse 10, it says, two men went up into the temple. Both of these
men went to church. The difference between being
saved and lost is not going to church. Because you walk through
those doors of this church or another one, that does not determine
if you are saved or lost. The next words say, they went
up into the temple to pray. Just because we pray, does not
mean we will be saved or we will be lost. That's not the difference. Then if we look at the first
word that each of these two men prayed, they said, God. Both
of them did. They both said the name of God.
Just because we know who God is, and I mean we know of Him,
does not make us saved or lost. And just because we say His name
does not mean that we will be saved or lost. That's something
that most people don't realize. Just because we say the name
God, it is not the difference between us being saved and lost.
It also says the Pharisee stood and the publican standing. Our place in the church has no
bearing on salvation. Whether you're the preacher,
The person sitting in the pew, the musician, the singer, the
Sunday school teacher, the person who sneaks in at the last second,
sits on the back row that nobody knows their name. It has no bearing
on salvation. It just doesn't. And when these
men both said the name of God, let's see what they said. Look in verse 11. It says, The
Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, 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, I give tithes
of all that I possess." This man, the Pharisee, had a 34-word
prayer. And he found the necessity to
use a personal pronoun, I, five times. Now that alone is not
a difference. The publican down there says,
me. And if we look at David in the Psalms, he says so many times,
he uses that word, I. I am meek, I am lowly, I am needy,
I am unworthy. He keeps saying that over and
over again. Some of the best prayers I've ever heard have
heard a man begging for forgiveness. I can't do it. I'm a sinner.
All those things. But this man, the Pharisee, says
in verse 11, look at this key phrase, the Pharisee stood and
prayed thus with himself. The problem here is not that
the Pharisee used the word I, the problem is that he was using
it to justify himself. The Pharisee, if we want to sum
what he was saying, he basically was saying, thankfully, I'm not
like this guy. He was comparing him to the publican. Now, first off, let's all remember
this. When it comes to us being saved or lost, it does us no
good to compare ourselves to each other. And I'm so guilty
of that. I find fault with other people,
even though I'm so guilty of the same thing. Oftentimes, I
do what this Pharisee did, and I find something that I can justify
or I feel like I haven't done, and then point it out to others. I pick at other people. This
Pharisee was hated for many of the things that West read for
us. The Pharisees would constantly say things and go around pointing
out things other people did, and I'm sure he was hated for
it. in the same way that the publican
was hated for what he did. He turned on his own people and
took taxes for the Romans. Both of these men were hated
and thankfully that's not the difference. Thankfully being
hated among our peers is not the difference. Now let's look
and see what the publican said because remember the publican
left this place justified. We need to see what he said.
So if we look down here in verse 13 and the publican standing
afar off, would not lift so much as his eyes unto heaven, but
smote upon his breasts, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner."
The publican's thought here was, don't look at me. When you have
someone who's guilty, the last thing they want, it says he was
standing afar off. When you're guilty, you do not
want to be the person in the spotlight. I have four children,
and if something happens in our house, the person who is guilty
never wants to be around what has happened. Okay, when something
breaks, the person who broke it somehow ends up being in the
opposite side of the house. A guilty person always wants
to be as far away from their sin and their shame as they can
be. And the publican here has realized the place he needs to
be. He says, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. He knows the
only thing he has going for him is there's someone who is able
to forgive him, someone who is able to cover his sin, and that's
all he cares about. If we ultimately look at the
difference between these two men, it could be summed up as
this. The Pharisee says here, I don't need what this man needs. And the publican says, I need
Christ. The Pharisee is basically saying,
I don't need Christ. The difference in these two men
is the publican or the Pharisee wants to be on his own and the
publican says, I need Christ. The difference in these two men,
one being justified and one not, is one has Christ and one doesn't. Okay, let's look at the next
story. Turn over to Genesis chapter 4. Genesis chapter 4. In our first story, we didn't
know their names. We knew very little about them
except their occupation. In this story of Cain and Abel,
we not only know their names, but we know their family, and
we know everything about them. We know where they came from,
who taught them, and everything they know. And in the story of
Cain and Abel, we have two people that what we find out about them
is all from this story. I remember as a child knowing
Cain and Abel. I heard that story over and over
again. Two brothers that ended up on opposite sides of things.
Let's look at how this story ended up. Genesis chapter 4. Look at verse 4. Midway through it says, And the
Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering, but unto Cain
and to his offering he had not respect. A sacrifice, these two
men, this story is all based off a sacrifice. The origins
of the sacrifice were from Adam sinning in the garden. Adam committed
sin and fell. And God came to Adam and said,
there must be a payment made for your sin. You can't just
be in your sin, you will be cast out. And the only payment for
that sin is bloodshed. A precursor to our Lord Jesus
Christ dying on the cross for his children, bearing their sin
and shame, and shedding his blood to save them. The only covering
for this sin is blood. And you know Adam going through
this experience with the Lord, with God telling him these things. You know growing up in that house,
Cain and Abel both heard every single detail about the sacrifice. They heard of the events that
made it happen. And Adam, because the Lord told
him, would have always been doing these sacrifices. So they witnessed
it. I'm sure they were part of it.
I'm sure they went with him. And I say all that because when
I was a kid, I remember feeling like it was a little unfair.
Cain was a farmer, so he just brought what he did. And Abel
was a shepherd, and he just brought what he did. And just being naive
as a child, I didn't realize that they knew everything about
what they were supposed to do. It wasn't what they did that
had any part of it. So the difference between these
two isn't their names. It's not their families. It's
not their upbringing. There are plenty of us who have
heard the gospel from being a child and others who might have just
heard it recently. That's not the difference. And
thankfully, it's not the difference. We'll have a story in a second
that we'll know that how much you've heard in the length of
time has no bearing on salvation. But in this story, let's look
at verse one of chapter four in Genesis. And Adam knew Eve,
his wife, and she conceived and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten
a man from the Lord. And she again bare his brother
Abel, and Abel was a keeper of the sheep, but Cain was a tiller
of the ground. In verse 3, and in process of
time, when they became old enough, it came to pass that Cain brought
of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel,
he also brought of the firstlings of his flock, and the fat thereof.
So these two men, when it was time for the sacrifice, brought
what they thought was appropriate. The difference here is that Cain
brought something that he did with his own hands, and Abel
brought the blood. Cain obviously is saying here
that what I have made is good enough, or at least what I've
made should be good enough. I think most of us over time
realize that the offering of our hands, our works, what we
do ourselves isn't good enough. Now there may be a day that we
thought that what I do is good enough, but anybody who reads
anything in the Bible quickly will realize that what we've
done is not good enough. All the works of our hands are
as filthy rags. We'll realize that. So what do
we do? Instead of admitting it, and saying, you know, I can't
do enough. What we do is we just lie to ourselves. We just do
what Cain did and said, well, it should be good enough. So
he brought the works of his hands. And Abel, knowing that what he
had or what he could do wasn't good enough, he brought the blood. But what Abel's really doing
here is Abel is simply giving us a lesson of this. Just do
what God told us to do. This sacrifice that Cain brought,
the problem with it is not even as much what he brought, but
that he didn't bring what the Lord told him he had to bring.
There are plenty of times in our lives that we think we know
what's right, and there's a little bit of innocence in that. There's
a little bit of ignorance because we're so awful. Our shame and
everything is so awful that we think, I got it, but it's just
wrong. But when the Lord tells us point
blank what to do, we just need to do it. We don't need to ask
questions. If we have a question, look to
the Scriptures and the Lord will answer it. But we don't need
to do the opposite of that while we look for an answer because
we think we can do it. So now let's see what the Lord
said. He said there at the end of verse 4, And the Lord had
respect unto Abel and to his offering, but unto Cain and to
his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth and his
countenance fell. Cain honestly thought that when
he brought this sacrifice it was going to be good enough.
We don't get mad at things that we know aren't going to work,
right? Sometimes my children will come
to me and ask me a question. It'll be right after we eat breakfast
and they'll say, can we have a big bowl of ice cream? And
I say, no, no, no. Well, they know they really aren't
going to get a bowl of ice cream. So their response is just like,
OK, I guess not that big of a deal, but it's worth a try. What's
happening here is Cain was mad. Whether he thought it should
have or it would, he's upset that God didn't accept his sacrifice. It says that his countenance
fell. And what did the Lord do? This is really important, and
I don't know if I'd ever noticed this. What the Lord did in verse
6 says, And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? And why is thy countenance fallen? Why are you so sad? If thou doest
well, shalt thou not be accepted. The Lord says to him, If you
do well enough, you'll be accepted. In this book it says, if you
abide by the law, if you can uphold the law perfectly, that's
good enough. That's all you have to do. And
he tells Cain here, he doesn't cast him out, he just tells him
the truth. He says, if you come in 100%
righteousness, it will be fine. But then he says, and if thou
doest not well, sin lieth at the door, and unto thee shall
be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. He says, if you
come perfect, you'll be fine. But if not, the Lord will deal
with us in the way that we approach Him. If we come to Him with the
works of our own hands, they better be perfect. And I mean
perfect, 100%. But if we are like Abel and we
come with the blood, then all is forgiven. The Lord Jesus Christ. If we come to Him with the Lord,
that's the difference. Thankfully, we know he did it
perfectly. So when we come in the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ, we don't have to worry about the
sacrifice. It's perfect because we didn't touch it. We didn't
have anything to do with it. Abel just brought the lamb and
the blood was shed and that was all he did. So what did Cain
do? In verse 8, it says, And Cain
talked with Abel his brother. Having an older sister, I remember
plenty of times when I had been reprimanded and the two of us
had a conversation afterward. And almost every time, my sister
would say the same thing to me. She would say, if you just apologize
and admit what you did, you're going to be fine. He's like,
but you keep doing it. Just admit it. She's like, even
if you do it, just say you're sorry and it'll go better. And
what did I do? I just walked right back into
it the next time. I just kept doing it. The Lord
tells Cain here, He does not cast him out. He does not do
the things that we deserve. When we come like this, Cain
was saying, I don't want your way, I want to do it myself.
And instead of the Lord immediately casting him out, He tells him
again, He says, if you come perfect, you're fine. But if you come
in your sin, it's not going to work. And so Cain goes and talks
with his brother. And you know what Abel said?
He said what my sister said to me. Just get the blood next time. He's like, it's not hard. I'll
give you a sheep. Just take the blood. But what did Cain say?
Cain thought to himself and to his brother, he said, I'm not
going to have that man run over me. He was so mad at what the
Lord wanted and the Lord required that what did he do? And Cain
talked with Abel, his brother, and it came to pass when they
were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel, his brother,
and he slew him. We naturally hate God so much
that we hate the people who love Him. And that's this world. That's what's going to happen.
And unfortunately, even amongst ourselves, even though we call
each other brother and sister, even though we genuinely want
to love each other, and I say that, and I don't mean that we
don't love each other, but that's just who we are. Our love is
so impure that apart from the Lord, we will treat each other
in such a horrible way. We just naturally have this thing
inside us, our nature, our evil nature, that hates everything
to do with God. And we will do what Cain did
here. We will slay anything that tells us what we have to do,
that we need to believe him. So Cain slew his brother. The
difference between Cain and Abel being accepted, the sacrifice
being accepted, is that Cain came among himself without the
Lord Jesus Christ. And evil came with the blood,
with the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's the only difference.
Okay, turn over now with me to our third and final story. Example
in Luke chapter 23. Luke chapter 23. Now in the scriptures, there
are a lot of other stories that we could use. A very famous one
that might have even come to your mind is Jacob and Esau.
Two twins that are born and it said, Jacob have I loved and
Esau have I hated. There's not many better examples
of that. We see that it describes Esau as a man's man, a hard worker,
a big man, strong and worked hard and did all the things for
his father. And it describes Jacob as a man
that dwelt among the tents, which the only thing I can think of
is he just sat at home. He didn't do anything. And yet,
we look at the two of them and who was accepted and who wasn't.
It said, Esau hath I hated. One that we would have looked
at and said, that's who I want to be like. And Jacob we would
have mocked and made fun of and he was accepted. And there are
others, but there's no story that's even close to the two
thieves on the cross when we're trying to look at the difference
between two people. A huge part of that is because
we don't know anything about these two men. They are both
in the exact same predicament, and it says at one point justly,
they both deserve to be where they are, so we can give one
qualifier about these two thieves. The only thing we can say about
both of them is they were both guilty sinners. It's the only
detail we have. We don't know their names, their
families. We don't know their background. We don't know their
religious experience. We don't know if they had anything
to fall back on, whether they've been baptized, whether they went
to church. We don't know anything. We have no idea anything. So
it shows us the difference between two people has nothing to do
with our history, our past, our lives, anything on this earth.
And aren't we so glad of that? I mean, to look at these two
people and to think, I don't have to do anything to say that
everything that's in my past from this very moment, it's irrelevant. It doesn't matter at all. And
if we look, well let me read two accounts. In Matthew, let
me read these verses to us. In Matthew it says this, Then
were there two thieves crucified with him, one on the right hand
and another on the left. And they that passed by reviled
him, wagging their heads. So this is with the Lord on the
cross. And all these people were saying, Thou that destroyest
the temple and buildest in three days, save thyself. If thou be
the Son of God, come down from that cross. Likewise, also the
chief priests mocked Him. With the scribes and elders they
said, He saved others, can't save Himself. If He be the King
of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross and then we'll
believe Him. He trusted in God, let Him deliver Him now. If He
will have Him, for He said, I am the Son of God, The thieves also,
which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth."
The two thieves that were on that cross were repeating this. They were sitting up there, and
as the Lord was being mocked, they were sitting there saying,
yeah, and they were repeating the same lines. Mark says, In
Mark 15 he says, This is what was being said. These two thieves
on the cross next to him were reviling him. Now this is a scene
that only can be imagined by a fellow true sinner. These men were hanging on a tree. They were nailed to a piece of
wood moments from dying. And what were they doing? They
were mocking the guy next to them. There's a picture in there
that's just, I mean, how in the world could we do something like
that? I mean, you're dying and you
think that's the best use of your time and what you should
do right there? Totally not worried about what's coming. Look here
in Luke 23, verse 32. And let's read Luke's account. And there were also two other
malefactors led with him to be put to death. And when they were
come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified
him and the malefactors, one on the right hand and the other
on the left hand. Then said Jesus, Father, forgive
them, for they know not what they do. And they parted his
raiment and cast lots. And the people stood beholding,
and the rulers also with them, derided him, saying, He saved
others, let him save himself. If he be Christ, the chosen of
God, And this is even hard to read because when you read this,
you want to kind of put it in context of what they're doing.
But it's really hard even to read this in a mocking manner
like that. It just feels wrong to do it.
Keep going in verse 36. And the soldiers also mocked
him, coming to him and offering him vinegar and saying, If thou
be the king of the Jews, save thyself. And a superscription
also was written over him in letters of Greek and Latin and
Hebrew. This is the king of the Jews. We would be doing the exact same
thing that these thieves were doing and the people out there. Just before this is the story
of Peter saying, I won't deny you, Lord. And then he says to
him, you're going to deny me three times. Every time I hear that story,
that is so humiliating to think that I would do that. to think
that the Lord says, even you, My disciples are going to leave
Me, and Peter to stand up and say, I wouldn't leave you. Can
you imagine the Lord telling you, you're going to deny Me,
knowing it's coming and still doing it? That's just who we
are. But these men in this circumstance, in three accounts, were all yelling
and screaming at the Lord. So let's pause and listen to
this. We will all come to a time, everyone in here, will come to
a time where we face God in a life or death moment just like these
thieves were. We will be just like them at
some moment. We have no hope. We are in need
of a miracle. We are in need of a miracle that
we have absolutely no chance of performing ourselves. And
what happens in that moment will be the difference between our
life and our death. It will be the moment of us being
determined if we are saved or if we are lost. And unfortunately,
in our sin, we will do exactly what the Pharisee will do. We
will say, well, I'm not as bad as him. You know, I did pretty
good. Or we'll do what Cain did. And we'll say, look at these
works. Look at the things I've performed. And we'll also do
what these two thieves did. When we know we're not worthy,
oftentimes our recourse is let's just start yelling at the other
person. Let's mock them. I think maybe these thieves were
doing this because they're in the same position and they thought
to themselves, well, if everybody's making fun of him, let's do it
too because they're not making fun of us. If we can point the
attention to Him, it means we won't be looked at in the same
way. And that won't work. When we stand in that moment
before God, there's no hiding. We can't hide behind someone
else, we can't get out of the way. We are going to do all these
things we just said, like the Pharisee, like Cain, like these
thieves, unless we have the difference. Unless we are in the Lord Jesus
Christ. We will do these things unless
He speaks for us in that moment. We will chide Him, we'll look
to ourselves unless He stands in our place. Unless He shows
us the Lord Jesus Christ is our only hope of salvation. And this
is exactly what happens to one of these thieves. What we need
to happen is exactly what happened to one of these two thieves.
So let's put us exactly where we are here. In Luke 23 there,
verse 39, let's read the first sentence. And one of the malefactors
which were hanged railed on Him. So here we are. Our Lord is being
crucified on the cross with a man on this side and a man on this
side. Both of them are yelling and
screaming names and agreeing with all the evil things that
they could say about Him. And then one of them turns and
rails on Him, and then out of nowhere, Look at what happens
there in verse 39. Can you imagine what the one
thief on the other side thought to himself? These two thieves at the same time
are screaming and yelling, making fun of the Lord, and all of a
sudden the one says something and the other turns and looks
at him and rebukes him. So he's yelling at the Lord all
these evil, awful things, and then all of a sudden, out of
nowhere, he turns to Him and in verse 40 says, "...but the
other answering rebuked him, says, Does not thou fear God?"
This man went, in a matter of seconds, went from reviling,
hating, yelling at God, to all of a sudden, like that, looking
and saying, Do you know who this is? That's the only thing that
will save us, is the Lord has to open our eyes and say, that
is God. And if He shows us that, that's
the response we have. We'll say, do you not know who
that is? And it says, seeing that thou art in the same condemnation,
saying we're here just like Him, verse 41 says, and we indeed
justly. This man, in a matter of moments,
went from being a guilty sinner who was cursing and hating on
God, to all of a sudden knowing who he is and knowing how perfect
he is. He said, we're here because we
deserve it. He knew he was a sinner. At no point before that did he
admit that he'd done wrong, but in that moment he thought, oh
my, I'm right here next to God. Verse 41 says, And we indeed
justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds, but this
man hath done nothing amiss. It's not enough that he knew
he was guilty, but he knew that God was perfect. He knew He was. And what's so glorious about
that is when you see who you are and you know what's coming,
you need somebody perfect. You need somebody perfect because
that's what the law requires. The Lord didn't come down here
because He just wanted to show us something. The Lord came because
He had to fulfill the law that we couldn't do. He knew that
His children would sin, and that's all we are. But He came and lived
perfect. And what He's doing in this exact
moment, the glory in this, is this man was all of a sudden
saved. He was shown who He was. Now,
He wasn't saved in that moment. He was saved before time began.
But he was saved because of what the man in between them, the
difference between this guy and this guy is the one in the middle,
the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a perfect picture of that.
We don't often, we can't often see things in the perfect symmetry
that they are. But if we look at those three,
one is going to be saved, one is going to be lost, and the
difference is in the middle. That's what we must have. We
must have a mediator, someone to step in for us and be our
propitiator, be our sacrifice. So let's keep going. In verse
41 it says, And we indeed justly, for we received the due reward
of our deeds, but this man hath done nothing amiss. And then
that thief said, Jesus, Lord. It's not enough to call Him by
His name, but he had to say it twice. He said, Jesus. He said,
Lord. He said, remember me when thou
comest into thy kingdom. Not only did this man, he was
shown that's God, he was shown I'm a sinner, he was shown he's
perfect, but he also realized you're going to your kingdom.
That's where you're going." And he said, I want to go. He said,
I want to go. He said, please remember me.
He said, that's all I can ask for, just remember me. A true
sinner does not come to the Lord demanding things. And to be honest,
we don't even know what to demand. What we just need to do is we
look at Him and just say, remember us. We make comments to Him that
just do what's best. Don't give me what I deserve,
but please, I deserve it. I know I do, but just remember
me. Have mercy on me. What did that publican say? Just
have mercy on me. You know, I got it coming. If
you give it to me, I can't argue. I don't even stand up here thinking
that I could somehow convince otherwise or I could find another
way. Just have mercy on me and remember me. The difference between
these two men is that one of them was shown who the Lord Jesus
Christ is and what he needed. And how glorious it is that our
answer comes in verse 43. And Jesus said unto him, Verily
I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise. The answer to this man was a
simple, of course. He said, yes. He said, today,
this day, you're going to be with me. It's so glorious to
think all the things we put stock in, all the things that we oftentimes
think, even though I'm saying they're not right now, I'm saying
this is not the difference and this is not the difference, don't
we often think to ourselves, I gotta go to church? And sometimes
we think of that because in the back of our mind we think it'll
be good for me, I need it, it'll be good standing for me. We think
all these types of things, we put differences out there, But
the Lord has shown us there's just one difference. Nothing else matters. And this
thief is the best example in the Scripture. We have nothing
to base this mercy on. There's no reason for us to have
any idea why the Lord remembers him other than he asked for it. Now I said with the Pharisee
and the Publican that just because we pray doesn't do us any good. That's not the difference. What
it is, is what we're praying and who we're praying to. The
Pharisee, in his prayer, said God, but he said that just because
he wanted everybody to think, or he wanted himself to think
who he was praying to. It said he was praying with himself.
And we're even guilty of that sometimes. I don't, I come in
the wrong mindset, I say the wrong things, it's awful. But
if we come as that publican came or as this man came, we really
have simple prayers to ask for. We ask for mercy. We ask for
him to remember us. We ask for his kindness, for
just his generosity, his love, all the things, everything that
we could possibly want. We just ask him for it. How many
times in the scriptures does it say, ask and you will receive?
If you call upon the name of the Lord, He'll hear you. He'll
listen. He'll do what you say. This man
said, remember me. And the Lord said, today you'll
be with me in paradise. Now one last thing, let's close,
turn to Matthew chapter 7. I love in that story with the
two thieves, in Luke's account we get the description of these
two thieves on the right and the left hand and the very next
line we hear from that says, Jesus said, Father forgive them
for they know not what they do. This moment before the thief
even realized what the Lord is getting ready to do for him,
The Lord is right there praying for him. He says, as this thief
is yelling at him, mocking him, if you can save yourself, then
you should do it. I don't believe you. If you do this, then maybe
we'll believe then. The Lord says, forgive them.
They just don't know what they're doing. And that's who we are.
How many times do we do things and after the fact, somehow,
what did David do? The story with Bathsheba and
all the things he did with that. And he's just oblivious to the
whole thing until somebody comes up and tells him, thou art the
man. And we don't like trials, we
don't like tribulations, but tell me that this thief wasn't
just ecstatic that his life led him to that cross being hung
on that tree so that the Lord would show him in that moment
and give him mercy. Alright, the last thing we're
going to look at here is Matthew chapter 7 and verse 24. This is just a simple story that
we'll see that shows the difference between two people. Therefore,
whosoever heareth these things of mine, and doeth them. The
Lord here, before this, He uses this whole chapter to say, beware
of false prophets and gives them all this advice. And He simply
says, whosoever heareth these things of mine, and doeth them.
I will liken him unto a wise man which built his house upon
a rock. And the rain descended, and the
floods came, and the winds blew, the trials and tribulations,
and beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded
upon the rock. And everyone that hears these
sayings of mine and doeth them not shall be likened unto a foolish
man which built his house upon the sand. And the rain descended,
and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon the
house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it. The only
difference between a wise and a foolish man is one who listens
to the Lord Jesus Christ. That's as simple as it comes.
Wisdom is a frivolous thing that people throw around all the time.
There's no knowledge of this world that will ever make you
wise. But it's as simple as just believing on the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's all it is. And if we use this, as we know,
the rock is such a great example of our Lord. But if we think
of it and say, The wise man is one who builds his house upon
the Lord Jesus Christ, and the trials will come, the rain, the
tribulation, the heartaches of this world, and they will come,
but the house will stand because it's firm on the rock. It's firm
on the Lord Jesus Christ. But those that listen not, those
that don't give credence, when those trials come, they will
be a foolish man because their house is not built on the Lord
Jesus Christ. It says, and it fell and great
was the fall of it. It's not enough that it just
won't quite stand as strong as the house on the rock. It will
collapse underneath it. Everything that we do in this
life, everything in this world is going to crumble and the collapse
of it will be grand. It will be on a scale we can't
imagine how everything will fade away and just disappear. Those
who are standing on the Lord Jesus Christ, they will stand
strong, not because of what they did, not because they chose to
stand on the rock, but because the rock put them there. It's
so wondrous to know, not only are all these stories true and
we see the differences in the Lord Jesus Christ, but there's
nothing in these that any of these people who were saved,
who were accepted, that they did anything to make them be
accepted. The only thing that we have is
our sin, and thankfully that's all we have and we don't have
to do anything. The Lord simply said, stand upon
the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.