When we must part, we'll meet
again We'll meet again, we'll meet again Alright, Luke chapter 17. Luke chapter 17. This is a concise summary of
Matthew 18 that we just read with some things left out. Now, if you first glance at this,
when I first just read down through these first ten verses that we're
going to look at, it's hard to understand how these
things fit together, but they do. They do. Our Lord, everything he said
is vitally connected. The four things the Lord deals
with in these ten verses. Number one, offenses. Offenses
that must come. Secondly, forgiveness. Thirdly, faith. And lastly, duty. Those are subjects within the
subject. The whole subject here is what it is for us to be true
disciples. True disciples. Look at verse
one. He said this unto the disciples. Then said he unto the disciples. See that? This is a word for
believers. A word for believers. All of
them. Private word. All right, he said now, let's
read, it is impossible but that offenses will come, but woe unto
him through whom they come. It were better for him that a
millstone were hanged about his neck and he cast into the sea
than that he should offend one of these little ones. Now, do
you recall in Matthew 18 that our Lord clarified what a little
one is? It's a tender, childlike believer,
one of these that, "'Whoso believeth in me, let you be converted,'
he said, "'and become as little children.' And for such is the kingdom of
heaven made up of little children." And then he says here that offenses,
and there, that offenses will come. It's impossible, he says.
In other words, it must be. It's impossible not
to have offenses. It's impossible. Now, we shun being offensive. We don't want
to be offensive, do we? I don't want us to be involved
in a fight. Do you? No. Not at all. David said, I'm for peace. Remember
that? David said, I'm for peace. But
he said, they're for war. What is this offense that he
said must come? What is it? Look at 1 Peter chapter
2 with me. 1 Peter chapter 2. He said offenses will come. 1
Peter chapter 2, look at this. What is this offense our Lord
is speaking of? Now, do you remember we just
studied Lazarus and the rich man, all right? There's no chapter
division. What's the connection there?
Well, Lazarus was ill-treated, mistreated. outside the gate
of that rich man while he's buried sumptuously. And Lazarus arose
to be with the Lord and the rich man who had everything here descended. That's a picture of not only
Christ, but his church also. His church is ill-treated by
this world, especially religion. So you see the connection here.
Offenses will come. They will come. Here it is, 1
Peter 2, verse 7 and 8, "...and to you therefore which believe,
he is precious," Christ is precious, "...but unto them which be disobedient,"
that is, don't believe, "...the stone which the builders disallowed,
the same as made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling,
and a rock of offense." which they stumble at the word." There
it says they were appointed. Rock of offense. What's the offense?
Right. Paul said in Galatians, the offense
of the cross. It must be. Our Lord said it's
impossible. If you're a disciple, now here
it is. For a believer, It's going to leak out on you.
There's going to come a time when you're going to say something.
We're all ashamed, aren't we, of our, like Peter, that we have
denied our Lord. But now, there have been times
when, by His grace, we've been able to say something. Did they
receive it well? Did they like what you had to
say? Did they want to hear more? They
didn't want to hear that. And they're offended. The offense
of the cross, in short, the offense of the cross is telling what
man is. That man is a no-good, rotten,
hell-deserving... Why was there a cross? Because
man is a no-good, rotten, hell-deserving, damned and doomed creature that
deserves to have done to him what Christ had done to that
cross. That's a picture of what God thinks about mankind. Sin. You know that? That's what the
cross tells us. What God really thinks about
the soul that's sinned must die. How? Look at the cross. Christ
died exactly how a sinner deserves to die. You know that? The cross reveals a holy God,
an angry God, a just God, a bloody substitute. That's what it takes
for peace. Righteousness imputed. These
things are offensive. Matthew 10. Turn over to Matthew
10. These things are offensive to
the natural man. Aren't they? Especially this modern era we
live in. It's becoming so far from the
truth. People don't even believe men
are sinners now. Do they? Anything goes. It doesn't
matter if you're living in gross sin. That's all right. Matthew chapter 10. Our Lord
said, now in the world you shall have tribulation. Acts 14 says,
you must through much tribulation enter the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 10, look at it, verse 22. Our Lord, again, this is
to the disciples, you shall be hated, not maybe, you shall be
hated of all men for my name's sake. Now, that's irreligious
too. religious and irreligious. You
shall be hateful of all men for my name's sake." I was talking
to a woman one time, very religious. Her husband was a religious leader
in a big religious organization, making a lot of money doing it.
And my wife and I were talking to her, and this man is well-liked,
highly thought of, just a good old boy. And I said, what did
the Lord mean by, you shall be hated by all men for my name's
sake? What did he mean by that? Where's
the hatred? Where's the persecution in what you're saying and what
you're doing? Does anybody hate you? You know that she got tears in
her eyes. She stopped and thought about
it. And I told her, I said, what have we done to you if men speak
well of you? Well, look at verse 25.
It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, serving
as his lord. If they have called the master
of the house Beelzebub, how shall How much more shall they call
them of his own household? Verse 34. Think not that I have
come to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace with
a sword. I have come to set a man at variance against his father.
The Lord saves a young man, or an old man for that matter, and
he hears the truth, and he goes to his dad and says, Dad, you're
going to love this. You know what I heard? This is
great. God's God. He elected the people. I believe I'm one of them. And
Dad going to love you? I'm going to get angry. Read
on. Daughter against her mother.
Mother, what do you hear? Oh, I don't want to hear that.
Don't let me hear it again. Right? And daughter-in-law against
her mother-in-law, man's foes, verse 36. Where is the chief
offense? Those of his own household. That's how deep-seated, Stan,
this hatred for God is, that even from a relative, a blood
relative, you go to your own relatives with nothing but love
and concern. And why would you, you know?
I never get angry at you. That's how deep-seated, doesn't
matter who it is. And they said of Christ, they
hated me without a cause. There's no cause in Him. So, offense of the truth is what
our Lord is speaking of, right? Back to the tape. It's impossible,
but they will come. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa. Unto the one who hates one of
God's children, who maligns one of God's children,
who says all manner of evil falsely against them for the truth's
sake. Our Lord says, woe, he said,
it better that they had a millstone tied about their neck. Have you
ever seen a father or mother's fury unleashed on someone that
did something or said something against their child? Huh? I've seen it in the animal kingdom. Just something to By way of memory, we usually,
I've preached a while, and I'm going to tell you something. We had some cats, you know, and we had a female cat, and then
she had a little baby. Well, we had another cat all
the time, a big fat archer, a big fat archer. You heard about worthless,
fat, slob archer that we feed daily. Well, Arthur one day had
all he could stand of that little kitten, playing with his tail
and all that, you know. Now, this mother cat and Arthur
did just great, buddy-buddy, until Arthur had all he could
stand of that little kitten and went, You'd have thought a mountain
lion was in the house. That little skinny female cat
lit into that big fat male, and I mean she chased him upstairs,
downstairs, down the basement, upstairs, just, just, God, just
going to kill him. Touching her baby. Now that may be a light illustration,
but you see the point? God says, whoa, vengeance is
mine, I will repay. And what comfort that is for
God's people, his dearly beloved children. We don't have to do
anything. Besides, our vengeance is not, will not, it won't amount,
it won't succeed, but, boy, God's will, it will put an end to the
fight, boy. It sure will. Oh, he said, Well, all right, the next thing.
Now, how does this relate? The next thing that he says in
verse 3, take heed to yourselves. Offenses must come. Oh boy, take
heed. That is not me that does the
offending. You see, take heed to yourselves. Now we're talking about those
who persecute us. Oh boy, let me take heed to myself,
consider my own self, lest I be the one. All right, now verse
3 says, If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him. And
if he repent, forgive him. If thy brother trespass against
thee, rebuke him. Now, God will judge others. We need to judge ourselves. Turn to the book of James with
me, James chapter 3. I promise you, I'm not going
to keep you long tonight. James chapter 3, and I mean it.
James 3, Christ is going to deal with all offenders. We need to
take care that we be not the ones to often. James chapter
three says this in verse two. James three verse two in many
things we offend all. Don't we? How don't we offend? in many things. But he said,
now, if any man offend not in word, now that's a mature man.
In other words, he tells us to, there's one area we need to really
take care as to not be offensive. What is it? A little member who can tame
it. Well, that's the cheap sticks
and stones break my bones, but words never hurt, not on your
life, it's just the opposite. A brother offended, the proverb
says, a brother offended is harder won than a city. A brother offended is harder
won than a city. All right? And what he's saying
here to the disciples here, now, it's impossible that offenses
will come. And in many things we offend.
We're going to offend. We need to take heed to ourselves
that we not be the ones to offend. But we're going to be offended.
And we're going to offend. I can't do anything about what
John does to me. Right? If he offends me, here's
what I'm supposed to do. Forgive him. I just need to take heed myself.
All right, back to the text. If thy brother trespass against
thee, the word is trespass, that means mistreat. And we all do,
we're going to, we have and we will again, mistreat our brother,
either by doing something or not doing. You know, we can mistreat
our brethren by not doing for them what we ought to do. You
know that? Not being thoughtful, being thoughtless,
is mistreatment. Well, if thy brother mistreateth,
it says rebuke him or her. Tell him or her that they are
wrong. Now, wait a minute. It better be a serious offense
before we go telling somebody this. And we better have, oh,
we better have wisdom of the ancients. We better have the discretion
of the wise. We better have the utmost tact before we go rebuking
somebody, because there are not many people who can handle that.
Better do like my pastor is so adept at doing, talking in third-party,
general, offhand terms. Talking to this person only really
means this one. And that person get it, but not
point blank. You understand? Before we do any rebuking, myself
included, we'd better have great wisdom
and discretion. But the rebuke is not the important thing here,
is it? Is this the thing he's teaching us, rebuke, rebuke?
Oh, goodness. Here. And if he's a brother, he will.
Oh, if he finds out, she finds out. Generally, you won't have
to rebuke God's very will. Their own conscience will. Right? If they're one of God's own,
generally, that's a big... I've offended you. They'll call
you up. Say, oh, I've done, I've offended them. And confess their
faults. Please forgive me. What do we do then? Of course
I forgive you. You want a rotten, dirty, no-down,
no-good, and low-down snake for what you did? I forgive you. No, seriously. We do. Forgive them. No. Huh? That's
what he tells us. They say, I'm wrong. I'm so sorry.
Please, would you please forgive me? Yes, I forgive you. Sure
I do. How many times? Now look what he says here. Look
at what he says here. Verse 4, if he trespassed against
thee seven times in a day, that's a lot of things. What if, Sam, I just abused you
seven times in one day? Man, wouldn't that take great
grace to forgive me? And each time I said, please
forgive me. Seven times. Isn't that a lot? Do you remember what our Lord
said? It's not here, it was in Matthew 18. Do you remember how
many times he said it? I tell you not seven times, but
seventy times. Seven. Four hundred and ninety. That's all day long. Now, here's
the good thing about this. And if you're still with me,
Matthew 12. Turn over to Matthew 12, quickly.
Matthew chapter 12. True forgiveness. Oh, this is
so needful. You know, you want this church
to be in unity. From now on, I just marvel at
God's grace that we haven't had a fuss yet. We haven't, haven't we? I don't
recall. Maybe I'm blind, maybe you go
out here just mad as a snake at me, but I just really haven't
seen it. I really haven't seen it. We haven't had a real fuss. Nobody's
left mad or anything. I bless God for that. But here's
one surefire way to keep it from ever happening. It's for the
Lord to instill this principle in us of forgiveness, Christlike
forgiveness. Here's what, He's telling us
to do what He does. He's telling us to forgive how
He forgives, He said. This is how our God forgives
us. Look at Matthew 12, verse 31. Wherefore I say unto you,
all manner of sin, and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men."
What have I not done unto my Lord? How have I not sinned in
my 44 years, in your 50 some, in your 60 some? How have you
not offended your Lord? Is there a way? We can't even
think of a way we have not sinned. And he says, all matter. I tell
you, he says, wherefore I say unto you, all matter shall be
forgiven. That's all matter. That's complete
forgiveness. Complete. All matter. Secondly, unconditional. Unconditional forgiveness. Aren't
you glad about that? Oh, Lord, I'll never do that
again. Please, God, forgive me. I'll
never do that again. Five minutes later. Unconditional. He said, I hear
you. Remember when Joshua said to
the children of Israel, this is how you're to serve the Lord.
They said, we'll serve the Lord. He said, you can't. Remember
that? You can't do it. Aren't you glad his forgiveness
is unconditional? It's conditional on one thing.
A covenant. For Jonathan's sake. Christ tells
us to forgive one another for whose sake? For his sake. Unconditionally. If you promise
never to do that again, I'll forgive you. No. It's unconditional. Aren't
you glad, aren't you glad that the Lord remembers our praying? Aren't you glad that he knows
our praying? I use my animals a lot, but one
of the sisters said, I'm glad you have all those animals because
I enjoy those illustrations. Well, I do too. I get such blessings
from thinking about my master. See, the Lord, Jehovah Rea, the
Lord is my shepherd, and I act like a beast. And this is how
he treats me. But at times, an old Abner, you
know, I trained him, and he's a good dog. That may be a misnomer,
Rick, a good dog. Is there any such thing as a
good dog? Well, at times when he does act
like God taught him to act, all right? But then at other times,
you know what he acts like? A dog. At times when he acts like a
devil, and you know at times when I act like flesh, he knows our price. Isn't that
good? I'm so glad, so glad. Paul said one time in 1 Corinthians,
four times in four verses, he said, Are you not carnal? Are
you not carnal? Are you not carnal? Are you not
carnal? Yeah, I am. Forgive me. I can't promise it
won't happen again, but He will. And it's constant forgiveness.
God's mercy endures forever, doesn't it? He says, Be ye merciful
as I am merciful. How's that? It never ends. One of the many things I love
about our Lord is that I can go back to Him in spite of everything
I do. The sin that I commit, that I
promised I would not tonight before I can go back to Him with
all my guilt and all my shame and expect forgiveness. I want to be like that. Well,
he tells us to. You look at the next verse in
Luke 17. Look over the text. Verse 5. The apostles, here's
what they said. increase our faith. Peter, what's this got to do
with faith? What's forgiveness got to do
with faith? What's the connection there?
Huh? Why'd he say that? Because Peter
understood the connection between what we say and what we do. Peter understood what James spent
a whole book saying, faith without works is dead. We say we receive
mercy and we don't show mercy. Forget it, Joe. Forget it, Jack. Forget it, John. Forget it, Paul. We say and do
not. Well, the Lord increased our
faith, all right? He calls upon the Lord to do
what we say is nearly impossible. Well, with man it's impossible,
isn't it? Forgive 409 times. It's just rough to do it twice.
With man it's impossible, but with God all things are possible,
he said. Christ said, the Scripture said,
I can do all things, all things, even forgive the unforgivable.
through Christ which strengtheneth me. Look at verse 6. The Lord
said, If you have faith, there is a grain of mustard seed. You may want to do a connection
here. If you have faith, there is a grain of mustard seed, you
might say, under this sycamine tree. You've got any sycamine
trees, sycamore trees where you live? There's one down by the
river, and it is this big round, man. It's huge. That thing's old. Big old things. He said if you had faith of the
grain of a mustard seed, you could save that sycamore tree,
be plucked up by the roots. I mean not just fall down, be
plucked up. Read on. And be planted in the
seed, and it should obey you. Now, what is he telling us here? If we had faith, just a little
faith, could uproot a tree. Another place, he says, is to
move a mountain. Now, is there any need for us
to move a tree? Is there any need to move a tree
into the ocean? No. Is there any need for a mountain
to be moved? No. But I tell you, I've got
some deeply rooted problems that have been there a long time. I've got some problems in the
mountains, seen mountains overcome obstacles, insurmountable difficulty. That's what I need done with. My thing. All right? Stay with
me. This is so good. Faith cometh by help. Hear it. After you hear, what does James
say? Be ye what? Doers of the Word, not hearers
only. All right? Faith cometh by hearing.
Hearing the Word. The reason I talked about it
is so important to prepare to worship. If you don't hear it,
you sure ain't going to do it. All right? We've heard it. Now,
Lord, don't make me deceive myself, but let me be a doer of the Word.
All right? I believe. Help my unbelief. Lord, give
me faith, increase my faith." Here it is, simple hearing and
doing, by faith we overcome, all right? We want peace. The
Lord gives us commandments. He gives us commandments, saying,
now if you do these things, happy is the one who does these things. If you walk by this rule, he
said, peace, all right? We want peace. You want peace? Do you want peace? What does our Lord say, where
does he say peace come? Blessed are the peacemakers. James said, the fruit of righteousness
is sown in peace by them that make peace. We want peace? Try to spread a little bit of
it. We want peace. But here's a person
over here that's in turmoil and trouble and all that. Let's try
to help them have peace. He'll give you peace. I want something here. I'm not
on to something. I'm just discovering what our Lord says. He said these
things aren't grievous. My commandments are not grievous.
He said this is it. This is the key, all right? We
want mercy. We want mercy. The hands of God, oh, we need
mercy. We want mercy. He said, blessed are the merciful.
Show a little mercy. You'll get a lot back. From who? From God. We want to be heard
in prayer. You want the Lord to hear you?
That's why we pray, isn't it? You want to be heard in prayer? You want to know how to be heard
in prayer every time? Huh? Every time. Our Lord said, I know that you
always hear me. All right, what did he pray for? Others. And the Lord blessed him above
everybody else. Huh? Want to be heard in prayer?
Don't me, me, me, me, me, me, woe is me, help me, help me,
help me. Don't. No promise to be heard. Want friends? Who doesn't want
friends? Huh? Want friends? Here it is. You'll have more friends than
you can count on. You want friends? Be a friend. You'll have friends you didn't
know you had when you need a friend. Just be a friend. This is it.
This is it. This is it. Need help? Need help? Help somebody else. That's why we're here, and this
is what our Lord's going to go on to tell us. Look at the next
few verses, all right? Duty. Duty. Verses 7 through
10, and I quit. Which of you now have an observer
plowing or feeding cattle? We'll say unto him, by and by,
when he's come in from the field, I'll sit down here to meet, let
me wait on you. But will you not rather say unto
that servant, make ready now, wherewith I may serve, gird yourself,
serve me, till I've eaten and drunken, and afterward you'll
get your food and drink. And look at the next verse. Doth
he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded
of him? And this is the only time this
word is used in all of Scripture. Our Lord said it as an exclamation
point, as a word of emphasis. I trow not. That's a servant. That's what
he's supposed to do. He's just a servant. He's there
to serve the Master. So what's the Lord telling us
this afternoon? It's easy to understand. I wouldn't mourn on this earth
to serve Paul Mayhem. As a matter of fact, nothing, nothing should be. for in the
service of strictly all man. I'm a servant of the Most High
God, and so is everyone in here, if we call ourselves believers.
So likewise, verse 10, when you shall have done all those things
which are commanded you, say this, we are unprofitable servants. We have done that which is our
duty to do. It's our duty. That's why we're
here. That's why we're here. This world does not exist for
me, nor does anyone else. Well, in all of this now, suffering,
wrong, forgiveness, faith, and so forth, we shouldn't expect
reward, should we? Praise? A higher position? Serving
our God, you know, whatever God tells us to do, whatever God
calls on us to endure, whatever situation, He's the master. Tell
not for a judge of the earth to be right. He sure does, and
He does not give an account of it, nor do we think about it.
And a good servant doesn't question the neighbor. Doing what he says,
why do we do what he says? Number one, because he says it. And we don't need a number two.
Number one, because he says it. But secondly now, he's such an
all-wise master, it's for our good. Every time,
it's for our good. And we don't deserve any praise
or recognition, do we? And as we've said before, we'll
find out that the service itself becomes the reward. The service itself becomes the
reward in itself. And I can't, you just got to
experience that. We still say, even if we've done,
if we've done all that's required of us, which none of us have,
starting right here, we'd have to say, I'm an unprofitable servant. Right? I'm unprofitable. Up to
this time, I've never done anything profitable to anybody but myself.
I'm an unprofitable servant. He ought to cast me out. Lord,
have mercy on me. Okay. I will. Start over. Clean slate. Clean slate. Now do what I say. I will. I will. And our kind master,
you know how he is, the scripture says, he's not unfaithful to
forget the labor of love. He's not unfaithful to forget
our labor of love. Our what? Our what? And he'll say to his
people, unbelievably he will say, for lack of a better word, he'll say, well done, our good
and faithful servant. When did we do these things?
When did we do these things? Let's sing. Sherry, come up.
Let's sing this hymn. Let's see here. I wanted to see more, more like the Savior. Three hundred twenty three. Three hundred twenty three, let's
stay. And this love for Christ is shown
by love for his brethren. He said that. For love to me, O Christ, For
love to me, Hear how the prayer I make Comments in me. This is my earnest plea, For love,
O Christ, Lord, love to Thee, Lord, love
to Thee. Last verse. Then shall Thy maiden's
breath whisper Thy praise. Yes, we adore Thee, Lord, as
Thou shalt praise. Lord of liberty, Lord of liberty. I'm