One more time, it's a wonderful
blessing to be with you folks. That last song we sang is one
of my favorite hymns. Hallelujah, what a savior. And I have a book here that tells
me about him. The Bible tells me about Hallelujah,
what a savior. That's what this whole book is
about. One who can save his people from their sins. And it tells
me here in that song, he's bearing shame and scoffing rude. In my
place, condemned he stood. Seal my pardon with his blood. Hallelujah. What a savior. Well, we're gonna be in one of
the books of the New Testament today with our lesson, and again,
I cannot tell you how much I appreciate getting to be with you. And I
thank those who served for your service. Tomorrow is Memorial
Day. Many of your comrades didn't
get to come home. And so we remember them tomorrow.
We should remember them every day, but we're thankful for that. And we're gonna be in the book
of Luke today. We're gonna be in the book of
Luke chapter seven. Now we're gonna be reading several
verses of scripture, but it wouldn't be of any value to me if I brought
you anything but what we find in the word of God. Stories are
not gonna help us. We're gonna find help. in him
who saves his people from their sins. So that's what we're gonna
be looking at today. I was in religion. I pastored churches for 15 years. And then God sent a man in my
way, crossed my path with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, when I first heard the gospel,
I told my beautiful bride sitting right over here, I hate that
man. Now she was shocked. And after
I thought about it a bit, I was shocked. But that was the feeling
I had in my heart about him because he was telling me that my religion
was not going to help me when I met God. And he just brought
me to this wonderful book we call the Bible. And he preached
Christ in him crucified. And by the mercy of God, by the
grace of God, God saved me and I knew what he was talking about.
This book is about Jesus Christ and him crucified for his people. Well, here in the seventh chapter
of the book of Luke. We're going to start reading
in verse 36 now. All the lessons that I've brought so far, and
this one included, and probably the next ones I bring, are going
to be about some experience in the life of the Lord Jesus while
he was upon this earth. And in this experience, we find
that he has been invited to dinner. Now, that's a good thing. Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
invited to dinner, but he is invited to dinner by a Pharisee. Now, I don't know what you think
of when you hear the word Pharisee, but sometimes we think about
a Pharisee is someone that says one thing and does exactly the
opposite. Well, that's kind of what these
Pharisees were like. They were really fine people
on the outside. but the inside was still very
against God. And in this passage of scripture
says, and one of the Pharisees desired him, desired Jesus, that
he would eat with him. And he went into the Pharisee's
house and sat down at meat or sat down to eat. Now, what an
invitation. A man wanted to bring Jesus into
his home, but the more we study about this, the more we find
out that this man had an interest in getting someone that was pretty
notorious. That's a bad word. That's kind
of a negative word. A man that had done so many things among
the people. He's an important person, it
seemed like. He wanted him in his home. And said, now, the
next person who came into that home uninvited, The Pharisee
didn't invite this person into the home. He had no intention
of having her there. He had no intention of feeding
her, but she came in on her own because she had heard or had
seen that this one, the Lord Jesus, was in that home. It says,
and behold a woman in the city, which, now this is a description,
and only the Bible would say this. Natural man won't say this
about most people. which was a sinner. This woman
was a sinner. When she knew that Jesus sat
at dinner, at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box
of ointment. Now alabaster is a special kind
of rock. And this alabaster had been made,
hollowed out with some kind of cork in it. And inside of this
alabaster box, was some very, very sweet smelling ointment. Something that was very, very
expensive. And she brought it in with her.
Now we think, well, that's kind of strange for a woman that lived
in the city to come in uninvited into this home of a Pharisee
and take a place in behind the Lord. She did not even get around
and say, excuse me, I'd like to do something for you. She
came around behind, you know, how she thought of herself in
the presence of this king, in the presence of the Lord, that
it was a very special person that she was in. She had a lot
more understanding on who this man was, Jesus, than the Pharisee
that had invited him in there. To him, he was just someone pretty
important that was doing some miracles and doing some preaching
and wanted to have him come in and show him off and make sure
that he got a meal. But this woman, uninvited, came
in and she had a mission in mind and she was not even going to
step out in front of the Lord Jesus and perform it. It tells
us, and stood at his feet behind him, weeping. Now, This woman
had a very interesting story to tell, no doubt. We don't have
much about it. Now we're gonna find out that
that Pharisee, in his mind, he didn't tell Jesus this, but in
his mind he said, if Jesus knew who this is, he certainly would
not let her touch him. Now he never said it out loud,
but he said it in his heart, in his mind. He would never let
this woman touch him. He knew exactly who she was. He knew exactly who the Pharisee
was. He knew all about them. He knows every thought that we've
ever thought. He knows us inside and out. We
are before him. We cannot hide anything from
this great God. He is absolutely omniscient. He knows all things and He's
all powerful. So nobody's fooling Him. Nobody's
fooling the Lord Jesus. The Pharisee's not fooling Him,
nor is the woman that is known as a sinner fooling Him. He knows
full well why she is there. It's already been summed up in
one word, sinner. That's why she's there. She knows
that this person has some ability to take care of the problem she
has. She stood behind him and she
wept and began to wash his feet with tears and wipe them with
the hairs of her head. You know, that may be something
that we wouldn't normally do, but she did. She was showing
complete submission and full blessing for being in the presence
of this man who can do something for her. She is a sinner. She
would admit that. Now the Pharisee would not admit
that. You know, we have an account of another Pharisee in the Bible.
We don't even know his name, just like this man, we don't
know the name of this woman. But that Pharisee, he went down
to the temple to pray. And you know, seemed to be walking
right beside him was a publican, because they both went down to
the temple to pray. Now the Pharisee said, Lord,
I'm so thankful that I'm not like other people. Now that's
just about what this Pharisee is saying. Lord, I'm so thankful
I'm not like other people. And particularly this publican.
I'm really thankful that I'm not like this publican. And the
publican would not even raise his eyes to heaven, but said,
God be merciful to me, a sinner. And the Lord said about him,
he went down to his house justified. He went down clean slate with
God. He went down, God was gonna take
care of the issue. He was gonna take care of his
sin by his son on the cross. Well, here we have this lady,
she's behind him kissing his feet and anointed him with ointment. Now, when the Pharisee that had
bidden him saw it, he spake within himself. Sometimes we have some
real interesting conversations with ourself, don't we? Boy. People cut me off in traffic,
and I have interesting conversations with myself. People do things. We talk about it in ourselves. Well, this man, when he looked
over there and saw this scene taking place, when he looked
over there and saw this woman there that had already been identified
in the scripture as a sinner, he said in his heart, in his
mind, this man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what
manner of woman this is that touches him for she is a sinner. Now we have the Bible identifying
her as that and we have him identifying her as that. And you know what?
She identified herself as that. That's the blessing. She knew
what she was. The Pharisee didn't realize what
he was. This woman knew what she was. And now we go on and
the Lord brings up a picture for us to look at. He said there
was a man who was a creditor. Now a creditor in this day and
time is like today a banker that loans us money. This creditor
had loaned out money. Now his creditor loaned out money
with the idea that he was going to get the money back plus interest. That's what creditors do. Now
there was one man and he talks about a penny here and in this
day and time a penny. We don't think of it that way
because pennies are very small money system, but a penny in
this day and time was one day's labor. So let's just think we
make $100 a day. This one man owed, he owed $50,000.
Now the other man who has also owed the creditor, he owed $5,000. And so the Lord Jesus says, there
was a certain creditor, which had two debtors. Now there's
a big difference between a creditor and a debtor. If we borrowed
the money, we're in debt. If we loan the money, we're a
creditor. And a creditor had loaned out money to two debtors,
they owed him. Now it says here, and the one
owed 500 pence and the other 50. And when they had nothing
to pay, now that means they were bankrupt. They didn't own any
property. They didn't have any money in
the bank. They didn't have any money in their pockets. They
had nothing. They were bankrupt. When the creditor said, when
he looked at the situation, he said, he forgave them both. Now that would be a, that's the
kind of creditor I'd like to have. Someone who forgave me
all my debt, particularly if I owed the $50,000. Now it would
be pretty good if it was 5,000, but $50,000, that would be a
big debt to have forgiven. Well, he's pointing out something
here. He goes on to say here, and they had nothing to pay.
And frankly, he forgave them both. Tell me, Pharisee, tell
me, which of these two debtors would love the creditor the most? Now, if you had loaned out $50,000
and $5,000, and you forgave both of them, who would you think
would love me the most, or you the most? The guy that owned
$50,000. So he asked this, and he turned
He turned to Simon and said, what about this? And Simon the
Pharisee answered and said, I suppose he to whom he forgave most. And he said unto him, thou hast
rightly judged. Now he turned to the woman and
said unto Simon, seest thou this woman? Now that's a foolish question
to ask a man, isn't it? From God's point of view, it's
not a foolish question though. He's already noticed her. He
wished she wasn't here. He wished she hadn't come in. He wished that she hadn't been
over there wiping his feet. He had all kinds of thoughts
about this woman. And if Jesus knew who she was,
he would not allow this to happen. But Jesus turned and looked at
the woman that tells us here, I entered thine house and thou
gave us me no water for my feet. You didn't even give me common
courtesy. You didn't meet with, you know, today, how are you
doing? Put your coat up here. He had no interest in that at
all. He only had interest in making
pride out of who he had in his home. And he says, thou gavest
me no water for my feet, but this woman hath washed my feet
with tears and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest
me no kiss. You didn't even welcome me in
here. You didn't say, well, so good to have you come and have
a meal with me. I've been looking forward to this. He invited,
he expected, and he didn't give any common courtesy about it. And she has not ceased to kiss
my feet. My head with oil thou didst not
anoint. This woman hath anointed my feet
with ointment. Now, that ointment stayed with
him for a long, long time. After he left this home, after
he went around to about doing his rest of his business that
he had intended to do from the foundation of the world, wherever
he went, there was this scent on his feet that he had been
somewhere where someone came to him and she knew she was a
sinner. And the sweetest odor comes off
the Lord Jesus Christ because he has promised to save his people
from their sins. What glorious scent he sends
to his people as he saves them from their sin. What glorious
savior. And wherefore I say unto thee,
her sins, which are many, there's no question in the world, Her
sins were many. She knew about it more than that. Jesus knew about it. And you
know, on the sideline poking fun at, the Pharisee knew about
it, but he couldn't help her. Pharisee can't help anybody.
Religion can't help anybody. There's no way out of the mess
we're in in religion. We can only be helped by the
Savior who saves his people from their sins. Wherefore I say unto
thee, her sins, which are many, She owed a lot. She was a great
debtor. She had piles and piles. You
know that Man who said, God, be merciful to me, a sinner,
didn't go out and mention them all because he couldn't, but
he recognized this fact that he had fallen in Adam. He was
a sinner by nature, a sinner by practice, and a sinner by
choice, and there was only one person who could take care of
it, and that's Almighty God and his son, Jesus Christ. For she
loved much, but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth
little. You know, he said, well, I stole
some cookies out of my mother's cookie jar one time and I asked
for forgiveness. Didn't mean much. But since she
was a sinner and she's forgiven of much, you know what she did? She loved much. She loved much. She loved the Lord Jesus Christ
with all her heart. Why? Because he gave her a heart
to do that. He gave her a heart to love him. It goes on, but
they that sat at meat with him began to say unto themselves,
who is this that forgiveth sins also? You know, they questioned
the Lord Jesus time and time again, and they had him on their
scale. He's just like us, how can he
do that? Well, they didn't realize he
is the God-man come in human flesh to lay down his life, a
ransom. for many to pay their sin debt. And he said unto the woman, thy
faith save thee, go in peace. She went away better than she
came. And the guy, the Pharisee, he said, now I've just been one-upped. I've just been one-upped. This
guy I invited into my home to show off to my friends has just
one-upped me. I have to admit, I'm not a sinner
like this lady. And since I'm not a sinner like
this lady, I don't love very much. But this lady left loving
him with all her heart. What a statement he makes here
about salvation. He saves sinners. That's who
he came for. He did not come for the righteous,
but he came for sinners. He tells us that he, but God
commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us. He became the ransom price. He
paid the price for the sins of his people. And the church has
been singing Hallelujah ever since. Hallelujah, what a Savior. We're gonna stop there. Brother
Mike, if you'll come and lead us in one more song.