Well, good morning and welcome
to our continuing Bible study in the book of Luke. We're beginning
chapter 19 today, although it's just a continuation
of what we were looking at in chapter 18. If you'll join me
in Luke 19, we'll just read this first section. deals with Zacchaeus here, and
Jericho. Luke 19, 1, And Jesus entered
and passed through Jericho. And remember, in our previous
lessons in chapter 18, He was near Jericho, coming up to Jericho
When he gave sight to the blind man that we studied in our last
lesson Receive thy sight up to look is what those words meant
and then so now he's entered and passed through Jericho and
behold there was a man named Zacchaeus Which was the chief
among the publicans or the tax collectors and he was rich And
he sought to see Jesus who he was and he could not for the
press because he was a little of stature and he ran before
and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him for he was to
pass that way and when Jesus came to the place he looked up
and saw him and said unto him Zacchaeus make haste and come
down for today I must abide at thy house and he made haste and
came down and received him joyfully And when they saw it, they all
murmured, saying that he has gone to be the guest with a man
that is a sinner. And Zacchaeus stood and said
unto the Lord, Behold, Lord, half of my goods I give to the
poor, and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation,
I restore him fourfold. And Jesus said unto him, This
day salvation is salvation. Come to this house for so much,
as he also is the son of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to
seek and to save that which is lost." Boy, what a tremendous
block of Scripture there. And we were kind of kidding around
this morning a little bit and talking about all the many times
of flannel grafts and everything about Zacchaeus up the tree and
being a wee little man and all the songs we sang and everything. But there's just so much more
to this. We have to go back to the Old
Testament, and it's there. You know, our last lesson showed
that Jesus came into the area of the city of Jericho. You know,
in Jericho, I was reading some archaeological stuff the other
day, and it turned out Jericho is like one of the oldest walled
cities in history. It's got the oldest known walled protections for a city that archaeologists
have been able to find. When we were studying that, Jesus
visiting those cities up there, Capernaum, and all those towns
up there on the north end of the sea there, and they were
walled cities, and those people were secure in those walls, and
that was kind of the topic of our lesson, how people were secure,
and the Lord tears down those walls that we depend on and gets
rid of them. And He says, woe unto Capernaum,
woe unto all those towns that depended on those kind of things.
We see the same kind of scenario here in Jericho. And so we have
this walled city, And the original walls, they said, were like 12
feet tall and three feet thick, and they were just... I think I was reading a little
bit in Arthur Pink's book on Joshua, he said they were unassailable. Unassailable. And so these people
that lived there, they'd heard of the Israelites, and their God. And yet, instead
of repentance, they closed themselves in, we find if we go back to
the Old Testament. And a city that was given over
to idolatry and the worship of the moon. And when you look at
the etymology of the word Jericho, some have it that it's, that
was the name of the moon god that they a variation of the
name of the moon god that they worship, but it also has a reference
to a pleasant fragrance in the perfume
place, I think is what it might be called. And it was one of the cities that
the spies reported on in Numbers chapter 13, verse 28. The spies
came back, and we were talking a little bit about that a little
bit this morning too, that the spies came back and said, the
10 spies came back and said, oh, the cities are walled and
they're great. And there's the sons of Anak
there, the giant people were there. We can't win. And so, you know,
if we go back to Jericho, it's just so interesting. And as time
after time after time after time, we always try to connect the
New Testament and the Old Testament because they're the same. There's
nothing new in the New Testament, and everything in the New Testament
was recorded or told in the Old Testament, and it all points
to Christ. It's all Him. So if we go back
to Joshua, the book of Joshua, and Norman will be covering some
of this in Numbers chapter 13 as well, but in Joshua chapter
5, when the Israelites came into that area around Jericho, In
Joshua 5.13, it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that
he lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold, there stood a man
over against him, with his sword drawn in his hand. And Joshua
went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or against
us, or our adversaries? And he said, this person that
he was looking at, he said, Nay, but as captain of the host of
the Lord am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to
the earth and did worship and said unto him, What saith my
Lord to his servant? And the captain of the Lord's
host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot, for
the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so."
And well, you know, you've all probably read this hundreds of
times about the Lord gave instructions on what they were to do to overcome
that and the walled city. They marched around it and sounded
the trumpet. That trumpet's just declaring
the truth of the gospel. That's what that trumpet noise
does. It just says, here is the truth. And you can wall yourself
off from it all you want to. You can hide behind your wall
of free will. You can hide behind your wall of good works. You
can hide behind your wall of keeping the law. All those things
are coming down when the Lord sounds that trumpet of His truth.
And so this walled city is overcome by the Lord of hosts, and it's
given over to the hand of Joshua, who is a type of Christ there. And we find his name even as
a type of Christ in the Old Testament, Hebrew versus the Greek, and
Joshua, Jesus. And this city was destroyed by
God. As was written in Joshua, everything
was destroyed except a remnant according to
the election of grace. And who do we find that he saved
out of there? Rahab the harlot and her kin. And if you'll go down the genealogy
of Christ, you'll find her name prominently posted in that amongst
those names that she was in the line of Christ. And yet we find
the Lord of hosts was there for his person. As Norm was pointing
out this morning, in Luke 13, a daughter of Abraham was there,
even though she was of this Canaanite tribe that was in that walled
city, she was a daughter of Abraham. They're called children of Abraham,
as he pointed out in Galatians. So here we have this picture
of the Lord, the captain of the Lord's host, and he created all
of that. And then there he's standing
there talking to Joshua and saying, you know, I'm coming back for
some of my folks here about 1,500 years from now, I'll be back. And Rahab the harlot and her
kids, kind of like Noah and eight, so is by water, in the ark. And so this city is destroyed,
but the Lord's people are taken out of it. They're saved alive. And so what was pictured thousands
of years before is being reproduced in this very chapter in Luke
chapter 19. And you know, it's interesting
that Joshua, when they destroyed that city and they took Rahab
out and everything, he pronounced a curse on that city. in Joshua
6, 26, he said, a curse on the city and any man and his children
who would rebuild it. And yet, later on, we find in
2 Kings, Jericho is described, remember Elisha and Elijah were
there in that area, and there was a school of prophets there,
And it was a place that had been
redeveloped, and in fulfillment, it was, just as Joshua said,
the guy that rebuilt it and his son had problems. But it's interesting that they
called that in 2 Kings, They said, this is a pleasant
place, but there's no water and it's barren. Isn't that interesting
how that it's kind of an oxymoron thing. It's really a pleasant
place, but there's no water and it's barren. Won't grow anything.
And, you know, it's just a picture of how we view this world in
our lost condition. There's no water. And it's a
barren place, but we like it pretty good. And you know, Elisha,
the prophet of the Lord, you know the story. Elijah was taken
up and he told Elisha, well, if you see me when I'm taken
up by the Lord, He says, then you'll know the Spirit of Lord
is going to be on you. And what will you have? And he
says, well, I'll have a double portion of the Spirit on me that
you have. And he says, and that'll happen
if you see me taken up. And of course, he was taken up. And Elijah gave him his mantle
and that same mantle that Elijah had used strike the water there
in the Jordan River, and they passed over dry. And then Elisha
took it and did the similar thing with it when he took over. And
the School of Prophets, they said, well, maybe Elijah's just
like off on a trip somewhere. Maybe the Lord deposited him
in a canyon somewhere or on a mountain. And so they said, we'd like to
send 50 guys out to look for him. And Elijah says, I don't
think that's a good idea, because I saw him go. And they kept insisting, and
finally he was embarrassed. And he said, OK, send out your
50. And they come back and said, well, we can't find him anywhere.
He said, I told you. And so anyway, they came up to
Elisha and said, you know, this is a pleasant place. In 2 Kings
chapter 2, you can find this account here in verse 18 through
22. And this is just fascinating,
this little paragraph about Jericho and how it had been cursed, and
it was a barren place with no water. And when the prophets of Jericho
came to him that came to Elisha, for he tarried at Jericho, he
said unto them, Did not I say unto you, Go not? He says, Don't. I don't want you to go search
for Elijah. He was taken up by God. And the men of the city
said unto Elisha, Behold, I pray thee, the situation of the city
is pleasant, and as my Lord seeth. But the water is not, and the
ground is barren. And Elisha, Elisha says, bring
me a new cruise. What a picture. He takes a new
cruise, a new creation. And he said, and put salt therein. Boy, what visions that conjures
up for us. When I found you, by the way,
you were unsalted and you were in your blood and I took you
and gave life to you. He takes a new cruise and put
salt there in and they brought it to him and he went forth to
the spring of waters and cast the salt in there and said, thus
saith the Lord, I've healed these waters. There shall not be from
thence any more death or barren land. And so the waters were
healed unto this day, according to the saying of Elisha, of which
he spake. And it became a pleasant place. It became a... There was a... It's kind of a Greek sounding
name, Archelaus, I think it was. he designed and built some of
the world's most famous gardens there and they were that city
became famous for its fragrant gardens and its giant groves
of palm trees that waved in the wind on that that wind and it
gave off that fragrance of all the plants and flowers they had
there and the palms and everything. It was just famous for groves
of graceful palms and it was a place where trade routes converged
from the north and the south and the east and the west. Places for all these merchants
came from all over, and it was a wealthy place. It was a place
of a lot of commerce, and it was a place conquered
by the Romans according to the determinate counsel of God. All
these things, it's just fascinating how all these, boy, it just always
reminds me of our fabric of grace, all these different threads that
are interwoven and linked together to accomplish the purpose of
God and the redemption of the church. All these things come
together, and they're all pictured in the Old Testament. and carried
out there, and the New Testament is just a continuation of that. There's nothing different, but
many of the things that we see are pictured in the Old Testament. And then they're kind of brought
to explanation in the New Testament, as it were. And so here we have
this rich city that's been made pleasant. And here we have this
tax collector named Zacchaeus, who's a chief tax collector. And because there was so much
commerce there, there was so much going on, they had a tax
collector that was in charge of income tax. There was a tax
collector who was in charge of transportation. There was a tax
collector of personal tax, property tax, harvest tax, livestock tax. They all had their own little
thing. And the orders from Rome was, That province is going to
give me so much money. I don't care how you get it.
Your job as tax collector is to tax that realm. And you give me so many dollars. And whatever you get beside is,
that's your business. As long as I get what I wanted,
the rest of it is up to you. And so they became very creative
in their taxing and You know, they would, well, you got a four-legged
donkey, that's like a buck and a half a leg. There's 18 spokes
in your wheel. Buck a spoke on each side. And, you know, they were creative.
And Zacchaeus, who was the chief tax collector, he would get all
the revenue from that plus a little something for himself. And he
became very wealthy. And the Jews hated him. because this guy is an extortioner. I brought my wagon load of pomegranates
in last week and he charged me for tax on every seed in the
pomegranate. He taxed me for how many animals
I had pulling my cart and he taxed me for how many boards
were in my my trailer and And how many spokes in my wheel and
blah blah blah and they just hated him and he said on top
of that they're giving the money to the Romans a pagan Romans
who we ate and who have conquered us There's just nothing that
they liked about tax collectors And in Luke, I think there's
half a dozen mentions of publicans, starting with Matthew Levi, a
tax collector, who the Lord called. And he was always having supper
with the tax collectors and the sinners. And so you find all
these accounts of publicans in the book of Luke many times. So here's another one, Zacchaeus. The way those tax collectors
worked was the Romans would set up shop in this town and they
would say, OK, we need a tax collector. We're going to open
bids for the tax collector job. And people would vie for that
position because they knew they could make a lot of money. But
there were going to be social and economic consequences of
that with their people. But the money overcame a lot
of that. But they didn't have any friends. Nobody would associate with them
because they were extortioners and robbers. Remember that publican
in the Pharisee from chapter 18? Well, I'm glad I'm not like
other men, especially not like that tax collector guy who extortioners
and robbers the worst sinners that there are on the planet.
And they didn't have many friends, so that oftentimes we find when
Jesus goes to have supper with them, there's nobody there but
sinners and publicans. Zacchaeus would have said, I'm
having a supper, Jesus is coming, and who is he going to invite
over except all the sub-tax collectors that were under his realm, because
he was the chief tax collector. So he would have them over, and
they were probably in the same condition. Nobody liked them.
They were ostracized from society. They were sinners that everybody
hated. And yet, here was a friend of
sinners that came. You know, in Luke 18, we were
taught Jesus came nigh to Jericho again, where He'd stood some 1,500 years
before. And He healed one whose blindness
must be removed in order to look up and see the Kingdom of God
in the person of Jesus Christ. And now at Jericho, Jesus by
divine appointment again seeks one of His lost sheep. Isn't
that amazing? Comes to this city that's been
destroyed because of idolatry and yet one was saved out of
it. One of His lost sheep. One of
His people. And now He's here by divine appointment
seeking one of His lost sheep that's a a dreaded publican,
the worst of sinners. Lord, have mercy on me, the sinner. It's what that publican said
in Luke 18, the chief of sinners. And Jesus, in 19, when he entered
and passed through Jericho, and behold, there was a man named
Zacchaeus, which was the chief among the publicans, and he was
rich, and he sought to see Jesus, who he was, and he couldn't.
for the press. There was this huge multitude
thronging the Lord. And he was this little guy. He was little because the Lord had
determined him to be little to give us this picture. He couldn't
see Him by his own ability. The things that made
him who he was didn't allow him to see Jesus. He was short. all of sin and
come short of the glory of God, I think Paul wrote. And we're
all in that condition spiritually that he portrayed and pictured
for us in a physical way. And he wanted to see Jesus who
he was, but he could not for the press because He was little
of stature, and this spiritual metaphor is just another example
of, unless a man be born again from above, you might find that
word in your margins in John chapter 3, where Jesus speaking
to Nicodemus says, unless a man be born again. It also has the
connotation of from above. It has to come from above. It
can't be generated within or locally. And unless a man be
born again, he can't see the kingdom of God. What a picture
of Zacchaeus he wanted to see. And his motivation was to see And, you know, we all react to
motivations in our lives. And we find out that the Lord
causes those in us. He causes the circumstances that
motivate us. And he wanted to see him because
he was famous. And it doesn't really elaborate
on the reasons that he said he wanted to see Jesus who he was. And he was very famous. Jesus
was renowned. I mean, just healed a blind guy
down the road. And he raised the people from the
dead and healed lepers and did all kinds of wonderful things.
And kind of had a reputation for being a friend to publicans
and sinners. And Zacchaeus says, I'd like
to see this guy. But yet he could not. You know,
interestingly enough, the name Zacchaeus in Hebrew means pure,
one who's righteous. And he was the exact opposite
of that in his life. In his natural condition, he
was the very opposite. He was kind of a robber, corrupt,
an extortioner. By his own confession, he says,
when the Lord saved him and revealed himself to him, he says, If I've
taken anything from anybody by false accusation, I restore them
fourfold. Well, you know where that comes
from? That comes from Exodus and Leviticus. If you raised a false accusation
against someone and stole their sheep or their ox, there was
a rate of payback. If you stole an ox, you had to
give back five. If you stole a sheep, you had to give that
sheep back plus four more. He says, if I've taken anything
by false accusation, I will restore it fourfold. And in his natural condition, he
would never seek the Lord. There's none, Romans 3 says,
there's none that understand, there's none that seeketh after
God. So that makes that very clear to us that something happened
to him to cause him, to motivate him to act and do what he did. And so then it must be by divine
direction that he sought the Lord. There's none that understand. There's none that seeketh after
God. Just as that blind beggar whose spiritual blindness had
to be removed to seek and to see the Lord, to look up, Zacchaeus
needed every bit as much divine direction in his life to cause
him to seek the Lord. And though he couldn't see Him
as Jesus yet, he was compelled to seek Him because he was a
child of God, a child of Abraham who was drawn by irresistible
grace because of everlasting love. And we find that from Jeremiah
31.3, I've loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with
lovingkindness have I drawn thee. And we find that repeated in
John chapter 6 verse 37. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. They'll overcome the things that
the world puts in their way by my power. I'll cause them to
climb up that sycamore tree if that's what it takes. All that
the Father gives me shall come to me, and him that cometh to
me I'll no wise cast out. And then he says, and no man
can. come to me, except the Father which sent me draw him." And
so there's the situation that we find Zacchaeus in. And imagine,
you know, there's this trail. We mentioned these main routes
that went into Jericho from the west and the north and the south
and the east. And he said, well, here's the
main trail. They're all going to come down.
Jesus is going to come down this trail. to Jericho. Here's where it goes. I'll run
ahead because I know where they're going to be. And I'll get up
that tree and maybe I can see him. And when he gets there,
he's waiting. He's waiting. And Jesus comes
below that tree and stops. And he looks up and he says,
Zacchaeus, make haste and come down. And he says, how did he
know my name? How could he know? How could
he know I'm up this tree and how could he know my name? And
not only did he say, come down, he said, for today I must abide
in thy house. Can you imagine the shock? Can
you just imagine the one who doesn't have any friends
except other publicans? The most famous guy in the land
comes up and looks up and calls him by name. and says, I'm coming
to your house today. How could he know? To him the
porter openeth, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calleth
his own sheep by name. John chapter 10, verse 3. And he leads them out. He calls
them by name. He knows them. You know, he knew
1,500 years before. one of my sheep's in that city.
And He arranged that everyone in that city would be killed
except Rahab and her kin. Everything torn down, everything
destroyed. He knew. He knew His name. It's
like Nathanael. Jesus saw Nathanael coming to
Him and said, Behold, indeed, an Israelite, whom is no guile.
And Nathanael said, Whence knowest thou me? Where do you know me
from? I don't even remember seeing
you before. And Jesus said, Before Philip
called you, when you was under that fig tree, I saw thee. And he says, I was pretty sure
I was alone there. I kind of scoped it out. Nobody was around. Nobody saw
me. And Jesus just came to town.
He says, when you were under that fig tree, I saw you. Nathaniel was under that tree
and Zacchaeus was up that tree. There's some connection there.
Zacchaeus, make haste and come down. I must today, I must abide
in thy house. I must, I must. Boy, we've gone
over that so many times in our Bible classes when the Lord says,
I must needs go through Samaria. I must needs go down to Gadara. I must go here. I must go there.
It's because he has his sheep. He's going to call them by name
and lead them out. And it was appointed in the covenant
of grace that Zacchaeus would meet the gospel at this very
place at that very moment. The walled city, the walls of
his security torn down, the goodness of God leading him to repentance
and turning from those idols that he depended on and worshipped
to worshiping the true and living God. And he says, suddenly all
these things that he accumulated didn't seem to have that much
value to him. And he says, I got these by ill-gotten
means. Half my goods I give to the poor.
And if I've taken anybody's money by false accusation, I restore
them fourfold. You know what John called that?
He says, bring forth fruit, meat for repentance. Which doesn't
mean give me a list of stuff you're going to do to show me
how good you are. It's bring some evidence of grace
in your life. Bring some evidence of what has
taken place in your life that's made you different. And so he came down and he received
Christ joyfully. Well, there's a thing that doesn't
happen unless one has got a new heart because he says, I'll give
you a heart to know me and to love me. And then you will, then
things will, then you'll recognize, well, I've stolen stuff from
a lot of people by extortion, by false accusation. If you don't
pay me extra ten bucks, I'm going to tell the Romans that you're
an insurrectionist and I have connections. And it may not be
true, but you're going to have to prove it to them. It'll be
up to you. And that's going to cost you
a lot more than the five shillings that I want. You'll probably
have to give the Romans ten shillings to turn you loose. It's cheaper
to pay me. If I've done that, I'm giving
them back fourfold. So Jesus has gone to be the guest
in the home of a man who is a sinner. He came to seek and to save that
which was lost. That's the gospel in the Old
Testament and the New Testament. It's a faithful saying worthy
of all acceptation that Christ came into the world to save sinners
of whom I am chief. That's what Paul said. I am like
the worst sinner. I am the worst. And so Zacchaeus, he brings forth
this fruit, meat for repentance, this evidence of saving grace.
And he says, if I've taken anything, I restore them fourfold. And
you can find that in Leviticus 6.5 and Exodus 22.1 We'll read those today because
we're running out of time. And Jesus, he explains why this
transformation has happened. He said, this day is salvation
come to this house for as much for the reason, this is the because,
he also is a son of Abraham. Well, we have to think back about
who else was the son or daughter of Abraham that 1,500 years ago
to that day that he was there before. I have a son of Abraham
here now. I had a daughter of Abraham here
in the day of Joshua, in the day of Jesus, in the day of the
Lord of hosts. He was there to seek to save
that which was lost then. He was there this day, straight
out of the Old Testament. Ezekiel 34 11 says, For thus
saith the Lord God, Behold, I, even I will both search my sheep
and seek them out. He doesn't have to search too
hard because he knows where they are. That's why he says, I must
need to go through Samaria. Not that I'm just going to go
searching around to see where somebody might be. He knows. I will seek that which was lost,
Ezekiel 34, 16. I will seek that which was lost
and bring again that which was driven away and will bind up
that which was broken and will strengthen that which was sick.
But I will destroy the fat and the strong and I'll feed them
with judgment." Boy, isn't that a picture of what happened at
Jericho back in the day of Joshua. We find then that we seek Him. I think there's a Him we like
to see. I sought Him because I found
out He was seeking me. Something to that effect. We
seek Him because He first sought us. And so then we love Him because
He first loved us. So we're out of time. We'll stop
there until next time. And we have another parable coming
up here. So we'll stop there for the day.
And in the meantime, as always, be free.