Well, join me in your Bibles
this morning in Luke, the 18th chapter of our continuing Bible
study in the book of Luke. Today we'll be in Luke 18, verses
9-14. This is a pretty famous block
of Scripture here regarding the Pharisee and the tax collector. It's a parable, it says. Remember, in our previous lesson,
in the beginning of the in the 18th chapter that the Lord was
dealing with them. And He spake a parable unto this
mixed multitude that men ought always to pray and not to faint.
And they were all concerned about, well, when's the end of the world
going to come? When's all this stuff going to happen? And the
focus of the message was to trust in the Lord The last sheep hasn't been brought
in yet, and we need to have faith in that that's what he's about,
and that's what his business is. And not to throw up our hands and
set fire to our hair and say, oh, things are so awful, but
to realize that much of everything that happens is according to
his purpose. and further into the Gospel. So now, with that background,
we come to verse 9, and He spake this parable. Remember, He's
got a mixed multitude of people that He's dealing with. Sometimes
He's speaking to the Pharisees, sometimes He's speaking to His
disciples, and sometimes He's speaking to both of them at the
same time. And He says He spake this parable unto certain which
trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. Two men went up to the temple
to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other a publican. And the
Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee
that I'm 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. And the publican, standing afar
off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but
smote upon his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner.
I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather
than the other, for every one that exalted himself shall be
abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." Just
another one of these series of texts that Hawker said, well,
this needs no explanation. It's just perfectly obvious to
the most casual observer what this means. So anyway, we'll
take a look at it. It just exemplifies the need
for grace. So our message today is called,
A Prayer for Atonement. And so again, immediately following
that preceding parable on men not always to pray and not to
faint, he now directs this parable specifically to certain which
trusted in themselves that they were righteous and who despised
other men. And it's hard to find a more
clear contrast of spiritual matters in the Bible. It's just like
black and white. clear dividing line and He goes ahead and names the certain
ones as the Pharisees here in a couple of verses. And then the publican of course
fills the bill as the ones that were the despised others. So
we'll look at that. The parable, it just plainly
declares the nature and position of natural man who's And oftentimes
you find them in a religious setting. They're in a religious
setting. They're in the temple. They're
in the temple praying. Now this publican, he might not
even have made it all the way in as far as the Pharisee. He
may have been relegated to the outer border of it. certainly wouldn't be allowed
in close to the real religious folks. But we often find these
natural men in a religious setting and attempting to approach God
under their own terms. And this parable, it equally
declares the nature and position of one in whom the Spirit of
God has done a new work. He just has an entirely different
view and approach. And so we'll kind of contrast
them. According to the Lord Himself, by His own words, the certain
which trusted in themselves that they were righteous. And you
know, that's just the case of all men in their unregenerate
natural state. I'm okay. I haven't really done
anything that bad. And that's a thing that because
of the fall, the tendency of natural man is just to minimize
sin. It's not really that big of a deal. They minimize sin. They minimize the true scope
of it. They minimize the awfulness,
the vileness of it. They minimize the effects of
it. And in every aspect, they just
try to put it away from them. So just as much as Adam did,
Well, we messed that up, but I'll just make myself a covering
here, and we'll just go on. So, you know, they trust in themselves
and not in Christ. Their trust in themselves is
based on, as we'll find with this Pharisee, and you know what?
As Norm often says from the pulpit, we're just all recovering Pharisees
that the Lord has had mercy on. We were all in that boat at one
time or another. They trust in themselves and
it's based on their performance, their works, their deeds, their
own, and this is really important, their own concept of who God
is and what He is. And we were debating, not really
debating, but we were just looking at some different definitions
of sinner in the Bible here. It kind of reminded me of Song
of Solomon where the Lord says, oh, you're so wonderful. You're
beautiful. And the church says, no, you're the beautiful one. You're the wonderful one. And
these definitions of sin was, no, it's the worst. It's the baddest. And this guy
says, no, my definition says it's way worse than that. So
it's not good. You can hardly put enough adjectives
in front of it to describe the devastation of it and the results
of it. And their concept of God and
His righteousness is in Strong's concordance. It says sin is missing
the mark. Well, they're missing the mark
about who God is. They're totally off in left field
about who God is and what He is and His righteousness and
how sin relates to Him and what it takes to overcome that. And
so those ones whose self-righteousness then is based on what they've
done or supposedly not done, you know, I haven't done any
of it. I haven't actually killed anybody. I haven't actually committed
adultery. I haven't actually stolen anything. The Lord says, you know, if you've
done that in your heart, you're just as guilty as if you committed
the physical act. No one can control that. So it
can't be based on what you've done or not done, what you're
going to do. And those are all lumped under
the category of works of the flesh in the Bible. It just talks
about works of the flesh. They're just rooted in the flesh.
They have to do with the flesh. And there's nothing spiritual
about them. And what we often find in these
religious settings with those that have this view of things, despise those who they think
lesser than themselves and don't measure up to their standards
of religious piety. Let's just say that. And isn't
that what this Pharisee said? I'm glad I'm not like those guys.
I'm glad I'm not like that man. And the despised ones that are
represented here in this parable by the publicans, they display
the opposite nature, one that's been the Bible, kind of the definitions
of things give us the meaning of they've been superimposed
upon by the Lord. And it forever changes their
sense of self, and it forever changes their concept and their
knowledge of God. It forever changes their knowledge
that they need a daisman that can lay a hand on us both, is
what Job said. I need that. And he didn't come
to that knowledge of himself. He came to that knowledge because
it was superimposed upon him from above. So this satisfying
the righteousness of gods and the needs of man for reconciliation
is not a concept that the natural man is acquainted with. Well, I haven't really done anything
that bad, and I do plenty more good things to overcome maybe
what minimal badness that I may have done or may not have done,
depending on your concept of sin and those kind of activities. And in natural man, that bar
is always moving, and it's always moving lower. It never moves
higher. It's always, well, what we considered
sin today was heinous sin yesterday and absolutely heinous the day
before, but today it's not so bad and tomorrow it'll just be
the norm and it'll be accepted. We won't even consider it sin
anymore. So it's a changeable, malleable
concept in their opinion. So as we look at this publican,
that sees a need for mercy, sees a need for forgiveness, sees
a need for righteousness which they know that they could never
supply themselves. And we look at the particulars
now of the principal characters in this parable. We have the
Pharisee, we have the publican, we have God, and the language
is just so precise and descriptive of the truths involved. And in
verse 9 it says, He spake this parable unto certain which trusted
in themselves. that they were righteous. That
just says everything right there. They trusted in themselves for
their righteousness. And they despised others. Two
men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other
a publican. And the Pharisee stood and prayed
thus with himself. God, I thank Thee. He keeps emphasizing
themselves. Everything is rooted in themselves.
I thank God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners,
unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican, the bottom of
the barrel, the one that kind of encompasses all those other
crimes, you know, that oftentimes when we find the Lord would be
at supper with sinners and there would be publicans and and adulterers
and sinners, and these seem to encompass a lot of that. And
it's the view of the Lord here regarding the supposed prayer
of the Pharisee, which is given us in this example where he stood
and prayed thus with himself. Prayer is really defined as worshipful
supplication which should be directed to God. But this Pharisee,
he prayed with himself. And with here, in the Greek,
this is defined as toward or with regard to. So it clearly
indicates that he was like, praying with himself. He wasn't really
praying to God. And he only put the word God
in there just to kind of legitimize his activity there. And remember, he's standing in
the temple praying, God, I thank God. God, I thank you. I'm not
like those bad people or those sinners. So he speaks the name
of God, but it's just one of those cases where you honor me
with your lips, but your heart is just like far from me. So
he prayed, invoking the name of God to add
legitimacy. And the idea then is brought
forth that the Pharisee was really directing praise and attention
and worship to himself. God, you should pay attention
to me because I'm really righteous because of what I'm about to
tell you. God is mentioned so that God
might actually recognize and approve or reward this Pharisee
for all the things which he's about to list, which he has kept
careful track of. And because this prayer is really
all about Him, and He's the true object of it, His words really
never get more than this high off the ground. They never go
from above His lips. And then when they come out,
they just sort of fall right to the ground. And they never
really rise spiritually one inch toward God, because it's really
not directed to Him in any kind of worship for what God has done. It's all about Me. It's all about me. And that's
how we all are before the Lord has mercy and causes us to be
born again. So he lists some deeds and works
here which the Pharisee attempted to approach God with. And remember,
this is Jesus saying these things. So he's kind of paying attention
and notating all the things that the self-righteous bring to the
table in their effort to say, I don't really need you. The Pharisees stood. I think
that's an important concept to think about because in Matthew
6, he says, when you pray, Don't be like the hypocrites, the ones
that say one thing and do another, the ones that are just actors.
Remember that word hypocrite was a Greek term for an actor
in a play. Be not like the hypocrites are,
for they love to pray standing. in the synagogues and in the
corners of the streets so that they can be seen of men. So that
everybody will look at them and say, oh man, that guy is really
righteous. That guy is real religious. That
guy is so pious. He says, verily I say unto you,
they have their reward. That attention that they get
from men is all they're going to get. Because they're not getting
anything from God. So he stood and prayed thus with
himself. God, I thank Thee that I'm not
as other men are, the extortioner, the unjust, the adulterers, even
as this publican. So he thanks God that he's not
like other men are, and he lists those categories that he deems
deplorable. Extortioners. They're after your
money. They're trying to extort money
out of you some way. If you don't pay me, I'll tell
them that I saw you at the card club the other night, or at the
movies, or wherever. Pay up. And some of these were
tactics that the publicans used to weasel more money out of the
ones they were subject to taxing on behalf of the Romans. And
he said, I thank God I'm not one of those extortioner guys.
I thank God that I'm not unjust, wicked and unrighteous. That's what unjust means. It
means you're not justified. It means you're unjust. If I thank you, God, I'm not
an adulterer, one who commits physical adultery, but really
has no concept of the spiritual whoredom that he's really truly
involved in, in worshiping himself and not the Lord God Almighty. Here's the thing that I'm most
glad I'm not like, is this public, or even as this publican. Those
other ones are sort of tolerable a little bit, but publican, no. And you remember from one of
our previous lessons, they were tasked with taxing the people
on behalf of the Romans, and the Roman, they would appoint
a governor, and the governor would auction off tax collector
jobs to people And they would pay them to obtain those positions,
or unless they were like a relative or somebody they owed something
to. And they say, okay, this is how
much revenue we need from your district or the road that you're
on that you tax people that go back and forth on. This is how
much revenue we expect from you for the Romans. But we need a
little something for ourselves, and you need a little something
for yourself. So you can be creative in that. So they would tax how
many wheels you had on your cart, or they would tax how many legs
your donkey had. They would invent stuff, much
like now. So they would tax them on, and
then they would say, okay, So much in this pile for the Romans,
so much in this pile for me. And you know Zacchaeus, he lamented
a lot of that stuff when the Lord revealed himself to him. He says, man, I'll pay back like
four-fold anything that I've taken unjustly from someone. And I restore all those things
if you want to go look up that. But you get the idea that he's,
I'm glad I'm not like that publican. particularly despised because
they're taking money from us Jews and giving it to the heathen
Romans, extorting it out of us. So we have this list of particular
things that God has to take note of in which the Pharisee is certain
that the despised ones have nothing to do with. They are the perpetrators
of a lot of these things and the reason why he despises them. And you note in that block of
Scripture how many times he says, I, I, I, I, I, I. Again, it's
all focused on himself and what he's done or not done. I fast twice a week. And John Gill
said that was a tradition of the elders. It was brought about
from, he says, tied to Ezra 8, 21, 23, where fasting and reading
of the book of Esther was supposed to be done twice a week. But I was mentioning to Norm
this morning that it's interesting that if you read that eighth
chapter of Ezra, it mostly deals with the Jews intermarrying with
the heathens of the land. And he says, you need to stop
doing that. You need to get rid of that and go back to the Lord
God Almighty. And so it's kind of ironic that
this Pharisee would bring that up. I fast twice a week. on Tuesdays and Thursdays from
11 to 11.05. And you know, the Lord, you know,
we mentioned a minute ago about, He says, when you pray, don't
be like the hypocrites do. And they love to stand in the
religious places and on the prominent corners and pray so everybody
can see them and hear them and say, oh, what a religious person
you are. And He says, so what about fasting in Matthew 6, 16?
He says, okay, so when you fast, Don't be like the hypocrites. Don't be like the hypocrites
and have a sad face and suck in your cheeks so it looks like
you're starving on behalf of God. Don't disfigure your face,
that they may appear unto men to fast. So you make yourself
look like you're fasting, but you're probably going to go home
and have a cheeseburger. He says, verily I say unto you,
they have their reward. When the people look at them
and say, oh, I wish I could be like him. He's so religious and
pure and righteous and fasts and he prays. He may look good on the outside,
as Norm mentioned here the other day, but inside he's full of
dead man's bones. He's like a whited sepulcher. Not good. Here's another thing,
Lord. You should pay attention because
I give tithes of all that I possess. Make note of that. Make note of that. Woe unto you
scribes and Pharisees. Again, you're hypocrites there
in Matthew 23, 23. See, he just labels them as actors in each
one of these cases. You pay tithe of mint. and Annas and Cuman, and have
omitted the weightier matters of the law, which is no one can
keep the law. We need someone that can satisfy
that for us. You omit the weightier matters
of the law of judgment, the judgment of God, and mercy, the mercy
of God, and faith, faith that's not of yourselves, a gift to
God, lest any man should boast. These are the things that you
ought to have done, and not to leave the other undone. You should
go ahead and do those things, but that shouldn't be what you
base everything on. What you should base everything
on is what God has done, not yourself. So these things, prayer
and fasting and tithing, the Pharisee made sure to bring to
the attention of God as displays of what he considered works which
justified him before God. And you can change the words,
but it all basically amounts to the same thing of whatever
that we say that we have done, not what God has done. So you can
change that to church membership, to baptism, to observing communion,
to not doing anything bad. I'm just not a sinner. Just not. I haven't really done
anything bad. So that's just how a natural
man thinks. Remember that rich young ruler,
the Lord mentioned the law. He says,
well, I've kept all of those from my youth up. I've obeyed
all the law. I've done everything. from a
point, he says, from my youth up. But I'm sure that he didn't
remember from his youth down. So now we have a picture of the
other side, the prayer of the public, and we've looked at this
self-righteous prayer of the Pharisee and how it was all self-directed
and self-justifying. So now we look at this prayer
of the public, and his prayer reveals much of what has really
transpired spiritually in a child of God in whom the Spirit of
God has begun a good work. I was interested in that hymn
that we sang, Open My Eyes, Lord, well, really, Any of the things
that was mentioned in that hymn only comes about because your
eyes have already been opened. Because the Lord says, unless
man's born again, he can't see the kingdom of God. And he can't
hear, he can't see, can't enter. So this publican's prayer just
reveals so much of what transpires in a child of God in whom the
Spirit has begun a good work. And the publican It's so brief,
but it just says so much. And the other one says so much,
but means so little. The publican standing afar off
would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven because
the Lord had in the Spirit through the gospel had revealed to him
his nature and what that was like and how it related to God. He just couldn't even look up. But he smote upon his breast,
saying, God be merciful to me, a sinner." Well, Spurgeon noted
that a more correct translation would be that, God be merciful
to me, the sinner. The sinner, the worst sinner. And again, we mentioned earlier
how the tendency of natural man is to minimize sin, what it is
and how vile it is and what the devastating results of it are.
But what this guy represents is really the true experience
of practically everybody that we read about in the Bible that's
been born again that writes or records or has anything said
about them. Isaiah in chapter 6, He said, he saw the Lord high
and lifted up, and he says, woe is me. I'm undone. Because I am a man
of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean
lips, for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Well,
again, we call back our attention to John 3.3. Lest man be born
again, he can't see the kingdom of God. So this is very telling
about his relationship with God, and that he was a recipient of
the new birth there, because he saw the King, the Lord of
hosts, and then he saw himself as, I need the daisman, I need
the Redeemer, I need the Savior. I'm a man of unclean lips, and
what happens then? His lips were touched with a
coal of fire, and the Lord says, I've cleaned you. I've cleansed
you. So you are good to go. And I'm a man of unclean lips
in the midst of a people of unclean lips. And you know, Job, he said
in chapter 40, verse 4, he says, I'm vile. I am vile, what shall I answer
thee? I'll lay my hand upon my mouth."
I can't tell all the good things I did anymore. I can't tell all
the stuff that I do for my own righteousness anymore. I just
have to shut my mouth because I haven't done anything and I
can't do anything. Genesis 47, 9, Jacob said unto
Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage
are 130 years. Few and evil have been the days
of the years of my life, and have not attained unto the days
of the years of my life of my fathers and the days of their
pilgrimage." So I look back at my life, and I was a conniver. I was the Jacob
the supplanter. I was, until the Lord had mercy
on me, I was a schemer. Titus 1.15, what Paul wrote to
Titus, one of his ministers in training that he was engaged
with. He says, this is a faithful saying. Pay attention to this. And worthy
of all acceptation. He said, you should accept this.
100% totally that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners
of whom I'm the chief. I'm the worst. I'm the main one. In many of his epistles, he lists
off all the stuff that he said, you know, I persecuted the church. caused great harm to the church,
all the things that he did in his former life. He said, God was merciful to
me and revealed His Son in me. But I am the chief of sinners. So there's a recognition that
happens because of the new birth of what their relationship with
God was in their natural state. unregenerate and at enmity with
God. And then, as opposed to the Pharisee
who stood in a public and religious place and prayed where everybody
could see and hear him, this publican was just standing afar
off, kind of in the background, in his closet. He just wanted to be somewhere
close to God and lay out his plight in his closet. Ephesians 2, verse 13 says, But
now in Christ Jesus you, who sometimes were far off, are made
nigh by the blood of Christ. And there is in the public and
now by the Spirit a recognition of total lack of merit of any
kind and a knowledge of self-unworthiness in approaching God. He couldn't
even lift up his eyes to heaven. He couldn't lift up his eyes
and say, here's all my stuff I've done. You should pay attention
to that. That should be worth something. He couldn't lift up his eyes.
If you look up those words, it indicates a complete resolve,
a complete determination not to exalt yourself. That's what
those words mean. It means in his heart, he was
totally determined not to bring anything to God on his own behalf. And we find that's what Toplady
wrote in his famous hymn, Rock of Ages. In my hand, I bring
nothing. In my hand, no price I bring.
I can't cry enough. I can't do anything. I just come
to Christ and trust totally in Him to have resolved the issue. He says he smote on his breast.
And that word smote is a verb that indicates a repetitive continual
action as opposed to like just one time. Sometimes we say he
smote on his breast. But his view of himself was, me, I'm the sinner. I'm the worst. He just kept pounding
his breast repetitively And the target, I thought it was interesting,
the target of his smiting is such a metaphor that represents
the spiritual knowledge of the root of the problem is his heart.
He didn't beat on his head, say, oh, my head is so dumb, I have
no knowledge of God. He beat on his heart because
he recognized now that the heart is deceitful above all things
and desperately wicked, who could know it? Man, I thought I was
okay. I thought I was robbing people
and doing stuff, but I was legitimate. I was authorized to do that.
There was no crime there. He didn't reckon anything about
sin and its relationship to God. This was over as he couldn't
see the kingdom of God. Ezekiel 36, 26 says, A new heart
also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you.
And I'll take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and
I'll give you a heart of flesh. I'll take away the stony heart
and give you a heart of flesh, and you'll know me as God, and
you'll know me as your Savior. You'll know me in a way that
you never did before. The new heart sees the plight
of the old heart in nature, Thus the Spirit of God directs the
new heart to turn to Christ, to trust Him totally for salvation. The publican, standing afar off,
would not so much as lift up his eyes unto heaven, but smote
on his breast, saying, God be merciful to me, the sinner. And you know, the last part is
really worth noting in this prayer, and we're about out of time. This word merciful, there's so
many things that are contained within this word merciful. It
means to conciliate, to atone, to be propitious, to make reconciliation. That's right out of the Strong's
Concordance. So his prayer is, God, conciliate means to stop
being angry with. God, stop being angry with me,
the sinner. God providentially give me a
sinner a good chance for success. That's what that means. God provide or serve as a reparation
for me as a sinner. God make reconciliation for me
a sinner, a restoration by which things that were formerly at
odds, incompatible. My wife gets our checkbook out
every month. She says, boy, this is incompatible
with what we got from the bank. So she goes through there and
says, you bought something, and you didn't tell me what it was.
And so I don't have it in my book here. And oh, yeah, I got
something from Amazon, and it was $8.99. And she writes in
there, OK, well, now we're reconciled. Now we balance. Now these two
things are the same. Now they're compatible. And all
these things are contained in the phrase, God, be merciful
to me, the sinner. The plea of the sinner by and
through the Holy Spirit are a result of saving grace and evidence
of a repentant heart that's now turned to God and rendered righteous,
that imputed righteousness that we talk about. And you know,
a short prayer from the heart from a person that the Spirit
has worked in is worth a lot more than a lot of talking from
the lips of an unregenerate person that's just sounding off. You know, it's what it says in
Romans 8.26, The Spirit helps our infirmities, for we know
not how we should pray as we ought. But the Spirit makes intercession
for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searches
the hearts knoweth what's the mind of the Spirit. You know,
the Spirit says, this is one that God gave the Son in the
covenant of grace. It's my job to connect him with
the gospel and to make him believe it. and to convert his prayers
from, here's all I have done, to here's all that Christ has
done. And we know that all things work
together then for good to them that love God, to them who are
the called according to His purpose. And that's a big change that's
transpired in that publican. to them are called according
to His purpose, for whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate
to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be
the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom He predestinated,
them He also called, and whom He called, them He justified,
and whom He justified, them He also glorified." All those things
contained in this divine activity in this publican we don't find
in the self-righteous prayer of that Pharisee. So, we're out of time. I went
over. I'm sorry. So be free in that.