Well, join me in your Bibles
to Luke chapter 7 again. We've been spending some time
here in Luke chapter 7. We're dealing with this block
of scripture where John the Baptist, as we mentioned last week, he
was in prison because of He told Herod that it was unlawful
for him to have his brother's wife. And he was a no compromise
man on the gospel. And so he is in prison where
he spent two years before he was eventually beheaded. And
while he's in prison, he sends two of his disciples, His disciples
came to him and told him of all these, hey, we heard about all
this stuff going on over in the Galilee region, this healing
of the sick and casting out of demons and all these miracles
that took place. And so he sent two of these disciples
to Christ and he says, ask him if, he says, are you that he
that should come or look we for another? And Jesus said unto
them, go and tell John what things you have seen, verse 22, how
that the blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the
deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached.
And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me. So what
he was doing there was quoting the Old Testament. And remember
we talked last week about that being kind of a code of gospel
code. All these words from Isaiah and
Zechariah and Jeremiah there about these things that had happened
were already recorded. by the great I Am. And we said last week that we
were going to cover the part that he, after he talks to those
disciples, then in verse 24 he says, and when the messengers
of John were departed, he began to speak to the people concerning
John. Apparently, John was quite famous,
and many people came to him and said, you think he's the Christ?
He might be the Christ. He's a great prophet. And so
he was well-known, and so there was quite a bit of chatter about
this interchange that had happened. And he began to speak to the
people, and he says, what, went you out to see a reed shaken
in the wind? He was not blown about by every
wind of doctrine. He was faithful to the truth
of the gospel, the truth and righteousness. And so, you know, every week when
we engage in these Bible studies, We're always trying to discover
and declare what's the relevant application for the church today
in the things that we read about, and we find out that there's
nothing new. And that Christ is our one constant. And in every scripture that we
study, there must be and there always is some value in the Word
of God for the church. It's just not there for nothing,
and it's for our edification, it's for our growth, it's for
our food. He says, feed the flock, and
that gospel is what feeds the flock. All inspiration is given
by, or all scripture is given by inspiration of God, it says
in 2 Timothy 3.16, and it's profitable. for doctrine, it's profitable
for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. Instruction in righteousness
is not a, here's a list of stuff you need to do to attain righteousness.
Christ is our righteousness. And the scriptures are profitable
because they tell us of Him who did all for us. And so as we
left off in our no compromise lesson last week, we learned
that John was again in prison. And the fact that he was in prison
shows that he was not going to compromise no matter what. He's
like those guys in the book of Daniel. Well, if you don't bow
down and worship our God, we're going to throw you in the fiery
furnace. And they said, go ahead, not compromising. If you don't
bow down and only pray, don't pray to any God but my God, I'm
gonna have you thrown in the den of lions. And Daniel said.
Throw me in. I'm not compromising. And for people that truly experience
grace, they can't compromise. They can never go back to the
works-generated kind of religion. They can never go back to that
kind of thing. And as John would not compromise
the truth, and that's a valuable lesson for the church, is to
make sure that we, that people are always trying to get our
pastors to say, well, we could get together. We could be united.
And I know we're different on some things. But they're not
important things. And he says, oh, yes, they are. There's nothing that you can
take out of the gospel that's not important. So it's important
that we stay faithful to the gospel. Ephesians 4.11 says,
he gave some apostles and some prophets like John. and some
evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting
of the saints. And that means maturing, growing
in grace, not that they become more and more perfect. They become
more and more grow in grace and knowledge of the Lord. For the
work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ,
for the edifying, it's for their spiritual buildup or spiritual
growth. And until we all come in the
unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect
or mature man unto the measure of the stature of the fullness
of Christ, we'll never attain that in this life. It's just
too immense. That we henceforth be no more
children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind
of doctrine by the slight of men, the cunning craftiness whereby
they lay in wait to deceive." So that's just the nature of
religion and the nature of men is that they create doctrine
to suit their purposes, whatever that is. You're teaching for doctrines,
the traditions of men. Those things are not in the gospel. So in the questions of John,
where he directed his disciples to go to Christ, that's what
all pastors do. That's what they tell people.
Go to Christ. They point out the Christ. He directs people to Christ.
Again, in response to John's questions, Christ gave some answers
from the Gospel, the Old Testament, that they both knew. I just know
they both knew so well. John being from the priestly
line, his dad was a priest. The question Jesus put to the
people was, what went you out to see? A reed shaking in the
wind? He was unshaken. in the truth of the gospel. And
he was as unmovable as Christ was himself. And I'm sure he
knew his mission and he had accomplished that mission. His mission was to make ready
the people for the coming of the Lord. And he did that. And
back to our point on some relative application for the church, there's
a verse in Ecclesiastes, which is, I mentioned to Norm, is kind
of relevant to our case here this morning in Ecclesiastes
chapter 1 verse 9. We think about this the same
conditions exist in all times and man by nature because of
sin and the fall is enmity against God and has been since the fall.
It's just the way it is. Ecclesiastes says the thing that
hath been it is that which shall be And that which is done is
that which shall be done. There's no new thing under the
sun. They may color them a little
differently. They may phrase it a little differently, but
it's essentially the same issue of the enmity of man against
God and trying every way under the sun to come to Christ. Remember in our previous lesson,
we said, grace, is God coming to man and religion is man's
works to try and come to God. And there lie the two issues. And only one is workable. Only
one is true. In Matthew chapter 15, Jesus
is speaking and He's talking to these religious guys of the
time. And he could say the same thing
today. There's nothing new. In Matthew
15, seven, he says, you hypocrites. That's a strong word. He said,
well, did Isaiah prophecy of you saying, and he's gonna quote
to them from Isaiah chapter 29, verse 13 here. This people draweth nigh unto
me with their mouth, and on earth me with their lips, but their
heart is far from me. But in vain do they worship me.
That word vain just means useless, worthless, or ruined. In vain they worship me, teaching
for doctrines the commandments of men. And he called unto the
multitude and said unto them, And I have this highlighted here. It says, hear and understand. Not that which goeth into the
mouth defileth a man, but that which cometh out of the mouth,
that defileth a man. And that, my friends, is just
grace versus works. If works comes out of your mouth,
that's defiling. If grace comes out of your mouth,
it's not. And some of his disciples came
up to him then and said, knowest thou that the Pharisees were
offended after they heard this saying? They were tripped up
because in the Old Testament, They're called prophets or priests
and elders and whatnot, but a lot of times they're referred to
as shepherds. And we'll look at some scriptures here in a
minute. They were shepherds that were supposed to be taking, just
like Norman does with Ezra and Leviticus and Zechariah and every
scripture, make a beeline to Christ from it. and preach the
gospel. And yet they turned it into,
well, thou shalt do this, thou shalt do that, or pay this, or
pay that, or offer this, or offer that. And they just turned it
into works. And so when he declared the gospel
to them, it tripped them up. Because it was against what they
were doing. It showed them up. He says, you're
hypocrites. You say you're working for God. You say you're the religious,
and yet you're just the whited sepulchers. You're just fakes. And we'll look a little bit more
in that Isaiah scripture here in a minute. We back up a little bit in verse
22 of our text verse in Luke chapter 7, verse 22, where he
said, go your way and tell John what things you've seen and heard.
Now the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the
deaf hear, the dead are raised, and to the poor the gospel is
preached. And that's going to be kind of
where we're going to spend the bulk of our time today, as Pastor
Roy said, and blessed is he who shall not be tripped up, snared. And it's actually a word that
kind of causes you to be led into apostasy, like the disciples,
the apostles. you're all going to be offended
in me tonight." When they thought they were threatened with death,
they all denied him. Every single one of them denied him. So that's
kind of where that word leads us. So we'll be looking at the
rest of our time here in verse 22, tell John to the poor, the
gospel is preached. And that, again, is from the
Old Testament. And we note again that from the times from which
this Old Testament gospel was preached, the same exact conditions
existed that Isaiah and Jeremiah and Zechariah and all the old
prophets testified against, that Jesus was saying, well, did Isaiah's
prophecy of you Not only was he talking about the people in
his own time, but he was talking about the people that were going
to be there at the time of Christ. And it's applicable to right
here today in this world that we live in. Prophets from the
Northern Kingdom of Israel and Samaria preached on this mountain
is the right place to worship and do it our way in the traditions
of men. And prophets, you know, that
was Amos and Hosea and prophets of the Southern kingdom of Judah
where Jerusalem was, they said, this is the right place to worship.
And Jesus told that Samaritan woman, he says, you don't know
what you worship. You're both wrong. The place is immaterial. It's
what you do. It's what comes out of the mouth
that defileth a man. Where you're worshiping the Lord
is not so important as what. And so these priests, these shepherds
they're called in the Old Testament, their task was to proclaim the
gospel, though it turns out they knew it not. Therefore, they
were unable to feed the Lord's flock. As it says in Zechariah, and
we'll go over there in a little bit, he says, to them it was
like a book sealed. It was just like reading a recipe
for something. Well, it says to add nine tablespoons
of cumin, whatever that is. But we'll do it, because that's
what it says to do. But we don't understand. anything
about it. It was like a book sealed to
them and they couldn't read it. Or it was handed to another man
and he says, read this. And he says, well I can't because
I'm unlearned. It's not my fault because I don't
know. They approached it that way and
it seemed to be working for them. They were getting wealthy by
doing that. They would take the lame and
the halt and offer them for sacrifices instead of the lamb without spot,
without blemish, because they could sell that in the marketplace.
And they could do all these things where they exchanged the money.
Well, we only take shekels in the coin boxes in the temple.
Can't put any other kind of money in there. But we'll trade those
to you for two for one. They had all ways that they made
money. We're going to leap ahead over
into Norman's lesson from the year 2060 in Zechariah. Zechariah chapter 11. Because
that's where we kind of ended up in this, to the poor the gospel
is preached. And it was just a fascinating
chapter. And it describes the things.
And attached to it is the sweet melody of the gospel, the sweet
sound of the gospel. And these shepherds that were
in charge Matthew Henry said they were fleecing the flock
instead of feeding them. They had no real care for them. Our pastor loves the flock. He
calls them all by name. He knows them and loves them.
To these they were just like so many potential donators. Let's read in Zechariah chapter
11. We'll start in verse 3. There
is a voice of the howling of the shepherds. Those ones that
were tasked with declaring the gospel. For their glory is spoiled. A voice of the roaring of young
lions for the pride of Jordan is spoiled. Thus saith the Lord
my God, feed the flock of the slaughter. And he's saying they
were just leading like lambs to the slaughter for profit,
feed the flock of the slaughter, whose possessors slay them. The
shepherds that were the possessors of the flock, they're killing
them. And they hold themselves not
guilty, that they may sell them, and they that sell them say,
blessed be the Lord, for I am rich. And their own shepherds
pitied them not. So they thought they were justified
of God because what they were doing, they were getting wealthy
at. And there's a lot of that in religion today. Look at how
the Lord has blessed me because, he must be blessing me because
look how much money I have. I have my silk suit and my ring
on every finger and bells on my toes. Blessed be the Lord, for I am
rich. And their own shepherds, pity them not. They could care
less. For I will no more pity the inhabitants
of the land, saith the Lord. But lo, I'll deliver them, the
men, every one to his neighbor's hand and into the hand of his
king. And they shall smite the land
and out of their hand. I will not deliver them. And
I, here's another one of those wonderful I wills of God. And he says, they were tasked
with feeding the flock and they're not doing it. So he says, and
I will feed the flock of slaughter. Even you, oh poor of the flock. And oh, I just love this next
part. And I took unto me two staves.
and the one I called beauty, and the other I called bands,
and I fed the flock." I read several commentaries on this,
and everyone had a different opinion about what these two
words mean, but it says right in here, if we keep reading, it'll tell us that beauty is
just another name for Christ. And bands, Bands is a word that
means a rope that's used for measuring off an inheritance. Isn't that interesting? So we
have a picture of Christ and his inheritance here. I took
two staves, one called Beauty and one called Bands, and I fed
the flock, the gospel. And we're gonna find that. through
the rest of this chapter. Three shepherds also I cut off
in one month. They were not feeding the flock.
And he says, I cut them off. Doesn't tell us who they were
or what particular crime they committed, but they were not
feeding the flock. And he said, and my soul loathed
them. And their soul abhorred me. That
was the relationship. And what do we find? That is
the relationship of natural man with God. He is at enmity with
God. Then said I, I will not feed
you that the dieth let it die. And that that is to be cut off,
let it be cut off, and the rest eat every one the flesh of another.
And I took my staff, even beauty, and I cut it asunder, that I
might break my covenant which I had made with all the people. And it was broken in that day,
and so the poor of the flock that waited upon me knew that
it was the word of the Lord. Isn't that beautiful? A picture
of him dying, being cut asunder for his people, dying for the
sins of his people. And I said unto them, if you think good, give me my
price. And if not, forbear. So they
weighed for my price 30 pieces of silver. Now where does that
sound familiar from? Isn't that from the gospel of
the very betrayal of the Lord, the price of the potter? And
he says, I took the 30 pieces of silver and cast them to the
potter in the house of the Lord. And he says, and then I cut asunder
my other staff, even bands, that I might break off the brotherhood
between Judah and Israel. Well, remember, we just got through
saying. we worship on this mountain. And you say, Jerusalem is a place
to worship. We both say, Abraham, we have
Abraham to our father. And he said, yeah, that's cut
off. Bands marks out my inheritance. They are not all Israel that
are called Israel. The seed of the promise in Abraham
is my inheritance. And the Lord said unto me, take
unto thee yet the instruments of a foolish shepherd. For lo,
I will raise up a shepherd in the land, which shall not visit
those that be cut off. Neither shall seek the young
one, nor heal that that is broken, nor feed that which standeth
still. But he shall eat the flesh of the fat, and tear their claws
to pieces. Woe to the idle shepherd that
leaveth the flock. The sword shall be upon his arm
and upon his right eye, and his arm shall be cleaned right up,
and his right eye shall utterly be darkened." Boy, what terrible
judgment against people that are tasked with declaring the
gospel and yet do everything but. So there's a voice of the howling
of the shepherds, the chief priests, the Pharisees, the elders, the
religious rulers. The flock was accounted as sheep
for the slaughter. And God says, I'll feed them. I'll give them pastors according
to my own heart. So these names of These staffs speak
specifically to Christ and the church. And this word beauty
means agreeableness, that is delight, suitableness, splendor,
grace. And you know, those things only
apply to Christ. He was the only one that was
suitable to take care of the problem. He was the only one
in whom the Lord delighted. This is my son in whom I am well
pleased. Hear him. This band is a rope that is as
twisted as a measuring line and by implication it is for measuring
out a district or inheritance. As we go off into kind of a A
side note here in the people, unless the word of God comes
to them in grace, we were talking this morning about in Thessalonians,
our gospel came to you not in word only, but in power and the
Holy Spirit. And as it's going out mostly
in just in word here, they're saying, well, we're going to
do a sacrifice on Passover day and all those things that spoke
to the gospel. And the people went through the motions and
most of them had no idea that they were doing
all the things that they were told to do. They were complying
with the church covenant and all the rules, all I give tithes
of everything, and I fast twice a week, and I pray, and et cetera,
et cetera, et cetera, and I support them, this and that, and all
those things that their shepherd told them to do in lieu of the
gospel. In Jeremiah 5.31, The prophets prophesy falsely
and the priests bear rule by their means. They bear rule because
they have the control over the religious everything and the
religion was intertwined with life to the point where they
were not separable. And he said, and my people love
to have it so. They were accomplices in it,
and they just said, I did what I was told. He just told me I
just had to come down here and repeat this, and I did that. So I'm guiltless. If it doesn't
work out, it's not my fault. Blame that guy. So my people
love it so. What a sad statement that that's
the effects of the fall. without grace, without revelation
of the gospel, it's a code to us as we talked about last week. These guys that, if we turn over
to Isaiah chapter 29 here for just a moment. In Isaiah chapter nine, he's
writing, in the beginning he says, woe to Ariel, and that's
just another name for Jerusalem, because it says it's the city
of David. Add ye year to year, let them
kill sacrifices. And then he talks about them
being besieged later on, and all that comes to pass. He talks about these shepherds. Let's just start in verse seven. And the multitude of all the
nations that fight against Ariel, even all that fight against her
and her munition that distress her, shall be as a dream of a
night vision. And what he's talking about there
is all those that are against God, and even though they bear
the religious mantle, they're at enmity with him, they're against
him. And he says, it shall be even
as when a hungry man dreameth. And he beholds, and you imagine
these religious rulers are in charge of giving the people the
gospel, and they're giving him this other
chaff. And he says, it's like when a
man dreams and he eats, but when he wakes up, he's still hungry.
He got nothing. And his soul is empty. Or as
when a thirsty man dreameth, and behold, he drinks. But he
wakes, and behold, he's faint, and his soul hath appetite. So
shall the multitude of all the nations be that fight against
Mount Zion." All these religious stuff that people do and get
engaged in, it's not satisfying. There's no feeding of the flock
in there. There's no water from the well of life there. Stay yourselves in wonder, cry
out, cry out. They are drunken, but not with
wine. They stagger, but not with strong drink. For the Lord hath
poured upon you the spirit of deep sleep and closed your eyes.
The prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered. And
the vision of all has become unto you as the words of a book
that is sealed, which men deliver to one that has learned it. How
many of those do we know? and saying, read this. And he
saith, I cannot for it's sealed. I can read the words to you,
but it's like the recipe. Put in 10 tablespoons of cumin,
but I don't know what that is or what it's good for. It's sealed and the book is delivered
to him that's not learned. saying, read this, and I pray
thee. And he saith, I'm not learned.
Wherefore, the Lord said, for as much as this people draw near
me with their mouth and with their lips do honor me, but have
removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me
is taught by the precepts of men. Therefore, behold, I will
proceed to do. Here comes the gospel. I will
proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous
work and a wonder. For the wisdom of their wise
men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be
hid. Their formulas, their schemes will not work out. Woe unto them
that seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord. And their
works are in the dark. And they say, who sees us? And
who knoweth us? You know what the Lord, a couple
of weeks ago in one of our classes, the Lord said unto them, you
thought I was such a one as yourself. I can see in the dark. I know all the secrets of all
men's hearts. You can't hide anything from
me. Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed
as the potter's clay. Or shall the work say of him
that made it, he made me not. Or the thing frame say of him
that framed it, he had no understanding. It's just a picture of I'm sovereign
and God is not. Even though he's the potter and he made them.
And then they're saying, I am a self-made person. my own person. I am sovereign.
I have no relationship or responsibility to who created me. Shall the work say of him that
made it, he made me not? Or the thing framed say of him
that framed it, he had no understanding. But is not yet a very little
while in Lebanon, that land of the Gentiles, shall be turned
into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field shall be esteemed
as a forest. And in that day shall the deaf
hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see
out of obscurity and out of darkness. The meek also shall increase
their joy in the Lord, and the poor among men The poor among
men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. What a gospel
picture. And you think, well, how could
they read that and not talk about Christ? How could they read that
and miss the point of it all? But he says, you know, it's just
a book sealed to them. We're just going to read the
words. do this, do this, do this, do this, don't do that, don't
do that, don't do that, make sure you pay this and pay that,
and at this time of year you go and do this sacrifice, and
at that time of year you go and do this other sacrifice. All
these things you do out of rote with no spiritual understanding,
no No picture of the, no type of
the gospel, no type of Christ in there. And I took my staff, beauty,
and broke it asunder. In that day it was broken, so
the poor of the flock that waited upon me knew that it was the
word of the Lord. He gave that knowledge to them
about what that was about, about his being broken for them, about
his death for them. Tell John, and he'll know that
this comes from Zechariah, and Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and all
the Old Testament. He'll know that to the poor the
gospel is preached. So we'll stop there and we'll
move on next couple of weeks from now, Lord willing, and be
back here in Luke chapter seven. Until then, as always, be free.