Good morning and welcome to our
continuing study in Luke chapter 6. We've been involved in this
message from the Lord on what's known here as the Sermon on the
Plain. The words of the Lord begin in
verse 20. And we'll be looking at verse
22 and 23 today. We've covered the first couple. In verse 20, it says, and he
lifted up his eyes on his disciples and said, blessed be ye poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God. And we learned that that kingdom
of God is nothing less than the person and work of Christ. And those that are poor are poor
in spirit, that they have nothing in their hand to bring, nothing
to contribute to their salvation. Verse 21, blessed are ye that
hunger now, for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now,
for ye shall laugh. And today in verse 22 and 23,
blessed are ye when men shall hate you and when they shall
separate you from their company and shall reproach you and cast
out your name as evil for the son of man's sake. Rejoice in
that day and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great
in heaven. For in like manner did their fathers unto the prophets."
Boy, what a verse there. Blessed are you when men shall
hate you. That just seems kind of contrary to the Christian
dogma of the world today. But it is true. If you hold to
the truth of the gospel, that's just what's going to happen.
What's stated here is a word from the Lord about what we should
expect will naturally occur if we hold the gospel to be true
and are true to the declaration of it without compromise. Men
are going to hate you. Even men that you were formerly,
if you were in a religious body like we were, and as long as
you went along with what they were promoting, they were your
friends and loved you. But as soon as you ask a question
about grace, it's like a light switch flipped and now suddenly
they're against you. And it seems like being hated
or reviled is not something we should actually strive for. Some do that in religion. They
think, well, if I can make people hate me, that fulfills this scripture.
So if I can just get in their face with a gospel or our version
of it, then they'll hate me, and then I can check that box
off. What a wrong way to look at that.
They attempt to manufacture credibility for their activities in free
willism. But really it's just something
that will naturally happen in opposition to the true gospel.
And that goes all the way back to the beginning. As soon as
the one of the things we're going to discuss today is the fall. That is the basic thing that
the natural man has against people that are regenerators. They don't
believe the seriousness of the fall. Our pastor brought an entire
message on that here not too long ago, the seriousness of
the problem. And it's so grievous. And the misunderstanding of the
effects of the fall lead to a continual erroneous application of nearly
everything in scripture and in life. And men don't understand
the ramifications of that fall and how it alienated them from
God, made them enemies to God. There's an article in your bulletin
today about It killed everything towards God for man from the
point of the fall on. And what it takes to overcome
that. Often times here, and we'll quote
Ephesians 119, we believe according or because of the working
of His mighty power. That's what it took to overcome
that. The same, he says, which He wrought in Christ when He
raised Him from the dead. And that's what it takes to overcome
the effects of the fall, is the almighty working of God. And
if He doesn't do that, If He sovereignly elects not to do
that in some, and in others He does, that's what it takes to
overcome that. Right off the bat in the Bible,
we find the effects of that fall. And we look at Cain and Abel. Right off the bat. Cain had his
idea of what it took to be righteous with God and ignoring the effects
of the fall. And his brother believed that
he needed a substitute. And he believed in the sovereignty
of God and grace. And his brother killed him. What
better example can you have right off the bat of this Scripture
here? Blessed are you when men shall
hate you. They probably squabble like brothers
do all through life, but when it came down to scriptural, biblical
principles, they became enemies. Not so much Abel, he was the
recipient of it, as we often find that we are. Here in America, we don't really
suffer persecution here to the degree that others do in other
parts of the world, or as our brethren in times past have suffered
the world over in this, the close of verse 23 says, in like manner
did their fathers to the prophets. So it's not something new that
occurs. It's something that's gone on. I'm all alone. And they're seeking
to kill me. That's what one of the prophets
said. But what sayeth the answer of the Lord to him? I've reserved
to myself 7,000 that have not bowed the knee to Baal. quoted
in, and we find that in Romans too, that we find that it's a
common theme that occurs when men hold to, thus saith the Lord,
then they have an antagonistic relationship
with those that don't believe that. This hate, this separation,
this reproach that we're faced with in America is It's often
of a much subtler form, yet nonetheless it reflects natural man's views
in opposition to God and his Christ. And we just have experienced
that. I'm sure many of you here have
experienced that. Once you've had grace revealed
to you and you pursue that, I remember when the Lord revealed
grace to me and I was attending the church in North Pole. They kind of conned me into teaching
it before I was prepared, so I was trying to steady up a little
bit to do that. And I bought this book by Arthur
Pink called The Sovereignty of God. And I went up to this friend
of mine that was a sovereign grace believer, and I said, boy,
I just found the most wonderful book. It was just eye-opening.
It was just wonderful. And he said, he just did this,
raised his hand up, and he says, I love that book." He said, and
I don't want to have you not read that. I love that book.
It's a wonderful book, but I just have to warn you right now that
if you read that book and you believe anything that's written
in it, you're going to find yourself in direct opposition to the leadership
of this church. And that turned out to be true. But it was still nonetheless
a wonderful book on the sovereignty of God, of all things. Men will
say God is sovereign, but man has a will. And that's the viewpoint
of natural men, of free willism. And I can supply my, just like
Cain, what's wrong with my idea of how things should be? I have
my own idea about how, our relationship with God, if there really is
a God, should be. And I bring this. And if he doesn't accept it,
well, it's his problem, not mine. And that's their attitude. And
so here in our day, In the old days,
as the prophet said, I'm all alone and they're trying to kill
me. They were actively tracking him down. He was hiding in a
cave and they wanted to kill him. Just as Cain killed Abel. And the Lord says, which of the
prophets did they not stone or saw asunder or kill in atrocious
ways because they brought the, thus saith the Lord, they brought
the truth of the gospel. And their reaction was, well,
we got to get rid of that. And we find the same thing was
true in Jesus' day. And we'll read a little bit from
John where he reflects on that to the disciples. But there's
two groups who primarily are responsible for this vitriol
declared in this and other scriptures. First, we have unbelievers who
use the tactic of rebuffing or any belief or declaration of
the gospel with, well, if you need that crutch, that's fine
for you. intellectually and psychologically
I'm superior and I don't need that. And they try to belittle
you and make you feel small if you need that. So it's kind of
more of a psychological, emotional torment that they try to inflict
on you rather than having you killed. And they infer that somehow
you're weak if you need religion, even as As... their espousal
of being free from religion. It's really just a philosophy
that's really nothing more than a religion of self-worth or self-righteousness. It's just a religion. It's just a religion of, I worship
me, not the God of heaven. And they tell you that, and you'll
see this on the news even, religion is really beneath the intelligence
of us enlightened folks. If you believe in religion, you're
dumb as a bag of hammers. Religions are nothing more than
cults which engage in unreasonable zealousness to something that
they deem as preposterous and even dangerous. And there are those whose activities
have given credence to those kind of charges, the Jonestowns,
crazies. They weren't espousing the doctrine
of grace. They weren't teaching the true
gospel. They were just engaged in some
other religious chicanery there. And unbelievers,
they usually view you as poor, gullible, nut. and disregard
you, and they try to stay clear from you as much as possible,
and that's pretty much the extent of their relationship with you. Stay away from me. That's fine
for you if you need it. I don't need it, so keep back. And they'll probably disassociate
themselves from you if they have the opportunity. The second group,
and the most deadly to believers, is the religious segment. who
under their view of God and their idea of religion are the least
tolerant to the truth of the gospel as it's plainly declared
in the scriptures. They're the worst. The Jews,
we can't have somebody trying to get rid of our power structure
or our idea of keeping the law. So they view any position that
doesn't agree with their philosophy and the actions described here
in Luke 6, 22 and 23, which are, their actions are hate. And that's the act of detesting
one to the point of persecution. And detest comes to us from the
Latin word detestare, which means cursed by the gods. That's an
interesting little tidbit of information there. When confronted
with the truth of the gospel, which in nearly every case is
in direct opposition to the positions of the bodies to which they belong
and promote, The truth, which the natural
man can neither receive nor understand, it evokes their basest kind of
hatred. They just can't tolerate it. It just strikes them, a chord
of hatred in them, and it's instantaneous almost. The next response of
the religious is to separate you from their company, and again,
that's happened to us, probably happened to many of you out there.
You can't be affiliated with them if you believe that way.
If you're a member of their religious affiliation, and by the grace
of the Lord, by the Spirit reveals free grace to you, grace not
earned, not merited in any way, grace that's solely and totally
reliant on Christ for salvation, then you will find yourself declared
a heretic and excluded from them, and in some cases persecuted
even unto death, as we found in Acts chapter nine. Paul got
a hunting license from the church, the Jews there in Jerusalem,
and he was on his way to Damascus to track them guys down and eradicate
them. Any of that believed in the way,
they called it. And again, we don't really suffer
that much from that kind of activity here, but in other places in
the world. It's certainly true even to today. In the times of
Christ ministry, and after exclusion carried beyond, if you remember
our lesson from 1 Peter, to those that were scattered throughout
all that area of Turkey and Asia that we read about in 1 Peter,
They were scattered because of persecution. They were scattered
because they were going to kill them. They were kicked out. To the Jews, if you were excluded,
it had much more ramifications than just not being able to go
to the synagogue on Sabbath day. They wouldn't deal with you in
the marketplace. Your family wouldn't have anything
to do with you. You were excluded not only religiously,
but socially and economically. So it was a death knell for them. What would you do if you had
a business in Jerusalem by the gate, and you were selling your
wares, your figs, or your wool, or whatever, and suddenly you
became a believer? And the chief priest says, you're
out. And they wouldn't even look at
you. You couldn't sell your wares anymore. How would you support
your family? How would you pay the Roman tax? How would you live? How could
you eat? How could you do anything? And
so it was serious for them in this time that we're looking
at right here. And much more than we have it so easy right
now. We don't suffer. But back then it was, and still
in some places, it's still a more problem. And lastly, Christ informs us to expect it.
to expect reproach, defamation of our name and our person, to
belittle us or call us evil for the son of man's sake." He says,
just expect that. It's going to happen. If you
stand up for the truth, they're just not going to tolerate
that. I can't tell you how wonderful
it is to be able to just stand up here and teach the Bible,
and declare grace, free grace, without having to worry about
somebody throwing a tomato at you, or having a secret meeting
about you, and calling you names, and belittling you in front of your
friends and members. The Lord speaks to us in many
places regarding this inevitable set of circumstances that men
do not happily or readily receive the truth about grace. The truth
of the fall or the sovereignty of God in all things. Those three
things they disagree with totally. They may say they agreed to them
in some portion, but they're absolutes. Men absolutely fell. And it had the absolute consequences
of separation from God. death spiritually. Looks like
we lost our Zoom connection here. Anyway, men don't receive that.
As I mentioned earlier, the very first thing that causes that
is the fall. That's the root of it. Because
the fall destroys the other two things for them. They don't believe
in grace and they don't believe in the sovereignty of God. Because
they're spiritually discerned and they can't receive nor understand
them. So they're out. And the fact
that these things always occur is cause for the Lord to remind
us to have love one for another. Because where everybody else
is against you. In the world, you can't expect
anything else but hatred in these various forms that we've kind
of described here. Let's turn over to John chapter
15 and we'll get some more of the words of the Lord on this.
He just kind of briefly summarizes it here in Luke chapter 6, 22
and 23. But in John chapter 15, he goes
into some detail about it. Starting in verse 17, he starts
off with These things I command you that you love one another."
How precious that is to have love one for another among the
brethren that believe. Davidson, how unity, it's like
the oil. from coming down on your beard.
It's just so soothing and wonderful. These things I command you that
you love one another. In verse 18, if the world hates
you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. So, the
beginning of things. They hated him right there with
Cain and Abel. If you were of the world, the
world would love his own. But because you are not of the
world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the
world hateth you. Remember the word that I said
unto you, the servant's not greater than his Lord. If they persecuted
me, they will persecute you. And if they have kept my saying,
they will keep yours also. But in all these things will
they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him
that sent me. If I had not come and spoken
unto them, they had not had sin, but now they have no cloak for
their sin. They have no excuse. He that
hateth me, hateth my father also. If I had not done among them
the works which none other man did, they had not had sin, but
now They have both seen and hated, both me and my father. But this
cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written
in their law. They hated me without a cause."
You know, he says, for what evil work do you stone me? What did
I do? I healed somebody? I forgave
somebody? I cleansed somebody? For which one of those things
do you think me worthy of death? But when the comforters come,
whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of
truth which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me. And ye also shall bear witness,
because you have been with me from the beginning. So, he says, continuing in John chapter 16,
you know, he doesn't really just stop talking there. in chapter
17, or 15, I mean. In John chapter 16, verse 1,
he said, these things, these things that he just spoke to
us about, about the world hating us and us not being of the world,
and how they persecuted them before him, and if they hated
me, they'll hate you. He said, these things I've spoken
to you that you should not be offended. They shall put you
out of the synagogues, yea, the time cometh that whosoever killeth
you will think that he is doing God a service. And these things
will they do unto you, because they have not known me, they
have not known the Father, nor me." He says, this will happen. And he says, don't be offended.
When we think of offended, that word just gets tossed around
all the time nowadays. Oh, I'm offended because you
did this. I'm offended because you did
that. And the meaning that we have today in today's terms is
to be insulted or displeased or to have our feelings hurt.
But really in the Greek understanding here, this is a much different
word. It means to entrap. It means
to trip up or cause to apostasy. That's what that word means.
He says, so, these things I've spoken to you, you know they're
gonna happen, so don't let them use them as an occasion to trip
you up or cause you to apostasy. Don't let them threaten you with exclusion. Don't let them
threaten you with separating you. Don't let them threaten
you like, well, we hate you. If that's what you believe, we
just hate you. You know, he used that same word
when he talked to the apostles before he was taken. He said,
this night you'll all be offended in me. Well, that didn't mean
they were going to be insulted or displeased. means they were
all going to use the threat of death to entrap them to apostasy
against the Lord. If you don't denounce Christ,
we'll kill you. That was essentially it. All
ye shall be offended of me because of me this night. And you know
what? Later on, they all denied him.
They all, every single one of them denied him. Lucky for us, he doesn't hold
that against us. He knew that. That was not a
surprise to him. That did not happen and shock
him. But it's hurtful to our flesh
when we're cut off from everything that we're familiar with. These
apostles, they lived in these towns and they had friends and
family there. And now they're being threatened
with being killed because they believed in the Lord. They believed
in grace. They believed in his sovereignty.
And now they're being threatened with death. That's hurtful by
people you knew, people you associated with, people you had maybe had
respect for at one time. You know, the Jews, they kind
of held the religious leaders in higher esteem, the high priest
and the Levites and all that that went with it. So they use
that as a cudgel to get you to conform, to get you to renounce
that stuff. But you know when you know grace,
when you know sovereignty, when you know free grace, you can't
go back. It's just a fact. You cannot
realign with that gospel that's not another gospel. But it is
a weapon that's used by those who oppose free grace, who try
to entice us to compromise in really just a few things, they
say. Well, you know, if you would just give a little on this sovereignty
thing. We know God is sovereign, but
I have a free will. We know God runs things, but
he's not very effective at it, and we need to ooch him along
a little bit. We were talking this morning
about this Charles Finney, who was called the father of American
revivalism back in the 1800s. He was preached to one time. So he just said, OK, I'm just
going to go in my bedroom and lock the door, and I'm not coming
out till I get saved. And wouldn't you know it, he
said, instantaneously, after I meditated and prayed, I was
saved. And then later on, he gave up his career as a lawyer
and went on to become a itinerant preacher of revivals and things
back in those days. And he says, you know what? He was impatient with God because
God didn't save people instantaneously when he determined that if he
got up and preached a sermon, he said people should be saved
like right now. And so he developed psychological
and emotional ploys to hooch that along. He came up with the
mourner's bench and the anxious seat and the special seats for
like If the Spirit of God is weighing on you, sit here, here,
and here so we'll know who you are so we can come and apply
psychological tactics to you later on. And later on in his
career, he became concerned because a lot of his converts were sliding
off into oblivion. Backsliding, he said. So he says,
we need to do something about that. So then he said, OK, we're
going to insist that they keep the law. We're going to come
up with this. He wasn't the one that came up
with it, but he utilized this doctrine of Christian perfectionism
where, well, once you're saved, you can keep the law, which makes
totally no sense. I mean, if you're going to start
over at that point, And then you break the law again, then
Christ is going to have to be crucified afresh, as it says
in the New Testament. And he said, that's not happening.
He died once for all. He took care of all the sins
of all his people one time, and that was enough. But he was taking
everybody back to square one and saying, OK, Now that you're
saved, you have a fresh start from now. And they still, they
teach that same thing under various guises, even in the Baptists
and various churches. They teach you that. And it just
leads to disappointment because people say, oh, I didn't make
it five minutes before that failed. Now what do I do? Now I need
to be saved again. And it just leads to this rollercoaster
ride of people saying, well, today I believe I'm saved and
then, oops, I messed up. Now I don't believe I am. And
it all depends on what they do from moment to moment or their
mental state from moment to moment. It doesn't rely on Christ. It
doesn't rely on the gospel. It doesn't rely on free grace.
It relies on what they've done. And so these people like that, if
you preach those truths, they're going to hate you because it's
totally opposite to their view of God. Just agree with us on
a few things. God loves everybody. That's a
big one. They have a view that God died
for all the sins of all the people in all the world, and then it's
up to you to accept that or reject it. And really, that's just a
form of works because it takes the emphasis off of God and puts
it on the person instead of the other way around. And that is
just an effect of the fall. a person that God reveals the
fall to in themselves, they understand that. And they understand that
in my hand, I got nothing to bring. I don't know why God would
have anything to do with me. I don't know why God would be
merciful to me. I don't understand why He would
love me based on who I am and what I've done and my attitude,
my behavior and everything. But thank God He did. Like, was
it Newton that said, I know one thing, I'm a great sinner, but
He is a great Savior. Where grace abound, sin did much
more abound. But they believe it's all up
to you. And it's basically the you versus
God theology. And they just said, well, what's
the harm? What's the harm? Well, the harm
is that it's not another gospel. It's just like Galatians. I'm
surprised. I know you're saved by grace,
but you need to be circumcised. I know you're saved by grace,
but you you need to get baptized, or you need to observe communion,
or you need to do this, or you need to make sure that you're
in church every single time that it's available, or you need to
go door to door. The list is endless of things
they want you to do to maintain your status with God. And so
really, they say, what's the harm? But actually, it's total
harm. It's just like in the Old Testament,
how long halts you between two opinions? If God is God, serve Him. that there lies sin lieth at
the door, you know, and it's kind of a combination of two
different scriptures. You get the idea, you know, it's
the prophets of Baal, you know, in the Old Testament, but you
can't have it both ways. I just absolutely love that. I wish Norman would someday would
reuse that sermon on quirks. They couldn't say the word. They couldn't say grace. It came
out gwerks every time. I love that. It was so true. So that's where we're at today
in Luke chapter 6. One page too many here. Blessed are ye when men shall
hate you. If you're in that state, if men hate you because of the
gospel, then you're on the right road. It may not feel like it,
maybe, but it's a good place to be. Blessed are you when men
shall hate you and when they shall separate you from their
company. And you know, you probably won't miss it that much. Because
once the Lord reveals grace to you, that other stuff is unpalatable.
It is just nauseating. And you just can't understand
how anybody could subscribe to that. But it appeals to you in
the natural man because you have some control in your destiny,
it would seem. It's up to you, the things that
you do. Like Finney, there's nothing
preventing you from being saved than just hopping right down
the aisle and coming down here and repeating after me, do you
want to be saved? Yes, I do. Then say this prayer. It's on TV every night from that
Graham fellow. Just repeat this prayer. And
when you get done, call this toll-free number. We want to
talk to you. We want to know your checking
account number. So, that's that. Blessed are you when men shall
hate you, when they shall separate you from their company and reproach
you and cast out your name as evil for the son of man's sake. Rejoice in that day. You know
what we rejoice in? We rejoiced in Christ. And if
that gets us penalized, then that's just the way it is. Rejoice
in that day and leap for joy for behold, Your reward is great
in heaven, for in like manner did their fathers unto the prophets. So the challenge then for believers
is not to go for the, well, just compromise a little bit, and
then we can be friends again. Never compromise the truth of
the gospel, which then becomes another gospel that is not the
gospel. Never expect acceptance by natural
men, whether they're professed religionists or avowed unbelievers. Never expect that. It's just
never going to happen. They're just going to either
want you to go away or they're going to try to do away with
you some way. Always account that our acceptance
is in Christ, and that's what matters. and that that is cause
for rejoicing. So rejoice you in that day and
leap for joy. And as always, my friends, the
truth shall make you free.