Alright, back in Luke chapter
16. I'm sure that most of you, if
not all, are very, very familiar with the parable known as the
parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Probably not as familiar with
the parable that I preached on last week that this chapter started
with, the parable of the unrighteous steward, the unjust steward.
But these two parables go together. One is a parable that shows us
the necessity of preparation, prepare to meet thy God. And the last one, the parable
of the rich man and Lazarus, has to do with those who refuse
or fail to prepare to meet God and those who do prepare to meet
God. In between, there's sort of a
bridge here in a few verses, beginning at verse 13. This bridge
is the parable. And that's what I'm going to
spend most of my time on this morning. And then next week,
I'll go into the details of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.
But this morning, I want to talk to you about giving account to
God. giving account to God. The Lord, as I said, had just
taught his disciples the parable of the unjust, the unrighteous
steward. Strange parable, because this
man was commended, and he acted unjustly, he cheated, he stole,
he embezzled money from his master, and yet the Lord commended him.
But he commended him not for his cheating and lying and stealing
and embezzling, not at all. But he commended the man for
his wisdom in preparing for the future in this world. And it's
wise to do that. Now, it's not wise to do it by
cheating and stealing and lying and embezzling. The man was still
an unjust steward, and he was not justified before God or before
men, but he did prepare in the only way he thought, in his depraved,
wicked mind, the only way to do. And the lesson of that parable
is this. He mentions two different types
of people. He mentions children of the world
and children of light. Now, who are children of the
world? Those are unbelievers. Those are people who don't know
Christ, who don't follow Christ. They haven't come to faith in
Christ and repentance. That's children of the world.
They live for the world. This world is their home. They're
comfortable in the world. They prepare for the future,
but it's a worldly future that's going to end. But not for eternity. Not for judgment. Not for eternity.
And then he mentions the children of life. That's the regenerate.
That's the born again person. That's the believer in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Whom the Holy Spirit has given
life. Eyes to see. Ears to hear. Hearts
and minds to know and understand. And love the things of Christ
and His grace. So the lesson of that first parable
there, the parable of the unjust steward, is this. If the children
of the world are wise enough to prepare for their worldly
future in whatever way they can, even in unjust ways, which is
wrong, then how much more should we, as children of light, be
wise and diligent to prepare for our eternal future? That's
the lesson of that parable. As I said, the unrighteous steward,
he prepared for earthly future the only way he thought possible,
but he was an ungodly man. And all the ungodly will perish
if God doesn't intervene by His grace to bring sinners to salvation. Now, this parable and the next
parable, the parable of the rich man and Lazarus here, verses
19-31, shows that we as children of light must prepare for our
eternal future. Here is a man, a rich man, who
died and went to hell. He was an unjust steward, you
might say. He had the good things of this
world, but he used them selfishly and for his own purposes, not
for the glory of God and the good of others. He didn't go
to hell because he was rich. He went to hell because he loved
riches more than anything else. Neither did Lazarus go to heaven
because he was poor. Poverty will not get you into
heaven. I don't care what people tell you. He went to heaven because
he was a member of Abraham's spiritual family. That's what,
when he went to Abraham's bosom, that's what that means. Who is
Abraham's spiritual family? All who know Christ. Read in
Galatians chapter 3 sometimes, that's what he talks about. If
you're the seed of Abraham, here's what, you are children of God
by faith in Jesus Christ. So don't think that this is saying,
well, you know, just because you're rich, you're going to
hell, and just because you're poor, you're going to hell. There's no nobility
in either one, you see. Abraham himself was a rich man.
Job was a rich man. We could go on. Philemon was
a rich man. We could go on and on. But they
didn't love their riches. They didn't live for their riches.
They loved Christ, and they lived for Christ. If we misuse all
the good things that God has given, then what are we saying? We evidence we're not His, and
our hearts are not right with Him. So we have to live in the
light of eternity, judgment in eternity, and prepare. Now, how
do we prepare? Number one, by continually seeking,
following, resting in Christ as our whole salvation. Lift
Him up. Exalt Him. Feed upon Him. Matthew chapter 6 and verse 33.
Listen to it. But seek ye first the kingdom
of God and His righteousness. How are you going to seek the
kingdom of God and His righteousness? Seek Christ and Him crucified
and risen again. Christ is my all in all. He's
my hope. He's my wisdom, righteousness,
holiness, and redemption. And then He said, all these things
will be added unto you. And then secondly, by living
for His glory and the good of others. Paul instructed Timothy
in this issue in 1 Timothy 6, verse 17. Let me read that to
you. He's talking about those who are rich in this world's
goods. And let me tell you something now. I know he uses riches and
that word mammon. Look there in verse 13 where
he says at the end, you can't serve God in mammon. Now mammon
was an old Aramaic term for riches, money, But it's emblematic not
only of just money, it could be the mammon of self. You live
for and serve self. It could be the mammon of anything,
anything that takes you away or hinders you from serving Christ,
serving the Lord. And Paul wrote, he said, charge
them that are rich in this world that they be not high-minded,
nor trust in uncertain riches, here today, gone tomorrow. But
in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy,
that they do good, and that they be rich in good works, ready
to distribute, willing to communicate, laying up in store for themselves
a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay
hold of eternal life. Look here, back up in verse 9
of Luke 16. He says, I say unto you, make
to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness. Remember
I told you last week it's called the mammon of unrighteousness
because it's of the world. It's going to perish. These things
that we have in this life that we do enjoy and should enjoy,
we realize they're not forever. They're going to perish. Peter
spoke of that. He talked about the flower of
the grass withers away, the world's withering away, but the word
of the Lord goes on and on and on forever. You see, he says
that when you fail, that is when you die, they may receive you
in everlasting habitation. Verse 10, he that is faithful
in that which is least is faithful also in much. And he that is
unjust in the least is unjust also in much. In other words,
it doesn't matter how much or how little you have. If your
heart's not right with God, that's the problem. That's the problem. And so he says in verse 11, if
therefore you have not been faithful in the unrighteous man and the
things of this world that are going to perish, who will commit
to your trust the true riches of eternity, eternal life and
glory, the fruit of the Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit, salvation
that comes by Christ. Verse 12, and if you have not
been faithful in that which is another man, you see, you don't
own a thing. He said, who shall give you that
which is your own? You don't own anything in this
world. I don't own anything in this world. We think we do, but
we don't. And when you die, who does it go to? It goes to somebody
else. You don't keep it. But now let me tell you something.
Let me tell you something. There is a judgment to face and
an eternity to spend, which is forever and ever and ever. And
that will never cease. And this is the issue. So he
says in verse 13, no servant can serve two masters. You cannot
serve God with a divided heart. Either he will hate the one and
love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the
other. You cannot serve God in mammon. A divided heart is an
unregenerate heart. You cannot serve the mammon of
riches, the mammon of the honor of men, the mammon of self, the
mammon of self-righteousness, and serve Christ. It just never
works. That's why the scripture says
so much about the heart. What is the heart? It's not this
organ in my chest pumping blood through my body. A lot of times
we point here when we say that. I heard a man say one time that
the difference between saved and lost is sometimes one foot
from here to here. Well, this is just an organ.
And it's not going to last. It's going to fail. The heart
in the scripture is the inner person. And I'm not so sure I
know how to describe it. I know the old theologians described
it as the mind. Now, it's not just intellectualism
or anything like that. You don't have to be a genius
or intellectually smart to be saved. But it does involve the
mind. God teaches it. It involves the
affections, the emotions. It involves the will, what you
want to do. We do what we want to do. By
nature, we don't want to serve God. That's our problem. That's why we're born dead in
trespasses and sin. By nature, we don't want to bow
to Christ. By nature, we don't want to admit
that we are the sinners that we really are. That all our best
efforts to save ourselves are nothing but filthy rags in the
sight of God. That our only hope of salvation
now and forever, all of it, is Christ and Him crucified and
risen again. By nature, we don't want to admit
that. Because we're so proud of our accomplishments. It's
just like the Pharisees that he's going to be talking to here.
They've spent their lives trying to work their way into God's
favor. To earn God's blessings. to deserve it. They were children
of Abraham. They were circumcised. They had
the Law of Moses. Paul, the Apostle, before he
was converted, what did he say about himself? He was a Hebrew
of Hebrews. That ought to count for something.
That's what we want by nature. I'm an American, or I'm a Baptist,
or whatever. That ought to count for something.
And when he saw his sinfulness and the glory of Christ, you
know what he found out? It didn't count for anything.
His being a Hebrew of Hebrews didn't contribute one iota to
his salvation and his standing before God. In fact, it hindered
him. It hindered him. And then Christ, by the power
of the Spirit, changed his want to. Changed his will. And he said in Philippians chapter
3, he said, when I saw the glory of God in Christ and his righteousness
and his precious blood, then I count all things but done that
I may win Christ and be found in him. Not having mine own righteousness,
which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of
Christ, his faithfulness to save me and to keep me. And so the
scripture instructs us, keep thy heart with all diligence,
for out of it are the issues of life. That's why Jeremiah
told the people of his generation that the heart is deceitful and
desperately wicked, so much so that no man can know it. And
the only way, the only way that we can have any inkling of an
idea of the state of our heart is through the Word of God. God
said, I the Lord, I try the rains, I search the heart. Let God is
what He's saying. And so when He talks about the
heart, He's talking about the heart that trusts God by the
power of His grace. The Bible says in Matthew 5 and
verse 8, our Lord speaking on the Sermon on the Mount, Blessed
are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Who are the pure
in heart? I'll tell you who the pure in heart are. It's those
who are resting in Christ for all salvation. That's it. Take heed, brethren, lest there
be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from
the living God. Look here in verse 14. He says,
And the Pharisees, The Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard
all these things, and they derided him. They derided him. Now, here's what he's saying.
He's going to point out before he gets to the parable of the
rich man Lazarus, three errors of the Pharisees. I don't want
you to see these. And in these three errors of
the Pharisees, he shows us what it is to give an account before
God. You know that's what's going to happen, that we give an account
before God. God puts all things out in account. How can I give an account before
God? Well, listen to this, alright?
The first one is what I've been talking about. It's an accounting
of the heart. It's an accounting of the heart.
In other words, it's not the outward appearance. It's not
what I see or men see or you see of me, how we appear out. You know, the Lord said the Pharisees
appeared outwardly righteous to men. But he kept saying, eminently,
they're full of dead men's bones. Why did sepulchers, he called.
You look at them, they look beautiful, religious, they look moral, they
look like they're saved. But he said, it's just an open
grave. What's in on the inside of that white sepulcher, a rotting
corpse. This is not an accounting of
how you appear before men. And what he's using here is the
stewardship of the heart. And here's what he's saying.
It's our stewardship. Now, you know what a steward
is? He's one who is responsible for the goods that belong to
another. And that's what we are. We're
stewards of the grace of God if we're saved. And you who are
unsaved, you've been given good things in this life. And you're
a steward in that sense, and you're either going to be an
unjust steward or a justified steward. Here's what he says
in this accounting of the heart. Our stewardship will ultimately
reveal the state of our hearts. Now, he says here, these Pharisees,
in verse 14, they were covetous. That word covetous there literally
means lovers of silver. They were covetous of money.
They were covetous of a lot of things. They were covetous of
men's honor. They wanted men to applaud them. But here he's speaking of covetousness
of money. And it says they heard all these
things and they derided him. They scoffed at him. These Pharisees
were motivated. They were motivated. They were
motivated religious. They were inspired. They had
a spark, a desire within them. But what was it? It was greed. That's what covetousness is.
Greed, the desire for more. Paul wrote of them in Romans
chapter 10, they have a zeal of God, but not according to
knowledge. They being ignorant of God's
righteousness and going about to establish a righteousness
of their own, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.
What is the righteousness of God? Romans 10, 4, for Christ
is the end of the law, the fulfillment of the law, for righteousness
to everyone that believe it. They didn't care anything about
the Messiah. They didn't care anything about His blood. They
didn't care anything about His righteousness. They just cared
about themselves and their gain. And they justified it. He says
in verse 15, And He said unto them, You are they which justify
yourselves before men. They're like preachers today
who are in it for the money. They justify. I deserve this.
I'm doing God's work. You can hear it. They sought
to justify themselves before men, but they were motivated
by greed. And here's the difference between
grace and works. Grace motivates, but not by greed. Grace motivates by love. Grace
motivates by gratitude, not greed. As they said, we deserve this
because we serve God. And they also, this too, I tell
you, this is a big thing today. You look around. You don't have
to watch too many religious TV programs to figure this one out.
You don't have to be a genius to figure this one out. They
supposed and judged that wealth is a sign of God's approval and
blessing. That's a biggie, isn't it? Now,
what we have today in a lot of religious circles, we have what
we call a health and wealth gospel. If you're healthy, that's a sign
of God's approval and blessing. If you're wealthy, that's a sign. Here's a rich man in hell. And
he was pretty healthy. It looked to me like the way
it's described here. Lazarus was the one out there
with the sores and the dogs licking them. So, those who would judge, that
health and wealth are absolute signs of God's favor and God's
blessing and salvation, what are they doing? There's a problem
with the heart there. They have to give an account
of the heart. They're like these Pharisees. They justify themselves
before men. You can't judge God's approval
and blessings by this. You have to do it by God's word.
Look across the page there at the end of the parable. You remember,
here's the rich man in hell, and he says, I've got five brothers,
and he said, send Lazarus back from the dead so that they won't
end up where I am. And look at verse 29. Abraham
saith unto him, they have Moses and the prophets. You know what
that is? That's the Old Testament. Genesis to Malachi. Let them
hear them." Now, what was the message of Moses and the prophets?
The message of Moses and the prophets was the glory of Christ
as our only Savior. The glory of Christ and Him crucified
and risen again. The law was given as a schoolmaster
to lead them unto Christ. Christ said, Moses wrote of me.
When the Pharisees challenged him on Moses, they said, we have
Moses. He's our guide. He's our leader.
We follow Moses. He said, you don't even know
Moses. He said, Moses wrote of me. He'll be your judge. You
think you keep the law. You don't keep the law. You're
a sinner. You need grace. You need Christ. The prophet
spoke of him. Abraham rejoiced to see my day,
he said. He rejoiced and saw. He was glad.
So he says in verse 30, listen to this, this is an eye opener.
He said, Nay, Father Abraham, but if one went unto them from
the dead, they'll repent. So if somebody would raise up
from the dead, then they'd repent. You'd think that, wouldn't you?
Listen to what he says. He said unto him, If they hear
not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though
one rose from the dead. Now what is that teaching us?
It's teaching us this. There is nothing greater than
God's Word that leads sinners to Christ. I don't care what
you see. I don't care if you walk out
onto Rose Hill Cemetery and the whole group comes up. I've got
something better than that, and it's right here. That's what
that's teaching. And if you're not going to believe
this Word, that out there won't do you any good, though everybody
gets up out of that grave and walks down on 13th Street. It
won't do any good. You see, the Word of the Lord
endures forever. Faith cometh by hearing. And
hearing by what? The Word of God. There's nothing
greater than the Word of God. And let me tell you something,
when the Holy Spirit gives life, I'll tell you what He does. He
writes indelibly the Word of God on the heart of that sinner.
We're begotten again by the word of truth, not by looking up in
the sky and seeing clouds that look like Jesus, who nobody really
knows what he looked like anyway, physically. That's not what saves
sinners. And all your experiences, all
my experiences that we just hold on to, that is nothing more than
justifying ourselves before men. If we can't turn to the word
of God and his gospel, and gain assurance of our salvation and
peace with God through Christ, we have nothing. I don't care
if we walk across the Atlantic Ocean. It won't do any good. Somebody said, I know I'm saved
because I had a dream. Forget your dream. Somebody says,
well, I know I'm saved because I was sick unto death and I was
raised. Forget it. Thank God for it.
But that's not salvation. Salvation is in Christ. And this
Word, by the power of the Spirit, leads a sinner to Christ and
Him alone. Not to your dreams, not to your
visions, not to your miracles, but to Christ. Don't justify
yourselves that way. The heart here is a reflection
of a person standing before God. It proves and evidences what
you truly value, what you love. Look here in verse 15, he says,
He said, and you are they which justify yourselves before men,
but God knows your hearts. God doesn't look as a man looks
on the outward appearance. He looks on the heart, what the
scripture says. And he says, for that which is
highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.
That word abomination is a tough word now. I mean, that's not
politically correct. Now think about that. What is
highly esteemed among men? Riches? Religion? Efforts? Those are all things that are
highly esteemed among men. But they are an abomination before
God when sinners try to justify themselves in these things. These
are issues of eternal life and glory. Making yourself acceptable
to God by your works when God says that no flesh will be justified
in the sight of God by works. The just shall live by faith,
the scripture says. What is that? We live by Christ,
who is our righteousness. And if we seek to be justified,
saved any other way, two things, it's an abomination before God
and it will end up in eternal damnation like the rich man in
hell. Notice here it says, you justify yourselves before men.
They desire human approval. Human approval. You know, really,
and sometimes we'll make statements, I will too, about I don't care
what anybody else thinks, but I do care what people think.
I suppose I have to, don't I? I care what people think. But the thing about it is, when
it comes to my standing before God, It really doesn't matter
what you think or what I think. The only thing that really matters
is what does God think. That's right. That's why the
Bible says in Romans chapter 8, if God be for us, who can
be against us, he said. You see, this is the issue. And
somebody says, well, how can I know what God thinks of me? Read his
word. His word tells us. He said this at our Lord's baptism. He said, this is my beloved Son
in whom I am well pleased, hear ye Him. Did you hear that? That means if I have Christ,
and He's my Savior, He's my salvation, if I'm washed in His blood and
clothed in His righteousness, that's exactly God's well pleased
with me. It has nothing to do with my
works. It has nothing to do with how I look or appear outwardly.
It has nothing to do with whether I'm rich or poor, sick or healthy.
If I have Christ, God is well pleased with me. I'm accepted
in the Beloved. In Christ, I'm as righteous as
I'll ever be, for He is my righteousness. In Christ, I have no sin legally
before the bar of God's justice. Listen, who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. Who can condemn us? It's Christ
that died, yea, rather, is risen again. Now, the question is,
on this accounting of the heart, does my heart reflect my love
for Christ? Well, they're trying to justify
themselves before men. They're worried about their works,
their efforts. But this is an accounting of
the heart. Here's the second thing. Look at verse 16. Now
he says, The law and the prophets were until John, that's John
the Baptist, since that time the kingdom of God is preached
and every man presseth into it. This second accounting is an
accounting of our relationship to Christ. You may ask me, so
how do you get that out of that verse? Well, I look at it again.
It says, the Law and the Prophets were until John. Now, the Law
and the Prophets, what is that? That's the Old Testament. That's
the Law of Moses, the Word of the Prophets, all down through
the ages under the Old Covenant and the Old Testament. And that
was until John. In other words, the Law and the
Prophets, the message of the Law and the Prophets, the message
of Moses, the message, you can go back to Abraham, the message
of Abraham. But Moses, Abraham, Moses, Isaac, Jacob, going down
the line, the message of Isaiah, the message of Jeremiah, Ezekiel,
Daniel, Malachi, all of them, the Law and the Prophets, was
fulfilled in the time of John the Baptist. All right? What was John's message? Go back
and read through just the book of John alone in the first part. Here's a man sent from God whose
name was John. He was not the light, but what? Gave witness to the light. Who is the light? Christ. What
does John say? I'm not the light. I'm bearing
witness of the light. I'm just a voice of one crying
in the wilderness, he said. I'm the one who comes prepare
the way. Here's the preparation. What's
this all about? Prepare to meet God. John the Baptist came in
a way of preparation for the coming of who? Somebody greater
than John, the Lord Jesus Christ. What did John say? He said, I'm
not the Messiah. John said this. He said, I can't
save you. He said, I can baptize you in
water, but there's one coming after me who can baptize with
fire. That means power. He baptizes
with the Holy Ghost. He can give you life. I can't
do that. I can take any one of you all who want to up here behind
me and baptize you, but I cannot birth you again. I cannot give
you spiritual life. I can't give you a heart to love
Christ and love His Word. I can't do that. That's not my...
Only Christ can do that. And see, the Law and the Prophets
testified of the coming of the Messiah. Why was the Law given?
It was given as a schoolmaster to lead us unto Christ. Show
us our sins. and drive us to Christ for life,
for righteousness, for glory. And so he says, the law and the
prophets were until John. But since that time, something's
changed. The kingdom of God is preached
and every man presses into. What is the kingdom of God? That's
the kingdom of Christ. That's the kingdom of salvation.
The Messiah has come. Something's changed now. He's
saying. What's changed? The Messiah has
come. And that's what John said, Behold
the Lamb of God which beareth away the sins of the world. What
did John say? He said, I'm not worthy to untie
his shoes. What did John say? He said, Christ
must increase and I must decrease. And to these Pharisees, They
didn't even believe Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah. He didn't increase in their minds.
They wanted to increase and let Him decrease. John's message
was different. So here's the account in how
do you stand in relationship to the Messiah who has come and
established the Kingdom of God. That's what it's about. The Messiah
has come. The Kingdom is established. The
law and the prophets have now been fulfilled and a new age
has begun. And entering the kingdom requires
the sovereign grace of God in election, in justification, in
redemption, in regeneration. And pressing into it includes
our repentance and our perseverance. It's not easy. It's a gift from
God. But it's not easy. You'll have
all kinds of hindrances. That word presseth into it is
translated in another passage as taking by storm, by force. Not that all without exception
are trying hard to get into his kingdom. The Pharisees weren't.
In fact, he told them in Matthew 23, you shut up the kingdom and
won't let anybody else come in. But it means we suffer violence.
We go through that kingdom by the grace of God, and it's not
easy. It requires faith in Christ. It requires repentance, all which
are the gifts of God, not the workings of man. Everyone who
enters this kingdom enters by the straight gate and the narrow
way, and that's Christ and Him crucified and risen again. You know, when you come into
judgment, there's only going to be one thing that matters.
Do you have a righteousness that answers the demands of God's
law and justice? If I were to ask you that question
this morning, how would you answer it? You might say yes. Here's
the next question. How'd you get it? How'd you get
that righteousness? Well, I joined the church when
I was 12. Not good enough. Well, I was baptized. Not good
enough. I haven't missed a Sunday. Not
good enough. I haven't failed to give my tithe.
Not good enough. I've given to charity to the
poor. Not good enough. You say, well, preacher, what's
good enough? Only Christ. That's it. He's it. My friend,
if he's not your righteousness before God, you'll end up like
the rich man in hell. That's it. How do you stand in
relation to him? The Pharisees rejected. Many
today reject him. Do we? And then lastly, look
at verse 17. Here's an accounting of law. He says, verse 17, it's easier
for heaven and earth to pass than one tittle of the law to
fail. What's a tittle? Somebody said that's the smallest
marking in the Hebrew written language. And what he's saying,
you've heard the saying that we have to dot every I and cross
every T, that's what that tittle means. In other words, the law
of God is not going to be relaxed, it's not going to be lessened,
it's not going to be watered down, it's all according, this
accounting before God is all according to strict law and justice. If you don't measure up totally,
completely, 100%, perfect, according to this law, you'll end up like
the rich man in hell. Now, the Pharisees, they had
missed the purpose of the law. They failed to understand the
law. They had accused Christ of teaching against the law.
That wasn't so. They'd reduced the law to a lower
standard whereby they could claim to have kept it and to have earned
their salvation even in their failures. Christ taught that
the whole law in its requirement of absolute perfection in thought,
word, and deed, and motive must be kept. He told him in the Sermon
on the Mount, he said, I didn't come to break the law or to destroy
it, but to keep it. And when God saves a sinner,
there is absolutely no reduction in the law. He doesn't reduce
it. He doesn't water it down. He
doesn't lessen it. He doesn't make it weaker. He doesn't take part
of it out and leave part of it in. If you're saved by the grace
of God, you are saved according to the strict standard of the
whole law 100%. You say, well, how is that possible?
Again, Christ is the fulfillment of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believes in Him. That's how. By faith we
honor the law. How? Not by boasting of our own
works and efforts. but by pleading the blood and
righteousness of Christ. He kept it for me. He died on
the cross for my sins. What happened there? He paid
it all. He paid all my debt to the justice of the law. He satisfied
God's justice completely for all my sins on the cross. My
sins were given to him, imputed to him. And he died the death
that I deserve. And in return, I get his righteousness,
which I have no part in producing. It's totally a gift from God.
And that's why he told him in the Sermon on the Mount, he said,
except your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes
and the Pharisees, you shall in no case or wise enter the
kingdom of heaven. And look what he does in verse
18. Some people say this is out of place, just kind of plugged
in there. He says, whosoever put away his wife and marrieth
another, commit adultery, and whosoever marrieth her that is
put away from her husband, commit adultery. What's he doing there?
Well, I'm sure we don't have an exact account of everything
that was said there, but it was common in that day among the
Pharisees to divorce their wives and marry other women. And they
justified it. They had different laws that
they had come up with in their own ways, in their own commentaries,
to say, well, it's okay if I do it for this reason or for that
reason. And the Bible doesn't teach that. Any abuse of the
law for the purpose of justifying ourselves in doing against the
law before men is getting our own selfish desire, and it puts
us in the same place as the unjust steward. Ultimately, it puts
us in the place where the rich man goes, without Christ. And so what he's saying is this.
They thought they kept the law. He's showing them, you haven't
kept the law. You're an adulterer. We all are. Look over at Matthew
chapter 5 with me. This is something similar to
what the Lord did here in the Sermon on the Mount. Look at
verse 20 of Matthew chapter 5. This is the verse I quoted just
a while ago. Now, he says in verse 20 of Matthew 5, For I
say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the
righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you shall
in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." Now, what that says
is this. You pick out the best people
on earth, the very best that the world can produce, and your
righteousness, my righteousness, must exceed theirs. Now, somebody
might ask, well, how righteous do I have to be? How close do
I have to get? How much of a sinner am I? Where
do I have to come from? Well, look at verse 21. Look
where he starts here. Same thing he's doing over here
in this other parable. He says in verse 21, You've heard that
it was said by them of old, Thou shalt not kill. And whosoever
shall kill shall be in danger of judgment. But I say unto you
that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall
be in... Now that without a cause, you
know, everybody thinks they have a cause to be angry. I mean,
if you ever get angry with somebody, you've got a cause, don't you?
I mean, you say, well, he shouldn't have done that, or she shouldn't
have done that. I'm angry. Without a cause means without
righteous anger. It means without a just cause.
All right? There is righteous anger, righteous
indignation. We experience that very few times
in our lives. I'm serious now. Very few times
in my life, when I get angry, I could really, before God, who
knows my heart, say, that's righteous anger. But we'll try to justify it,
you know. You know what righteous anger is? It's holy anger. I'll
tell you who did. Christ, when He drove out the
money changers in the temple, that was holy anger. That was
righteous. But when I get angry, it's useless. Well, it's all the time. It's
just self. You stepped on my time. So when
he says without a cause, he's not saying, well, you come up
with a cause and it's OK. No, he means without a just cause. So he says, I say that whosoever
is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of
the judgment. Whosoever shall say unto his brother Rekha, that
means thou vain felon. What that means is you're not
worth living. That's what that means. It's
like telling us, I wish you were dead, that kind of thing. And
he says, shall be in danger of the council, but whosoever shall
say thou fool shall be in danger of hellfire. Now, here's what
he's done. See, they had come up with ways that, OK, the law
says thou shalt not kill. And if I don't commit the actual
act of murder, then I'm a righteous fellow in that command. And Christ
says, oh, no, there's a murder of the heart. And my friend, we're sinners. We need a righteousness we can't
produce. That's what he's saying. Have
you ever been so angry at somebody you wish they were dead, you
wish they weren't alive? You have. That's murder. You
know what that makes us? Murderers. You say, but I haven't
actually committed yet. That's right, and I hope you
don't. But listen to me. That doesn't let you off the
hook in the eyes of God's law. Now go on, he says in verse 23,
Now, let's go on down to verse 27. You've heard that it was
said by them of old, thou shalt not commit adultery. Now, remember,
that's what he's talking about over here in this law of marriage.
It makes a person an adulterer, the divorce. And he says, but
I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after
hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. What
does that make us? Adulterers. What is that saying? Saying, we need a righteousness
we can't produce. Back over in Luke 16, that's
what this rich man needed. He needed a righteousness he
couldn't produce. He needed salvation by grace. He needed his sins
washed in the blood of Christ. But he didn't care. He had no
thoughts towards that. I'm sure he judged in himself
that because he was rich, that means he's okay with God. But
you know what he was? He was an adulterer. He was a
murderer. Just like all of us. So what do we need? We need grace. We need Christ. And my friend,
when we stand to give an account before God, what's it going to
be all about? Is it going to be about what
I do? Or what I've done? Or what I've tried to do? If
it is, that's eternal damnation. It's going to be all about Christ
for His people. I have one plea, Christ died
for me. That's my only hope, that's my
only plea, now and forever. Alright, we'll pick up there
next week.