Good morning. I guess we'll go
ahead and get started. If you would, please go ahead
and turn your Bibles to Luke chapter 18, verses nine through
14. That's what we're going to go
through today. And the title of today's message
is the Pharisee and the Publican. And he spake this parable unto
certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous and
despised others. Two men went up into the temple
to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other a publican. The Pharisee
stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee that I am 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 exalteth himself shall be
abased. and he that humbleth himself
shall be exalted. In a few minutes, I'm gonna discuss
the parable here in Luke 18, nine through 14, the Pharisee
and the Publican, but first I'm gonna make a few statements.
First of all, I wanna say that you will meet few people in this
world who deny the actual existence of God. There are very few people
who will deny that Jesus Christ was born and lived here on this
earth and died on a cross and even rose again. Many will agree
to that. Second, there are very few people
who will deny that the Bible is an inspired book. They may
argue about divine inspiration or verbal inspiration, but most
will tell you that the Bible, at least, it contains the word
of God. Third, now most people do believe this, that there is
a heaven and there is a hell. and they believe that there is
a judgment to face and they believe that there is an eternity to
spend somewhere. In fact, most people that I speak
with and most people that you would speak with too, people
in your family, your co-workers, neighbors, they all have some
religious principles. They certainly would not call
themselves unbelievers and they'd be upset if you referred to them
as unbelievers. I've even had conversations with
people and they said, and not even said that they were unbelievers,
but they believed I said they were unbelievers. I didn't say
it directly. All I did was describe what the
false gospel is to them and what the true gospel is and they figured
it out. Most people have some type of
religious hope to some degree. But what is that hope? Well, let me tell you this. If
you ask the average present day religious person, if you ask
them this one question, what is your hope for salvation? They're
going to likely answer with something like this. They'll say, well,
I'm a member of the Baptist church, or I'm a member of the Methodist
church, or I'm a member of the Catholic church. That's my hope. I go to church on Sunday, or
you may hear something to this effect. I made a profession of
faith when I was eight years old, 10 years old. I joined the
church, and I've just been trying to live a good Christian life.
And here's another statement you may hear from time to time.
Listen, I'm no worse than this person, They do some pretty bad
things. They curse, they drink, you name
it. I pay my debts, I take care of
my family, I work, so I'm pretty good compared to them. Or somebody
may say, well, I read the Bible, and I pray, and I go to church.
I was sprinkled when I was an infant, or I was baptized. All of these different answers,
do you know what this is? This is establishing a righteousness
of our own. It's self-righteousness. And
it's the subtle way of Satan to deceive you and to deceive
anybody he can. If you give some people those
examples, they may even say, oh no, I agree, that's works
religion. But Satan can take God's glory
in much more subtle ways than that. The more religious people
will say, no, that's works religion. Baptism, tithing, those are all
works. It's all of grace. But here's
where Satan disguises it. Have you ever heard at the end
of a church service where they'll say this? And I honestly, I looked
this up on YouTube, and I wrote it down word for word, and I'm
going to say what they say. Because we talk about it a lot
here, but I'm going to say exactly what they say. And it was a well-known
person, and this is exactly what it said. So this lady, she starts
out by telling a viewer on YouTube to repeat these words. You don't
have to repeat them. This is exactly what she said.
I'm not making this up. She said, Father God, I love
you. I believe in you. I believe that you sent your
son, Jesus, to die for me. I believe he paid the price for
my sins. Please forgive me. I surrender
my life to you today. Take me just the way I am, and
now make me what you want me to be. I believe I'm forgiven.
I've been born again, and I'm looking forward to my new life
with you. Amen." And then she says, congratulations. You have
just become a part of the family of God. This is only the beginning
of the journey. And just like that, she said
a person is saved. That's all it takes. I also found
an article in the Lee County Ledger last week. I was reading through there,
and there's a guy that writes an article in there every week,
and he had the same exact thing. Say this prayer, read this prayer,
and at the end of it, he says that you've been saved. You've
just let Jesus into your life. And let me tell you, This type of center-based, works-based
salvation is everywhere you turn. A close member of my family and
I had a conversation last week, and I asked him, where's your
hope of salvation? And we talked about works, and
he strongly agreed that salvation is all of grace. But we got to
one point where we disagreed. He said at the end of every service,
because I asked him, and he said at the end of every service,
that they invite people to come up and accept Jesus. Say this
prayer similar to the one I just read to you that I found on the
internet. My friends, that is not salvation. A wretched sinner cannot make
the decision for Christ. We come to him in the day of
his power Just think of this. The eternal God of this universe
wants you to just accept Jesus. That's all he wants, is what
they say. Just let Jesus into your heart. How nice is that? You, a broken
sinner, a filthy sinner, how nice to allow God, the God of
this universe, The God of creation, for you to allow him into your
heart, to let you decide your salvation,
that is so dishonoring to God the Father, and it reduces Christ
and his death on that cross to nothing. So listen to this closely,
and if you don't get anything out of this message other than
this one statement, The sheep of Christ, Christ's children,
are brought into the fold by him and in the day of his power. We as natural sinners, we will
never make a decision for Christ with our natural minds. He and
he alone makes us believe. It's not something that we would
ever be able to do on our own. He makes that decision to save
us. We don't make the decision to
save us. Anything other than grace, anything other than Christ
making that decision to save us is a false assurance, it's
a false hope, and it's a false refuge. This was the sin of the
Pharisees. In Luke 18, 11, scripture says,
the Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed, God, I thank you that
I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like
this tax collector. This is self-righteousness. Anytime
a sinner feels that they can make their own decision to accept
or recommend themselves in any way at all to God, then it's
self-righteousness. This was the sin of Israel. Paul
wrote in Romans 10, verses one through four. Brethren, my heart's
desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be
saved. For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God,
but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God's
righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness,
have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone
that believeth. Do you know what one of the rarest
things that a believer of the gospel will ever encounter? It's someone who will plainly
declare when you ask them this question, what is your hope of
salvation? What is your hope of redemption?
And what is your hope for eternal life? I randomly polled people last
week with this question. What is your hope of salvation?
And this is the rarest answer you'll ever find. It's the person
who answers something like this. I'm a sinner. My sins are ever
before me. If God Almighty shows mercy to
me, it'll have to be through the merits of his son because
I have no merits of my own. It will have to be by the righteousness
of his son because I have no righteousness. My righteousness
is equal to filthy rags. If God saves me, It'll only be
by the blood sacrifice of his son. That's rare. When you ask someone, what is
your hope for salvation? What is your hope for eternal
life? It's rare that they ever mention Christ. They'll talk
to you about an experience that they had. They'll tell you about
a dream that they had. They'll tell you about a profession
that they've made. Works they've done, their church membership,
tithes, it keeps going. All I hear is work, work, work,
work. They tell you about all of these
things, but rarely will you ever find an individual who will base
their hope for mercy on Christ, and their hope for cleansing
on the blood, and their hope for grace on the mercy of God.
1 Corinthians 15, verse 22. says, for as in Adam all die,
even so in Christ shall all be made alive. That right there
is the gospel. That's representation and substitution. When Adam stood, we stood. When
Adam sinned, we sinned. And when he fell, we fell. When he died, we died, separated
from God's presence. When Christ came to earth, we
stood in him, we lived in him, and we met the law only in him.
We died in him, we were buried in him, and we rose in him. First
Corinthians 1549 says, and as we have borne the image of the
earthly, that would be an Adam, we shall also bear the image
of the heavenly, Christ. People who read those scriptures
People read those scriptures all the time, but why don't they
answer when you ask them, what is your hope? Listen to Isaiah 53 verses five
and six. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities.
The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes
we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray.
We have turned everyone to his own way and the Lord hath laid
on him the iniquity of us all. Instead of talking about an experience,
let's talk about an experience that Christ went through. Instead
of talking about a decision that was made and the works that have
been done, let's talk about the cross and let's talk about the
blood that he shed. Here's the problem, and this
is what you're going to hear. Well, I'm not as bad as this
person is. I may not be the best person in the world, but I'm
not the worst. Another person in my family told
me that somebody else in the family, they were going to go
to heaven because they are just such a nice and good person.
Never a mention of Christ and what he did. That's not the standard we're
going to be judged on. We cannot compare ourselves with
others. Our standard is Christ. I don't know if you've seen it.
Jackie's seen it. We came across this TV show.
I don't know, it's called The Good Place. And basically, it's
about a person that ended up in the afterlife and in the show.
It says that everything a person does in his life has some value
towards earning their spot in heaven. It's a pretty popular
show now and it's absolutely 100% works-based salvation. But the thing about it is that's
really what a lot of people believe now. A works-based salvation
where everything you do is going to be put on a scale at judgment. But we know it doesn't work like
that. You can drive all over the United States and close every
bar, close every little motel where people go do drugs and
other things that we don't want to talk about. It's not gambling
and it's not all the immoral stuff that you're going to find
on the internet. You follow our Lord and his ministry on this
earth and you tell me about the people he dealt with. He dealt
with sinners. His harshest words were for the
moral, religious, self-righteous Pharisees. He called them a generation
of vipers, snakes. He called them hypocrites, the
most religious of the time. And our Lord's kindest words
were to the publicans and the sinners. He came to save them. He died to save sinners. He said,
though your sins be as scarlet, I'll make them white as snow.
Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. Listen,
if you have no sin, you don't need a Savior, and you'll stand
before God someday and be judged by your standard of holiness.
Not by your standard of holiness, but by His perfect standard,
which is His almighty, eternal, immutable, infinite glory, and
you will come short of that. Let's look back at Luke 18 verse
9. It says, and he spake this parable
unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous
and despised others. Verse 10, it says, two men went
up to the temple to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other
a publican. It's impossible to imagine a
bigger contrast of two people. One was a Pharisee, the other
a Republican. The Pharisee was the most religious man of his
day. The Pharisees were the strictest. They kept the Sabbath. They engaged
in ceremonies. They kept all the rituals. They
knew all the traditions, and they were very religious, and
everybody knew it. The other were the Publicans.
They had a disgraceful job. They were tax collectors. They
were looked at like they were the bottom of the bucket. Ruthless. So in verse 11, this is what the Pharisee does.
The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank
thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers,
or even as this publican. So the Pharisee is up there comparing
himself with others. He's clearly using others as
his standard. He prayed to God and told him
that he wasn't like other men. He wasn't an extortioner. He
wasn't unjust. He wasn't an adulterer. And he
even thanks God that he's not like that publican sitting over
there. And in verse 12, it says, I fast twice a week. I give tithe
of all that I possess. He's standing there praying to
God, recommending himself based on tithes and fasting and all
of his works, what he's done. He's talking about how much money
he gives and the Pharisee here is given his tithe. And here's
the thing, he did fast and he did pray and he studied the Bible
and everybody knew it. They wanted everybody to know
what they were done this week and how many times they've prayed
and how much scripture they've read. And then in verse 13 it
says, Notice what it says in the first part of that scripture,
the publican standing afar off. He stood at a distance. He was ashamed of himself and
his sins. He's a sinner. He felt like he
didn't belong. He felt dirty. And he felt like
he had no right to be before God. It goes on to say that he
wouldn't even lift his eyes to heaven. He was ashamed to even
look up. This man, the publican, he knew
he was a sinner. And then it also says in 13,
but smote upon his breast. This shows how deep his feelings
are. He felt this being ashamed and
being a sinner all the way deep into his heart. And the last part says, God be
merciful to me as a sinner. Did you hear that? God be merciful
to me a sinner. The publican is asking for mercy.
and forgiveness from God. He knows he's a sinner and he
knows the only way he can be forgiven of his sins is through
the grace and mercy of Christ. He knows that if God gives him
what he really deserved, based on his actions, he will be condemned. And here's the last verse, 14.
It says, I tell you, this man went down to his house justified
rather than the other. For everyone that exalteth himself
shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. So it says that this man, the
publican, went down to his house justified. Rather than the Pharisee,
the publican was justified. Wasn't he the tax collector?
The one that represented that which was not clean on earth?
Yes, and he was justified. and the most religious, Pharisee,
was not justified because he was basing his justification
on his works while the publican was basing his justification
on Christ and him alone. Can you find today's religion
in either of these two men, the publican and the Pharisee? I
can. Our Lord spake this parable to
certain who trusted in themselves. There are so many people out
there trusting in themselves. They actually don't realize that
any small contribution from the sinner takes all, not just a
little bit, it takes all of the glory from God. So this is what
I say. This parable is telling us that
all of our hope, all of our justification, all of our righteousness comes
from Christ and him alone. Come to God as a sinner. That's it. This gospel is so
simple and we are so thankful for that. Amen.