Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening and now
for today's program. I'd like to welcome you again
to our program. I'm glad you could join us for the message
today. And if you'd like to follow along in your Bibles, I'll be
preaching from the book of Luke, the gospel of Luke in the New
Testament, chapter 18. And I'll begin with verse 9. And what I'm going to talk to
you about is the parable of the Pharisee and the publican. But
the title of the message is just one word. And it's found in Luke
18, in this parable, in verse 14, the title is just one word,
justified. Justified. Now, years ago I wrote
a book called, What Is Salvation? And in that book, what I tried
to do is do a biblical study of how the Bible, God's Word,
presents salvation. And what I saw in the scriptures
is that, and in this book I divided it up into what I called the
four realms of salvation. The first realm was the eternal
realm of salvation. And the word of God speaks of
salvation in terms of eternal life, eternal time. And that's
a concept that's very difficult for us to understand because
we're so limited and we're so tied to the issues of time, but
God is not. And for example, in 2 Timothy
chapter one, he speaks of a salvation that was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began. So there's an eternal aspect
of salvation. The second realm was the legal
aspect of salvation. And that legal aspect speaks
of a sinner's justification before God. And that's what I want to
talk about today in this word justified from this parable.
This is a parable concerning how sinners are justified before
God. Now, to be justified is to be
legally pronounced by God, as God as the judge, legally pronounced
not guilty. Not guilty. And it goes further,
not just to be pronounced not guilty, but also to be pronounced
legally, really, and actually righteous in God's sight. That's what it means to be justified.
If I'm justified before God, I am legally, forensically, objectively,
and that's not fake now. That's not some kind of a pretense
that God put. It's like standing before a judge,
having been accused of a crime, and all the evidence has been
brought in, and now because we have a jury, but the judge could
do this, The judge looks at it and says, well, none of these
charges stick to you. You're not guilty. You're righteous
in the sight of the law. That's what justified means. If you're saved by the grace
of God, you are justified. That's the legal aspect. Now
the other two realms were the spiritual realm, which refers
to the new birth, a sinner being brought from spiritual death
to life by the Holy Spirit under the preaching of the gospel,
and then the glorified realm. We offer that book free of charge
if you'd like to see it. But let's get back to the parable
here. You know, the Lord spoke in parables quite often. And
a lot of people have the idea that these parables are something
like children's stories or simplifications. of the gospel in order to bring
it down to our level, but that's not what they were. If you're
interested, read the book of Matthew chapter 13. And when
the disciples asked the Lord, why do you speak in parables?
And his speaking in parables was actually a judgment against
those who continually refused to receive and to believe the
plain teachings of the gospel message. For example, the Pharisees,
Christ told them, last week I preached on this, that you need a righteousness
you can't produce. And the only righteousness a
sinner can have is that which comes by the grace of God through
the Lord Jesus Christ, and they wouldn't hear it. So he concealed
the truth in these parables, but he told the disciples, he
said, but now blessed are your eyes for they see, blessed are
your ears for they hear. You do see and hear what these
parables are teaching. Now secondly, parables are not
taught, are not given to establish true doctrine. True doctrine
has already been established. The doctrine of Christ, the doctrine
of salvation, the doctrine of God, the doctrine of the gospel,
has already been established from the very beginning in the
book, and it's plainly taught in clear terms. It's not impossible
for people to understand mentally, but my friend, the natural man
will not receive it because he hates it. John chapter 3 talks
about that, how men love darkness and hate the light because their
deeds are evil. You see, the gospel leads us
to one way of salvation through the works, the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ and excludes our works, the gospel
tells me that I have no goodness to recommend me unto God. The
gospel tells me I have no good works by which to appeal to God
or to earn God's favor. The gospel tells me I'm a sinner
and I deserve nothing but condemnation and eternal death based upon
my best efforts to keep the law. And men and women by nature don't
like to hear that. Now wait a minute now. You're
telling me that I've done the best I could do, which you haven't,
but some people think they did. I've done the best I could do
to be the best I can be and that doesn't count for anything? My
friend, listen to me. As far as salvation goes, as
far as a right relationship with God goes, it counts for nothing. Now I'm telling you that. The only thing that counts in
salvation, I'm saying the only thing that counts before God
in salvation and a right relationship with God is the imputed righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the merit of His obedience
unto death, charged to my account by the grace of God. If I'm saved
by grace, I'm saved based on things that I did not earn and
did not deserve. It's all of Christ. All the blessings
of salvation are by grace, freely given of God, based on the righteousness
of Christ. That's what it's all about. And
men and women hate that message. And a lot of them will come back
and say, well, that means I don't have to do any good works or
I don't have to obey. It doesn't mean that at all.
Good works and obedience and godliness is the fruit of salvation,
not the ground or the cause of salvation. But they are the fruit. We do bear fruit unto God. Well, let's look at this parable.
Listen to this. He says in verse nine, it says,
And Christ spoke this parable unto certain, that is certain
people, which trusted in themselves as being righteous, or that they
were righteous, and despised others." So who's he talking
to now? Who's talking? It's the Lord
Jesus Christ. Who's he talking to? He's talking
to self-righteous sinners who claim to be righteous and claimed
others were not. That's what it means, despised
others. They rejected others. And so he speaks this parable. In other words, their claim of
righteousness was in themselves. They trusted in themselves. They
trusted in their own works. They trusted in their own decisions.
You know, a lot of people today, they don't trust Christ, they
trust in their decision. It's called decision or regeneration,
and it doesn't work. It's not biblical. Oh, I made
a decision back when I was 12. Well, my friend, if you truly
trusted Christ, you won't be bragging about your decision,
you'll be bragging about Him. You'll be bragging about what
He accomplished. And here's the point, it doesn't
matter what happened to you when you were 12, who are you trusting
today? That's the issue. Who is your
righteousness today? Because that's the main issue
of salvation. Well, they trusted in themselves. And then verse 10, it says, two
men went up to the temple to pray. So we have two people who
are religious. Both of them praying people.
Now the one a Pharisee, the other a publican. The Pharisees were
the super religious. They were the ones to whom everybody
looked up to and followed as far as religion, as far as a
relationship with God. They were the ones who went above
and beyond the call of duty. That's who the Pharisees were.
But now, who were the publicans? Well, the publicans, you remember
that at this point in time, Israel was under the boot of Rome. Rome had conquered the known
world at that time. This was the Roman Empire. And
Caesar would collect taxes from those countries, those people
that he had conquered. A publican was a Jewish person
who collected those taxes in the name of Caesar. And they
were a very, very immoral group. They were very hated by the people.
They were considered traitors. Many of them would skim off the
top, as it were. They would charge more and take
more and take shares for their own. Remember Christ's debt with
one named Zacchaeus. And, you know, when Zacchaeus,
after the Lord saved him, he said he's going to return all
that he cheated people out of, you know. So that was a publican. So a Pharisee is one who, among
the people of that day, had a good reputation. A publican is one
who had a bad reputation. So what's the point here? Two
men went to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, one a publican. Look at verse 11. Now here he
begins with the Pharisee. He says, the Pharisee stood and
prayed thus with himself. He stood, he was by himself.
And listen to the first words of the Pharisee's prayer. Don't
let this get by you. God, I thank Thee. Now whatever he's going to say,
alright, in his prayer, he's giving credit to God. He's not really given credit
to himself. And I find that today there's
a lot of people who are not so concerned with the glory of God
in this sense. What is it that really glorifies,
honors God? They believe that whatever they
plead as their ground of salvation, their ground of justification,
it gives glory to God as long as they give Him credit for it.
And that's what the Pharisee was doing. God, I thank Thee.
In other words, oh, I know it wasn't all of me, it was all
of God. Well, here's the issue of this parable. We're all sinners. We know the Pharisee was a sinner.
The Bible says we've all sinned and come to the shore of the
glory. We know the publican was a sinner. If we come before God
seeking salvation, seeking blessing, in prayers, expecting God to
hear and receive and bless us in our prayers, Upon what ground
do we come before God? Upon what ground do we expect
God to bless us, to save us, to justify us? And a lot of people
say, well, it really doesn't matter as long as you're sincere
and you give credit to God. Well, my friend, that's Phariseeism. And I'm going to show you why.
Now look at the Pharisee again, verse 11. He says, God, I thank
thee that I'm not as other men are. Now what he's talking about,
he said, I'm not an extortioner. In other words, I don't try to
exact money out of people by extortion. I'm not unjust, not
unfair, adulterers, or even as this publican. Now there's the
negative part of his prayer. I don't do this, I don't do that. Now somebody may say, well, I
think God, you know, it's like me, I think, I see people all
the time, you know, In our society today, we read the news and we
see some of the most heinous crimes. And I thank God that
I didn't do that. I thank God for that. And he
says, I'm not like this publican. Well, here's the positive that
the Pharisee prays. Verse 12, I fast twice in the
week. I give tithes of all that I possess. So there's the positive. Now
all of this that the Pharisee stated, in and of itself, there's
nothing wrong with these things. We don't want to be murderers
and extortioners and adulterers, publicans. We want to be dedicated
to God and all of that. But the problem with the Pharisee
is that he thought that these were the things that justified
him before God. These were the things that made
him righteous in God's sight. And he gave God credit, just
like people do today. But this is what he was pleading
as his righteousness before God. Now I can tell you, I thank God
that I'm not a murderer, an extortioner, an adulterer. Now let me qualify
that. Strictly speaking, we are all
sinners in every way, in thought, word, and deed. Christ taught
that in the Sermon on the Mount, do you remember? He said, you've
heard it said by them of old, thou shalt not kill. He said,
I say unto you, to be angry without a cause is murder. He said, you've
heard it said of them of old that thou shalt not commit adultery.
He said, I say unto you that those who lust commit adultery. We are all sinners guilty of
all sins in some way. Okay? I cannot tell you that
I'm not an adulterer. Maybe I, as I have not committed
physical adultery, but what about mental? What about the thought?
What about the motives? You see, that's how far the law
of God reaches. But when you think about something
like murder, you may have been angry with somebody to the point
that you wish them dead. That's murder. But aren't you
glad that you haven't actually committed the act of murder?
Now some people out there may have. And if you are, you need
to be under the law. You need to be convicted by the
law. But here's what the Pharisee's doing. He's saying, these are
the things that make me righteous before God. And I give God credit. But listen to what Christ says
about the publican, verse 13. It says, and the publican, standing
afar off, many people say that speaks of his humility, and it
probably does. He would not lift up so much
as his eyes unto heaven. See, this is the posture of humility,
contrition. But he smote upon his breast,
knowing that sin was a heart matter, not the physical heart,
and he says, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. In other words,
the Pharisee stands there proudly saying, I thank God that I'm
not a sinner. The publican says, God be merciful
to me, a sinner. Now if you have a concordance,
look up that term, be merciful. And what you'll find is that
it's the same word that the New Testament uses for the word propitiation. Sometimes the word mercy just
means compassion. God be merciful. God has mercy. Blessed are the merciful. That's
compassion. And in God's case, when he's
merciful or compassionate to his people, it's undeserved.
It's unearned. But the word be merciful, the
phrase be merciful here is propitious. Propitiation. What is a propitiation? Well, the word reaches back into
the Old Testament, to the Old Testament tabernacle, and the
mercy seat. You remember in the tabernacle
you had the outer court, then you had the holy place where
the priest went in, and then inside the center part you had
the holiest of all. And in the holiest of all, only
one person, one time a year, could go into the Holy of Holies
and that was the high priest and in that Holy of Holies was
the Ark of the Covenant containing the Law of God and over that
was a a lid that was made of Shittim wood overlaid with gold
and that lid had the two cherubims pointing towards each other and
that lid covered the Ark. It was a covering. And when the
high priest would come in one time a year, he'd bring the blood
off the brazen altar, the blood of the lamb, and he'd go in on
the Day of Atonement and sprinkle that blood over the mercy seat.
And all of that was a picture of propitiation. What is propitiation? Propitiation is a sin-bearing
sacrifice that makes satisfaction to God's justice. That's the
key. Well, who is the propitiation
for sinners, for God's people? The Lord Jesus Christ. First
John 4.10, Herein is love, not that we loved Him, but that He
loved us and gave His Son to be a propitiation for our sins. Propitiation. Christ is the sin-bearing
sacrifice, the Lamb of God. who shed his blood as the complete
payment for all the sins of God's elect and satisfied justice in
their stead as their surety and substitute." That's what the
publican was praying for. I need a propitiation. I need
a mercy seat. I need a sacrifice. That was
established back in the book of Genesis. In Genesis 3.21,
when after Adam and Eve fell and put their fig leaf aprons
on, God took those aprons off. He told them about the woman's
seed, which is Christ, the seed of woman. And He slew an animal
and made them coats of skin. He shed blood. Without the shedding
of blood, there's no forgiveness of sin. There's no propitiation. All of that's a picture of Christ
as the propitiation for the sins of His people. In other words,
this publican, unlike the Pharisee, he realized that he had nothing
to recommend Him unto God but the God-sent, God-ordained substitute,
sacrifice, surety, the Lord Jesus Christ and the righteousness
that Christ would bring in. And it says here in verse 14,
Christ said, I tell you, this man, this publican, went down
to his house justified, rather than the other, rather than the
Pharisee. For everyone that exalteth himself shall be abased. If you
exalt yourself, like the Pharisee, I don't care if you give credit
to God or not, you will be abased, you'll be brought down. under
the wrath of God, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted."
That is, humbleth himself as a mercy beggar, just like this
publican. Here's what I'm telling you.
Justification before God, being not guilty, being righteous before
God, has absolutely nothing to do with what we do or don't do,
whether or not we give credit to God or else. I've often told
people this, you better be careful what you give God credit for. He may not want credit for that.
And that's what this Pharisee was doing. He was giving God
credit for making him righteous, not through Christ, not through
the propitiation, not through the mercy seat, but by enabling
him to not do things and to do things. That is not our righteousness
before God. Our righteousness is Christ.
Over in the book of Hebrews chapter 2, it speaks of this very same
thing in verse 17. Hebrews 2, 17. And it says this,
listen to this, it says, Wherefore, in all things it behooved him. That's talking about Christ.
The word behooved there is the Greek word for debt. And speaks
of the sin debt of God's elect charged, imputed to Christ. So
it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren. Now who are
his brethren? Well, He said that in Matthew
12. He said, Who are my brethren? Those who do the will of my Father. In other words, Christ became
indebted for the sin debt of His brethren. And who are they? God's chosen people, those whom
He redeemed, those who come to believe in Him and rest in Him,
like that publican. and he says here that he might
be made might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things
pertaining to God that is to satisfy the justice of God to
make reconciliation now that word reconciliation is a form
of the same word be merciful or propitiation for the sins
of the people and the people there refers to his elect his
sheep his church My friend, to be justified before God is a
work of God's grace based solely upon what Christ did and accomplished
in His obedience unto death. And the Bible says His resurrection
is all about the justification of His people. It said he was
raised again and it says for our justification or because
of our justification. In other words, when Christ had
the sin debt imputed charge to him, he died. He suffered. He was under the wrath of God. When he hanged upon that cross,
he said, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? He was
forsaken by the Father. And that's a mind-boggling thing.
He who is God in human flesh was forsaken by God. That speaks
of the legal separation that sin brings. Now Christ never
sinned. He was never a sinner. He was
never made a sinner. But he was legally separated
from his father based upon the sins of his people charged to
him. And he died. That's the penalty. The soul that sinneth shall surely
die. Now even though he did not sin,
he had the penalty of sin. because of sin imputed to him.
So he died, he was buried, and he arose the third day. Why? Because in his death he satisfied
the justice of God and brought forth righteousness by which
God could justify his people. Now sin demands death, righteousness
demands life. And so all for whom Christ lived,
all for whom He died, all for whom He was buried, all for whom
He was raised again the third day, they are justified and they
shall live unto Him. I hope you'll join us next week
for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1102 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia, 31707. contact us by phone at 229-432-6969
or email us through our website at www.theletterofgrace.com. Thank you again for listening
today and may the Lord be with you.