I don't know where the first impulse of every one of us is to go when we're feeling guilty. And that's good works, isn't it? When we've done something wrong and the Spirit of God convicts us for what we've done wrong, the first impulse is to go out and do something good to make up for it and to find comfort in it. But that songwriter, now he knew something. He said, his oath, his covenant, and his blood. Support me in the whelming flood. He swore He'd save my soul. He made a covenant with the Son to do it. And the blood of Jesus Christ paid for my sin.

I suppose that there's no way in this life we're ever going to be completely done with that impulse to justify our souls and find comfort in our own works. It's going to be there. I gave a taped message to Brother Baker yesterday or the day before Brother Henry Mahan preached it on Galatians chapter 5. And he made a few remarks about this legalistic spirit that's driven into us when we're young. It's just planted in our minds. And I was glad to hear him say this. He said, I'm 63 years old and it's not gone yet. I've been preaching the gospel, I think he said, 40 years, 39,

40. He said, it's not gone yet. He said, I still have those feelings about certain days about certain percent to give, about what we do now, all this. It's there.

Now, what is your comfort, really? Where's your final comfort? When that guilt comes. Now, what's your impulse? The impulse you can't do anything about. But where do you force yourself to find your comfort? It's in Christ? I hope so, because that's where all God's people find their comfort. Sometimes it takes them a while to get there. To try works for a little bit seems like every time, but the Spirit of God won't let us find comfort in our works if we're God's people. Well, now let's look at Luke chapter 5.

That was a free sermon. No extra charge. Went to Six Flags over Midwest in St. Louis. You talk about extra charge. When you walk in the front door, front gate of that thing, and you pay $80 to get your family in, you figure everything ought to be free once you get through. It's not. It's not. Thanks be to God. We don't have to pay to get in the gate or for anything once we get in. It's all free.

Luke chapter 5, verse 17. We read this this morning. I'll read it again as the Greek puts it. One day as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law who had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea in Jerusalem were sitting there, and the power of the Lord was present for him to heal them.

What I want to preach tonight, or the point I want to get across, is that there is nobody, nobody, N-O-B-O-D-Y, nobody, who is beyond the grace of God. We tend, like everyone else, to classify folks as to how hard they would be to save. But there are no groups of people which are beyond the ability of our God to save if it pleases Him to do so. There is some difference of opinion as to whether or not this applies to the Pharisees and teachers of the law. Most commentators believe that when it says that He healed them, that He was healing those others who had come. But we should not assume off or out of hand that when it says the power of the Lord was present for Him to heal them, we shouldn't just assume out of hand that the Pharisees and teachers of the law were not to be included among that group. There's no reason not to include them. Are they more sinful than us? No. Are they more sinful than the others who are there on that? No. Are they more difficult to save? Not really. Not really. I mean, there's two Pharisees in the Scriptures pointed out in particular. Nicodemus, a Pharisee. Saul of Tarsus, a Pharisee.

God saved them. It reveals a certain amount of self-righteousness on our part, actually, when we think that there is any class of people whom God cannot save. If we claim to be saved, if we claim that our hearts have been regenerated, our souls are justified, then we're on our way to glory. Now, if we claim that and yet we say that there are some whom God cannot save, we are implying Well, we were just a little easier to say. We were a little closer to God already. And we do that to some degree, particularly with those who boast in their righteousness. We see those who have a religious righteousness, those who are very particular about church creeds and rules and this sort, We often very self-righteously condemn them as though they are more difficult to save and farther from God than we were. Our Lord is glorified in the salvation of the worst of sinners. So we should expect that God would save many of the self-righteous as well as the blatantly immoral.

Paul said this in 1 Timothy 1.15, he said, this is a faithful saying and worthy of acceptance by everyone. That Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief.

And why did Paul consider himself the chief of sinners? Well, because of his blatant self-righteousness and persecution of the church. But Paul was not leading us to believe that there are categories of sinners which are more or less hard for God to save. He was just trying to put to rest the fears of anyone who thought God wouldn't save them. He said, well, I know He'll save you, if you're willing, because God saved me, and there's nobody any worse than me. There's Naaman. Remember Naaman? So full of self-sufficiency.

He called to Elijah. The servant went and talked to Elijah's servant. Elijah's servant went and talked to Elijah and said, Naaman, a man of great influence, is leprosy. He wants you to come out and heal him. And Elijah said, well, you tell him to go down to the Jordan and dunk himself seven times. And so Elijah's servant spoke to Naaman's servant. Naaman's servant spoke to Naaman, and he said, the prophet says such and such. Naaman said, what?

He's not going to come out here and see me? I've traveled all this way now, made this long trip to visit him. Me and all my august presence, and Elijah's going to refuse to come out and do some wonderful, spectacular event. He's just going to send word to me to go down and dunk. Aren't there plenty of nice, clean, fresh streams where I came from? Why this old dirty, muddy river? Self-righteous. But now the power of God was such. Convince Naaman to do what was said.

And what about you? What about me? Are we any less self-righteous than anyone else? Or were we? Whether or not these words apply now to the Pharisees at that time, we're going to apply it to them. For if it were not true in this instance, we do know that the spiritual truth which is illustrated in this story is true. That is, whether or not there were any Pharisees healed on that day, and whether or not this scripture is intended to teach God's power to save even the self-righteous, it's nonetheless true He has the power to do it, for He has done it. We have plenty of examples. And that's what I want to work on. Well, now, the self-righteous are a desperate lot of people.

While they and many others believe that their works of righteousness move them nearer to God, in reality, these works have driven them away from God. This morning when I talked about the gospel being 180 degrees from what we naturally think, that also means that what we naturally think and what religion naturally does is 180 degrees from what God wants. And anyone who pursues religion like that is not drawing himself nearer to God, but actually drawing away from God. People say, well, draw near to me and I'll draw near to you. That's what God said.

And so they try to draw near God with their own works. But in trying to draw near God with your own works, you're actually walking away from Him. You're not drawing near to Him. You're putting up a wall of difference between you and Him when you try to draw near to Him on the basis of works. And that's at any point.

That's whether you're trying to do it for the basis of justification. If you're saying, well, I'm a sinner, but I want to be justified before God and want to be accepted by Him, therefore, I'm going to do good works. If you do good works to draw near to God in that regard, you're walking away from it. It also applies to the believer. who under conscience of sin says, then I shall do good works and mend my ways that I might restore that fellowship I enjoyed with God at one time. Wait a minute, you're walking away from God.

You're not drawn near to Him. God doesn't bring a believer under conviction of sin in order that the believer might go out and do good works to make up for his sin. He brings him under conviction in order that he might draw near to Him with the blood of Christ as he did at first.

It goes for spiritual growth too. You try to draw near God in growth, in maturity, by the works of your hands and the determination of your flesh, you're not becoming more mature, you're becoming less mature. You're regressing and you're moving away from God. It says grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Now those who grow in grace will also grow in works. But if you attempt to grow in grace by growing in works, you've got to cart before the horse.

But drawing near to God is drawing near to Him through the blood of His Son. But the self-righteous are actually walking away from God because of their works of righteousness. Now, they're in a desperate case, first of all, because they're dead in their trespasses and sins, just like everybody else.

We tend to look at the devoutly religious person as not so bad. He's a good man, we say. He goes to church. He takes his kids to Sunday school. He's there all the time. He tithes ten cents out of every dollar. You don't find him living in outward sin whatsoever. And we get impressed by that. And we tend to think that such a man is necessarily closer to God.

But the fact of the matter is, the self-righteous, the very religiously devout, were born dead just like everybody else. Born dead. David said, and here's a man, if you want to talk about outwardly righteous, He was. I know he had his failures. We all do. But even the Jews look back to David with regard, the religious Jews. David said, I was conceived in sin, conceived in iniquity. And in sin did my mother conceive me.

And these self-righteous are just the same way. They're dead when they're born. And unless they've had a new birth, unless the Spirit's been regenerated, they're still dead. It doesn't matter how good they are. They're dead in trespasses and sin. They are dead and condemned just as much as anybody. In Revelation 21, verses 6 through 8, it gives a list of those who will not be within the kingdom of God. Pretty despicable people in there. And it ends that list, I believe. I believe it's the last one. It says, and all liars. Liars will be outside.

There is no greater liar than the man who believes himself to be righteous by his own works. He's lying to God, he's lying to everybody else, and he's lying to himself. That's why the Bible says the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. We are liars. The self-righteous are liars. And as such, they have no part in the kingdom of God. That's why John said, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. that we've not sinned, we make God out to be a liar. We're liars.

The self-righteous are liars. And unless we miss the point, let's emphasize that these self-righteous are dead in sin. They're not just dead because they're condemned like everyone else. They're not dead in their trespasses and sins simply because one sin is sufficient for death.

You know, a lot of people will do that. You ask them, well, now, are you a sinner on your way to hell? And they'll very devoutly say, oh, yes, I am. One sin is sufficient to take a man to hell, as though one sin's all they ever committed. Do you realize this?

That the self-righteous, and by self-righteous, I don't, I'm talking about here those who are truly, outwardly righteous. That when they say, I haven't broken, The commands, they're telling you the truth. Paul said this, as when he's talking about his days as a Pharisee, he says, as touching that righteousness which is in the law, I was blameless.

That's the kind of man we're talking about right now. And you look at that person, whoo, you're impressed. Look how good he lives. Look how devout he is. Look how religious he is. He must be a believer. He must be a little bit better than the rest of us.

Not at all. He is just as sinful as the most brazen harlot in the red light district of any town. He is just as sinful, just as wicked as any pervert in San Francisco, as any murderer on death row, as any false prophet in any pulpit. The problem is he doesn't realize that.

The self-righteous, they're dead in their trespasses and sins. They are dead because they're depraved through and through. But you know, they're in a desperate case. It's doubly dangerous and doubly desperate for they have been given a deadly medicine. Not only Are they dead in their trespasses and sin? But religion has given them a deadly pill to remedy their case.

Now, if I were ill, my case would be made all the worse if I were given poisonous medicine. That's happened before, you know. People have gone in to the doctor and they say, I'm sick. And the doctor prescribes something and they have some kind of allergic reaction to it and he kills them. Or they gave medicine that wasn't fit to the disease, therefore it did nothing for the disease, and the disease got him. But this is exactly what happened to the self-righteous.

By conscience and the law, he's convicted. He knows he's got a problem. Well, religion and self stand ready with a vial of self-righteousness, a prescription of works to cure his malady, and it's a poisonous medicine. They'll give him the self-righteousness of dedication.

In Matthew 15, 2, the Jews said, how come you all don't observe every aspect of the law like washing hands and before you eat, things like this? He said that to Christ and his disciples. He said, that's just not right. We're dedicated. We do everything right. We not only obey the large commands, we obey the minutest commands. We're dedicated, lock, stock, and barrel.

And that's the medicine some people take to remedy their condition, but it's poison. Then there's the self-righteousness of separation. That's what their name means, the Pharisees. That's a Hebrew word meaning separation. And these folks were separated.

And as we read this morning, they looked with indignation upon the Lord Jesus Christ because He dared to associate with known sinners. And so in order to justify themselves, the self-righteous say, I don't associate with other people who are sinners. And then there's the self-righteousness of education.

They questioned a blind man about Christ and who Christ was and they said, This blind man had been healed by Christ, and every time he gave them an answer, they'd rebuke him. They'd say, well, we know that this man is not of God. We know, we know, and you were all together born in sin, so you don't know. We've studied our Bibles, and we've been to Bible school, and we've got our degree on the wall, and we know. And there are many people, and I met a lot of them in Bible school. I was one of them.

Self-righteousness of education. Trying to drown out conscience and conviction with a good dose of knowledge. But it's a poisonous medicine. It's poisonous in itself for it incurs the wrath of God. Look at Isaiah 65. Brother Tom Harding, an elder at 13th Street Baptist Church, pointed this out to me 7 or 8 years ago. I've always liked this one. Now here's what the Lord says regarding the self-righteous. He says, regarding those who say, keep away, don't come near me, I'm too sacred for you.

Such people are smoke in my nostrils, a fire that keeps burning all day long. In the fall when people begin raking their leaves and burning them. You're walking down the sidewalk in town and all at once you pass by and the wind changes and you get a face full of that smoke from burning leaves. It burns your nose and brings water to your eyes. The Lord says, that's my attitude towards the self-righteous. They're just like a smoke in my nose all the day long.

But it's also poison for it prevents the intake of good medicine. One of the worst things about taking the wrong medicine is it's usually preventing you from taking the right medicine. And when these self-righteous are taking this dose of dedication or separation or education, they're not taking the one thing that they need. Because they're so consumed with their own righteousness, they're not receiving the righteousness of Christ.

As Paul says, and this is damning too. Now, this isn't an error in doctrine. This is not a simple side issue which we can ignore. But self-righteousness is deadly. Now, let's look at Romans chapter 10. Paul says this, My heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they might become better Christians? No. Is it they might learn more correctly the way of truth?

No. He says that they might be saved. Why? Because they weren't. Despite all of their religion, despite all of their dedicated, educated, separated efforts at pleasing God, they were not saved. And why not? I can testify about them, they're zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. They're so busy taking the wrong medicine, they never had time for the right medicine.

I want us to understand one thing. Self-righteousness is wrong. Self-righteousness has got to be revealed. It's got to be, that pride's got to be cut out if a person's going to be converted. But our concern about the self-righteous ought not to be what they do to us, but what they do to themselves. I know it's hard to bear the censure, the condemnation of the self-righteous. But have you ever stopped to think of what they're doing to themselves? Have you ever pitied them?

That's what Paul said. Look, Paul was persecuted to the point of death by these people. If they could have, it said there were several Jews who swore an oath that they would not eat food nor drink water till Paul was dead. You talk about self-righteous. They hated his gospel so much because it convicted them and made their righteousness filthy rags. They hated it so much and their self-righteousness was so violently inflamed, they said, we're going to kill that man. Yet Paul was not so much concerned about what they did to him as what they're doing to themselves. He said, my heart's desire and prayer to God for these people is that God would save them. Because despite all their zeal, they're taking the wrong medicine and they're killing themselves. Then they're triply desperate, for they have no sense of their great need.

There is no disease so dangerous as the one that's silent and has no symptoms. You know, the self-righteous can go on without any a pang of conscience, without any spiritual worry, so long as they're never confronted with Christ. They show no symptoms. They don't sin like other people do. They think themselves pretty good. And their self-righteous, proud heart becomes like a cancer that works inside and nobody knows.

I say this. We as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, we've got to stand for the truth, no question. Can't give an inch. But now we can be compassionate and we can quit being angry at the self-righteous and start pitying them, son, because they're in a mess. Well, that's the first point. The self-righteous are a desperate lot of people. Now, here's the second point and here's where it gets rough.

We have met the enemy and he is us. He is us. A long time ago, a general sent this message, we have met the enemy and he is ours. Victory. But when we start talking about the self-righteous and presenting them as the enemy, we've got to say this, we've met the enemy and he is us.

Because you see, not only do we find from the Scriptures that God saves even the self-righteous, If we're going to be honest about it, we're going to have to say that's the only kind he saves because that's the only kind of people there are. Do you realize everybody's self-righteous? In one way or another. We've all got our different forms of self-righteousness. What is a self-righteous man? Here's self-righteousness. Put this definition in your mind.

Self-righteousness is anyone, or the self-righteous person is anyone who believes that what he has done or what he hasn't done is a reason for God to show him favor of any sort. That means, that means that the man who thinks that God is going to save him and justify his soul because of either something he has done or something he's avoided doing, he's a self-righteous man. That means that anyone who professes the name of Christ, claims to be a believer, claims to trust in the Lord, And then he says, when he sins, that God forgives his sins and cleanses his conscience because of anything he does, that man's a self-righteous man. This includes all those who say that I grow, that I become a better Christian, that I become more pleasing to God and more conformed to the image of Christ by my efforts and my determination and my fleshly efforts, that person is a self-righteous man. A self-righteous person is anyone who attempts to gain any spiritual benefit by any other means than the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. You don't have to be a Ten Commandments legalist to be self-righteous.

We like to tell the story of the Pharisee and the Publican. And we talk about that self-righteous Pharisee who prayed to himself within himself, God, I thank you I'm not like other men. Oh, what self-righteousness is in that, and how we burn inside to think of such a person. And we look over at the public and say, what a sweet man. God, be merciful to me, the sinner. I can tell you one thing about that publican. I'd bet everything I have on it that if we could go back there and see him the day before he prayed that prayer, or a week before, something, we'd have seen that publican walking down the street some day and scowl at that Pharisee and say, what a self-righteous hypocrite he is. And the publican was just as self-righteous when he said it. And that's the way we are. When we point the finger and say, self-righteous hypocrite, Why, it's us. It's us. We're just as self-righteous.

The two thieves on the cross, we like to make a difference between them. Well, wait a minute. Before that one thief ever trusted the Savior, it says that he was persecuting the Savior. He was saying the same thing as the other thief. It's true of the haughty churchgoer. He's self-righteous. It's also true of the barstool warmer who calls the churchgoer a hypocrite. They're both self-righteous. Both self-righteous. Funeral director in Ashland told Henry Mahan, he said, I've been in this business 40 years. He said, I've never buried a sinner yet. Never buried anybody yet that went to hell. Ask them. Everybody's good. Their goodness might simply consist in the fact they're not as bad as everyone else. But everybody thinks they're good. They're trusting something. They're trusting something they've done.

It's true of the free will of our many. He's self-righteous. He believes that by his exercise of free will, his greater wisdom to lay hold of the gospel instead of being a fool and rejecting it, he believes that that is the reason he's saved and that God shows him favor because of something he's done. It's true of the free will Arminian. It's also true of the sovereign grace Baptist who thinks himself any whit better than the free will Arminian. Is that true or isn't it? Is that true or isn't it? So when we talk about God saving the self-righteous, we're talking about God saving us. We're talking about God saving the preacher because he's self-righteous. The power of the Lord was on him that he might heal them.

Well, what's the hope of the self-righteous? Well, the very same hope of everybody else. Christ, the only remedy for self-righteousness. And this is true, the only remedy. We're not going to route out the self-righteousness of people by castigating them for their self-righteousness. We're not going to be done, we're not going to have them be done with all their hypocrisy and religious veneer by simply exposing it to them. The only remedy for self-righteousness is Christ's righteousness. The only remedy. Any other medicine is poison. That's true.

If you reveal to a self-righteous person that he's self-righteous, you know what he'll do? He'll work real hard not to be self-righteous. and to become very proud of himself for overcoming self-righteousness. But if by presentation of the blood and righteousness of Christ Jesus, God reveals his self-righteousness to him, it will be removed and replaced with the righteousness of Christ.

That's what happened to us, isn't it? All of us were trusting in something we had done until God met us, and we would have trusted in something we had done until the day we died, had not God replaced Him. It says the power of the Lord was on Him. It was present for Him to heal the sick.

It takes a lot of power. It does. It's hard to save a self-righteous man. Hard to save any kind of sinner. It's impossible for humanity to do it. Only the power of God can do it. That's the glorious thing about Christ, the power of God is present with him to heal them. Power to topple their foolish refuges of religion and ceremony. Powerful enough to pull down the strongholds of orthodox doctrine. Powerful enough to take a heart that's hard like flint and make it soft like clay.

I'm sure all of us know people whom we think suffer from a greater case of self-righteousness maybe than others. It all just reveals itself different, but it's all the same disease. I know somebody's got it, and that's me. I've got it. I've got a bad case of it. It's still in there. I'm still trying to justify myself. I'm still trying to prove myself. I'm still trying to think myself better than other people. I've only got one hope, that he who is God has the power of God to heal me.

And I know he will. He's already started. Medicine's already taken some effect, but some of the symptoms are still lingering around. I know a lot of times, particularly when you've got the flu, they give you some kind of medicine that still seems like it takes just as long to get over it. Well, this one takes a long time to get over. The medicine's working.

It'll be working in you too if you're Christ. And the only hope you have for others is that that same medicine, the righteousness of Christ, will be given to them. The power of the Lord was present to heal them. Let's pray that God will be present. Let's be done with fighting and start trying to heal some. Try to put the balm of Gilead. Let's learn to be gracious, not hard. Learn to be kind, not mean.

Maybe the power of the Lord will be present with us and we'll find people being healed. Let's pray. We confess our sins and we confess our wicked self-righteousness. And our Lord, even as we confess that we're self-righteous, we take great hope and confidence that the blood of Jesus Christ is able to cleanse us even from that sin. Lord, help us. to look on people with the compassion with which you look upon them. While we stand unwaveringly for the truth of your free and sovereign grace in Christ, while we refuse to give an inch to the forces of darkness and bondage, let us at the same time be compassionate on those who are yet in bondage, and yet live in darkness. Now be with us through the we. We thank you for the safe return of our family and for the fact that we're able to meet together with these people. Lord, make us a church. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. You're dismissed.