Alright, let's take our Bibles
and turn to the book of Luke chapter 11. We've been looking at Luke chapter
11 verses 37 through 54. On this subject, the religion
of fools. And our Lord gives so many definitions
if you will, or attitudes, or ways, if you prefer that, that
mark out false religion. And we've been going through
that. There was way too many to just
try to discuss in one lesson, so I broke it up into three parts.
But he tells them in verse 40, Ye fools. Ye fools. Whatever it was that they were
after, whatever it was they were doing, our Lord addressed them
as fools. He didn't often say things derogatory
to people. We tend to do that, mostly so
that they don't hear it, but sometimes in their hearing. But
our Lord didn't do that. If he said something derogatory,
he said it to your face. And that's what he did here.
He said, ye fools. He looked them right in the eyes
and said, ye fools. So let's read these remaining
verses together. Luke chapter 11, verse 46. And he said, woe unto you also,
ye lawyers. For you laid men with burdens
grievous to be born, And ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one
of your fingers. Woe unto you! For ye build the
sepulchres of the prophets, that is, you build shrines to their
memories, and your fathers killed them. Truly you bear witness that ye
allow the deeds of your fathers For they indeed killed them,
and you build their sepulchres. Your fathers murdered the prophets,
and you build big monuments to honor them. Therefore also said the wisdom
of God, I will send them prophets, and some of them they shall slay
and persecute. And he said that, The blood of
all the prophets which we shed from the foundation of the world
may be required of this generation. From the blood of Abel unto the
blood of Zacharias which perished between the altar and the temple,
verily I say unto you, it shall be required of this generation. Woe unto you lawyers, for you
have taken away the key of knowledge You entered not in yourselves,
and them that were entering in you hindered. And as he said
these things unto them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to urge
him vehemently and provoke him to speak of many things, every
controversial subject they could think of. That's what they pushed
him to. Laying weight for him and seeking
to catch something out of his mouth that they might accuse
him. Now the religion of fools, what
is it? The religion of fools is self-righteousness. That's the religion of fools.
They're fools because the Word of God declares plainly that
they're unrighteous. You have to be a fool to believe
you can produce a righteousness acceptable to God when God tells
you that by the deeds of the law there should no flesh be
justified in His sight. The religion of fools is self-righteousness,
righteousness believed to be obtained by man's obedience to
the law. And it's a righteousness that
men and women believe that they can produce and thereby find
favor and approval of God. If I do this, God will bless
me. Yeah, if you could. If you could. But with man, it's
impossible. You remember what the rich young
ruler said? And this is the average person's concept of the law.
He said, good master, what must I do to be saved? And the Lord
said, keep the law. Well, all of this have I done
from my youth up. You have? The law reflects something of the holiness
and righteousness of God. Paul said, barely if there was
a law whereby you could obtain salvation, surely the law of
God is it. It's perfect. There's no flaw
in the law. The flaw is in us. It's in us. It is the righteousness that
they believe to be the very foundation of their salvation. In defining
the damning flaw of the Jews, Paul says in Romans 10.3, 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. To the Jew first
and also to the Greek. And this is the religion of fools.
And this religion, because of their ignorance of truth, have
certain characteristics that are bred in them from this false
knowledge. They operate on tradition. This is a flaw in religion. If you do anything contrary to
their tradition, they'll call you down. They'll call you down. Your dress is too high, your
hair is too short, whatever. Whatever their tradition dictates,
that's what they do. They don't take time to look
and see in the Word of God if it's actually in the Word of
God. They just go by tradition. Peter writes, for as much as
you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver
and gold. Where'd they get that idea? Where
in the world would anybody get the idea that they could redeem
their soul with so much silver and so much gold. Well, He tells
us, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your
fathers. You see what I'm saying? It was
the same then, it's the same now. And when the Lord and His
disciples ate with unwashed hands, they didn't take them to the
Word of God. They said, why do your disciples transgress the
tradition of the elders? Now if this was according to
the Word of God, they would have took him to the Word of God and
said, the Word of God says right here. But they didn't do that.
They didn't do that. There was a church split recently. And one of the fellows that was
called on to take a message to the pastor, ask him, he said,
all right. He said, I got a tablet here.
If we're going to bring charges against the pastor, he said,
I want to be clear on what they are. And he said, just show me
in the Word of God what he's done and I'll go. But they couldn't
find anything. They couldn't find one thing
that that pastor was doing wrong. But they got rid of him anyway.
Because he didn't speak like they thought he ought to. He
didn't have the attitude that he thought that he ought to have. This religion is the religion
of fools because of their ignorance of truth. And it has these characteristics
that they operate on tradition. They hold tradition above the
Word of God. Above the Word of God. And then
their religion is all outward. It's all shallow. It's all dress,
isn't it? It's how you appear. You know
why that is? Because man can only see the
outward countenance. God looks on the heart. That's
all I can see is your outward countenance. That's as far as
these eyes can go. And it's the same with natural
men. They see what you do. They see how you act. They see
what you wear. The religion is all outward,
it's all dress and visual aids and scented candles and professional
music and special dress and on and on it goes. And they have
no spiritual understanding, this religion of fools. They walk
in the vanity of their minds, having their understanding darkened,
being alienated from the life of God, and that life is what? It's to know God. But they're
alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that's
in them. And Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4, 3, if our gospel be hid, it's
hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world hath
blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of
the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should
shine unto them. And then fourthly, here's another
characteristic of the religion of fools, they love trifles.
I told you last week, not that strawberry dessert I bring to
the conference. I hope I can bring one this year,
but that's not what he's talking about here. They'll split a church
over whether to pass an offering plate or collect it in a box
in the back of the church. In Matthew 23, this subject in
verse 24, he says, you blind guides which strain at a and
swallow a camel. They love trifles, any little
thing, any little thing. And then biblically, they love
the praise and adoration of men, and they'll do anything to have
it, anything. Now, I want to, I'm not trying
to put on a religious show or any kind of a front, but I like
to wear, I'll dress up when it comes time to worship God, I
want to put on the best I have and come here and worship God.
But I don't put on one of them backwards colors and a gown or
something that identifies me with religion and then go down
to the marketplaces, because I know people are going to say,
oh, good morning, Father, or good morning, Reverend. These
people lived for that. This was their meat and drink. They live for that. They make
long prayers in public so everybody can look on them. Somebody asked
Henry one time, he said, well, I don't really agree with praying
publicly in restaurants and things like that. And the guy told him,
he said, well, how are they going to know you're a believer if
you don't pray? He said, I think they'll get a good idea when
they see the tip. That guy that made them long
prayers, he gets out that little change purse, And he leaves 25
cents on the table. There's no generosity in it.
Yeah, they'll know. They'll know without you doing
all that. And that's why he calls them
blind guides. They love the praise and adoration
of men. They feed on it. And it's the
wood that keeps the fire burning, so to speak. And then we talked
about their religion. being a covering for corruption.
What better place to hide than under the robe of religion? What
a great place to hide. Nobody suspected Judas. He carried
the bag. Everybody trusted him. The Lord
okayed for him to be the treasurer. He carried the bag. And when
he said Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?"
They all looked at each other and said, is it I? Is it I? All
but Judas. There's no better place to hide
than in religion. You can hide there under a gown
or under a diploma behind a title or a station. And then sixthly,
this religion of fools are all offended by Christ. Listen to what they say, Master. This saying, what you just said,
reproaches us. It reproaches us. It offends
us. You had no diploma from the school,
and therefore no accreditation on their part. He didn't follow
their traditions and therefore would not be allowed to enter
into their fellowship. He didn't dress like them and
that offended him. He didn't wash his hands. That
offended him. He came in and sat down at meet
and kept company with sinners. And they didn't like that either.
He didn't have the same friends as they did. And all of these
things offended them. They were offended with him. With him. It's not necessarily
even the doctrines that he taught, although they disagreed with
him, but it was him himself. That was the offense. And therefore mostly because
of what he preached. Now this morning I want to add
four more things to our Lord's descriptions of these people.
And the first is this, imposed laws. Self-righteous religion
always imposes on others what they excuse in themselves. Look
here at verse 46. Woe unto you also, you lawyers,
for you laid men with burdens grievous to be born, and ye yourselves
touch not the burdens with one of your fingers. Turn with me
over to Romans chapter 2. Let me show you something over
there. There was a time that the Apostle
Paul said, as touching the righteousness which is of the law, I was blameless. And truly that's what he thought
and believed. And then God gave him eyes to
see and ears to hear, and he saw the law as an instrument
in the hands of Satan to curse ignorant sinners through his
deceit. Romans 7.10, he said, The commandment
which was ordained to life I found to be unto death. Sin, taking
occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence,
that is, strong desires. And then in Romans 2.17, look
at this. He tells his kinsmen, in verse
17, Thou art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest
thy boast of God. What did they say? They said
to Christ himself, we have God to our father. You remember that
over in the book of John? We have God to our father. We've
been not born of fornication. God is our father. He said if
God was your father, you'd love me because I proceeded forth
and came from God. And you profess this. You know his will and approve
the things which are more excellent being instructed out of the law. What was this law? This law was
a shadow of good things to come. Redemption was pictured in the
law. Salvation pictured in the law. Reconciliation pictured
in the law. And you say that you understand
these more excellent things and you instruct people out of the
law. And you are confident that thou thyself art a guide to the
blind, and a light to them which are in darkness, an instructor
of the foolish, and a teacher of babes, which has a form of
knowledge, and of the truth of the law. Now watch this, verse
21. Now therefore, thou therefore
which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? Thou that preachest,
a man should not steal. Do you steal? You're telling him, don't steal.
Or else, do you steal? Rob God of His glory, rob God
of your service, rob God of His offerings, rob God of His purpose
of grace in Christ. Do you steal? Thou that sayest,
verse 22, a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery?
Do you still mingle with antichrist religion? Do you still mix in
their courts? That's adultery, that's spiritual
adultery. Thou that abortest idols, dost
thou commit sacrilege? To worship God in vain imagination,
is to commit sacrilege. That's sacrilege. To worship
Him in any other form other than He's revealed in His Son is idolatry. Thou that makest thy boast in
the law, like the rich young ruler, through breaking the law dishonorest
thou God. If we make our boast in self-righteousness,
we're saying that we keep the law in every jot and tittle.
Because that's the only way you can have it. You have to keep
the whole law. All six hundred and some precepts.
You can't just pick and choose a few. Well, I'm just under the
Ten Commandments. You can't keep the first one.
You don't need the other ten. You can't keep love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength. If you could
do that, the rest of that law would be a piece of cake. But
in not doing that, you transgressed all 600 and some commandments. Because you have to be done in
love. Love is the keeping of the law. So they always want
to impose laws. You have to, what was it, this
first Calvinistic religion I ever come contact with, they believed
in the New Testament bride. They didn't believe in the church
Old Testament and New Testament. The Baptist bride, that's all
they talked about. And they made it a law. If you
didn't believe that, you couldn't come there and worship. You couldn't
be a member of that church. And you had to trace your baptism
back. Whoever baptized you had to be baptized by somebody that
was Okay, and he had to be baptized by somebody, okay, and so you
had to go back and the whole deal, clear back to John the
Baptist. Imposed laws, some little, some
big. It's ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. And then
here's another one. Not only do they impose laws,
and they don't apply these things to themselves, just to you. Just
to you. Persecution. The religion of
fools is the mother of persecution. You build the sepulchers of them
with your father's murder. You build monuments to dead prophets
while persecuting the live ones. Stephen said to them in Acts
7.51, you stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you do always
resist the Holy Ghost as your fathers did, so do you. You're just like them. Which
of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted and slain
them which showed before the coming of the just one of whom
you've now been the betrayers and murderers? Oh, how they hated
Martin Luther when he was alive. A few years after he died, they
started a religion called Lutherans. They killed the Son of God and
now they call themselves Christians. You build monuments to dead prophets
and practice the religion of those that killed them. And being
guilty by association, the blood of all the prophets which were
shed from the foundation of the world shall be required at your
hands. You're guilty of the same thing. All right, thirdly, the religion
of fools, self-righteousness, it hinders the faith of God's
elect. Verse 52, woe unto you lawyers,
for you've taken away the key of knowledge. What is the key
of knowledge? What is it? I stand here week
after week after week after week. What is it that I'm trying to
do? What is the point I'm trying to get across? I'm trying to
point you to Christ. He's the key to all knowledge. No man knoweth the Father save
the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal. You'll never know
anything about God until you know something about Christ and
Him crucified. He's the key of knowledge. What
does religion take away? They take away the key of knowledge. They're not preaching Christ,
they're preaching free will. God's done all He can do, now
it's all up to you. Where in the world does that
come from in the Word of God? It don't. It comes from an empty
heart. That's where that comes from. Somebody said, God voted for
you, the devil voted against you, and you have the deciding
vote. That's crazy. You've taken away the key of
knowledge. You entered not in yourselves, and them that were
entering in, you hindered. I'm so glad he used that term,
hindered, instead of prevented, aren't you? Oh, they tried to
hinder me, and they did. They hindered me a lot, but they
didn't prevent. You can, and the religion of
fools does, hinder true saving faith, but it cannot prevent
it. Faith is the gift of God, and
the Holy Ghost Himself is the giver. He's the giver of it. He establishes it. It's an irresistible
work. And faith is the effectual work
of God in His elect, and being taught of God, they will all
come to Christ and all find eternal life in Him. But these false
prophets, those that are hearing, those who have heard something,
they hinder them. They'll start beating it down.
That's exactly what happened at Antioch. They stood up and
preached, and the Gentiles went Man, we've never heard anything
like this. Can you come and preach to us again next week? Yeah,
we'll come. And when the Jews saw what was
going on, they said, man, we're losing all of our supporters.
We're losing all of our people. And so the wealthy wives went
about saying vain things against them. And the men got together
in council, and they said things against them. And they tried
to belittle these men and take away of whatever authority that
God had given them. But it didn't work. It didn't
work. Paul said, seeing you judge yourselves
unworthy of everlasting life, I turned to the Gentiles. And
he quoted that Old Testament scripture, which is inclusive
of the Gentiles. And they said, boy, when the
Gentiles heard this, they were glad. You and I are Gentiles. I'll tell you, I'm glad. I'm
glad he said it. And as many as were ordained
unto eternal life, believe. And then fourthly, and in conclusion
of this lesson, our Lord calls them deceitful. They began to
really pressure Him to talk about controversial subjects and force
Him to speak on many subjects. Now listen, here's why, verse
54. Laying in wait for Him, and seeking
to get something out of his mouth that they might accuse him. That
was their whole reason to start with for coming. They came in a self-righteous,
put-on humility, calling him master, but in truth, their presence
there was a snare. The religion of fools is deceitful. It's deceitful. How could it
be otherwise? The heart is deceitful above
all things and desperately wicked. And it's out of the heart that
the mouth speaketh. If God doesn't change the heart,
nothing's going to come out except what's on the inside. They are of the world, John said,
therefore they speak they of the world and the world heareth
them. Makes perfect sense to the world. And again I say, how could it
be otherwise? Because they walk according to
the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh
in the children of disobedience. Their speech and character is
that of a wicked man trying to take advantage over an unsuspecting
woman. That's how it's likened in the
scriptures. Paul warns the Colossians, telling them this. This I say,
lest any man beguile you. Beguile you. With what enticing
words? Any interaction with God's elect
has a sinister reason behind it when they do. And I just pray
that the Lord will teach us to be aware of them and their deceitful
practices and keep our eyes on Christ and our ears open to his
word. May the Lord use this lesson
for his name's honor and glory. Thank you.