The lesson this morning is found
in Luke chapter 6. Luke chapter 6, verses 27 through
38. Let's read these verses together. Luke chapter 6, beginning with
verse 27. But I say unto you, which hear,
Love your enemies. Do good to them that hate you. Bless them that curse you. And pray for them which despitefully
use you. And unto him that smiteth thee
on one cheek, offer also the other. And him that taketh away
thy cloak, he didn't ask for it, he didn't borrow it, he took
it. Forbid not to take thy coat also. Give to every man that
asketh thee, and of him that taketh away thy goods, ask them
not again. And as you would that men should
do unto you, do ye also unto them likewise. For if you love
them that love you, what thank have you? For sinners also love
them that love those that love them. And if you do good to them
which do good unto you, what thank have you? For sinners also
do even the same. And if you lend to them of whom
you hope to receive, what thank have you? For sinners also lend
to sinners to receive as much again. But love your enemies,
and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again. And your reward
shall be great, and you shall be the children of the highest,
for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be ye therefore
merciful, as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and you
shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not
be condemned. Forgive, and you shall be forgiven. Give, and it shall be given unto
you good measure. Pressed down, shaken together,
and running over shall men give into your bosom. For with the
same measure that you meet with all, it shall be measured to
you again. May the Lord add his blessing
to the reading of his words. I titled the lesson this morning,
A Word to the Hearer. Our Lord had just finished giving
four terrifying woes to the people. He said, woe to the rich, for
you have received your consolation. He's not talking about every
rich man, but he's talking about those who had compromised the
principles of life to be rich, those who had cheated the poor
to become rich. And he said, you received your
consolation. Whatever comfort, whatever joy,
whatever ease it's given them shall be all they ever have.
That's it for all eternity. And then he said, woe to you
that are full, those who have made concession of the things
of God to have a full plate. Woe unto you, woe to you that
laugh now, for you'll mourn and weep. What's he talking about? He's
talking about people who laugh at preachers, laugh at God's
means, laugh at the whole idea of getting up on a Sunday morning
and going and assembling ourselves together to worship God. They
even laughed at his son while he's dying on the cross, and
they laugh about heaven and hell. They'll mourn and weep in that
day. And he said, and woe unto you when all men shall speak
well of you, for so did their fathers to the false prophets. False prophets, and men who do
this, the people he's talking about here, to which this woe
is being spoken. They say enough to be commended
by believers, but they leave off enough so as not to offend
the world. They really don't say anything.
They don't say anything. And therefore, everybody speaks
well of them. Everybody speaks well. And saying these terrifying truth,
he turns now to his disciples, And he said, but I say unto you
which hear. And the hearing he's talking
about is the hearing of faith. He that hath ears to hear, let
him hear. He says in Revelations, I don't
know how many times, he that hath ears to hear, let him hear
what the Spirit saith to the churches. He's talking here about
the hearing of faith. How are you going to call on
Him in whom you have not believed? And how are you going to believe
in Him of whom you have not heard? And how are you going to hear
without a preacher? And how is he going to preach if God don't
send him, if God don't equip him and give him those revelations
needed, give him that understanding that's needed, guide him in his
providence to where he's supposed to be? How is he going to preach?
And how are you going to hear? And then he says, so then, so
then, Here's the summation of it. Faith cometh by hearing. Hearing by the Word of God. Hearing is how our Father has
made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of enlightened
saints. Those who have eyes to see have
also ears to hear. And this hearing comes by way
of a new birth. a spiritual awakening that enables
us to know God, enables us to be reasoned with. You can't reason with a natural
man. I experienced that afresh on
my trip to Kentucky. You cannot reason with a natural
man. He's not reasonable. When our
Lord said, come now, let us reason together, saith the Lord, he
enables a man to be reasoned with. And when he enables a man,
he'll reason with him. He'll give him these arguments.
He'll give him these truths. He'll give him these things that
he needs. And he'll understand them. He'll understand them. It's a spiritual awakening that
enables us to know God and to know Christ and to know such
things that we'd only speculate about and that the world can
never know. Here's what John said. John chapter
four, here's what he said. First John chapter four. He said,
we are of God. One of the apostles, one of the
preachers sent out to speak to him. We are of God, he that knoweth
God, heareth us. He that is not of God, heareth
not us. Hereby know we the spirit of
truth, and the spirit of error. This is how we know that man,
sin of God, and that man who's not sin of God. And you can say all of these
things that he's getting ready to say, you can say these to
all men, but only hearers will receive them, only hearers will
obey them. Only hearers will do them. I say unto you which hear. All right, so what did he say?
What does our Lord say to those with hearing ears? Well, he gives
us nine principles. Nine principles produced in the
hearts of hearing sinners. and truly established in their
experience of grace. Now when I'm talking about your
experience of grace, I'm talking about you coming to the knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ and seeing him begin to see what
you are. Discover yourself helpless and
hopeless before God, just a big black hole, just a big nothing.
You have nothing to offer. If God saves you, He's not saving
you to gain anything. His salvation is a gift. Everything
concerned in that salvation is a gift. He's not depending on
the sinner for anything. He knows what the sinner is,
and He's gonna let you know what the sinner is, at least to some
degree. And in this, in this experience
of grace, He establishes certain principles, certain principles
in our hearts. These are principles manifested
by God in Christ, and they're the very basis of how we're to
live in this world. We don't have a set of rules.
We have principles established in our hearts. So here's the
first thing. If you have a notebook, jot them
down. There's nine things, nine things. These are the principles
manifested by God in Christ and the very basis. How are we to
walk in this world? How are we to live in this world?
Or should I say this present evil world, this wicked world,
this unbelieving world? How are we to live among those
who don't know God? Well, here's the first thing.
Love your enemies. Can I love my enemies? God did. God did. In Romans chapter five verse
six it says, for when we were yet without strength, in due
time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous
man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even
die, but God commendeth his love for us in that while we were
yet sinners, Christ died for us. We were enemies. Isn't that
what Paul says over there in Colossians 1? Enemies in your
mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled. Will God love his enemies? Says
here he did. He did. Now there's a difference
between you and God. The difference is God knows which
of those enemies are his elect. We don't. And that's why we're
to love all our enemies. All our enemies. He didn't love
Esau, he said he didn't. Jacob had my love, Esau had my
hate. But I can't see your heart. And
if you're my enemy, I'm to love you. How am I to do that? Understanding
how God loved me while I was still an enemy. How can you do
that on the basis of Christ and God's free grace? That's how.
That's how. Hoping that this enemy will be
converted to God just as you were. Overcome. Overcome. Unhorsed. Brought to
Christ. Arrested. Unable to hear. Oh, my soul. Isn't that our experience? Didn't
God seek you out and call you by his grace and give you the
gift of faith? And didn't he find you in the
camp of his enemies? Why do we think it's so strange
that Peter sat over by the fire and warmed his hands? Huh? That's
where he found us. We shouldn't think it's so strange.
We got more identification with the enemy than we do with God. Is there a day that goes by that
we don't need his forgiveness? A day that goes by that we don't
need reconciled? Truly, God has showed to us that
his love has been shown to enemies. Secondly, here's the second principle. Do good to them that hate you. White tough, ain't he? Guy snarls
at you. He don't like you. You said something,
rubbed him the wrong way. He don't like you. What says
in the scripture, we hated him without a cause. Did that affect
his love for us? He loved us. We're yet breathing
out. Blasphemies against God, that's
what Paul said. I was once a blasphemer. Blasphemed
God. Talked about God, lied about
God. Ignorant of God. But his good just kept on coming,
didn't it? Didn't affect it whatsoever. We hated him because our carnal
mind was enmity against God. It was hostile toward God. We'd
swallowed Satan's lies about him and saw him in a false light
and we saw him as a cruel, tyrannical God, ruling all things, doing
whatever he wanted to and then laughing about it. Killed 10,000,
leave them slain in the wilderness. And we saw that without reason. We also hated him because he
required something of us we couldn't do and wouldn't do. And all the
while, all the while, he loved us. He loved us. I don't think anything crippled
Peter as bad as when our Lord looked at him and said, do you
love me? He loved Peter. He loved Peter
when he sold him out by the campfire, and he loved Peter when he said,
I go fishing. I'm quitting the ministry. I've
had enough. Nothing's working out. I'm going
back to the boat. And he's out here fishing in
the boat. Wasn't like it used to be, but he was still out there,
and he was still fishing all the while the Lord's in there
preparing a meal for him. Loving him. Loving him. Oh, Peter, do you love me? Sure
he did. Sure he did. But his love was
just patterned after that love. He loved him while he hated him. He loved him. He loved him. All the while he loved us, was
arranging for our salvation. All the while we'd hatin' him. In my own experience, he was
training a preacher down in Tennessee Temple that 30 years later he'd
use to call me by his grace. I didn't know it. I didn't know
it. John talked about the eternal
word being made flesh and seeing his glory, and he said in John
chapter one, verse 16, and of his fullness have we all received,
now listen, and grace for grace. What's he talking about? Well,
that's provenient grace. Antecedent grace. Grace preceding
grace, grace before grace, grace upon grace, grace flowing from
the beginning, just one thing after another. From all eternity,
that covenant was a covenant of grace. It didn't just, the
Lord didn't just say, well, I got four or five options, I think
I'll make a covenant. No, it was a covenant of grace.
All the provisions were great. Grace and truth came by Jesus
Christ. It's all been grace. It was grace
before we was ever created in the garden. It was grace. Grace,
grace, grace of his fullness have we all received. Grace for
grace. Been doing good for us. And our
hatred had no bearing on it whatsoever. He didn't change a thing. He
kept right on loving us. Shouldn't we follow his example? Thirdly, bless them that curse
you. Being under sin, Paul begins
to describe what that means to be under sin, and he has a long
list, none righteous, none good, none that understandeth, none
that seeketh after God. You can read about it in Romans
chapter three. And finally he gets down and he says, and our
mouth was full of cursing and bitterness. See that angry lynch mob running
upon God's evangelist Stephen, gnashing upon him with their
teeth, and then finally hurling these big large stones at him
to bash his brains out. What does God's evangelist do?
How does he react to that? They're cursing him. They're
biting on him with their teeth. They can't stand him. They've
stopped their ears. They got big stones and they're
getting ready to hurl them at him and bash his brains out.
It said, and Stephen knelt down. He knelt down and he cried with
a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when
he said this, he fell asleep. He fell asleep. He blessed them. He blessed them. That lynch mob,
he blessed them. Oh, bless them that curse you. Last thing that child of God
did in this world was to bless them that were cursing him. There's only one thing that separates
us from the rest of the world. I don't care who it is. You pick the worst nightmarish
man or woman that ever has been. There's not one bit of difference
between you and them except the grace of God. The grace of God. So maybe we
ought to bless them that curse us. You see the practicality
in this? He's not asking you to do something
that's impossible. He's asking you to do something
that he's already done for you. Fourthly, the hearer is called
on by our Lord to pray for them which despitefully use you. Isn't that the story of our past?
Didn't we despitefully use him? The only time we ever had anything
to say about God was when we needed something. We didn't kneel down in prayer
and bless Him. We knelt down in prayer with a list, a wish
list. I need this. I want this. I want
that. Despitefully using Him, going
to church when it benefited us. Despitefully using Him who loved
us and was made our provision, our substitute, and our high
priest. Yet he prayed for us. He not only said that he prayed
for his disciples in that high priestly prayer, he said, but
I pray for them also, which are going to come, which I'm going
to call, which I'm going to say, praying for them too. They're
still out there cursing. They're still out there enemies
of God. But he prayed for them. He told Peter, I can identify a lot with Peter. He told all the disciples, he
said, you're all gonna forsake me. Nobody said anything but
Peter. And he said, they probably will,
but I won't. Can you see the pride in that?
Myself. They probably will, but not me. I'll bite to the death. He told him, get behind him,
Satan. And here's what he said. He said, Satan hath desired to
shift you like wheat, Peter. Just stick you in a sieve and
shake you about. See what comes out. But he said,
I prayed for you that your faith fail not. Peter was rebuking the Lord, and the Lord
was telling him, I prayed for you, I prayed for you. Fifthly, unto him that smiteth thee on
the one cheek, offer also the other. Now there's no doubt in
my mind that this has reference to physical smiting which went
on in that day. And while it may never come to
pass in our day, I've been smitten without a hand. Haven't you?
I've had people look at me and just taken me apart with their
eyes, but never touching me. What should I do about that?
Huh? Go meet him in the parking lot?
What should I do about that? Turn the other cheek. Give him
another opportunity. God saves sinners. Don't you
ever forget that. God saves sinners. Don't you ever get above that.
Isn't that our trouble? We get above that. We start talking about what we
are, but we don't say that. We talk about what we were. You still are. That's what that one
fellow told Henry years ago. He said, I used to be a rounder. Henry said, you still are. You
still are. And we are. God saves sinners,
Paul said, of whom I'm chief. Sinners act like sinners. Sinners do what sinners do, and
sinners are likely to do anything. When God preserved the lives
of His saints all down through Scripture, did He leave anything
out? No. He'll take a man like David,
a man that our Lord said was a man after his own heart. But
when he records his life, he's going to show you that he was
a murderer. He was an adulterer. He's going to show you what you
are. Sinners act like sinners, and
sinners are likely to do anything, but our response is a calculated
response. It don't have to be instantaneous. It needs to be calculated. We're
to prepare ourselves for these situations and practice these
things daily. And I've been smitten before. And all I can say to you is Lord
help us to respond like he did to us. And then sixthly, him that taketh
away thy cloak, forbid him not to take thy coat also. Now here's
what I read into that. What have you gotten that you
haven't received? Huh? They're not actually stealing
from you, they're stealing from God. They're not actually taken
from you, they're taken from God. Did God give you that cloak? You reckon he could give you
another one? Huh? He's our provision, Winston.
I know we work, and I know we sit, and we think, and we, here's
what I need to do, and I need to buy this, and I need to work
so many weeks, and that's all well and good, but something
is behind all of that, and that's God. And whatever you have, God's
giving it to you. And if he allows it to be taken
away, he'll hold those responsible who took it away. You don't need
to take any action. And he'll replace whatever they
took. And usually it'll be better than whatever they took. Has God given to us all that
we have? Well, if he has, then they're
stealing from God, and God will replace it, and God will avenge
himself. We're so involved with our daily
provision that we forget that all things come from God. How
many, how many, I'm not gonna say hours, I'm gonna say how
many minutes do you spend a day thanking God for everything that
you have? We spend very little, don't we? Yet we know in our hearts that
all these things come from God, every one of them. All right,
seventh. Give to every man that asketh
thee. Now this is not talking about
con artists and such. He's talking here about those
who have a need, a genuine need. They come to you, they ask you
some money. Well, you know what? I know them, and they're not
going to pay this back. And I know them. I'll get a little
bit back, and that'll be the end of it. I know them. They've
been here 100 times. And the more I give them, the
more they're going to come back. Give to them that asketh thee.
If it's a genuine need, give to them. If you can. What's our example? Husbands, love your wives as
Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. God spared not
his own son, but delivered him up for us all. You think we were reputable?
You think God looked at our reputation and said, well, maybe I better
withhold my son? No. No, he knew your reputation
better than you do. But it didn't keep him from giving
his son, did it? Were we repeat offenders? Yes,
we were, and yes, we are. Does he withhold his gifts? No. No, he don't. You see what I'm
saying? These are all things that we
learn through a genuine experience of grace. And by that, I mean
that God's been gracious and merciful to you in Christ, and
already manifested these things. Number eight, of him that taketh
away thy goods, ask them not again. How often
have we robbed God of his glory? How often? The old prophet said,
well, a man robbed God, you better believe it. And every one of
us have. Every one of us have. Robbed
him of his glory. Taken advantage of his mercy.
Used his sustenance without regard to him. Him that taketh away thy goods,
don't ask him again. Don't ask him again. Consider
him a gift. And then, finally, number nine. As we would that men should do
unto us, do ye also unto them likewise. Now listen to these
verses as he applies all these truths. Just listen to them,
I'll read them for you. If you love them that love you,
what thank have you? Sinners also, unbelievers, worldly
men, those falling in Adam, totally depraved sinners, They love them
that love them, don't they? Sure they do. And if you do good
to them that do good to you, what thank have you? Sinners
do that. If you lend to them of whom you
hope to receive, what thank have you? For sinners also lend to
sinners to receive as much again. But love your enemies. Do good
and lend, hoping for nothing again, and your reward shall
be great, and you'll be the children of the highest. Now, listen to
this last statement. For he is kind unto the unthankful
and the evil. Does that shoe fit your foot?
It sure does mine. Unthankful. Unthankful. Evil. But He's kind to us. He's kind to us. Be ye therefore
merciful. That's what mercy is on our behalf. All of these things that I just
talked about, that's all mercy. It's all undeserved. And that's
what we've received. Be ye therefore merciful, even
as your Father also is merciful. Judge not. He's not talking about
somebody blatantly, like in the Corinthians, living with his
stepmother. He's not talking about for us
not to judge those things. He tells us that judgment needs
to begin in the house of the Lord. We're to judge those things and do something about them.
But what he's talking about here is our constant condemnation
of one another. We had to say things. We had to criticize. Judge not,
judge not. Aren't you a sinner saved by
grace? Oh, oh. And aren't they a sinner saved
by grace? Then be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving
one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven us. Judge not, and you shall not
be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not
be condemned. Forgive, and you shall be forgiven. And give, give. Now listen, he's not talking
about this thing as a big bubble and you leave the house and you
come home and here's a pot of gold in your living room. He's
not talking about that. But he's talking about you receiving
things as you've always received them from the hands of men. Now listen to this. Give, and
it shall be given unto you, good measure, pressed down, shaken
together, running over. Now listen. Shall men give unto
your bosom? God will arrange his providence,
and he'll give you a good employer. And he'll pay you a wage that
you no more deserve than you do anything. And he'll just give
it to you. He'll just give it to you. And
you'll go home and say, boy, wasn't I lucky. Oh, you better
not. You know better. God's going
to give it to you. Not like you gave. He's going
to take that basket of corn. He's going to shake it. And them
ears are going to come on down. And he can add five or six more.
And he'll shake it again. And he'll give you good measure.
He's gonna press it down. He ain't gonna just pour it in
there lightly. Uh-uh. He's gonna press it down. Actually, he said
it's gonna be running over. It'll just be running over. It'll
be more than you can... Why? Why? Why is that? Huh? Because God gave it to you. God
gave it to you. You're not gonna out-give God.
Not so. For with the same measure that
you meet with all, it shall be measured to you again. As you have received Christ Jesus
the Lord, Paul said, so walk in him, rooted and built up in
him, established in the faith as you've been taught. Everything
we need to walk in this world, we have in Christ, and God help
us to walk in this world accordingly. Accordingly. According as he's
given unto us, let us give. According as he's shown mercy
to us, let us be merciful. According as he has loved us,
let us love others. Can you see how these things,
they're just natural to your experience of grace? Every last
one of them. We have them. We have the basis,
we have the motivation. God enabled us to do them, for
Christ's sake. Thank you.