If you'll turn back with me now
to Luke chapter six, I'm gonna concentrate on the last several
verses of the chapter, verses 46 through 49. Now the parable here in Luke chapter
six and these last verses is about the hearing of faith. Actually,
all the things I read to you a little earlier. He says over
and over, he that heareth, he that heareth, he that heareth.
And finally he gets down to the end of the chapter and he says
this, why call you me Lord, Lord, and do not the things that I
say? He that heareth, he that heareth. So the parable here
is about the hearing of faith. Faith cometh by hearing. It didn't
say faith came by hearing and then was sustained some other
way. Faith cometh. It continues to
come. It continues to come. And there
can be no calling upon an unrevealed Christ and no revelation of Christ
without a preacher, no preacher without being sin of God. He
tells us that very clearly in Romans 10, 14 and 15. Now this particular parable has
nothing to do with those who will not hear. Nothing to do
with them at all. Those who have no interest in
hearing and in fact mock those who do. Like to sit at home with
their arms folded and say, I don't believe those things. Do you
really believe God split the sea? You really believe that? You really believe God made iron
to float in the river? You really believe God made the
sun to stand still? You really believe those things?
Absolutely. Absolutely. But this is not talking
about those who won't hear, this is talking about those who do.
Those who do. So our text is about hearers.
Spurgeon once said this, he said, men who will not hear are like
to those who will build no house for their souls. None whatsoever. And foolishly take satisfaction
in the flesh, being ignorant of the storms on the horizon. These things are coming. That's
what we studied this morning in the book of Revelation. That
red horse of death and war and all of those things. And that
black horse talking about poverty and all of these things. All of these things are coming.
These horses went. It's coming. It's coming. But
this man who won't hear, he's like a foolish man that will
build no house for his soul whatsoever, or has no interest much in what
he builds. When worldly troubles come, they
have no consolation to cheer them. And when sickness comes,
they've got no joy of heart to help them bear it. When death
suddenly storms in upon them, they realize too late that the
house they live in offers no shelter at all. So our text begins
with a question. So let's start right there. Luke
6, 46. Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and
do not the things which I say? Now let me tell you something.
Jesus Christ is Lord. There's no debate about it. He's
Lord. God hath made Him both Lord and
Christ. He's Lord. He's not Lord when
men allow Him to be Lord. He's not Lord when men accept
the fact that He's Lord. He's Lord. He's Lord. There's nothing iffy about it.
His office is not up for grabs. It's not dependent on men's decisions
to obey Him or their willingness to confess it. He's Lord. He
lowered. To this end, Christ both died
and rose and revived that he might be Lord both of the dead
and the living. Do you imagine that you'll live
to yourself? Lots of people do. Lots of people
do. They believe every day of their
life. They live to themselves. They have control over it. They
set their destinies. They live to themselves. Do you
dictate your own destiny? You believe that life is whatever
you make out of it? The holy scriptures say this.
None of us liveth to himself. None of us. Or what about the
rebel? None of us liveth to himself. And no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live
unto the Lord, and whether we die, we die unto the Lord. Whether
we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord's. We're His to
save, or we're His to damn. But we're His, make no mistake
about it. We're His. Now, do you believe
that? Huh? Do you believe sitting at
the right hand of the Father is one who's absolute Lord, all
power in heaven and earth in His hands? All of it in His hands. Do you believe that? Do you believe
that there's one who even now sits at the Father's right hand
ordering all things and ruling over all things and arranging
all things? that daily and hourly dispenses
both justice and mercy, both death and life, both salvation
and damnation. Do you believe that Jesus Christ
is God's mediatorial king? That all things have been trusted
unto him, both the salvation of God's elect and the damnation
of this present evil world, everything put into his hands. Now, Listen to what he says again. Why call you me Lord, Lord, and
do not what I say? Beloved, it is the dream of a
deceived heart that believes Jesus Christ will be satisfied
with some hollow confession, some hollow profession of faith
that acknowledges his title but ignores his authority. That's
a pipe dream. And if you have that as a hope,
you need to get rid of it just as fast as you can. Because of who he is and what
he's done, God has highly exalted him, given him a name which is
above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee gonna
bow, every tongue gonna confess that he's Lord to the glory of
God the Father. He's Lord. If all you've ever heard about
is some poor defeated reformer who tried to save the world but
the world wouldn't let him, I understand why you don't call him Lord,
Lord. Some poor do-gooder that men despised and nailed to a
cross, some man who did everything he could do and went back to
glory empty-handed. If all you've ever heard is one
who sits helpless on his throne, whose only followers are those
who pity him and feel sorry for him and want to help him, I understand
why you don't call him Lord, Lord. If this is all you've ever heard,
you've never bowed to him and you've never submitted to him
and you'll never obey him. you'll do exactly what these
were doing. You call him Lord, Lord. Just out of religiosity, if nothing
else. I don't know how many times I've
sat under those in total darkness, those who didn't know up from
down, long before I was ever saved. But looking back on it
now, and I listen to them, and in their prayers and in their
preaching, they called him Lord, Lord. But they did nothing that
he said. they gave no attent whatsoever
to what he said let me tell you something in his weakest hour
if there is such a thing in our lord's weakest hour as our surety
and as our savior and as a man bearing the weight of that big
cross i don't know how much that timber was but you take a I'm
going to say 12 or 14 foot long, four before even, that small. And whatever the width of it
was, another six feet or eight feet. You got that thing on your
back over there in that hot Israeli weather. And he's dragging that
thing, having been beat, not fed, slapped and mocked for days. And now he's bearing that cross.
And he's bowing under the weight of it. And he drags that thing
along and it said his vision was marred more than any man.
He was almost unrecognizable because they'd beaten him. And
here's the women who loved him and they were weeping for him
and taking pity on him. And he stopped. In his weakest
hour, bearing that cross, he stopped. And he said, don't weep
for me. Weep for yourselves. Weep for
your children. Don't weep for me. Weep for yourself. He was Lord even in his weakest
hour. Undefeatable Lord. You know that Jesus Christ was
made Lord and crowned King before ever the world began? It's what
the scripture says. He was king in that manger, and
he was king in his life, and he was king on the cross, and
he's king even now at the right hand of God. He's Lord. You think that the kingdom of
God is somehow left to chance and circumstance? Even those
who are deceived and deceiving others because they receive not
the love of the truth that they might be saved are doing What
they're doing because God has sent them strong delusion to
believe a lie and be damned. There's nothing going on in this
world, including the actions of unbelievers that's not controlled
absolutely by our Lord. That's just so. I know men don't want to talk
about it, but it's so anyway. The old reigning monarchs seldom
lopped off a man's head for his insolence. They had other means
in place to take care of that, didn't they? So does our Lord. So does our Lord. And when I
say that He's arranging all things and ruling over all things and
reigning over all things, that's what I'm talking about. What I'm laboring hard to establish
is the fact that Jesus Christ is Lord. He's not Lord if you let him,
he's Lord. And in John 13, 13 he said to
his disciples, he said, you call me master and Lord and you do
the right thing because so I am. I am your Lord and I am your
master. So why do you stress this point
so much, preachers? Because what a man does is wholly
dependent upon who it is that tells him to do it. That's why. I had a pretty rough crew one
time. I went out and put on this big roof, and it was a pretty
rough bunch of men. And I got out there on the roof,
and I asked my boss, I said, what do you want me to do if
they're not going to listen to me? Because it wasn't my regular
job. And whenever you cross jobs and go out, they got very little
respect for you. He said, you tell them to call
me. You tell them to call me. He's Lord. He's Lord. Jesus Christ was made Lord and
crowned King long before the world began. He was King in that
manger. He's King. And He's Lord. And I'm telling you what a man
does is wholly dependent upon who it is that tells him to do
it. you'll never obey him, you'll never follow him, you'll never
receive him, you'll never rejoice in him until you understand in
your heart and mind who he is. That's why I'm so angry about
religion. They're not pointing men and
women to his lordship. They're pointing them to another
Jesus and another Savior. Romans 6, 16 says this, know
you not that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey,
his servants you are to whom you obey, whether of sin unto
death or of obedience unto righteousness. Now if the Lord isn't the one
doing the speaking, then it doesn't much matter what we do. But if
he's doing the speaking, it means everything. It means everything. Now watch this, the Lord now
speaks through his preachers. Luke chapter 10, verses 10 through
16. I won't have you turn over there,
but here's the crutch of the whole thing
is this. He that heareth you, heareth me. That's what he told
those men he sent out. And he said, he that despiseth
you, despiseth me. You're my ambassador, you go
out there. Was that still true today? Does
the Lord still send out His ambassadors to men with the Lord's Gospel
and His commands? It's as much so today as it was
in the life of His disciples. There's a really interesting
passage of Scripture over in the book of James. I quote it
all the time in James chapter 1. It begins in verse 17 telling
us that every good gift And every perfect gift is from above, and
cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness,
neither shadow of turning. That is, the unchangeable God
sends these gifts. He's ordained them. He's obtained
them. He's accomplished them. And He
gives them, coming down from heaven. And there's not even
a shadow of turning with Him. What He's determined to give,
He's going to give. what God's will to give and purpose
to give, he will give. And he'll give it to whom he
will and how he will and when he will and he will not vary
from it because he's unchangeable. All right, verse 18, James chapter
one. Of his own will, unchangeable
will, begat he us with the word of truth. that we should be a
kind of first fruits of his creature, that is, fruit of the heavenly
seed. Wherefore, my beloved brethren,
let every man be swift to hear, and slow, slow to wrath, slow
to get upset. Be swift to hear, and then think
about what you've heard. God hath from the beginning,
Paul said, chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the
Spirit and belief of the truth. And because He did, He called
you by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Do you believe that? Do you believe that? Do you believe
God sends preachers, that He commands men through His preachers?
That that preacher points men to Christ, opens this book, unlocks
the treasures? You believe that the Lord of
glory still holds his stars in his hands, still sends his ambassadors
as though God did beseech you by us, be you reconciled to God? If you do, he said, why call
you me Lord, Lord? and do not the things that I
say." The Lord said no servant can
serve two masters. He can't do it. Luke 16, 13,
for either he'll hate the one and love the other, or else you'll
hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and
mammon, that is, this world and its treasures. And the Pharisees
also, who were covetous, heard all these things, and they derided
him. Now watch this. And he said unto
them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men. What do you mean justify yourselves? Well, they were those who justified
themselves by their own works, but that's not, I don't believe
what he's talking about here. He's talking about justifying
their ways, and their means, and their office, and their message. You are they which justify yourselves
before men, but God knows your heart, for that which is highly
esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God. And I really
believe this, the first act of grace in a man's heart is submission
to the king. Bow down. Bow down. Paul said, I know your election
of God, for you become followers of us and the Lord. What does
this man do? Who's elect of God, who hears
the message of God, who submits, he submits to the messenger because
he understands the messenger's sin of the Lord. All right, here's
the next thing, Luke 6, 47. Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth
my sayings, and doeth them, I'll show you to whom he's like. Now,
if you're one of God's elect, you're gonna be drawn to Christ. Nobody else gonna come but those
that are drawn. Over in John 6, 37, he said,
all that the Father giveth me will come to me. Every one of
them. How are they going to get there? They're going to be drawn. They're going to be drawn. Those
Jews murmured at Christ when he said that. And down in verse
43 of John 6, Jesus answered and said unto them, don't murmur.
Don't murmur. No man can come to me except
the Father which has sent me draw him, and I'll raise him
up again at the last day. He's going to be drawn of the
Lord. He's going to come to the Lord because God purposed for
him to come, and God will enact the means to draw him. What means? The means of providence. He orders providence, he arranges
providence, and he arranges it for his elect to bring them to
God. And they go where they'll have him to go. He calls, he
teaches, he draws, and he saves. And all those given to him are
going to come to him. And they're going to hear him,
and they're going to submit to him. Oh, those Jews, they got
so tired of hearing that. That's all he ever talks about.
That's all he ever talks about, being the son of God, being the
son of man, and all of these things. They said, If thou be
the Christ, tell us plainly. He said, I told you. But you
believe not. And you believe not because you're
not of my sheep. As I said unto you, my sheep
hear my voice. And I know them. And they hear
my voice. And they follow me. How many
of them? All of them. Follow him. and I give unto them eternal
life. That's to know God. That's the gift of God. All right, fourthly, the Lord
gives us a similitude here of a man who hears and submits. Luke 6, 48. He's like a man which built a
house and digged deep and laid the foundation on a rock. And
when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon the house
and could not shake it, for it was founded upon a rock." Now,
the first thing he shows us here is that the man who hears gets
involved in securing a proper house for his soul. He gets involved. Why? Because now he knows, now
he sees, now he hears. Now he has received the truth.
He's not going to stand by. People say, well, I wouldn't
preach that doctrine. That just leads men to just stand
by and do nothing. Oh, you wait till the Lord reveals
it to you and you tell me that same thing. That's not how it
left me. It left me desperate. I wanted
involved. I wanted to know. I wanted to
see for myself. I wanted to read for myself.
I want somebody to say, here it is, chapter and verse, and
let me look at it. I wanted to be involved in this
thing. And that's what happens when a man hears he gets involved
in the building of this house. First thing he does is grab a
shovel and starts digging. Why didn't he just lay the rocks
on the dirt? A lot of houses down south here,
they just build them, they just stack rocks up on the dirt. In
a few years, that house is doing this. You look at it, the wind
is all sideways, roofs all swooped down, how come? They didn't dig,
they just laid rocks on the dirt, built a house on that. The man who hears gets involved
in securing the proper house for his soul. He's not satisfied
with this earthly tabernacle. He sees its weaknesses. He sees
its limitations. He sees it's not going to be
forever. It's going back to the dust from which it came. He finds his nature and his mind
and his heart all come short of the glory of God. And it may
weather a few storms, but it's not going to weather the overflowing
scourge that's coming. Not sufficient for that. God
said, judgment will I lay to the lion and righteousness to
the plummet and the hail shall sweep away your refuge of lies. And the water shall overflow
your hiding place, and your covenant with death and hell shall be
disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand when
this scourge shall pass through. You'll be trodden down by it.
There's a storm coming. There's a storm coming. And the
true hearer, he digs deep. He keeps digging. He never quits
digging. He just keeps digging. He digs until he finds the rock
Christ Jesus. And there he builds his spiritual
house. And then secondly, he laid the
foundation on a rock. Now the only foundation for faith
is Christ as he set forth in the word of God. You're built
upon the foundation, he said, of the apostles and prophets,
Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. Other foundation, Paul said,
can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus.
And then thirdly, he tells us a flood came. You know, there's
lots of floods, lots of storms. I go through them every week.
Lots of storms coming. Lots of them. Some of them pretty
rough. Some of them just storms. And some Of those who believe not, their
house might survive these storms, even though it doesn't yield
much protection, and it doesn't yield much comfort. But in the
end, the flood of death is going to overtake his house, and its
destruction, he says, is going to be immediate. I just sit and
listen. I'm amazed sometimes at the words,
men, that comes out of their mouth. We used to work, I worked
on a construction site on this thing for the University of Kentucky
Medical Center, and we built this, it's called a bio-med center,
and it was about eight or nine stories high and it had an elevator.
an old construction elevator just wire around the outside
of this thing, and it went up on a chain and hauled you up
a little bit of weight up to the top, you know. And we were
going up there one day, and a guy looked at me, and I was kind
of holding on. Man, this thing's shaky. It was rocking around
on that old scaffold and going up. And he said, oh, he said,
I wouldn't worry. He said, if the chain breaks,
he said, just before it hits the bottom, jump up. You'd be surprised how many people
think that about death. They're going to make a profession
just before they die. It ain't going to happen. It
ain't going to happen. He said your covenant with death
is going to be disengaged. That flood of death is going
to overtake his house and its destruction is going to be immediate,
he said. And the ruin of that house is
going to be great. It's going to be great because
it shall be complete. Complete destruction. It's going
to be great because it shall be permanent destruction. It's
going to be great because it shall be forever. And because
it's going to leave him alone with no shelter. before the living
God. The destruction of that house
is gonna be great. Now, what kind of hearer am I? You see what he says? If I'm gonna call him Lord, I
need to listen to what he says. Huh? I need to listen to what
he says. What's he say? Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Do what he says. He's Lord. He's Lord. Do what he says. He says confess
me in baptism. No, we won't call him Lord, but
we don't want to confess him in this world. We don't want
to confess him in baptism. We don't want to publicly confess
him. We don't want people to think that we're actually believers. Huh? This fella kept asking me,
I was wanting him to come in here, but I could see that wasn't
gonna happen, so I finally just told him, I said, well, we, he
said, what do y'all preach? I said, we preach the doctrines
of Calvinism. Oh, he said, I don't believe
that. I don't believe that. I can't go along with that. I
said, why not? Why not? Can you show me in the
scriptures where it's not so? No, but he said, I did a study
on it. I bet you did. I bet you did. What kind of hearer am I? Well, I tell you, there's only
one kind of true hearer, and that true hearer obeys Christ.
And until he obeys, he's not a hearer. He's just going in
this ear and out that ear. A true hearer obeys.