Now for several Sundays, way
back probably in January sometime, we've been in several passages
in Luke's Gospel, and on the 10th of February we were in this
same chapter, chapter 15. So I apologize for coming back to
it so soon, but I've been made vividly aware that the curse of present-day
Christianity is not sin, it is self-righteousness. Now self-righteousness
is a sin. So when I say it is not sin,
it is not immorality, it is man's pride in himself and in his accomplishments. And he believes in the depth
of his own soul that God owes him salvation, eternal reward
in heaven. My friends, that just simply
is not so. Self-righteousness is infinitely more criminal in the sight of
God than any other sin you could name, such as murder. Oh, preacher,
you shouldn't say that. Well, I know people murder each
other every day and it gets worse and it will get worse and worse.
I'm talking about proud, arrogant, religious people who hate God
and would if they could snatch him off his throne, which is
what Adam tried to do in the garden, and it's what we did
to Christ on Calvary. We said in no uncertain terms,
and I can show you this and will in just a moment, we will not
have this man reign over us. Now most people's view of the
Bible is a foggy, rose-colored picture whereby
we let the Bible say to us what we want to hear. But if the Lord
ever takes the blinders off and gives us eyes to see, we'll find
out this book is not that kind of book. This is the most real book ever
written. It's reality. Whatever this book
says is what is. It's not what I think or what
I hope. It's what is. It's what is. And the God of this book, the
God of the Bible, has put everything, I mean every last single thing,
in the hands and at the disposal of His blessed Son. the Lord
Jesus Christ. Now, if you'll put a marker at
Luke chapter 15, I'd like to stay and chat with you a little
more about those things, but I've got work to do. And it's
all in Luke's Gospel this morning, so if you go back, if I can get
there, I might beat you, maybe not. But chapter 1, Luke chapter
1, I simply want to take, well, I've got 11 of them and
I don't know if I'll get through or not because I may want to
switch back to the to the parable in Luke 15. But I just want you
to see in just one single gospel, one of the four gospels. Now
Luke, unlike John, unlike Matthew, more like Mark, is seemingly
writing his gospel after all the others are written. He's
telling us that these are things that he most clearly understands
and believed to be the body of truth concerning the Lord Jesus
Christ. All the way back in chapter 1,
we have hints of what we've read about in chapter 15. If you look
at verses 51, 52, and 53 in Luke chapter 1, I think I can show
this to you. 51, He, the Lord God, has showed
strength with His arm. He has scattered the proud in
the imagination of their heart. Now who's talking? And who's
being spoken of to do such a thing as that? To take away from us
the proud imagination of our heart? These words are called
the Song of Mary. It's called the Magnificat. And
in it, she is singing of her blessed Son before He takes on
human flesh and enters this world. What is He going to do when He
comes? He's going to scatter the proud
in the imagination of their hearts. Verse 52, He has put down the
mighty from their seats. He's not even here yet, but these
works are spoken of as if they were already done. The only person
you can use language like that about is God. He is indeed the
God-man. He's put down the mighty from
their seats and exalted them of low degree. I love this statement. He has
filled the hungry with good things and the rich He has sent empty
away. Remember that statement. That's
worth thinking on. If you'll jot these verses down,
it might be of some help to you later. All right, chapter 4.
Here I must simply allude to an entire passage. I cannot read
it, but I should like to read one of its verses. Let me summarize as quickly as
I can, Luke 4, verses 16-30. The Lord Jesus has begun His public life and ministry. His fame has spread abroad in
many places, not the least of which is Nazareth. And this is
the first Saturday, the first Sabbath that the Lord Jesus has
come back to Nazareth since he left to begin his public life
and ministry. Where do you think he goes? Where
he always went, to the synagogue. The synagogue. And they honor him. They give
him the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and ask him to read. And
unlike some people we could name, he didn't just let the scroll
fall open to a certain place. He knew that book. He looked
it up until he got to the words that we're about to read, which
are words of prophecy in Isaiah concerning the Messiah. Let me
fill you in with the details real quick. Our Lord reads, and
when He finishes, He tells that crowd, this day
is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. And before things are over, He's
told them about a poor leper, not from Israel, talks about
a leper named Naaman, Assyrian general, and God through the prophet Elisha
healed him of his leprosy. And then he tells them, well I skipped that, it's the
first one in verse 25, he says, many widows were in Israel in
the time of Elijah the prophet, but unto none of the widows in
Israel did God send his prophet. Rather he sent him to a widow in a city called Sarepta, a city
of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow." Basically what our
Lord said is that God's mercy, God's grace, God's salvation
is sovereign mercy and sovereign grace and sovereign salvation. To put it very simply, He said
God saves whom He pleases, not who you think He should, whom
He pleases. They grabbed him up, dragged
him out of the synagogue and outside the village to a cliff
on one of the mountains nearby and were in the process of tossing
him head first to his death. He mysteriously and miraculously
walked right through the middle of them and left. That ain't
all. If you know your Bible very well,
you know that he came back a second time sometime later. That, my friend, is grace. Here it is, verse 18, Luke chapter
4. The Spirit of the Lord is upon
me because He has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.
He sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the
captives, and the recovering of sight to the blind, to set
at liberty them that are bruised." The problem is that those people
had no such diseases spiritually, and therefore it means that God's
Christ and God's Messiah doesn't work for them, doesn't suit them.
So they began to find fault. Next verse is in Luke chapter
5. I'm just trying to show you what's
in this gospel. And it'll give you a greater
understanding. It'll help us understand chapter
15 and many other passages in other parts of our Bibles. Luke
chapter 5, verses 30, 31, And 32, our Lord's nemesis, the
ones that constantly carped at His heels and tried to find fault
in things that they could charge Him with and so forth, here they
are showing their ugly face. Verse 30 of Luke chapter 5, 31
and 32, But their scribes and Pharisees murmured against His
disciples, saying, Why do you eat and drink with publicans
and sinners? And Jesus answering said unto
them, They that are whole, who think they're whole, need not
a physician, don't need a doctor. But they that are sick, I came
not to call the righteous. Ah, there's the rub. He came
not to call the righteous, but sinners to repent. Luke chapter
10, the parable of the Good Samaritan and the statements that precede
it that give rise to that parable. One other note in Luke's gospel
that keeps cropping up in many, many places is an expression
found in Luke 11, Luke 10, verse 25, and it is this question,
what shall I do to inherit eternal life? Eternal life is not something
that we can merit or deserve or work for. It is a gift, and
it's God's gift in His dear and blessed Son. Two thousand years have expired
since this man's statements went into this holy record, and we're
just as dumb today as they were then. Matter of fact, we're getting
worse. as time goes on. Religion puts
you to doing. God puts us on the stool of do-nothing. Makes us to bow to His dear Son,
the Lord Jesus. So our Lord questions him about
the law. He did the same thing to the
rich young ruler. And the man said, the gist of the law in
verse 27 is this, You shall love the Lord your God with all your
heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your
strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. And the master said, You have
answered right, this do, and you shall live. And the man claimed he had a
problem with knowing who his neighbor was, and that gave rise
to the prodigal to the parable of the good Samaritan. All right,
if you'll jump over to chapter 10. No, we were just in chapter
10. Chapter 15 for just a moment.
We've got a couple more to go, but let's stop at chapter 15.
I want to show you the continuity of these things and how this
theme runs throughout this gospel. In the first and second verses
of chapter 15, "...then drew near unto Him, all the publicans
and sinners to hear Him. Somehow they were not afraid
of Him, were drawn to Him. And the Pharisees and scribes
murmured, saying, This man, and you believe this, he receives
sinners and even eats with them. Can you imagine? Based on that statement in verse
2, we have been given the parable that occupies the remainder of
the chapter. All right, we go to chapter 16.
This time, just two verses. And again, it is the Pharisees
and our Savior. Verses 14 and 15 in Luke chapter
16. And the Pharisees also who were
covetous, he had just spoken a parable concerning covetousness,
who were covetous, heard all these things and they derided
him, they mocked him, scoffed at him. And he said unto them,
listen carefully, you are they which justify yourselves before
men. Surely you and I have never done
that. No, I'm afraid we still do. What
do you mean never? You are they which justify yourselves
before men. But God knows your hearts. Now listen. Listen carefully. That which is highly esteemed,
highly valued, among men is abomination in the sight of God. If the church gives men what
men demand, it is an abomination in God's sight. We must give
men, all men, nothing but Christ and Him crucified. Anything else
is damning to the souls of men and is an abomination in God's
sight. There's more going on here this
morning than just me and you. My soul, if this is what it is,
let's kick up the music and put a little swing in our step and
jazz things up and, you know, make this a foot-stomping good
time. There's plenty of that going
on this morning in churches in North Carolina, in case you don't
know it. But it is an abomination in God's
sight. If the flesh loves it, God hates
it. Verses 9 through 14, the parable
of the Pharisee and the publican in the temple. One verse will
suffice, verse 14. I tell you this man, the publican,
went down to his house justified, God declaring him righteous in
his blessed son, the Lord Jesus. Rather than the other, rather
than the Pharisee, For everyone that exalts himself shall be
abased, and he that humbles himself shall be exalted." No comment
needed, is it? Chapter 18, beginning at verse
18 and going through verse 27. Here's the rich young ruler in
Luke's account. Verse 18 just lays the whole
thing wide open before our eyes. What shall I do? What shall I
do to inherit eternal life? Eternal life ain't for sale,
my friend. It's the free gift of God's grace
in Christ and cannot be had by any other means. All right, chapter
19. Remember Zacchaeus? Chapter 19, verse 6, Zacchaeus made haste
and came down and received the Lord Jesus joyfully. Verse 10, for the Son of Man
is come to do what? To seek and to save that which
was lost. We must understand this one matter. It is essential to understanding
many passages in our Bible. Who seeks whom? It's God who
seeks us first. And then we seek Him by His grace. How about writing this Scripture
down if you don't have it in your memory? And in my memory,
it's no longer safe. Some of you are right behind
me and a few of you are ahead of me. But most of you know of what
I speak. You're not a stranger to it, I don't think. First John
419, we love him. Why? Because he first loved us. That principle applies across
the board in everything we're looking at this morning and far,
far more than that. We seek Him, why? Because He
seeks me first. We find Him, why? Because He
finds me first. That's easy. Yet I tell you that
99% of professing Christianity does not know or understand nor
care to know or understand that statement. But I'm just telling
you this is how God operates. He's first. God acts and you
and I react. It ain't the other way around.
If you'll open your heart, God will come in and save you. That's
just hogwash, malarkey. Hey, I used to preach that statement.
I ought to know. It's worthless, downright dangerous
to the souls of men. Tell them that God's waiting
on us. You take the first step and He'll
take the second. If you can take the first one,
you can just march your proud self all the way into glory on
your own merit and your own works. Ain't no such thing as that,
taking the first step. Excuse me for losing my cool.
What chapter are you all in? We're in 19, aren't we? Yes,
Zach, yes. Alright, in the same chapter,
if you look down to verse 14, here's the statement I was referring
to much earlier. This is another parable that
our Savior gave concerning the pounds. I don't have time to
go into the parable, but here's something you must put into this
mix. Verse 14, Luke 19, hated Him. God's citizens hate Him. Christ's citizens hate Him. That's just all there is to it.
And here's what we say. God putting words in my mouth
and yours. We will not have this man reign
over us. If you want the long form of
that, go to the second Psalm. Because the rulers, three different groups of people,
the common people, the rulers, and I forget who else, the religious
leaders, they all conspired to say to God, you cannot make Christ
our King. And you know what he did? He
said, I've already done it. What do you mean I can't do it?
I've already done it. There's only 12 verses in Psalm
2. You ought to read that. I'm telling you, it's right there.
We will not have this man reign over us. Look at verse 27. But those my enemies, same parable
now, which would not that I should reign over them, which said back
in verse 14, we will not have this man reign over us. He said,
Bring hither and slay them before me." Beloved, we do not want to be
God's enemy or Christ's enemy. All right, verses 39 and 40,
chapter 19. Some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said
unto him, Master, rebuke your disciples And he answered and
said unto them, I tell you, this is our Lord's public entrance
into Jerusalem, going to the cross. They throw palm branches
in their garments. They strove the street in front
of him, treating him as a king. Just a few hours later, they're
going to be crying crucified. And so the Pharisees You get
all out of joint because these people are showing honor to Christ. And they want Him to have no
honor. They want Him dead. And our Lord said, if these should
hold their peace, the stones, the very stones of the street
would immediately cry out, Hosanna! Hosanna to the Lord of hosts! In verse 38, blessed be the king
that comes in the name of the Lord. I cannot make the brief time that remains. I wanted to deal with some verses
in the third part of the parable. But I'm going to stop right there.