While you're turning to Luke
chapter 5, I'm sorry, Luke chapter 6, let me remind you once more
of the basic, elementary, hermeneutic principle by which this book
must be interpreted. The book of God is a book about
Christ. It's a book about God's Son. Now what I mean when I say that
is that the whole purpose of Holy Scripture is to make known
Jesus Christ to his people. That's the whole purpose, the
whole purpose. I stress this because there's
so much wrangling about scripture and about theology and about
doctrine that is absolutely useless and profitless to the souls of
men. When you start to talk about
the church, Don't argue about denomination. Shoot, it doesn't
matter which denomination you're in. Talk about the body of Christ. When you talk about baptism,
understand that we must be baptized into Jesus Christ. When you talk
about the second coming, people, I get letters frequently, what's
your position on second coming? You pre, post, are millennial.
And I tell folks frankly, I don't care. Put me wherever you want
to. It doesn't matter. I'm looking for him who's coming.
That's the issue. Christ is coming. Now you will
see as we look in this passage of scripture tonight why I'm
stressing that now. Look with me here at Luke chapter
6. And it came to pass on the second
Sabbath after the first that he went through the cornfields
and his disciples plucked the ears of corn and did eat, rubbing
them in their hands. And certain of the Pharisees
said unto him, Why do you that which is not lawful on the Sabbath
days? And Jesus answering them said,
Have you not read so much as this? what David did when himself
was hungry and they which were with him, how he went into the
house of God and did take the showbread and gave also to them
that were with him, which it is not lawful to eat, but for
the priest alone. And he said unto them that the
son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath. He's Lord of everything
that includes the Sabbath. Now there's a phrase used at
the opening of this brief paragraph that's found nowhere else in
the Bible. It's a phrase about which theologians, and I use
the word advisedly, cautiously, have wrangled for hundreds and
hundreds and hundreds of years. I spent a little time preparing
this message and I did something I don't normally do. I read some
of the wrangling. I read some of the arguments
that folks give about this. The phrase is the second Sabbath
after the first. It's not used anywhere else in
Scripture. Matter of fact, there's nothing else even similar to
it in Scripture. Some of the theologians of the
past tell us that this phrase refers to the Sabbath following
the cutting of the first sheep harvest during the Jews Passover
week. Others say, oh no, no, no. The
phrase refers to the three great Sabbath days kept by the Jews,
those three great feast days of Sabbaths that the Jews were
required of God to keep every year. They're great, great holy
days. The Feast of the Passover, the
Feast of Pentecost, and the Feast of the Tabernacle. And so this
phrase, the second Sabbath after the first, refers to the Feast
of Pentecost and the Sabbath day observed during that time.
As I read that, and read the arguments and the pluses and
the minuses and the pros and cons, I thought to myself, how
utterly ridiculous. What nonsense. What foolishness. What utter irreverence for the
Word of God. Certainly, the second Sabbath
after the first refers to a Sabbath day that was commonly known to
the Jews who lived during our Lord's time. But what it was,
we don't know. We're not told. And I don't care. It's irrelevant. It's of no benefit. It's of no use whatsoever to
even investigate it and try to determine what it's about. What
is important is this. Why does God the Holy Spirit
put it right here? Why has he given us this phrase? Why did he inspire Luke to use
this particular phrase to describe this particular event? And quite
honestly, the answer is so obvious and so simple that it's hard
for folks to see it. The Lord of the Sabbath had now
come. He had come here to fulfill,
and I'm using this word intentionally, He had come here to fulfill and
to forever abolish all Sabbath days of the legal ceremonial
Mosaic kind. The Lord of the Sabbath had come,
and now the carnal, ceremonial, legal Sabbath days required in
the law, which pointed to Him, which have their fulfillment
in Him, which are useful only as the direct centers to come
and rest in Him, now those Sabbath days are forever gone. And the
second Sabbath has begun, this glorious Gospel Sabbath of rest
by faith in Jesus Christ the Lord. Now let me show you three
things as we look at these five verses together this evening.
I pray that God the Holy Spirit will use them to drive our hearts
once again to our seizure. First the Holy Spirit here sets
before us a glaring example of a deadly sin. We are told in
this passage that on a certain Sabbath day our Lord with his
disciples walked through the cornfields. And as they walked
alone, the disciples plucked some ears of grain, whether it
was wheat or barley, we don't know. The word corn is used interchangeably
for both, but they plucked some ears of grain and kind of rubbed
them in their hands and walked along talking and had a snack.
The Pharisees saw it and they jumped on it like a duck on a
June bug and they said, what are your disciples doing? What
are they? Why, they're breaking the law.
They've done that which it is not lawful to do. They presumed
they had caught the Lord's disciples in a terrible, terrible crime
of breaking the fourth commandment for which men deserved to be
stoned to death. Pharisees saw this thing as a
very horrible evil. But the deadly sin revealed in
the text is not the disciples plucking corn, rubbing it in
their hands and eating it on the Sabbath day. But rather it
is revealed in the Pharisees and in their actions, their attitude
and their words with regard to what these disciples had done.
Now hear me and hear me well. The most deadly of all sins in
this world is the sin of self-righteousness. Nothing worse. Nothing worse. I would not want to stand before
God guilty of any crime, charged with any crime. Murder is a horrible
thing. incest, adultery, fornication,
homosexuality, drunkenness. They're horrible, horrible, horrible,
horrible evils of a decadent people. But I would rather stand
before God charged with anything than with self-righteousness. anything other than self-righteousness. Our Lord warns us in many ways
and warns us repeatedly to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees,
that leaven which corrupts everything it touches. is self-righteousness
and hypocrisy. It is that to which we are most
naturally inclined. You see, we are all idolaters
by nature. We all want a God we can touch
and a God who will be touched by us. We all want a God we can
get our hands on and a God who will be impressed by us getting
our hands on him. We all want a God that is moved
by what we do, and we're terribly inclined to self-righteousness
and hypocrisy, an outward show of religion. And so the Lord
warns us over and over and over again to beware of it. You see,
self-righteousness and hypocrisy always, always, no exceptions,
always attach tremendous importance to outward religion. Now, having
said that, I must give a word of caution. I do not mean to
suggest by any means that the public assembly of God's saints,
that public worship, that the ordinances we observe by our
Lord's command are to be neglected, not by any means. But the Pharisees,
self-righteous folks, hypocrites, place all weight upon outward
religion, those things which men see. applaud and reward,
and they neglect the reality of grace in the heart. That's
what hypocrisy is. That's what self-righteousness
does. These Pharisees were sticklers for keeping the Sabbath days.
I mean, they had rules, and added rules on top of rules on top
of rules, even to what Moses had said, and that was enough.
But they added tons of rules, and they were sticklers for the
Sabbath days. But everybody knew they were covetous. Everybody
knew they were misers. These fellas would let their
parents starve to death and say, I'm keeping my money for the
Lord. Our Lord spoke plainly in Luke 16, 14, says these folks,
the Pharisees are covetous men, but they wouldn't even think
about going through the cornfields, picking a little corn, having
a snack on the Sabbath day. Wouldn't even think about it.
These Pharisees, our Lord tells us, strained at the tiniest gnat
in their little cup of religious ceremony. They saw some little
speck in that thing, they'd spend hours and days and weeks and
years figuring out a way to get that little gnat out of there.
And they'd swallow a camel. It swallowed the camel. Let me
show you what I'm talking about. They tithed. They tithed of everything
they had. Everything they had. But they
showed no mercy. They were sticklers for doing
what men approved of, what men saw, what men applauded, what
men rewarded. But they had no compassion. Their religion was
all shell and no heart. All husk and no life. Pharisees
were Let me see if I can bring it down to our day. I recall
when I was just a young man sitting in Sunday school class shortly
after God had saved me. I was 16 years old, maybe 17,
maybe 17. Two grown men. I mean, these
fellows were, they weren't in diapers, they were grown men.
They were teaching the young adults, I mean, young teenagers
Sunday school class. I'm sorry, older teenagers Sunday
school class, the boys. And they spent several weeks
discussing tithing. And this is what they were debating.
Should we tithe on the net or on the gross? And as a kid, I'm
just a kid, I said, what's this all about? What's
the benefit? What good is it? How does it
profit the souls of men? But they handle the outward things
and sticklers for the outward things. And those men, to this
day, have brethren to whom they won't even speak. Sticklers for outland stuff.
I recall several years ago, listening to fellows at a Bible conference
one time, sitting around talking. This had been a long time ago.
And they was talking about Sabbath keeping. Talking about keeping,
now they weren't talking about Sabbath keeping, they were talking
about Sunday keeping. They just called it Sabbath keeping. And they
said, now when does it start? And when does it end? In other
words, how long, how much have we got to do or how little can
we do to be exactly right to this thing? But sticklers for
those things and absolutely merciless with regard to other things.
They strain at the tiniest net in their cup of ceremonial religion
and they swallow the camel without batting an eye. These men were
quick, they always are, quick to censor, quick to criticize,
quick to condemn by what they say. Let me tell you something,
when you presume, whether you're talking about Gary Baker or Don
Fortner, when we presume that we know a man's heart, we betray
something in our hearts. When you presume that you know
a man's soul before God, you betray something horribly evil
in your heart. Horribly evil in your soul. Because all we
see is outward stuff. All we can judge by is outward
stuff. Our Lord tells us plainly, you don't know chaff from wheat.
You don't know sheep from goats. You don't know the tares from
the real thing. Leave them alone. Wait for God to do His work.
He'll do it. Leave it alone. But Pharisees, hypocrites, because
their religion is all outward, they presume that your outward
action at any time betrays exactly what you are. Several years ago,
I was preaching before a fellow. He and his wife, hard as nails.
I mean hard as nails. Thank God, he's not in it anymore. Sitting in his home one day,
and this gal, this is the preacher's wife. You know what she said?
She said, you know, I can tell whether a person's saved after
having been with them five minutes. She's not around anymore. She's
not around anymore. That's nothing but hypocrisy.
That's totally contrary to scripture. Don't set yourself as the judge
of men. Don't attempt to look at man's
outward behavior in any specific given area and decide, now, this
fellow's not a believer. The issues are inward and God
looks on the heart. Baba, you and I can't. We can't. That doesn't mean that we wink
at men's ungodliness. That doesn't mean that we pass
over those things and excuse that, not in the least. What
I am saying is this. Deal with men and women in mercy. Deal with men and women in mercy.
God hates the spirit of the Pharisee. Turn to Isaiah 65. We looked
at this just a week or two ago, but I want you to read it again.
God Almighty hates self-righteousness. Nothing is more abhorrent in
His nostrils than the stench of self-righteousness. Isaiah
65, the Lord God says, I'm sought of them that ask not for me.
I'm found of them that sought me not. I said, behold me, behold
me unto a nation that was not called by my name. He's talking
about the calling of His elect among the Gentiles. And here
he describes the reason why he cast off the Jews. I spread out
my hands all the day to a rebellious people, which walk in a way that
was not good after their own thoughts. They walk in a way,
he's not talking now about a way of perversity morally. He's not
talking about a way of perversity in a moral sense. He's talking
about a way of religion after their own thoughts. They've taken
the word of God, the ordinances of God, the law of God, the ceremonies
of the law, and they perverted them to a religion conformed
to their own thoughts. Sound familiar? Look at it. A
people that provoke me to anger continually to my face. that
sacrifice in gardens and burn incense upon altars of brick,
which remain among the graves and lodge in the monuments, which
eat swine's flesh in the broth of abominable things in their
vessels, which say, look at it now, you stand over yonder. Don't you come close to me. Stand
by yourself. Come not near me, for I'm holier
than thou. And God says, these are a smoke
in my nose, a fire that burns all day. Well, let's see if we
can find an example of it. Luke chapter 18. Luke chapter
18. Our Lord said, woe unto you scribes
and Pharisees, hypocrites. For you pay tithe of mint and
anise and cumin and have omitted the weightier matters of the
law. What can be weightier than that? Justice and mercy and faith. These ought you to have done
and not leave the other undone. Here in Luke 18 verse nine, the
Lord Jesus spoke a parable. And notice what he says. He spake
this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they
were righteous. And Lindsay Campbell, anybody
who trusts in himself that he's righteous, despises everybody
else and despised others. Look at it. Two men went up to
the temple to pray. The one a Pharisee, the biggest
big shot in religion of the day. The fellow that everybody looked
at and said, oh, he's a holy man. I know he's holy. I remember when he wasn't a Pharisee. Oh, what a change. And the other
republican, most despised, most despicable, most notorious, most
unwanted, uncared for, isolated sinner known in the day. The
Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself. Now God, I thank Thee. I can hear it. Isn't it amazing
how fellas sometimes when they start to read scripture or pray
or preach, they'll talk different than they do any other time.
They have a holy voice. God, I thank Thee. Look at it. I thank Thee that I'm not as
other men are, extortioners, unjust, Adulterers, not me, no. Or even as this fella, this publican. I fast twice in the week. I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing way
back yonder in the corner behind the door, Republicans standing
afar off would not lift so much as his eyes unto heaven, but
smote on his breast, the center, the core of his being, the center,
the core of his corruption, saying, God be merciful to me. Know what the word is? God look
on the blood and be merciful. God be propitious to me. God
be propitious to me. Not just a sinner. That indefinite
article ought to be a definite article. He says, God, look on
the blood of your son and be merciful to this man, the sinner. The sinner. I tell you, this
man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone
that exalts himself shall be abased, and he that humbles himself
shall be exalted. Micah asked the question, wherewith
shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before the high
God? Shall I come before him with
burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord
be pleased with thousands of rams or with ten thousands of
rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for
my transgression the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
How can I come to God? What do I bring to God? Listen now. He hath showed thee,
O man, what is good, what the Lord doth require of thee. to do justly, to love mercy,
to walk humbly with God. You see, nothing is more likely
to keep a sinner from Christ than self-righteousness. Your
sin will never keep you from Him. No, sir. Your sin won't keep you from
coming to Him. Your goodness will. Religion without Christ
is the most damning thing in the world. Now listen carefully,
every act, every practice, every profession, every pretense of
religion without Christ is eating and drinking damnation to your
soul. That's what our Lord tells us
in 1 Corinthians 11. He that eateth and drinketh unworthily.
What's it talking about? He who eats this bread and drinks
this wine without knowing who Christ is and why he came. Who
eats and drinks this bread and wine not discerning the Lord's
body. Who eats and drinks this bread
and wine without faith in Christ. He's eating and drinking damnation
to himself. Now you wonder why we don't engage in all of the
tomfoolery in religion, get folks to make a profession of faith
and hustle the kids around, get them to be baptized, get them
to come into the church and get them active in Sunday school,
get them active in doing and doing and doing. Oh, get them
doing, doing, doing. Because I care for your soul.
I'm more interested in seeing you with Christ in glory than
I am in seeing you patted on the head and patting yourself
on the head. All right, now here's the second thing. The Lord Jesus
is set before us in this passage as a defending Savior. Oh, I
love this. No sooner had these Pharisees
begun to accuse the Lord's disciples than the Lord takes up their
cause. He takes up their cause. They
didn't answer a word. For one time in his life, Peter
didn't have anything to say. They didn't say anything. They
didn't say anything. The Lord spoke for them. The Lord Jesus
did not leave his disciples to answer for and defend themselves.
He answered for them and he defended them. He answered the cavils
of their enemies and silenced them. Oh, what a blessed, encouraging,
delightful picture this is of our Savior's unceasing work on
our behalf. We read in this book, you can
read it in Revelation chapter 12, of one who is the accuser
of the brethren, who accuses them day and night. He is Satan,
the prince of darkness, Apollyon, the fiend of hell, the dragon,
the old serpent. How often we accommodate him. We give him lots of ground for
his accusations. Lots of ground. How many charges
He might justly lay against us, looking upon us in ourselves.
But He who is our Savior pleads our cause, not only before the
throne of God in heaven, but on the earth and even in the
teeth of hell. My rock, my salvation, my refuge,
my defense is Christ. He's my defender. John says,
my little children, these things write I unto you that you sin
not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ the righteous, and he's the propitiation for our
sins. The Apostle Paul, when he considers what God has done
for us in Christ from eternity, talking about God's purpose of
grace, he says, what shall we say to these things? If God be
for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own son,
but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also
freely give us all things? And then he raises this bold
challenge. Who shall lay anything in heaven, earth, or hell? Who? Bring them forward. Who shall
lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God who justifies. And if God has justified me,
it doesn't matter what all hell says against me. Are you listening? Who is he that condemneth? Who's
going to condemn those for whom Christ died? It is Christ that
died, rather, that is risen again, who's even at the right hand
of God, who also maketh intercession for us, who shall separate us
from the love of Christ. Nobody, nothing. And let me tell you something
I have tried to experience for the last 33, 34 years. And I've had a little experience
at it. When my adversary the devil accuses me of some evil
by the lips of one of his servants in this world, and he has plenty,
this is how I respond. Let Christ speak for me. Let Christ speak for me. Folks
ask me all the time, how do you respond to what this fellow said?
I don't. I don't care what he said. He's not worth my bother.
He's not worth my time. Doesn't matter. Christ speaks
for me. I'm his. When the fiend of hell
accuses me of horrid evils in my own mind and conscience, and
he often does, and I give him lots of reasons. But I answered, let Christ speak
for me. And the Lord Jesus declares, he's washed my sins away and
robed me with his righteousness and in him I'm complete. In the
day of judgment, Should that wicked one be allowed to appear
and point his accusing finger at me and attempt to have my
crimes charged against me? In that day, bold shall I stand,
for who ought my charge shall lay. I will answer and say, Christ
shall speak for me. All right, here's one last thing.
Here the Spirit of God points us to a delightful Sabbath. I
read one commentator's explanation of this text. It wasn't an explanation
really, it was an attempt to explain what it doesn't say.
And though I knew he was inclined toward legality, I was shocked
by what he said. This is what he said. He said,
now we must not interpret this to mean that the law of the fourth
commandment is not still to bind Christians. I got news for you, Christ didn't
come here to bind his people, he came to set the captive free. He didn't come to bring bondage,
he came to bring liberty. And the Lord Jesus Christ here
speaks to these Pharisees concerning his disciples and says, I'll
take care of them, I'm the Lord of the Sabbath, not you. What
does he mean, the Lord of the Sabbath? I'm the one who established
it. I'm the one who set the rules.
I'm the one for whom it was established. I'm the one of whom it speaks.
I'm the one who fulfilled it. And I'm the one who abolished
it. abolished it. The scriptures are plain, Colossians
2, 16 and 17. Paul tells us plainly that Jesus
Christ has forever abolished the old covenant of works and
all things associated with it and all things regarding ceremonial
legal religion. Now we have come into that second
Sabbath, the Sabbath of rest. What is that? We quit working. I heard the voice of Jesus say,
come unto me and rest. Lay down, thou weary one, lay
down thy head upon my breast. I came to Jesus as I was, weary
and worn and sad. I found in him a resting place,
and he's made me glad. I'm not about to give it up.
Amen. All right, then you come lead
us in the hymn. The deacons will serve the Lord's table. Let's sing a song, Don was just
quoting, number 225. 228. 228.