Back over in Luke's Gospel. Let's
spend a few minutes this afternoon looking in verse 25 through verse
32. Luke's Gospel chapter 15. We
looked at the first portion this morning, and I think mainly the
Lord was speaking in the first portion of this chapter about
the shepherd finding his sheep and the woman finding the pieces
silver and the prodigal son coming home. I think probably he intended
that mainly, but not exclusively for those publicans. And seemingly,
the last portion of this about this son here, the elder son,
I imagine would be mainly to these scribes and Pharisees.
He was speaking to them also. And let's read there in verse
25 through verse 22 again. Now this elder's son was in the
field, and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music
and dancing. And he called one of the servants
and asked what these things meant. And he said unto him, Thy brother
is come, and thy father hath killed a fatted cat. And I love
what the Amplified says, and I think the Greek says that he
has killed that fatted cat. was one that had set aside fattening
him up, that fatted cat, because he hath received him safe and
sound. And he was angry and would not
go in, therefore came his father out and entreated him. And he
answered and said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve
thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandments, and
yet thou never gavest me a kid, yet thou Never gaveth me a kid,
that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this
thy son was come, and hast devoured thy living with harlots, thou
hast killed for him the fatted calf. And he said unto him, Son,
thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was
meet that we should make merry, and be glad. For this thy brother
was dead, and is alive again. He was lost, and is now found. I want us to think about this
just for a few minutes. And I've entitled this, The Hatefulness
of Self-Righteousness. The hatefulness of self-righteousness. We often say, mistakenly, that
these Pharisees and scribes trusted in their good works. But you
know something about them and their works, neither were they
any good. Any good at all. And the Master
had more trouble out of these men than he did anybody else
when he was here, these religious scribes and these Pharisees.
He hemmed them up one day, and here's what he said about them. He said, you're like whited sepulchers,
whited gravestones. Above the ground, you look at
you fellows, and you're so white. And they whitewashed the sepulchers,
the stones in that day, they whitewashed them. And he said,
when I look at you fellas, you look so white on the outside. Everybody brags about you, on
you. But he said, within, you're full
of dead man's bones. He elaborated on that a little
bit. He said, what I'm saying is this,
outwardly, you appear unto men to be righteous. And they said
if anybody went to heaven, it would be a Pharisee. But he said,
within, within your heart, you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. You blind guides which strain
at a gnat and swallow a camel. And these men were so hateful,
the Bible says that they trusted in themselves that they were
righteous and despised others. Now when you see a man that despises
people and he's a hateful person and you can't get along with
him and he's a religious person, he's a Pharisee. He has that
old attitude of a Pharisee within him. That's why nobody can get
along with him. These men hated the Lord Jesus, and they had
this net that they gagged at, and then turned around and swallowed
their account. The Lord Jesus had a man in His midst one day,
and it was on the Sabbath day, and they were worshiping there
in the temple. And the man come up before Him, and they were
watching the Lord Jesus to see if He would heal that man on
the Sabbath day. And the Lord said, which one of you Pharisees
and you scribes won't leave the service this morning and go home,
take your little donkey out of the stall and lead him down to
water him? And you think nothing about it.
But here I'm going to heal this man with a withered hand on the
Sabbath day and you're angry with me? You're gagging at these
gnats and swallowing these camels. But the reason they confronted
him is because they were so hateful. They were just hateful, hateful
people. And they weren't a light to these
publicans. They didn't have a gospel for
them. They despised these publicans. They wouldn't have minded at
all if the Lord Jesus Christ went back to heaven empty. That's
how much they hated Him. And I imagine if they found out
that he saved that thief on the cross that day, that probably
angered them more than that would do. Let's look at some things
here in our text and see the hatefulness of self-righteousness. In verse 29, look at their attitude
concerning their works. And they answered and said, he
answered and said unto his father, These many years do I serve thee."
Now, what do we see about self-righteousness? It always keeps in an account,
doesn't it? These many years I've served
thee. He was keeping count of the years.
He could tell his father the first job his father ever gave
him to do. He was keeping account of everything.
I can tell you how many times I've plowed that field. I can
tell you how many bushels of corn I got off of it. I can tell
you how many cows I've fed out. He kept track of everything.
Isn't that the way self-righteous people do? They keep count of
everything they do. Why do they have to do that?
Their confidence is in that. If your confidence is in what
you do, then you're going to have to keep count of what you're
doing. And that's what these Pharisees did. That's why the
Lord said one time, don't let your left hand know what your
right hand is doing. They were going in the temple,
blowing the bugles, and had these men with a bag of money following
Him in. And the Lord Jesus said, don't do that. Don't do that. When you give with your right
hand, don't let your left hand know about it. In other words,
do it in secret. But these men couldn't do that.
They kept account of everything. high school teacher, my math
teacher in high school. And I had a friend of mine telling
me that he went to church, a fellow that I graduated high school
with, and he said, he said, our old teacher got so mad at the
pastor. I said, what happened? He said, well, they had giving
Sunday and he'd give a little extra and he got mad at the pastor
and left because the pastor wouldn't recognize him. Got mad. Got angry because the
pastor wouldn't reckon. Why did he want that to be reckoned?
He had the attitude of this poor man here. He kept account of
everything he gave. And you know something? This
attitude is going to carry them right up to heaven, right to
the gate of heaven. They've kept account of everything here that
they've done for God. And when they get yonder in heaven,
they're going to say, Lord, open to us. Why should I open to you? What right do you have to be
in here? This is my Father's house. This is my Father's kingdom. It's my Father's heaven. What
right do you have to be in here? We preached in your name. We
cast out devils in your name. And listen to this. We have done
many wonderful works in your name. How did they know that?
They kept track of it. Kept track of it. You know why
I think sometimes God lets us see so much sin in what we do?
So we won't trust Him. He's always having to beat us
off from trusting in the things that we do. So when we see sin
mixed with it, I don't want to trust that. We see our works
need to be washed, don't we, rather than trusted in. But that's
the nature. That's the nature of self-righteousness. Boy, it's a difficult thing to
come to God. Day after day, just come to Him
wholly on the merits of someone else. Come to Him through the blood
of Christ, through the intercession of Christ, for Christ's sake,
to be accepted every day of my life, and bring nothing with
me. In my hands, no price I bring. That may have been written for
a lost man coming, but I tell you, there's a good lesson in
that for us. We don't bring anything to Him. but cross the merits
of another. That's the first thing. The second
thing about self-righteousness, and this may seem a little bit
extreme to us, but it's also found there in verse 29. These
many years do I serve Thee, and look at this, neither transgressed
I at any time Thy commandments. Man! At any time? Now, most of us remember being
raised by our dads. And there was a few times when
my dad cornered me up and he said, what did I tell you to
do, son? My dad sent my brothers, I never
will forget, he sent my brothers and they called it grubbing.
And there was some sprouts coming up in the potatoes and he had
potato vines almost waist high. And he worked in the coal mines
and he told my sons, he said, while I'm gone today, I want
you guys to grub those potatoes. He didn't stop to tell them what
grubbing meant. To get the little sprouts that
was coming between potatoes, pull them up to the roots. They
went over there and cut every one of his potato tops off. Even with the grass. And you
talk about getting it when he got home. Have you pleased your
dad in everything? Did you ever do anything It just
doesn't make sense that this is not normal. It's not natural
that you can raise children and them obey you in everything and
never transgress anything. Was David ever that way, Larry?
You never were that way. I never was that way. Here was
a man who says, I never transgressed at any time. That man doesn't
know himself, does he? What does that tell us about
self-righteousness? He has no idea about himself. He has no
idea about the plague of his heart. Self-righteousness is
nothing but self-deception. If a man says he has no sin,
he deceives himself, and the truth is not in him. The truth
of what? The spirit of truth is not in
him. He's never reproved him of sin. The word of truth is
not in him, for the word of truth says we have a plague in our
heart. And there's not a just man upon
earth that doeth good and sinneth not. What kind of a man would
tell you, I have never transgressed God's commandment? And yet there's
people like that. That man that came to Christ,
that young ruler came to Christ. He gave him all the commandments
of the second table. Honor your father and your mother.
Don't steal. Don't kill. Don't commit adultery. I've done
all of these from my youth up. All of them. I tell you, self-righteousness
is... No wonder Charles Spurgeon said,
open and profane sin has slain its thousands. But self-righteousness
has slain its tens of thousands. And right here is one of the
main things about it. It blinds the heart. to its true
condition. I was listening to Robert Shuler
one time, and he made this statement, and I wrote it down here because,
I mean, we'll forget it, several years ago. He said, the greatest
harm done to evangelism today is going and telling people,
going and telling people that they are sinners. The greatest harm done to evangelism
is to tell men that they're sinners. A man should practice what he
preaches. And he practiced it. I listened to him. He practiced
it. If a man is not a sinner, he
don't need a Savior. If a man has not sinned, he don't
need to be washed in the fountain open for sin and for uncleanness. It may be nice to think that
I don't sin anymore. That may be a nice thought, and
there's coming a day when we won't. But God knows, don't He? And we might as well be honest
with Him about it. We ain't bragging about it. We
ain't flaunting it. I tell you, I've sinned against God. I've
sinned against the Son of God. I've sinned against the Spirit
of God. I've sinned against light. God knows these things. And one
thing I've found out, the closer you are to Him, The more you
walk in the light, the greater darkness we see in ourselves. Somebody was talking about progressive
sanctification being getting better. I said, well, if that's
progressive sanctification, cut me out of it, because I know
nothing about getting better. I hope I know something about
grace. I hope I know more about the
Savior and how to trust Him and His faithfulness and goodness.
And I'm telling you before it's getting better in myself, I am
getting worse. Do you feel that way? You're in verse 25 and verse
26. This older brother came back home and he said, What is going
on? What's going on? He said. He heard the music.
He heard the singing. What is going on, he said, does
that surprise you that self-righteous people know nothing about what's
going on? They know nothing about the sweet
music of sins forgiven. Isn't that sweet music? They
keep saying the song saved by grace, by sovereign grace, free
grace. They keep learning the tune of
free mercy. Revelations talked about the
saints in glory singing that song of redemption, and nobody
else could learn the song. You've got to experience it to
learn it. And self-righteous people say,
what's going on? They don't know. I can't relate. No, you can't. Here's what Mary said about the
Lord, her child, her Savior. She called Him her Savior. She
said, My soul doth magnify the Lord. My soul. Now she's talking
about something in the heart. My soul magnifies the Lord. My spirit, my spirit within me,
the low bottom of my soul has rejoiced in God my Savior. He has regarded the lowest state
of His handmaiden. He that is mighty has done for
me great things, and holy is His name. He has put down the
mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He
has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent
away empty." That is sweet music, isn't it, to our ears? Sweet
music. Thirdly, here in verse 29, here
is something else about self-righteousness. And he answered and said, Lo,
these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any
time thy commandments. And yet thou never gavest me
a kid that I might make merry with my friends. Self-righteousness
makes God a debtor. You never gave me a kid. You should have. I earned it. I've worked my fingers to the
bone. I have come in with my back hurting and my legs swollen. I have put out myself for you.
I have labored and you have not given to me what I have earned.
And that is what people say to God. Isn't that amazing? I deserve
more than what you have given me. If you and I really realize what
an awful statement and an awful attitude that is when somebody
says concerning salvation, God owes every man a chance. Now you just think of that. God
owes everybody a chance. What would be the attitude of
our hearts to think that the sovereign God owes us anything but judgment
because of our sins. You owe me one chance. And what
if I turn when you give me a chance? Then you just give me what you
owe me. God does not owe us anything,
does He? All these many years, you never gave me what I deserve. Self-righteousness cannot be
thankful for anything because it thinks it deserves everything.
It cannot be content with the least of adversity because it
believes it deserves no opposition at all. It has earned a free
pass, and it is angry with God when He withholds His hand from
what it has earned. Fourthly, look at this in the
same verse. Self-righteousness is nothing
but filthy, lustful, covetous heart hid under the rags of morality. Self-righteousness is nothing
but a lustful, covetous, filthy heart hid underneath the rags
of morality. You say, Bruce, how do you get
that out of this verse? Well, look in the last portion of verse
29. You never gave me a kid. Look
at this. What did he want to do? That
I may make Mary with my friends. Uh-oh. Something's coming out
now. His anger has let something bubble
out here. What has he been wanting to do
all these years? He's been wanting to do the same thing that his
brother's doing. He's been wanting to party himself. You never gave me a kid that
I could party. What do you want? I want to turn
loose the reins of my lust. I want to have a big time. I
know what my brother's doing. And I want to be like him. But
he's had it cooped up, you see. How many preachers of you and
I know, famous preachers, that they had one or two little sins
that they preached about? Some awful sin of immorality. And they preached about it all
the time. In time to find out, they were
involved in it themselves. My poor dad, and I say this with
a broken heart about him, he was a free will Baptist preacher
all the time I was growing up. And man, everything, everything
that moved, he shot at it. It was sin. Everything was sin.
I remember Sam one time was out working the garden and I said,
I'll be. And man, I thought he was going to kill me. What did
you say, son? I'll be. And I didn't find out
for a long time later what came after that. But it was an awful
word. I had no idea what he was saying.
He was so strict that my brothers and sisters had to slip to listen
to the radio. And when my mother died, he went
wild. He started dating teenagers when
he was probably in his 60s. He had all of this lust pinned
up under these rags of morality. It was gelled up within him.
And he wanted to be turned loose so bad, when he finally got out
of that cell Man, he was a shame to watch. He embarrassed the
family to death. My dad, the Free Will Baptist
preacher. You never gave me a kid that
I could pardon. Fifthly, self-righteousness is
a hateful, vindictive, unforgiving, Judgmental attitude. This was
such a joyful occasion. Everybody was happy with it.
The shepherd has found his sheep and he's happy. He's rejoicing.
The woman had found the corn and she was happy and they called
everybody together. Here the father is. He's happy.
All the servants are happy. They're all shouting, singing,
dancing. Everybody's happy but one guy.
And he is mad as a wet ornate. You ever seen a wet hornet? You think wet hornets don't get
mad tries sometimes. We found a bunch of hornets when
my boy Chris was just young. And I told him, I said, son,
you better get out of here. I'm spreading these hornets. Oh, they won't
hurt me. And about that time, one hit
him right in the top of the head. Almost knocked him to his knees.
Mad as a wet hornet. Boy put a knot on his head. One
guy that was mad as a whale hornet, and who was he? He was this fine
fellow that never left home. He was this self-righteous man
that had never sinned against his father, that earned everything
he got. Everybody else was rejoicing
because the young brother had come home. He had been received
safe and sound. He had been clothed. He was invited
back into the house. Everybody was happy but this
guy. Verse 28, and he was angry and
would not go in. He said, I ain't having nothing
to do with this. I'm not counting this with my presence. No, I'm
not going in. I don't like it. I don't like
it. His attitude towards his brother,
he wouldn't even acknowledge his brother there in verse 30.
As soon as this thy son was come. Man, he was mad, wasn't he? He
was mad. And something else you'll notice
here in verse 30. As soon as this thy son was come,
which I devoured by living with harlots. Now was we told that
before this time? Nothing was said about the harlots.
It was said he wasted his substance with righteous living, but nothing
was said how he did it. Everybody else was modest. Everybody
else passed by the transgression because they loved this boy.
Boy, this guy said, I'll tell you what he's done. He was over
there with Harvest. How did he know that, I wonder? I bet you
he was watching him like a hawk, wasn't he? He's probably taking
notes, everything. That's what self-righteousness
does. It hates. It hates. Why are you angry? Why are you so angry? Don't you
want to ask some people that? Why are you so mad? Why is your
heart filled with anger? Why are you mad at God's little
people? They've done nothing, do you? Why are you mad at these
publicans? They just need a Savior. Why
are you angry with them? Oh, you find the fellow that
don't have any peace. You find the fellow that's just
looking down on everybody else and watching for some reason
to get mad at somebody and get hateful and mean. That guy's
full of self-righteousness. That's his problem. Meanness
and hatefulness manifest in an attitude of self-righteousness. And there's no kindness. There's
no patience. There's no meekness. You just
want to cram everything down everybody's throat. I'm up here
on this high run of the ladder, and you're way down here, and
if you don't see everything exactly the way I do, I'm going to cram
it down your throat. I mean, you're going to have
trouble. Meanness. Just mean. Well, that's self-righteousness.
That's what the Lord said these fellows were. Angry. Angry. He was angry and would not go
in. Self-righteousness is a sick,
selfish, needy heart. He just don't recognize it. That's
it. He just don't recognize it. Too
full of itself and hate. Four things in closing about
self-righteousness. Four things. Self-righteousness
will destroy the soul. as sure, as open, and profane
sins will. Self-righteousness is just another
road to hell. It will get you there as well
as adultery, as well as drunkenness, as well as blasphemy. Self-righteousness. Somebody said to Spurgeon, don't
you think it's our badness that keeps us from Christ? He said,
not really. It's usually our goodness. It's
usually our goodness. These publicans and their badness
came to Christ. The Pharisee and his goodness
would not come. Secondly, the heart is deceitful
above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? The heart can deceive itself.
And one of the ways it deceives itself is by self-righteousness. Listen to what the proverb says.
Every man will declare his own goodness. He sees sin in others
where he never sees it in himself. He'll justify it in himself.
He declares his own goodness, but a faithful man who can find
it. Thirdly, think of this. We must
judge ourselves in the light of God's Word. That's the only way to judge
ourselves. I never will forget old Ignatius in Pilgrim's Progress,
when they said, The heart's deceitful above all things, and desperately
wicked. He said, Mine's not. And Hope said, How do you know
it's not? He said, It tells me it's not. That's why we've got to judge
ourselves by the Word. The Bible has some things to
say about us. Remember the lesson that Wayne
taught you a couple of weeks ago last weekend? That wasn't
pretty, was it? The Bible doesn't have anything
good to say about us. Our ways are crooked. We're blind.
We're lepers. We're lame. Our carnal mind is
enmity against God. We're just no good. That's what
God says about us. We must judge ourselves by the
Word of God. If the Pharisees had did this,
if the scribes had laid open the Word of God, they'd have
judged themselves other than their heart judging them. Their
heart says, you fellows are pretty good guys. The Bible says your
ways are crooked. Your ways are crooked. Honest
men don't go to hell, Rothbard said. But self-righteousness
is not honesty. Honest men don't go to hell. But honest men don't say, I've
kept all your commandments. Fourthly and lastly is this.
Every time we come to the Lord Jesus Christ, every time we come
to Him, been on the way 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, 50 years,
every time we come to the Lord Jesus Christ, we should come
as though it's our first time. You say, Bruce, why do you say
that? What did we bring in our hands the first time we came?
Nothing. What can we bring now? Nothing. Nothing. I tell you, your pastor
goes to the Lord, and so often I go, and this is what I tell
him, Lord, I'm a leper. I'm a leper. I come just as that
man was full of leprosy. I come just as that woman was
with an issue of blood. I come as a poor, unworthy, miserable
sinner, just as though I'm coming for the first time. That's a
good way to come, is it not? You can't build up marriage to
make you more acceptable. You don't feel more like coming
tonight because you prayed well this morning. He don't give you
any more access because you've got a good frame of mind and
been thinking on heavenly things. That's not our access. Our access
is through Jesus Christ and Him only. Then come that way as though
you're coming for the very first time. Examine our hearts to see if
it's one with Jesus Christ. See if what pleases Him pleases
me. If what causes His heart to rejoice,
what causes my heart to rejoice? Our Lord rejoiced to save these
publicans. And their heart was one with
Him because they rejoiced over it too. And they rejoiced when
He saved other publicans. But these Pharisees, they were
mad. They were not one with Him. God bless His Word.