today to Luke chapter 7. Luke chapter 7. I'm going to begin reading in verse
31. Read through the chapter. And
the Lord said, Whereunto shall I liken the men of this generation? and to what are they like? They're
like unto children sitting in the marketplace and calling one
to another and saying, we have piped unto you and you have not
danced. We have mourned to you and you
have not wept. For John the Baptist came neither
eating bread nor drinking wine and you say, he hath a devil. The Son of Man has come eating
and drinking And you say, behold, a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber,
a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of all
her children. And one of the Pharisees desired
him that he would eat with him, and he went in to the Pharisee's
house and sat down to meet. And behold, a woman in the city,
which was a sinner, When she knew that Jesus sat at meat in
the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment
and stood at his feet behind him weeping and began to wash
his feet with tears and did wipe them with the hairs of her head
and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment. Now when
the Pharisee, which had bidden him, saw it, he spake or thought
within himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would
have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth
him, for she is a sinner. And Jesus answering, said unto
him, Simon, I have some what to say unto thee, and he saith,
Master, say on. There was a certain creditor
which had two debtors. The one owed 500 pence and the
other 50. And when they had nothing to
pay, he frankly, freely forgave them both. Tell me therefore,
which of them will love him most? Simon answered and said, I suppose
that he to whom he forgave most. And he said unto him, thou hast
rightly judged. And he turned to the woman and
said unto Simon, seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house,
thou gavest me no water for my feet, but she hath washed my
feet with tears and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou
gavest me no kiss, but this woman, since the time I came in, hath
not ceased to kiss my feet. My head withal thou didst not
anoint, but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment. Wherefore
I say unto thee, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she
loved much. But to whom little is forgiven,
the same loveth little. And he said unto her, thy sins
are forgiven. And they that said it meet with
him began to say within themselves, who is this that forgiveth sins
also? And he said to the woman, thy
faith has saved thee, go in peace. The title of my message this
morning is A Forgiven Sinner. A Forgiven Sinner. The primary
subject of the verses that I want to speak to us from is, of course,
the forgiveness of sinners. And I cannot imagine any subject
that should interest you and I any more than the forgiveness
of sins, the forgiveness of sinners. What could be possibly more important
to you or to me than the subject of the forgiveness of sin, saying
that the scriptures tell us and we recognize in our heart that
all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and that
the wages of sin is death, eternal death. What could be of more
interest to any person in this world than the forgiveness of
sins? Now, I've divided the message
into three parts, and in each part, I want us to say something
about Christ. First, the conduct of the Lord
Jesus Christ. The conduct of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And I have two points I want
to mention when I speak to us about his conduct. First, he
accepted the invitation to eat with the Pharisee. Now we preachers,
myself and others who preach the gospel of the grace of God,
we like to make much of the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ ate
with publicans and sinners. I do, and I know all of my friends
who preach the gospel do as well. If you notice in verse In verse
34, he said himself that he was called a gluttonous man and a
winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. And in Luke chapter
15, if you want to turn over there just a few pages, we have
the parable in which the Lord speaks about the lost sheep,
the lost coin, and the lost son. one parable, but it was given. The Lord Jesus Christ gave this
parable in response to this accusation against him. Then drew near unto
him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. And the Pharisees
and scribes murmured saying, this man receiveth sinners and
eateth with them. Now I said it myself and other
preachers of the gospel of the grace of God, we like to make
much of this because our desire is to show to all men and women
the willingness, the ability of the Lord Jesus Christ to forgive
sinners no matter how great a sinner a person might be, no matter
how deep into the depths of depravity and sin a person may have gone. The Lord Jesus Christ is presented
to us in the word of God as a man, as a savior who delights to save
sinners. He delights in saving sinners. But we see in this passage of
scripture that it wasn't just publicans and sinners that he
would eat with, but also he accepted the invitation to eat with this
man, which was a Pharisee. Now this, of course, is not to
say that the Pharisees were not sinners, for they were. In fact, the Lord Jesus Christ
spoke his most scathing words to Pharisees. Let me give you
just three examples from Matthew chapter 23. Woe unto you scribes
and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you devour widows' houses and
for pretense make long prayer. Therefore you shall receive the
greater damnation. Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites, for you tithe mint tithe of men, and anise, and
cumin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment,
that is righteousness, mercy, and faith. These ought you should
have done, and not to leave the other undone. Woe unto you. Now, when I say these are his
most scathing words which were pronounced to Pharisees, I want
you to remember he was speaking to Pharisees. It wasn't like
he was in a group of publicans and sinners and said these things
about the scribes and the Pharisees. No, he was talking in the temple
that was full of scribes Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites, for you may clean the outside of the cup and the
platter, but within, within, the outside, you've got it all
dressed up, all cleaned up, all perfumed up, and you look so
righteous and so religious, but inside, inside the cup, inside
the platter, It's full of extortion and excess. Our Lord ate, yes, with publicans
and sinners, but he also ate with Pharisees, with the religious
crowd. You see, religious people need
the gospel too. There's never been a time, I
don't suppose, when Religious people do not need the gospel
more than the day in which we live. Because religion is a big
business. And it seems like the world is
full of it. And yet in so many places where
there's so much religion, but no gospel. But you see the Lord
Jesus Christ, he said, I'm not come to call the righteous, but
to sinners. to repentance. I'm not come to
call the righteous but sinners to repentance. In preaching the
gospel, those of us who preach the gospel, and those of you
who witness to others of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ,
we all must be careful not to set up certain qualifications. No, the gospel is for sinners. Sinners, religious sinners, lost,
depraved sinners that make no pretense of religion. The gospel
is for sinners. I remember years ago preaching
a message to us about Elisha and that widow of the prophet
who came to him and and explained to Elisha how that her husband,
who he knew had been a faithful prophet, and he had died and
left her and her two sons penniless. And now the debtors were coming
to take her two sons. And Elisha told her, you go and
borrow from your neighbors all the vessels that you can find
and bring them home. And with that little jar that
you have and a little oil, you began to pour. And I pointed
out to us, and I still remember this, there was no qualifications
to the vessels. Some vessels, some jars were
big, some jars were little. Some jars have a long neck on
them, and some jars have a small opening, some have a large mouth. He made no qualifications. Just go out and gather, borrow
all the jars that you can find and bring them home and they
will all be filled. And that's the way it is in preaching
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is to go into the
world and preach the gospel to every creature. And as the scriptures
are concluded in Revelation chapter 22, we have this statement. And the spirit and the bride
say come. The bride, the church, the spirit,
God the Holy Spirit. The bride and the spirit say
come. And let him that heareth say
come. And let him that is athirst come. Come, and whosoever will, let
him take of the water of life freely. Come. That's the message
that we preach, the message which we proclaim. The gospel is for
sinners, for anyone and everyone who recognizes their need, that
they are sinful creatures. and have need of forgiveness. Whosoever will. Will you? You
say, well, I didn't think man had a free will. He doesn't.
Will you? Will you come? Then come! Will you take of the water of
life and drink freely? If you will, then God's given
you that will. Drink! Drink! Drink freely! believe the gospel of Jesus Christ,
the conduct of our Lord. I see that, first of all, in
him accepting the invitation to go and eat with the Pharisee,
but second, I see in his conduct that he spoke to this stranger. Now I'm referring to this woman,
this woman who came in and bathed his feet in tears and and dried
them with her hair and anointed his feet with ointment. I'm speaking
of her as a stranger. I don't know how many people
were there that day. There were others there eating
at the table, no doubt quite a few servants. But this woman,
she was a stranger. And as far as the narrative reveals,
no one spoke to her. but the Savior. No one. No one. And I mention this because
in the law, in the covenant that God gave and made with the nation
of Israel, He mentioned the stranger. I want you to look at two places
in the Old Testament with me. One place We read of the stranger
in the other place of the bondman. First in Exodus, if you will,
chapter 23. Exodus chapter 23. And then we're
going to look in Deuteronomy chapter 15. But first in Exodus chapter 23 and
verse 9. God said, and thou shalt not
oppress a stranger. Now notice this, for you know
the heart of a stranger. In other words, the soul in your
margin. For you know, you shall not oppress
a stranger. For you know the soul of a stranger,
seeing you were strangers in the land of Egypt. Now in Deuteronomy
chapter 15, and this concerns a Hebrew who had somehow come into debt, into
extreme poverty, and sold himself as a slave to another Hebrew. In Deuteronomy chapter 15, beginning
with verse 12, it says, And if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or
an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years,
then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee.
And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not
let him go away empty. Thou shalt furnish him liberally
out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress,
of that wherewith the Lord thy God hath blessed thee. Thou shalt
give unto him. Now notice, and thou shalt remember
that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the Lord thy
God redeemed thee. Therefore, I command thee this
thing today. In three other places in Deuteronomy,
we read the same thing. Thou shalt remember that thou
wast a bondman in the land of Egypt. We see again in this passage
that we're looking at in the New Testament, how that the Lord
Jesus Christ perfectly fulfilled the law of God as a representative
of his people. He was a stranger. Even though
he was in his world, this was his world, and yet he was a stranger
in his own creation. He came unto his own, and his
own received him not. Not only that, but when he was
presented in the temple by Joseph and his mother Mary, at about
six weeks of age, they paid the redemption price, which was five
shekels. So the Lord Jesus Christ, I'm
using this to point out to us his conduct concerning a stranger,
a bondwoman, this woman. He's the only one that we know
of who spoke to this woman. And the point I want to make
to all of us is, and I'm so thankful today that I know this is so,
that this congregation, those of you here, the way that you
receive strangers and bondmen, remembering that we too at one
time were far off from God. We didn't know God. We had no
interest in the things of the Lord. God had mercy upon us. And so when God sends strangers
among us, visitors, how we are to speak to them and receive
them and, if possible, encourage them in the gospel of the grace
of God. Our Lord, He spoke to this stranger,
His conduct. There's a lesson, isn't there?
I may not be able to bring it out as it should be, but think
about it. There's a lesson for all of us
in looking at the conduct of the Lord Jesus Christ. He could
speak to a servant. He could speak and did to a woman
that probably no one else would even acknowledge. I watched a report several years
ago of a woman who was not poor. She was, actually, she was an
actress, Hollywood actress. And she feigned herself as a
homeless person. And she went out begging. And
she said this, and she was doing it as some kind of research project. But she said the thing that hurt
me more than anything else is that people, even when they would
give you something to help you, would not even acknowledge you. They wouldn't even look at you. to be God when He came into this
world. He laid aside His glory. I know
it's a mystery. Great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh,
and it is above our ability to fully comprehend. But we know
this. God is immutable. God cannot
change. And when the Lord Jesus Christ
took into unity, or into union rather, with his person, that
body which was prepared him of the Virgin Mary by God the Holy
Spirit, he didn't cease to be God. He knew what was in this
man's heart. Now this man, the Pharisee, he
looked at the Lord Jesus Christ and saw that he allowed this
woman to kiss his feet, to touch him, and all that she was doing
there, and he thought, well, he couldn't be a prophet. He
couldn't be a prophet, because if he were a prophet, he would
know what manner of woman this is. Now, this woman, evidently,
she was well known. When the scripture says she was
a sinner, most of the commentators say she was most likely a harlot. She was a harlot. And she was
well known as a prostitute in that place. Everyone knew her. And Simon, he thought, well,
the Lord Jesus Christ, Lord Jesus Christ, he doesn't recognize
who she is. If he did, he wouldn't allow
him to touch her. And the Lord Jesus Christ knew
what was in his heart. He not only knew what this woman
was who was touching him, but he also knew what Simon was,
who was finding fault with him. He knew what was in his heart. This man was like that Pharisee
that our Lord describes in his parable in Luke chapter 18, who
went up into the temple to pray, and he prayed with himself, saying,
God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men. And that's probably
what he was saying about this time. God, I thank Thee that
I am not as this woman. Now, the omniscience of the Lord
Jesus Christ, the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, He is God. When we worship Him, and we do
worship Him, if He's not God, we would be idolaters to worship
Him. We worship Him because He is
God. Yes, God, man, but yes, God Almighty
in the flesh. We've seen that Him, sometimes
we have come into His house and gathered in His name to worship
Him. Worship Him, Christ Jesus, our
Lord. Now the third part of my message
is the forgiveness of sinners by the Lord Jesus Christ. So
we've seen, we looked at the conduct of the Lord Jesus Christ,
we looked at the omniscience, that is the deity of the Lord
Jesus Christ, and now the forgiveness of sinners by the Lord Jesus
Christ. He alone, as the God-man mediator,
has the absolute right to forgive sinners. I was called to jury duty several
years ago, and I was taken in to that place where the lawyers
ask you certain questions, you know, And one asked me, I never
will forget this, he said something to the effect, you know that
not everyone can forgive a person, right? And I told him, I said,
well, no one can forgive a person of murder except God. And they didn't like that response. But God's the only one who can
forgive sin. The God-man mediator, the Lord
Jesus Christ, He is the only one who has the authority and
the power to forgive sinners. And the reason He does is because
He has made that one sacrifice, that one, Scripture calls it
the propitiation, that one sacrifice. that satisfies God on behalf
of the guilty. As God, He had power to forgive
sins before He came into the world. Now, about 2,000 years
ago, He came into the world as a man. But long before that,
He had power to forgive sin. When he was in this world as
a man, he had power to forgive sin as he did this woman. And
he's exalted in heaven today as the God man who has authority
to forgive sinners. You should never go, no one should
ever go to a human priest and ask for forgiveness. Go to God. Go to Him, the Lord Jesus Christ. You say, where is He? He's everywhere. We live, we move, we have our
being in Him. Go to Him. Not to the preacher. Not to the baptismal pool or
anything. Don't look there for forgiveness.
Look to Christ and Christ alone. Now let me show us five things
hurriedly about His forgiveness, the forgiveness of sins. First
of all, the forgiveness of sinners by the Lord Jesus Christ is free,
is free. This is the whole point of our
Lord's parable. In verses 41 and 42, this is
the whole point of our Lord's parable. His forgiveness is free. This woman had already been forgiven. When she came into the house
that day, she had already been forgiven. You say, when? I don't
know when. But the Lord Jesus Christ had already forgiven her
her sins. His forgiveness is free forgiveness. And this seems to be the point
that is the most difficult for any of us to fully understand
and fully appreciate. We all, for one reason or the
other, think that there's something we must do, something that we
must experience, something that we must promise to do, something
in the future we must fulfill. That's a great mistake. The whole
point of our Lord's parable is His forgiveness is free. Neither of these debtors one
owed a greater amount, that's true, but neither one of them
had the ability to pay. And so the creditor forgave them all. His forgiveness
is free. Secondly, the forgiveness of
sinners by the Lord Jesus Christ is full. Full forgiveness. Thy sins are forgiven thee. How
many? All. How many? All. Each and every one. All are forgiven. They're all
forgiven. Past sins, present sins. future sins all are forgiven. His forgiveness is free and it
is full. There's a verse in Isaiah 38
which says, For thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back. Think about that. God, thou hast
cast all my sins behind thy back. Someone said, Where is his back?
Nowhere. That's where our sins are. Nowhere. They're gone. They're obliterated. They'll never, ever be remembered
again. That's the promise of the covenant. His forgiveness. It's free. It's full. And number three,
the forgiveness of sinners by the Lord Jesus Christ is forever. I've heard that there have been
in history certain despots who had the ability to release, to
pardon criminals, and there was one Caesar, they said, who would
do this. He would send word to the prison
that a certain person was pardoned and he would be turned loose
and on his way home or wherever and then he would be apprehended
and he would be told, no, pardon's rejected, pardon's revoked. Changed his mind. Oh no, the
Lord Jesus Christ, when he forgives, It is forever. Forever. That's the reason Paul said,
I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel,
the good news that he has reference to, there was the Caesar who
would send someone word, good news, you're pardoned, you're
on your way free, you're gone. No, no. Changed my mind. No. I'm not ashamed of the gospel
of Jesus Christ. For it is the power of God unto
salvation unto everyone that believeth. Number four, the forgiveness
of sinners by the Lord Jesus Christ is manifested by love. This woman's love, as she came
in and began to wash his feet and anoint his feet and dry his
feet and kiss his feet, this was not the cause Her sins were
not forgiven because she did this. This was the effect. The effect of forgiveness was
that it produced love. Love. And every one of us this
morning who confessed that our sins have been forgiven, then
we too should ask ourselves, As the Lord asked Simon, Simon,
who will love him most? The one that was forgiven 500
pence or the one that was forgiven 50 pence? And some of us here
today, we talk about, and we know it's so, the greatness of
our sins that have been forgiven. Well, do we manifest that by
our love to Christ? This woman did. She did. You know, people who deny that
this is the way that God forgives sinners, they think, no, you've
got to merit forgiveness. You've got to work for it. You've
got to earn it. You've got to deserve it. And
to preach what you're preaching, to preach what you are saying,
Pastor Pledger is to encourage people to live in sin. How foolish, how foolish. The gospel of the grace of God
that brings salvation teaches us to live not an ungodly lifestyle,
but to deny ungodliness and worldly lust. and to live soberly, righteously,
and godly in this present world. I guarantee you this woman, this
woman in this history, she never, until the Lord forgave her, even
began to live soberly and righteously and godly. It was because her
sins were forgiven and she loved him and she wanted to please
him and serve him. And here's the last, the fifth,
the forgiveness of sinners by the Lord Jesus Christ issues
in peace. He said unto her, go in peace. And this is the only way that
anyone will ever have peace with God and that is to have our sins
forgiven through the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ. And peace is such a wonderful
thing, isn't it? If you've ever been convicted
of sin and your conscience is troubled, you know what I'm talking
about. And then when you look to Christ
and trust in him and realize that your sins are gone, they're
gone. That's when that peace, like
a river, comes into your soul, isn't it? Peace, peace, wonderful
peace. Peace with God, peace with those
that we live with, peace, we want to live in peace. Blessed
are the peacemakers for they are the children of God. Let
us sing a hymn, a few verses of a hymn Number 354. Let's stand as we
sing.