Four hearts; Luke 8: 1-15

Last week we looked at the woman who was a sinner, most likely a prostitute, who came to Jesus and washed His feet with her tears.  And Jesus tells the woman in response to her repentance and faith that her sins were forgiven her.  The Pharisees who were present scoffed at this woman, and even Jesus’ authenticity because they supposed that if Jesus knew what kind of woman she was, He wouldn’t have let her touch Him.  But if you will remember, Jesus rebuked the Pharisee for his hard heart, and said in so many words, “he who is forgiven much will love much.”

And we deduced from this teaching that the fruit of forgiveness is love, or service to God, which is the result of salvation.  Those that are truly saved through faith and repentance will love God, by serving Him with all that they have, and in all that they do.  That’s the fruit, or proof that they are saved.

Now today, Luke, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit brings us to another illustration of that principle.  He takes the principle that being saved produces godly fruit, and extrapolates that for us through the record of one of Jesus’ parables.  It’s called the Parable of the Sower, and it’s one of Christ’s most famous parables.  A parable by the way, is a spiritual principle presented by an earthy illustration.   Para means to come alongside, so that the spiritual application comes alongside of the physical story.

As we look at this chapter, we notice that it says in vs. 1 that at this time Jesus was traveling about from one small village to another, preaching the gospel of the kingdom.  By now, He has the 12 with Him, and also a group of women that had been healed from sickness or delivered from evil spirits.  Vs. 3 says that they were supporting Jesus and the disciples through their private means.  What that illustrates is that even at the beginning of Jesus ministry, there was established a Biblical precedent for the principle Paul speaks of in  1Tim.  5:17 which says, “The elders who rule well are to be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching.  For the Scripture says, “YOU SHALL NOT MUZZLE THE OX WHILE HE IS THRESHING,” and “The laborer is worthy of his wages.”

Now in addition to this growing inner circle of people who were his disciples and genuine followers, there were also large crowds that showed up wherever He went.  And Luke tells us that on this day a large crowd gathered to see Jesus. In such a large crowd, there were undoubtedly some who just came for curiosities sake, there were some perhaps that were wanting to be healed, there were others in the crowd that were scoffers, like the Pharisees, and of course, there were His genuine disciples and true followers who were the minority in the crowd.  And so seeing this mixed multitude, Jesus told a parable that would speak to each of these audiences. The normal tendency is for the audience to critique the preacher. But here, Jesus the preacher is critiquing His audience. The issue is how they  will listen.

Jesus used a familiar illustration for His message.  He was speaking outdoors, to a largely agrarian  community, who only had to look around to see what Jesus was  illustrating acted out. There may have even been a farmer sowing his field on a nearby hillside as He taught.  So He tells a parable of a farmer who goes out to sow.  And such a man would wear a bag slung over one shoulder which contained seed.  And as he walked down the furrows of his field, he would cast his grain with his other arm.  And “and as he sowed, some fell beside the road, and it was trampled under foot and the birds of the air ate it up.  Other seed fell on rocky soil, and as soon as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture.  Other seed fell among the thorns; and the thorns grew up with it and choked it out.  Other seed fell into the good soil, and grew up, and produced a crop a hundred times as great.”

Now as the multitude was perhaps scratching their heads over that, then Jesus called out in a loud voice, “he who has ears to hear, let him hear!”  Or perhaps we might understand it better to say, “he who hears, let him listen!”  In other words, Jesus is indicating that there is an underlying spiritual message here that needs to be understood.  So His disciples asked Jesus to explain the parable.

Now this next statement Luke records Jesus as  making in vs. 10 is an abbreviated version from what Matthew’s gospel records.  A more complete statement is found in Matt. 13:10 “And the disciples came and said to Him, “Why do You speak to them in parables?” Jesus answered them, “To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted. For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him.  Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.”  The last statement there Jesus is quoting from Isaiah 6:9.

What Jesus was saying was that the disciples, who were His true followers, were part of the Kingdom of God, and as such, they would be given more wisdom.  But the majority of the people in the crowd had not repented at His preaching, they had not shown the type of sorrow over their sin as the woman had who had washed His feet. They had not hungered and thirsted after righteousness.  Instead, they were self satisfied. As a result, they remained in their sins, outside of the Kingdom of God.  Jesus goes on to say that even what they think that they already possessed, that is they thought that they had a place in the Kingdom because they were born Jews, or they were circumcised, or because they were religious, Jesus says what they think that they have will be taken away from them.

Then in vs. 11, Jesus begins to explain the parable.  He says, “Now the parable is this: the seed is the word of God.”  Stop right there.  I often find myself  defending our emphasis on the preaching of the word of God.  If you are a regular here, then you know that I don’t often tell jokes.  I don’t know many good stories.  I rarely use an illustration that isn’t in the Bible.  And maybe that is seen as a detriment to my preaching.  Maybe I am just not clever enough for some people.  I have but one book of illustrations and that is the Bible.  But I believe it is more than enough to meet every need.  Hebrews 4:12 says,  that “the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”   There is a power in the word that will never be matched by man’s words.  Songs are great, prayer is necessary, testimonies are important at times, but the word of God is powerful to the point of being able to pierce and convict man’s heart.

Jesus is saying that the word of God is the chosen seed by which man comes to be saved.  Paul writing to Timothy said, “from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”  Did you get that?  The Word of God is able to give the wisdom that leads to salvation.  And Paul said that was because “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.”  Our job is to spread the word of God, to sow it into the hearts of our friends and neighbors and families that they might be saved.  Nothing else will get the job done.

Now the explanation that Jesus gives can obviously be broken down into four points, or four types of soil.  Jesus makes it clear that the soil is a metaphor for the human heart.  The Word of God is the seed, and the soil is the human heart.  And there are four types of hearts illustrated by Jesus, and four responses to the Word.

The first one is the indifferent heart.  It’s a hard heart. Jesus says it is like the soil near the edges of the field which were well trodden paths, or roads.  This is soil that is hard.  It has not been broken up.  This is someone that isn’t broken over their sinfulness.  They haven’t come in broken repentance to seek after righteousness.  For whatever reason, they are indifferent to the word of God.

Listen, the key to spiritual birth or spiritual growth, either one, is brokenness.  David said in  Psalm  51:17 “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.”  I don’t care how mature you may think you are in your Christianity, you should never get past the point of being broken before God, humbling yourself and realizing that you need to be remade, that you can do nothing without Christ working through you.

Another thing that Jesus says about this hard soil is that it was trampled underfoot and the birds of the air come and eat up the seed. Jesus said in another place that salt, which at that time was so valuable that it was often used as money was thrown out and trampled under foot when it lost it’s saltiness.  So trampled underfoot means that they did not think it was valuable.  They failed to see the word of God as important and so it was trampled underfoot.  And then Jesus explained that the birds of the air represented Satan and his demons, who come and snatch away the word, lest it start to take root and they become saved.  Once again, Jesus emphasizes that the word is the means of being saved.  And so Satan has since the beginning, way back in the Garden of Eden, been at war against the word of God.  He is working even in the church, even right now, to distract, to confuse, to deceive people into thinking that the word of God is not that important.  Church services today seem to have an emphasis on entertainment, while the word of God is rarely actually preached.   But Jesus says that it is essential to salvation.

Don’t be deceived, the devil is alive and well in the church today, stealing the word of God from it’s place of authority and supremacy.  There is another parable Jesus gave in Matthew 13 where he likens the Kingdom of Heaven to a mustard seed which grew into this great big tree in the garden.  But mustard seeds usually produce a big bush, not a tree, and certainly not a large tree.  And He said that the birds of the air come and nest in it’s branches.  Any guesses what the birds of the air signifies? The answer is right here in Luke.  The birds of the air are Satan and his angels, and they have taken up residence, they are nesting in the church.

There is a phenomenon today in some churches that claim that angel feathers fall down from the rafters during the services. And they say that this is a sign of the power of the Holy Spirit being there.  There is nothing like that recorded in Scripture.  And so I can assure you that it’s not of God either. Experience is not the acid test for the power of God.  Everything is to be tested against the word of God. The Bible tells us we are to test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because there are many spirits in the world.   Maybe Satan and his angels are in the rafters, but it certainly isn’t of the Lord.  These churches give credence to these type of things because they want to give credence to the word of man, not the word of God.  They want to tell you what they think rather than what God thinks.

The second soil or the second heart Jesus illustrated is described as rocky soil, vs. 13; “Those on the rocky soil are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no firm root; they believe for a while, and in time of temptation fall away.”  This is the superficial heart.  It’s a heart that is impulsive.  They have not counted the cost of following Jesus.

I find it interesting that Jesus characterizes their flash in the pan profession as being with joy.  Joy is a great part of our salvation experience.  But it is not the only part, nor even the most essential part. Contrary to a lot of false teaching out there today, Jesus didn’t die on the cross just to make us happy. Jesus said, “blessed are those that mourn, for they shall be comforted.”  There is a godly sorrow that is necessary in coming to God in repentance.  Being sick of your sin and wanting to be forgiven of it, willing to do anything to escape that condemnation.

Furthermore, he says these people have no firm root.  What does that mean?  It means that they happily believe everything, but have no foundation for anything.  They have a theology that is a mile wide and an inch thick.  They haven’t become rooted and grounded in the word.  The seed fell on rocky soil which didn’t hold water.  They had a faith that didn’t hold water.  When times got tough, their faith failed because it wasn’t founded on the promises of God.  It was founded on a bunch of malarkey that some television evangelist promised.  You need to make sure that your faith is not founded on some word of faith, but faith in God’s word, which is the true foundation of our faith. These rocky soil hearts withered away when the heat turned up in their lives.  They had no root.  And their faith didn’t hold water.

The third category is that heart or soil that becomes choked by thorns.  Jesus says in vs. 14, ““The seed which fell among the thorns, these are the ones who have heard, and as they go on their way they are choked with worries and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to maturity.”

I think this heart is the one that is most often found in the church.  They have heard the word, they may even have sincerely made a profession of faith, but as time goes on the flame flickers low and the world’s cares creeps in until they are consumed by just living their lives.  Jesus describes three cares of this world that choke out fruitfulness.  Worries, riches and pleasures.  None of those things are sins in and of themselves.  But Hebrews 12:1 tells us that they can have a sinful effect. “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.”  These cares of the world can become a weight that slow us down.  They can impede our progress to the point that we cannot run the race as God intended us.

You know, in my life I found that God needed to strip me of a lot of what I considered essential in order to use me as He wanted to use me.  I had a lot of weights weighing me down.  I had some bad habits that were holding me back.  I had mortgages and second mortgages.  I had bills upon bills, obligations and commitments, all kinds of responsibilities that I thought were what life was all about.   But God in his infinite wisdom knew that if He were to use me He was going to have to remake me.  And He started that process by taking everything that I thought was important away from me.  And when I was broken and broke and totally dependent upon him for everything, then He began to build me back up by building me up first of all verse by verse in the word.  And then He showed me that I could live pretty comfortably far beneath the financial level of what is considered normal.  But you know what, I have noticed that you don’t see many overweight runners.  The best runners are lean.  And that is what I am.  I am running a race for God, and I need to lay aside all weights and sins which so easily beset me.

What are your top concerns or cares right now?  Are you overly concerned about riches?  Are you chasing the almighty dollar? Are you trying to juggle all the financial requirements that the world has told you that you just have to have to succeed.  How about pleasure?  We all love pleasure.  Our society is consumed with pleasure.  And there is nothing wrong with enjoying what God has provided for us.  But when we become overly consumed with chasing waves, or little white balls around a golf course, or travelling or whatever pleasure you may have, then it is choking out the spiritual life which Christ  has for you.  We have forgotten that verse which says, we are not our own, we are bought with a price. We need to ask ourselves what we are chasing after, what we are working for?  Are we working for the weekend, or are we working for the kingdom?

The final type of heart is represented by the good soil.  Vs. 15, “But the seed in the good soil, these are the ones who have heard the word in an honest and good heart, and hold it fast, and bear fruit with perseverance.”  The  word perseverance is the Greek word hypomonē.  It means to patiently bear up under adversity. It’s the same word James uses when he says, in James 1:3, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.”  Trials and tribulations will come to the Christian as well as the non Christian.  Maybe even more for the Christian during times of tribulation.  But we are to hold fast to the word of God.  The idea is making a ship fast by it’s lines to the anchor or the shore.  Our faith is not in our faith, in other words, our faith is not in wishful thinking, but holding fast to the written promises of God’s word.

How does one get an honest and good heart?  We go back to what David said in the Psalms, we start  with a broken and contrite heart, a heart that repents of their sins and hungers and thirsts for the righteousness of Jesus Christ.  When David sinned with Bathsheba and later was convicted he called out to God to “create in me a clean heart, O Lord.  Restore a right spirit within me.”  That’s the only way to have a good, honest heart, it is through a supernatural transformation by the Holy Spirit within us as we call upon the Lord in repentance and faith to give us a new heart.

God said to Samuel when He sent him to find David to be king of Israel, that man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart.  I can’t see your heart this morning.  I see only your fruit, or lack of it.  God looks at the heart, and He knows those who are His.

A lot of preachers who preach this parable try to ascertain which hearts are saved and which are not in this parable.  It’s obvious that the first heart isn’t saved, because Jesus says they are not.  But after that, it’s hard to say.  I don’t try to make that determination.  Jesus said in another place that the enemy has sown tares in with the wheat and you can’t tell the difference between them at first.  Only at the harvest time is it evident by their fruit which is wheat and which is tares. So you will be judged by your fruit.  Jesus said in Matthew 7 that by their fruits you shall know them.

I can tell you this.  That all of us can have our fruitfulness choked by the cares of the world.  All of us can find ourselves in a barren place where our hearts are not being watered by the word of God and fellowship.  There is only one place where God wants us to be, and that is the place of the good and honest heart, that holds on fast to the word of God, that anchors our lives around the teaching of the word, and that produces fruit in it’s proper time.  God wants to use us for His glory and for building up the kingdom of heaven.  I trust that you will be found faithful when He comes.

A picture of true repentance; Luke 7:36-50

It’s helpful to understand when going through the four gospels that each gospel writer is, in effect, painting a portrait of Christ.  They are not necessarily writing a biography of the life of Christ.  Not every event is recorded by each writer.  Some include some incidents that others do not.  And that is because each writer is presenting a portrait of Christ that is unique from the other gospels.

Luke now inserts an incident which may or may not be chronologically the next event in Christ’s life, but from a theological point of view it illustrates what he is trying to convey.  And what Luke is trying to portray here is nothing less than the heart of the gospel, salvation.  What it means to be saved.

Some of you are not used to hearing that word saved.  Perhaps it’s not something that you either understand, or you are not a fan of it’s implications.  But notice that Jesus himself introduces this word saved in vs. 50; “Your faith has saved you.”  The Greek word sōzō is used in the NT 123 times in 101 verses.  And it is important that we know what it means.  The definition of sōzō is to save, keep safe and sound, to rescue from danger or destruction, and particularly in a Biblical context, to save from the judgment to come.

Now just a few passages earlier in the story of the centurion, Luke introduced faith as a necessary ingredient for  salvation.  And then we looked at John the Baptist, a great man of faith, even though he had some doubts when he was in prison.  We learned that the great thing about John was when he was confused, he came to the source of our faith, which is Jesus Christ.

But directly afterwards Jesus presents a rebuke to the crowds that were following him, particularly to the Pharisees and lawyers,  the religious people in the crowd because they had failed to respond to either John’s message or His message.  And Jesus propounds a riddle or a parable, where He said, ““They are like children who sit in the market place and call to one another, and they say, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not weep.’

What that meant was that John the Baptist had come preaching the need for repentance in preparation for the kingdom, and they had not responded to that message by mourning over their sin.  And Jesus had come preaching a message of forgiveness and they had not responded to that message either.  So He was condemning them through this parable because they had not responded to the gospel.

Now as I said, Luke inserts this next incident because he is going to draw an even clearer contrast between the proper response to the gospel of salvation, and an indifferent response.  He is going to show that the way to salvation, the way to forgiveness, is by repentance, a mourning over your sinful condition.

The incident begins with a prominent Pharisee inviting Jesus to come to his house for dinner.  Now initially, this sounds like a step in the right direction for the Pharisee.  But as we will see, his interest in Jesus did not come to the right conclusion.  So Jesus reclines at the table with the dinner guests in the home of the Pharisee.  And it may be helpful to realize that they did not sit at a dinner table like we do today.  They laid cushions or low couches around a long, low table that the food was served on.  And the dinner guests would lie half reclining at the table, with their legs folded back behind them somewhat.

And we might also surmise from the way most larger houses were constructed then, that there was a walled compound around the house, and the houses generally were  opened up to the courtyard, and this would have been where the meal would have been served.  So if the gate is open, then it would be possible to walk in and observe or even join in the dinner group.

Vs. 37 then tells us that  “there was a woman in the city who was a sinner; and when she learned that He was reclining at the table in the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster vial of perfume, and standing behind Him at His feet, weeping, she began to wet His feet with her tears, and kept wiping them with the hair of her head, and kissing His feet and anointing them with the perfume.”

The phrase, who was a sinner carries a lot of implications.  Obviously, it did not mean this woman was the only person in the city who was a sinner. The Bible teaches us that all have sinned and  fallen short of the glory of God.  But the phrase indicated that this woman was most likely a known prostitute.  It was a small town, and we know how small towns are.  She was a woman of ill repute.  Everyone knew it, and she had probably stopped trying  to hide it.  After all, it is pretty hard to hide something like that even today, and much less in those days when social decorum demanded that a woman dress and behave in very prescribed ways.

This woman came to see Jesus because she had undoubtedly heard Jesus speak of repentance and the need for  forgiveness, two of the main themes of His messages. She had obviously heard the message that Jesus was preaching which is found in chapter 4: “THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME, BECAUSE HE ANOINTED ME TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR. HE HAS SENT ME TO PROCLAIM RELEASE TO THE CAPTIVES, AND RECOVERY OF SIGHT TO THE BLIND, TO SET FREE THOSE WHO ARE OPPRESSED,TO PROCLAIM THE FAVORABLE YEAR OF THE LORD.”  And conviction had been working on her heart. So when she heard that Jesus was having dinner at this house, she wanted to see Him.  I’m sure her heart was breaking because of her sin.  She knew what she did was wrong.  She felt an immense sense of shame.  She was convicted of her sin and wanted to see Jesus to make it right.  And somehow she knew that He was the source of righteousness.  She may not have understood every tenet of theology, but she knew she was a sinner, she was ashamed of her sin, and she knew that Jesus could help her.  She understood that she was poor, that she was a captive of her sin, that she was oppressed, and that Christ was offering forgiveness in the favorable year of the Lord. That’s what the favorable year of the Lord meant, it meant a time when all debt would be forgiven.

But as she comes to Jesus, perhaps walking up quietly from a darkened corner of the portico, her grief over her sin overwhelms her.  She kneels down at His feet, actually bowing down at His feet, which would have positioned her somewhat behind Him, and she begins to weep.  And the word used in the text to describe her weeping doesn’t indicate shedding a few tears, but a torrent of weeping, she is literally drenching his feet with her tears.

Listen, please understand that this is not teaching that an emotional experience is a means of salvation.  Just having some emotional experience in and of itself is not salvation.  But her emotion is tied directly to conviction over her sin and her perceived need for forgiveness.  It was tied directly to repentance.   And in that case, then an emotional outburst is entirely in keeping with a mourning over one’s sin. Weeping is a natural part of mourning.  A feeling of being ashamed is actually essential to the matter of repentance.  A feeling of remorse, of grief, of shame.  And a heartfelt desire to find forgiveness.

That is what Jesus was talking about in the Sermon on the Mount in Matt. 5 when Jesus said, “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.”  He was talking about sinfulness and that those who mourn over their sin, will be comforted.  They will be forgiven.  That is why this woman comes to Jesus.

And as she weeps at His feet, she sees does what the lowest slave would customarily do when the dinner guests arrived.  She washed his feet.  In that day it was customary when guests arrived at your house to have a slave take off your sandals, and wash the dust and grime from your feet, and anoint them with a scented oil.  And though the Pharisee had asked Jesus to come dine with him, he had not provided the common courtesy that would have been expected.  But this woman saw an opportunity in this omission on the part of the Pharisee to show her contrition.  She had no water, but her tears.  She had no towel, so she used her hair.  She had no oil, so she used her perfume.

Luke has presented this broken woman as a beautiful picture of repentance.  She has humbled herself by kneeling at the feet of Christ and serving Him as a slave would have done.  Her profuse tears are indicative of her heart breaking over her sin and shame.  Her hair, which was called in scripture a woman’s glory, she used to wipe his feet.  Having her hair down, by the way, in that culture was a symbol that she was a prostitute.  Married women wore their hair up, and generally covered by a headscarf.  It meant that they were under the authority of their husband.  They were taken, so to speak.  But her hair is down because it was a symbol of a woman of ill repute.  But now she is using her hair, not to attract men, but to serve Jesus.

Solomon in Proverbs 7 speaks of a harlot, who brazenly kisses the stranger in order to seduce them.  No doubt this woman had used her kisses to the same effect many times.  And yet this night as she weeps over her sin, washes Christ’s feet with her hair, she kisses his feet over and over again.  There was nothing erotic in this act, but this was an act of submission, an act of servitude that for centuries in ancient times has been used to convey servitude to a king or royal officer or religious official.  It conveys the same idea as kissing the ring of a monarch.  But in this case, she isn’t considering herself worthy of even kissing His fingers, but bows to kiss His feet.

And there was one other element to her repentance.  Women in that day customarily wore a glass vial around their neck which might have been tucked in their clothing.  It contained a costly perfume.  In most cases, it was very valuable.  Depending on the wealth of the person, it’s value could be equivalent to a year’s wages. Remember another woman of Bethany, who anointed Jesus prior to His crucifixion with a similar alabaster vial of perfume, and when she broke it and poured it on Jesus it filled the house with it’s odor.  And Judas complained that this was a colossal waste of money since it was worth a great deal of money and could have been used to help the poor.  But of course, he had no real interest in the poor, only in the money.

What that vial of perfume represented very often was a woman’s dowry.  It was something of great value that was kept for her marriage.  In this case, maybe almost all hope of marriage was gone due to her reputation.  But in her repentance, she is willing to forgo all her hopes for saving her reputation by finding a husband, in exchange for saving her soul through Jesus Christ.  She takes the most valuable thing she has, this alabaster vial of perfume, and breaks it, pouring out it’s contents upon the feet of Jesus.

Folks, that is a picture of repentance.  That is what is necessary for forgiveness. It’s not a flippant attitude about your sin, and presuming upon the grace of God to forget about it and act as if you have done nothing wrong and have nothing to repent of.  It’s coming to grips with the horror of your sin to a Holy God and being completely  ashamed of it.  Reaching a point where you want nothing else to do with it.  You want to be delivered from it.  You crave forgiveness.  You are literally sick of your sin.  Mourning over your wretched condition before a Holy God.  And being willing to turn from it.  Bowing in submission to another calling, another Master, another Lord and giving everything you have to use for Him. Giving all that you hold dear over to the Lord. That kind of repentant attitude is a sweet perfume in the nostrils of God. That kind of repentance requires being willing to humble yourself, to bow at the feet of Jesus, to recognize that He is worthy of our adoration and service.  That all we have is worth nothing in comparison to being made right in His sight.

Now let’s see the contrast here in the attitude of the Pharisee.  Vs. 39; “Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet He would know who and what sort of person this woman is who is touching Him, that she is a sinner.”  The attitude of the Pharisee is obviously self righteous.  He considers himself better than others by virtue of his religion and his good deeds.  He thinks that he keeps the law.  He thinks he is justified before God because of his works.  He has an interest in religion, and even an intellectual interest in Jesus.  He has invited Jesus into his home to have dinner.  But he gives away his heart by his  condescension towards Jesus by saying, “IF this man were a prophet…”  He doesn’t even believe that Jesus is a prophet, much less accept Him as the Messiah.  He doesn’t desire forgiveness, but only to validate his own self righteousness by thinking he is better than others, and even better than Jesus Himself.

Jesus knows his heart, and so He uses a parable to explain a principle regarding forgiveness.  Look at vs. 40; “And Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” And he replied, “Say it, Teacher.” “A moneylender had two debtors: one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty.  When they were unable to repay, he graciously forgave them both. So which of them will love him more?”  Simon answered and said, “I suppose the one whom he forgave more.” And He said to him, “You have judged correctly.”

You can almost read into this account a certain arrogance on the part of the Pharisee.  His response to Jesus, “Say it, Teacher”, seems more than a little belligerent. And then when he answers Jesus question by saying, “I suppose” to what should have been an obvious conclusion, it indicates again an attitude in need of correction.  And so Jesus gives it to him in vs. 44; “Turning toward the woman, He said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has wet My feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.  You gave Me no kiss; but she, since the time I came in, has not ceased to kiss My feet.  You did not anoint My head with oil, but she anointed My feet with perfume.  For this reason I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.”

Not only is Simon’s attitude belligerent, but his hospitality reflects his attitude towards Christ.  He has withheld the basic tenets of hospitality.  He neglected to have the feet of Jesus washed.  He might have been interested in seeing Jesus, but not because he believed Him to be the Son of God, but because he somehow thought he could justify himself.  He neglected to give the customary kiss of greeting which was common in that region at that time, a respectful kiss on each cheek.  He did not provide any perfume because that might have cost him more than he was willing to give.

Simon is a classic illustration of a self righteous person, who looks down on others, thinks they are not as sinful as other people are, and yet by their attitude you can tell that they are completely self absorbed.  They are self centered.  Assured of their intelligence.  Assured of their religious stature.  Assured that God must be pleased with them, because they are so pleased with themselves.  But their actions show that while they may appear to be receptive towards the gospel, in actuality there is none of the humility and attitude of service and submission that should accompany salvation.  God exists to serve them, and they really have no interest in serving God or His people.

Now consider the outcome of these two attitudes.  Jesus says her sins, which are many have been forgiven.  And by implication, the Pharisee’s sins are not forgiven.  And look at how love is related to forgiveness.  Love comes after forgiveness.  1 John 4:19 says, “We love, because He first loved us.”  See, love is produced by forgiveness.  Because she had been forgiven much, she loved much.  We can’t really love God until we have known forgiveness.  God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whosoever believes in Him should be saved.  First we know the love of God that loved us even when we were the worst of sinners.  Even when we were enemies of God, He loved us. Romans 5:8 says that “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

Thank God we’re not required in our sinful condition to love God and then if we manage to do that somehow to His satisfaction He will forgive us for our sins.  Because that would mean that no one could be saved.  But we are required to mourn over our sinful condition, to be ashamed of our sins, to repent of our sins, and then God forgives us.  God’s love produces forgiveness which produces our response, and our response is we love God.  Loving God means we submit to God’s authority over our lives. We bow our knees to His will.  Loving God means we use our resources, no matter how small or common, for His glory.  Because of love we are willing to serve Him rather than serve sin or serve our fleshly passions.  Love for God becomes the motivation of our life.  And so love becomes the proof of true repentance.  True repentance produces a desire to serve God, to humble myself before Him, to become His servant, to bow my will to Him as my Master.  That is true love for God.

After basically rebuking the Pharisee for his self absorption and self righteousness, Jesus turns back to the woman and says, “Your sins have been forgiven.”  What a magnificent statement that should give every person here hope.  No matter how grievous your sins, no matter how ashamed you may be of your past, Christ has declared that this is the favorable year of the Lord, it is the season of forgiveness for those that come to Him in repentance, seeking forgiveness of their sins.

Isaiah 55:7, “Let the wicked forsake his way And the unrighteous man his thoughts; And let him return to the LORD, And He will have compassion on him, And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon.”

One of the most grievous sins in the Bible belonged to King David, who committed adultery and then had the husband of the woman killed.  He was an accomplice to murder.  And yet God forgave Him and called him a man after His own heart because David repented of his sin.  There is no sin that God can’t forgive, except one.  And that is the sin of self righteousness.  The sin that says my sin isn’t so bad.  I don’t really need to repent. I’m not such a bad person.  That person will not receive forgiveness.  Because they aren’t willing to repent.  This woman was obviously willing to repent of her sin.  And her sins were forgiven.

And then notice that the Pharisees ask the question, “who is this man who even forgives sins?”  I think it could be paraphrased to say, “who does this man think He is, to even forgive sins?  Who does He think He is, God?”

And Jesus answers that question with another statement to this woman: ““Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”  As if to confirm, yes, I am God.  Yes, only God can forgive sins, and I am the Savior of the world that was promised in Isaiah.  Your faith in Me has saved you.  Go in peace.  In other words, you can go now, because you have peace with God.  Salvation is nothing less than peace with God because we are made righteous by Christ. Romans 5:1“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Listen, salvation is not a matter of being a big sinner or a little sinner.  It’s a matter of being acutely aware of your sin and how we all have fallen short of the glory of God.  God offers forgiveness today to those who would repent of their sins.  And by repentance and faith in the power of Christ you can be saved and have peace with God.  The whole world can be divided into two groups of people symbolized either by the woman or the Pharisee.  You are either in one group or the other.  You are either a sinner saved by grace, or you are unmoved, content in your own self righteousness, unmoved in your own preoccupation with what you think is important and worthwhile.  I pray that if you are here today and God has convicted you of your sinfulness, you will call upon Him in repentance and ask for mercy and I can assure you that He will abundantly pardon.  You can be saved from the judgment to come by faith in Jesus Christ.

How to be great in the Kingdom; Luke 7;24-35

Last week we looked at the previous passage where Luke recorded that John the Baptist sent a message to Jesus from prison by his disciples asking was He the One to come or should they look for someone else? Perhaps he asked that because he was discouraged after spending almost a year in jail, but also because he was confused.  Because the message of the Kingdom he had been sent to proclaim was a message of repentance for the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand.  But though he saw the coming of the Messiah, and though he declared publicly, “behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world”, yet John misunderstood the timing of the coming Kingdom.  He preached that the Kingdom would come with judgment, with fire and destruction for those that rejected it.  But as heard what Jesus was doing, he wasn’t hearing about fire and a winnowing fork in his hand and judgment.  He was hearing about mercy and forgiveness of sins.  And so John was wondering if there was another that would come and do the judgment part.

But Jesus said to his disciples, “Go and report to John what you have seen and heard: the BLIND RECEIVE SIGHT, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the POOR HAVE THE GOSPEL PREACHED TO THEM.”  What John failed to realize is that there is two stages to the realization of the Kingdom of Heaven.  The first part which Jesus initiated was a ministry of reconciliation.  The first part of the Kingdom was characterized by compassion.  God in His mercy made it possible for man to be saved, and to be adopted into the family of God, thereby gaining admittance into the Kingdom.  That was the purpose of Christ’s first coming.   The first coming of the Kingdom was a spiritual kingdom.  Whereby man is given admittance by faith in Christ and spiritually he is born again as a son of God and a citizen of the Kingdom.

Now there will be a second coming of Christ as Jesus talked about in Matthew 24.  And at that second coming He says He will come in judgment and in fire and with a winnowing fork to separate the evil from the good. Matt. 24:29 “But immediately after the tribulation of those days THE SUN WILL BE DARKENED, AND THE MOON WILL NOT GIVE ITS LIGHT, AND THE STARS WILL FALL from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.  And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the SON OF MAN COMING ON THE CLOUDS OF THE SKY with power and great glory.
And He will send forth His angels with A GREAT TRUMPET and THEY WILL GATHER TOGETHER His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.”  And after that gathering of the elect, and the judgment of the wicked, the spiritual kingdom will become a physical kingdom as well, as God will rule and reign over His citizens in a new heaven and new earth.

Now after John’s disciples left, Jesus turns to the crowds and uses this as an illustration of a very important point.  Jesus says in vs. 25, ““What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? But what did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Those who are splendidly clothed and live in luxury are found in royal palaces! But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I say to you, and one who is more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written, ‘BEHOLD, I SEND MY MESSENGER AHEAD OF YOU,  WHO WILL PREPARE YOUR WAY BEFORE YOU.’ “I say to you, among those born of women there is no one greater than John; yet he who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.”

Now what was Jesus teaching in all of that?  First of all, Jesus was saying that John was a prophet and the greatest prophet up to that point.  And He was perhaps being a little bit sarcastic by asking, “What did you go out to the wilderness to see?  A reed shaken with the wind?”  In other words, a prophet of God is not swinging in the breeze of ambiguous doctrine. A prophet of God is not swayed by popular opinion.  A prophet of God is compelled to speak the word of God whether or not it is popular.  Whether or not it is politically correct or seemingly insensitive.

And  furthermore, Jesus is inferring that true prophets of God aren’t influenced by riches.  They aren’t characterized by wearing $3000 suits and flying to speaking engagements on private jets.  That’s not typical of true prophets of God.  So Jesus is affirming that John was indeed a true prophet, a great prophet, in fact he had been prophesied of in Malachi which Jesus quotes; BEHOLD, I SEND MY MESSENGER AHEAD OF YOU,  WHO WILL PREPARE YOUR WAY BEFORE YOU.’

Jesus goes on to say that among those born among women there was none greater than John the Baptist.  Now born among women was simply a way of stating that he was a human.  And of all the men born on the earth, the greatest of them at that point was John the Baptist.  That prompts the question, why was he considered to be the greatest?

John was the greatest because he was chosen to proclaim the Kingdom of Heaven was here.  He was given the privilege of introducing Jesus to the world, as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  He was given the privilege of introducing the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.  All the other prophets before had only an partial vision of what was to come, but John was given the actual opportunity to see the Kingdom come into fruition.  He was given the privilege to be a part of ushering in this Kingdom, and to personally introduce the Messiah.  All the past prophets could only point to the Messiah in a prophetic picture, but he was able to actually witness His coming and proclaim “here He is!”

But the second part of Jesus statement has an even greater significance for us, because Jesus says in contrast to John being the greatest man that had lived up to that point, “but he who is least in the Kingdom of God is greater than he.”  Now to understand that statement we are going to have to first understand what is the Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom of Heaven.

Prior to the coming of Jesus, the Kingdom of Heaven was portrayed by symbols and  pictures in the Old Testament which signified a heavenly reality. Hebrews 8:5 says that the Old Testament priests and sacrifices and the temple “serve as a copy and shadow of the heavenly things.” But with the coming of the Messiah, the Kingdom of Heaven came to earth, manifested in the incarnation of God in the flesh. Hebrews 9:11, ”But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.”

So the King of Kings came to usher in the Kingdom, to bring the gospel to full realization by the establishment of His church, that the light of salvation might come to the world, not just to the Jews, but to every people and every tribe on earth.  In the Old Testament, the Kingdom was pictured as the chosen people, the nation of Israel, but in the New Testament the Kingdom is manifested as the church, which is the body of Christ. The religious leaders of the Jews failed to recognize that Jesus was the King, the Messiah that was promised, partly at least because they expected that prophesied kingdom at that time to be a literal, earthly kingdom.  But Jesus said in  John 18:36 to Pilate;  “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.”  In other words, it’s a spiritual kingdom.

Before the resurrection, the disciples themselves didn’t even understand that principle.  They were looking for a physical kingdom in which they would be rulers with Christ over their enemies.  That’s why they were fighting over who would be the greatest and who would sit where right up to the Last Supper before Jesus was crucified.  But after the resurrection, after the Holy Spirit had come with power to explain the words of Jesus, after the church was established on the day of Pentecost,  then the Apostle Paul writes in Eph. 1:3 that God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.”  They understood then that the church is the physical representation of a spiritual reality, whereby Christ is lived out on earth through us.

That concept of the Kingdom is still not understood very well in the church today.  We all know that Christ died to save sinners.  But far too often, there is a lack of understanding about what comes next.  We are not saved, just to get a “get out of hell card.”  But we are saved to become citizens and ambassadors for the Kingdom of Heaven - to proclaim the good news of the Kingdom, to build up the Kingdom.
Yes, Jesus came to save sinners, but He saved us in order to call out a people from the earth after His own name, who would become citizens of His Kingdom.  This citizenship He accomplished through several ways.  First He had to make us righteous and holy.  He did this by offering Himself as a substitute for our sins by dying on the cross in our place. 2 Corinthians 5:21, "[God] made [Jesus] who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him."  By faith in His sacrificial death and resurrection, we are made holy by the transference of our sins to Christ, and His righteousness transferred to us. Eph. 1:4 says,  “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, so that we would be holy and blameless before Him.”

But that is not where it stops, just in our forgiveness of sins. That is where new life begins.  That’s why Jesus says to Nicodemus that you must be born again. John 3:5,
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” We were made holy and blameless so that we might become partakers of the nature of Christ.  Now that we have been made holy by grace, we might receive the indwelling presence of Christ in us, through the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is given to us as our Helper, that we might have the power of Christ working within us, so that we might be ambassadors for Christ.  Grace was given so that we might be made positionally holy before God, and the Holy Spirit is given that we might live holy lives doing the work of God. Eph. 1:13  “In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.” Eph.  2:10 “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”

So what is the good works that we are supposed to do?  The work is the building up of the Kingdom.  Specifically, the building up of the church of God. Eph. 4:11 tells us that “He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints [that’s you] for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ;  until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.”

See, you have been saved so that you might become part of the church, and the church is a living organism, made of up people, who are workers in the temple of God.  God being in their midst. This is greater than anything that John the Baptist realized.  Peter describes us in 1Peter 2:9 as we are “A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God’s OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;  for you once were NOT A PEOPLE, but now you are THE PEOPLE OF GOD; you had NOT RECEIVED MERCY, but now you have RECEIVED MERCY.”

This church is the mystery which God is displaying to all of the heavenly realm. Eph. 3:10 “so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.”  This church is the triumph of Christ, the bride of Christ, the body of Christ that Jesus said, “I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”  God is showcasing us to the devil and his angels as trophies of His grace and by which this church, made up of redeemed people like you and me,  will ultimately triumph over the world and over death and over sin. That’s what Paul was talking about in 2Cor. 2:14 “But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place.”

Listen, understand something here that is critical to your faith.  The Kingdom of Heaven is no less than the spiritual kingdom of God which is manifested on earth by the church. The Greek word used for church is ekklesia, which means a gathering of citizens called out from their homes into some public place, an assembly.  It’s not a building made with hands, but a people saved by grace, equipped by God, nurtured through the Word, gifted and indwelled by the Holy Spirit, that we might be the image of God to the world.  We are His body, physically visible to the world, but spiritually connected to the invisible God, of whom Christ is the Head.  This is what Jesus was talking about when He said that he that was least in the Kingdom is greater than John the Baptist.  John didn’t know all the benefits that we know.  John died before the Kingdom came fully into completion through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ by which He established His church on earth.

Please understand, the church is not a building, not an organization, but a living organism which tabernacles God and manifests Christ to the world.  The Old Testament tabernacle portrayed the future church where Christ would dwell within us, within the holy of holies as we are made holy by Christ’s blood.  In the New Testament it becomes clear that the believers are the temple of God.  1Cor. 3:16 “Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”

The Kingdom of Heaven is not a church made of stones and mortar, but a temple made up of people - living stones. In 1Pet. 2:5 Peter says, “you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

Paul uses that same metaphor in Eph. 2:20 to describe the church, “having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord,  in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.”

So how are we to be great in the kingdom of Heaven?  You become part of the church, the spiritual kingdom, the manifestation of Christ’s gospel to the world.  We become workers with Christ, serving through the only vehicle by which God has authorized to bring the gospel to the world.  We must first of all become born again as living stones, and then joined together with other living stones that form the church, the temple of God’s Kingdom.

Listen, I grew up a preacher’s kid.  If anyone had a reason to dislike conventional church, I did.  And perhaps for you also, some experience you had at church has left a bad taste in your mouth.  But it took me a while to understand that just because every church isn’t a good church, it doesn’t negate the plan of God.  Just because the devil has infiltrated the church doesn’t invalidate God’s plan for the church.  You are not going to find your purpose in God’s will outside the church, because the church is in the center of God’s will. Eph. 5:25 says “Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her.” The church is central to God’s plan, and we need to conform our will to God’s will, not try to get God to bend to our will.

Some of you may think that you can worship God anytime, anywhere you want.  You don’t want the responsibility of a church.  You don’t want the authority of church.  You don’t want to submit to God’s church.  Let me warn you that you need the fellowship of Christ’s body whether you think you do or not.  And  some of you visiting here today need to go back home and ask yourself some serious questions regarding your church.  Is it conforming to the plan that God has for the church, or is it a popularization of what we think the church ought to be like, or how we would like church to be?  Are we following church leaders who are bending like reeds in the wind with every strange doctrine? Has your church abandoned the authority of scripture alone, in light of becoming more seeker friendly, or politically correct?  And if that is the case, then you need to get out of there and find a Bible teaching, Bible believing church where you can get to work.  And then you need to get about the work of the Kingdom through your local church.

There is one other important teaching that Jesus uses the life of John to illustrate.  Though many thousands of people heard the message of John the Baptist, and heard the message of Christ, yet most of them still remained outside of the Kingdom of Heaven.  Most of the people in the crowds were merely spectators who were drawn to the miracles, but weren’t willing to come into the Kingdom.  Jesus addresses them in 7:31 “To what then shall I compare the men of this generation, and what are they like?  They are like children who sit in the market place and call to one another, and they say, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not weep.’  Jesus was comparing the unmoved people of that day to that of children who played in the marketplace.  He is describing  some children who wouldn’t play with the other children.  They sat there unmoved, preoccupied with their own activities.  They heard the music but didn’t want to play.

Let me paraphrase that in modern English for many people in our congregations and communities today.  We preach judgment to come and you did not repent.  We preach glory to come and you are not interested. We preach forgiveness has come and you do not weep.  You sit there, and will not join the work of the Kingdom.  You are like children sitting in the marketplace who won’t respond to the music.  Listen folks, the church is not a concert hall and Christianity is not a spectator sport.  We don’t worship God by attending church once in a while and clapping our hands.  We worship God by being obedient to His commands.  By becoming submissive to His will, and laying our will on the altar.  By serving His kingdom, and by laying our priorities aside in favor of serving the King.

Jesus concludes by saying, “But wisdom is vindicated by her children.”  In other words, the wisdom of the children of the Kingdom will be their vindication that they acted in wisdom when they heard the gospel.  One day the King will come again, and this time He will come in power and judgment.  And He will separate with His winnowing fork the foolish from the wise.  Those that heeded the truth of the gospel will be wise, and they will be vindicated.  But for those that are foolish, there will be judgment.

At the end of Matthew 24 Jesus tells a parable about that second coming. Matt. 24:45
“Who then is the faithful and sensible slave whom his master put in charge of his household to give them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes. Truly I say to you that he will put him in charge of all his possessions. But if that evil slave says in his heart, ‘My master is not coming for a long time,’ and begins to beat his fellow slaves and eat and drink with drunkards; the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour which he does not know, and will cut him in pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

I’m going to close with one of the saddest verses found in the Bible, Jeremiah 8:20 which I think is appropriate to our situation, especially here at the end of our season on the beach.  It says, “Harvest is past, summer is ended,  and we are not saved.”  What a terrible thing to hear the gospel and yet remain unmoved like the children in the market place.  We don’t know when the King is returning for His people, for His bride, but the invitation is there for everyone;  Romans 10:13 says, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”  Today is the day of salvation.  Today the Kingdom of Heaven is near you.  I pray that today is the day you will call upon the Lord for salvation.

And for those who are born again into the Kingdom, remember what we were made for, what our purpose is, and heed the admonition of Hebrews 10:25, “not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.”  Jesus is coming again soon.  I hope you will be found faithful.

When a believer doubts; Luke 7:18-23

Those of you who were here a couple of weeks ago may remember that we looked at the story of Jesus healing the centurion’s servant.  And one of the principal points in that passage was the fact that Jesus was amazed at the centurion’s faith.  The centurion was, of course, a Roman soldier, outside of God’s covenant relationship with Israel, and yet Jesus holds him up as an example of faith.  Jesus said, “I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such great faith.”

Now today, we come to another passage of scripture that we will begin looking at this week and conclude next week, and one of the principal points that is made in this story is that Jesus says, “I say to you, among those born of women there is no one greater than John.”  Now I think it is significant that Luke has chosen to include both of these stories almost concurrently in this passage, and  I believe he has done so to illustrate for us the doctrine of faith by giving us two human examples of it.

The centurion had great faith according to Jesus.  And John the Baptist was the greatest man born among women up to the time of Christ.  So, that being said, we know that the Bible says in  Hebrews 11:6 that  “without faith it is impossible to please Him.”  John the Baptist was obviously pleasing to God, so therefore it is obvious that John the Baptist had faith.  In fact, we saw many evidences of that faith earlier in our study of Luke, especially when John saw Jesus coming and proclaimed, “behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.” 

Yet today we are looking at the other side of faith.  Not the faith by which we are saved, the saving faith like that of Abraham who believed God and God counted it to him as righteousness.  But the faith of someone who has already become righteous as a believer, but now finds himself at a crossroads or crisis in their life when their faith to continue starts to falter.  A time perhaps like as the hymn writer said, “when all around my soul gives way…” A time “when through many dangers, toils and snares we have already come….” and we find ourselves at a place of uncertainty, of great crisis, when God doesn’t do what we expected Him to.  When life didn’t work out the way we thought it should. 

Now I don’t know about you, but I have found myself in that place many times, when I start to doubt, when I start to question why God allowed something to happen that I don’t understand and though it is a place that all of us believers will find ourselves in from time to time in our Christian walk, at such times we need to go to the right place to find the right answers, so that we will not stumble and fall.  And so I believe God has providentially provided this great story of this great man in just this place, to show us that even great men of God, great men of faith, can doubt and start to question what is going on, to wonder where is God in their situation.  And I trust that as we look at this passage we will find the answers to those questions when doubt creeps in to our hearts.

Today we are going to look at 4 reasons that doubt comes into the believer’s heart.  Four things that can cause us to start to doubt God.  But first, let’s go back and get some background on what is going on in John the Baptist’s life.  Back in chapter 3, we were introduced to John the Baptist, a wild man living in the wilderness, who God called to be a forerunner of the Messiah.  And John came preaching repentance and the judgment to come.  He was clothed with camel’s hair and ate locusts and honey.  He was a prophet in the Old Testament style of fire and brimstone, and he wasn’t afraid to call the leaders of Judaism a brood of snakes and rebuke them in front of the multitudes.  John wasn’t afraid of the king either.  When Herod the Tetrarch committed adultery with his brother’s wife, John the Baptist rebuked him publicly.  And so Herod locked up John in a remote dungeon in one of his castles.  Meanwhile, Jesus is going around preaching the gospel and almost a year goes by and John is still in prison, and he is starting to doubt he will ever get out. 

And we know that John the Baptist never does get released from prison.  Eventually, Herod will have a big banquet, and the daughter of his illicit wife will come in and dance a provocative dance for Herod and his guests, and perhaps in a drunken state of excitement, Herod offers her anything she wants, up to half the kingdom.  And the girl runs back to her mother and asks what she should ask for, and her mother tells her to ask for the head of John the Baptist on a platter.  So Herod has John beheaded. 

But as we look at this passage today, at this point John is still alive, suffering in prison.  And after almost a year goes by, he is starting to become depressed over his circumstances.  And furthermore, he is also starting to wonder about what Jesus is doing.  After all, John had preached that the kingdom of heaven was coming and judgment was coming with it.  He had said, “the axe is already laid at the root of the trees; so every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” And “His winnowing fork is in His hand to thoroughly clear His threshing floor, and to gather the wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”  But that wasn’t what John was  hearing.  He was hearing that Jesus was going around healing people and raising the dead, but nothing about the judgment which the Messiah was supposed to be bringing upon the earth.  So as he lay there suffering in this dungeon, seemingly forgotten by the world and even it seemed forgotten by God, John the Baptist begins to have doubts.  And in vs. 19, John from prison sends two disciples to Jesus to ask a question that seems almost inconceivable for this great man of faith to ask, which was, “Are you the Coming One, or should we look for someone else?”  It’s a question of doubt from a man who we never would have thought would have doubted.  And from his example, we can look honestly at why we too sometimes doubt, and how we can prevent doubt from causing shipwreck in our faith.

So as I said, through this illustration of the life of John the Baptist, we are going to look at four reasons why doubt comes into the heart of a Christian.  Reason number one is, a personal crisis causes us to doubt God. Every believer is sooner or later going to go through fiery trials, a personal crisis that will cause you to question your faith.   John was a preacher of righteousness, he was faithful, he was diligent, he was fearless, and then one day he gets locked up in prison and it seems that they throw away the key.  He is practically forgotten.  He hadn’t done anything wrong, in fact he had been faithfully serving the Lord, and then one day, bam, everything seems to fall apart.  The wheels come off his ministry and he just doesn’t understand what is going on.  In his mind, this is what happens to the enemies of God, not the friends of God.

 You see, like John the Baptist, doubt often comes from our inability to deal with negative circumstances when we perceive ourselves as being faithful people. Our doubts come when we've convinced ourselves that we belong to the Lord, we're loyal, we're faithful, we've lived and served Him and He ought to take special care of us and this is not special care. And if everything doesn't go the way it should, we begin to wonder if He cares or if He's really our Savior.

That is what is so dangerous about the Word of faith movement which is prevalent in so many Christian churches today, that tells us that we can have all the desires of our heart if we just have enough faith.  If we just believe enough, then God will answer our prayers and give us our desires.  It’s dangerous because it is not founded on God’s word, but on man’s desire to manipulate God.  And the end result is often shipwreck of our faith, or at least finding ourselves upon the rocks, ready to bail, ready to jump ship because God didn’t do what we were told He would do, or we wanted him to do.  And when God doesn’t act like a personal genie and do what we command Him to do, we are left with a choice of at least two bad answers: either God doesn’t really love us, or we didn’t have enough faith for Him to answer our prayer.  And both of those are the wrong answers, because they are founded on the wrong principles.  John was struggling with those questions too,  but he did the right thing, he went directly to the Lord for the answers.

There's a second thing that causes doubt. Not only a personal crisis but popular influences. John was to some degree a victim of the current misconceptions about the Messiah. Though there are many, many pictures in the OT of the Messiah, many of the characteristics had been pushed on the back burner in favor of other pictures that the religious community wanted to focus on.  There were many pictures, for instance, of the Messiah being the Passover lamb, the sacrificial lamb, the substitute ram that was caught in the thicket for Isaac, and many other references such as in Isaiah 53 that the Messiah would suffer and die for the sins of the people.  Yet it seems that the Jewish people ignored those and focused on the other prophecies of the Messiah who would come as a conquering son of David the King, to take the throne and overthrow the oppression from their enemies.  The popular view of the religious culture focused on when He had overthrown all their enemies, He would restore the glory of Israel and God would pour out His blessings on the people of the kingdom. 

We find the same sort of unrealistic expectations going on in evangelical churches today, don’t we?  Far too often our theology reflects what we want God to be like, rather that what God is really like.  Today, words like Love are used as a euphemism for the name of God.  And if an attribute of God doesn’t fit into our paradigm of God is love… period, then we throw it out.  We don’t want to consider any characteristic of God that doesn’t fit into our contrived theology of God.

You know, if you believe the lies that are being told today about the health, wealth, and prosperity gospel, you're setting yourself up to doubt God. There is no blanket promise in the Bible that you're going to be healthy. There is no promise that you're going to get well, that you're going to be healed. There's no promise that you're going to be rich. There's no promise that your career is going to be successful. There are no such promises in the gospel until after we are resurrected. Jesus said in this world you will have trouble.  We overcome this world the same way Christ did, by triumphing over death and being resurrected into glory.  Then all your diseases will be over.

Remember when Jesus tells His disciples about His pending death, and Peter says, "No way Lord, You're not going to die. The plan is You're going to live. The plan is You're going to be the leader and the ruler and the King of the world." And Jesus said, "Get you behind Me, Satan." That's Satan's plan, not Mine. Listen, when you have unbiblical expectations, when you've bought into a false teaching and God doesn't deliver on those promises, you will end up with a problem with your faith. Better not sit under that kind of teaching. It will only bring discouraging doubt that will rob you of your joy and your usefulness and cause shipwreck of your faith.

The third reason doubts come is because of incomplete revelation. John's doubts came because he didn't have full information.  There is a principle in scripture I call progressive revelation.  And John was essentially an OT prophet operating under the veil.  He could not fully see things that the Bible says even the angels long to look at.   And what John couldn't understand was why doesn't the Kingdom come in the fullness of all OT prophecy?   See John didn't have the information that Jesus would come but be rejected, and the Lord would then turn from Israel to the Gentiles, establish the church as the spiritual kingdom, and the church age would go on at least 2,000 years, which it has, and Jesus would then come back the second time and set up His eternal kingdom in a new heaven and new earth.

John had incomplete revelation.  2 Cor. 3:14 says “for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remains unlifted, because it is removed in Christ.”  John was martyred before Christ was crucified, before Christ was resurrected and before the Holy Spirit was poured out on the Apostles.  He was operating in light of the veiled OT prophecies which were incomplete, but when Christ was crucified, the veil was lifted and the gospel of the kingdom became clearer under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  But John didn’t have that vantage point.

We do have that vantage point.  We have the complete word of God, the scriptures. 1Cor. 13:10 states, “But when that which is perfect, or complete is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.”

If you are having doubts in regards to your faith, then the answer is to go to the Scripture because the revelation of God is clear. Read the Word, learn the Word, know the Word, trust the Word, blessed is the man who delights in the law of God day and night, who meditates on it day and night because it's in the knowledge of the truth that you understand the purposes and plan of God and doubt is dissipated.  When you bathe your mind in the full counsel of the word on a regular, strategic basis, then you will have the foundation of truth that will give you the understanding necessary for your situation.  God may not give a verse or specific revelation regarding a specific crisis or question in your life, but He does give us the complete Scripture which is a lamp to our feet and  a light to our path.  It gives us the framework with which we can understand God’s purposes.

I would add that sometimes doubt comes not because of incomplete revelation, but because of false revelation.  Beware of people that purport to be getting direct divine revelation from God, and want to tell you that God said so and so is going to happen to you in the next couple of months.  They are false prophets, with a false message of divine revelation. They are putting words in God’s mouth.  That is the sin of using God’s name in vain, by the way.  It’s not just saying curse words, it’s claiming that God said something that He did not say.  It’s their words, not God’s words, but to give it more importance and more weight, they want to say that God told them to say it. It’s false revelation.  Too avoid doubt, avoid false revelation.

And then lastly, there was one other component in the case of John that contributed to his doubt, that being wrong expectation. As I said earlier, in the third chapter of Luke we meet John, the voice crying in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. It's a strong message. When the religious leaders show up along with the multitudes, he says, "You brood of snakes, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” John was the was the original hell, fire and damnation preacher.

And John expected that Jesus would fulfill that message right then by bringing the fire and brimstone type of judgment that many of the OT prophets prophesied would come.  Well here comes Jesus and what does He do?  He heals everybody. That's not judgment. He makes everything better. It's all compassion and grace and love and mercy and He's doing all these things that express the compassion of God. And He's doing them to unbelievers. Where is the confrontation of the faithless and wicked people? Where's the axe in the hand of Messiah? Where is the fire in His hand? Where is the winnowing fork? It just doesn't seem to be going the way he assumed it had to go because John was getting people to repent so that when the Messiah comes they didn't get burned up. And now the Messiah came and they were getting healed and dead people were getting raised, demons were being cast out.

How did the Lord respond to him? Let's go back to the text. This becomes very clear to us, verse 21, here's how He responded.  "At that very time He cured many people of diseases and afflictions and evil spirits and He granted sight to many who were blind.” And then in verse 22, "Go report to John what you've seen and heard. Tell him this, the blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have the gospel preached to them. Blessed is he who does not take offense or stumbles over Me.”

What Jesus is saying is tell John that what you're seeing is what the prophet said would happen when the King came. Remember Isaiah 61, we commented on it at length in the fourth chapter of Luke.  Jesus’ first message that Luke recorded was from Isaiah 61 which Jesus read, “THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME, BECAUSE HE ANOINTED ME TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR. HE HAS SENT ME TO PROCLAIM RELEASE TO THE CAPTIVES, AND RECOVERY OF SIGHT TO THE BLIND,

TO SET FREE THOSE WHO ARE OPPRESSED,TO PROCLAIM THE FAVORABLE YEAR OF THE LORD.”

What Isaiah was prophesying was that when the Messiah comes the dead will be raised, the blind will be healed and the gospel, the good news, will be preached to the humble, the poor and the afflicted. And Jesus is saying to John’s disciples, I’m doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing.  I came to save, not to destroy.  I came not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Me.

Jesus illustrates that He is doing exactly what had been prophesied of Him.   And he tells John in verse 23, blessed is he who keeps from stumbling over Me. John, you're going to be blessed if you believe this, don't be offended by it, don't let your personal tragedy, don't let popular views and influences, don't let the lack of revelation, don't let your wrong expectations cause you to stumble over Me, cause you to be offended by Me, cause you to doubt Me. But realize that I am inaugurating the Kingdom even now, though not in the way that you expected.

There is a very important final note. John was beheaded before Jesus died. He was beheaded before Jesus therefore rose from the dead. He never heard much of what the Lord taught cause he was a prisoner. He never personally saw the miracles. But when he died, his disciples came to tell Jesus, which was exactly what John would have taught them to do.  Because as he had stated earlier, Jesus must increase, but I must decrease.  John died in prison without seeing the Kingdom come in it’s fulfillment, but I believe that John died with no doubts.  I believe at the report of his disciples as to what Jesus was doing, John realized that salvation had come.  Grace and mercy was coming first, by which the Messiah would establish His kingdom, would save a people out of the world who would be called by His name. 

Listen, doubt is part of human nature.  We are going to all go through times in our life when we don’t understand what is going on, when we don’t understand what God is doing.  But the answer for us is the same answer that it was for John.  When we doubt, go to Jesus.  John 1 tells us that Jesus is the Word.  And today we have the whole unfolding of Biblical history, of all prophecy, all of Jesus' life, death, resurrection, ascension, intercession, the whole explanation of the gospel found in the epistles, and the book of Revelation to tell us about the future. If you're a doubting believer, you don't need to be. You can erase that doubt  if you'll go to the Word and get the full counsel of God’s word. Jesus said, "Blessed is the one who doesn't stumble over Me." I pray that if you are in doubt today, if you are in crisis today, if you have been influenced by a wrong theology, if you have been a victim of false revelation, or had the wrong expectations of God, then you turn to the same source that John turned to; the Word of God.  It is sufficient for every situation.  

Providence and compassion of Christ; Luke 7:11-17

Today we are looking at what appears from a superficial reading to be a fairly typical miracle of Jesus.  But as we look at it more thoroughly, I am hopeful that you will come to realize that it is illustrating some important doctrines concerning the kingdom of heaven which Jesus came to proclaim.

Last week, we looked at the preceding passage concerning the healing of the centurion’s slave in the town of Capernaum.  In today’s text, it says in vs. 7 that soon after that event in Capernaum, the next day or within a couple of days, Jesus decided to travel to a city called Nain.  He was followed by his disciples and a large crowd.  Now Nain is in Galilee and lies about 20 miles south of what would have been Capernaum.  Today it is a small town of about 200 people.  There probably wasn’t much more to the town then that there is today.

So the question arises, why did Jesus leave Capernaum, where He had just completed this miracle, where He lived, and travel to this non descript town 20 miles away? This is the only place in scripture that this town is mentioned.  There was nothing there that would have compelled Him to make that decision.  It was a full day’s journey by foot, especially considering the hilly terrain, and considering  the fact that he had a large crowd following Him.

As we look at the story, we see nothing to indicate why Jesus would have chosen to go specifically to this town.  But I believe there is a couple of clues to Jesus purpose that can be found in the text.  I don’t believe that there are any accidents with God.  God knows the future and the past.  Psalms 139 says that before there is a word on my tongue, God knows what I am going to say. It says that God knows the number of my days when as yet there weren’t any of them.  God doesn’t do anything without a purpose.  I don’t believe that Jesus just randomly decided to walk a day’s journey through the wilderness and drag a whole crowd of people along with him just because he thought it might be fun to go hiking.  I believe that Jesus went to Nain that day on purpose, and that purpose had been predetermined before time eternal. Isaiah 45:22 says, “For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, ‘My purpose will be established,  And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’.

 I believe further evidence for Christ’s purpose is revealed as well with the woman in the story, and also by Luke placing it in just this place in scripture, directly following the story of the Centurion’s request for Christ to come heal his servant.  Note first that the woman whom the story is centered upon was a widow.  Her husband had died some time before.  For a first century Jewish woman, that was a dreadful predicament to find herself in.  She lost her source of income, she lost her ability to own property, and there were very little resources for her other than the pity of family or friends to support her.

Her only hope in this world was in her only child, a son.  When he became old enough, he would be able to work and take over her support.  He would provide for her old age.  There was no other social mechanism, no social security, no retirement plan.  All of her future depended upon this boy.  And of course, not only was he her hope for the future, but I am sure that like any mother, she loved her son.  There is no love like a mother’s love for her children.  And she only has the one child, and no husband.  We can be confident that she loved her soon with all her heart.

But one night perhaps, the boy begins to get sick.  And maybe the illness quickly accelerates, suddenly he has a high fever and his health quickly deteriorates. I am not one to usually add to scripture what scripture does not say.  But I cannot help but believe that as she saw her son wasting away that this poor widow cried out to God to heal her son.  I am confident that any Jewish mother, trained since childhood to believe in the one true God of Israel, would call out to God in prayer for the life of her son.  And especially since this woman is a widow,  then I am even more sure of it.

I also believe that is why Luke joined this miracle to the last one featuring the centurion.  He may have placed it after the other because they may happened soon after one another, but as we see in vs. 21, there were many other miracles that Jesus was doing which were unrecorded in the Gospels.  But I think Luke coupled this to the one in Capernaum because they were both the result of an impassioned plea  first on the part of  the centurion and now the widow.

But I believe the primary evidence for my theory that Jesus came in response to the widow’s prayer is that in order to arrive there at the time of the funeral Jesus would have had to start out 8 hours or more earlier, possibly even before the boy had died.  In that day, partly due to the climate and their lack of embalming skills, funerals were held on the same day that a person died.  There wasn’t the means of preserving a body for a later burial.  I can imagine that the widow was praying the day before as her son grew sicker by the hour, and by the evening he was worse.  And Jesus heard her prayer to God and had already purposed in His heart that He would answer her prayer by leaving in the morning.  He knew that the boy would be dead by the time He arrived, but He also knew that He would raise Him from the dead.

Remember the similar story of Jesus friends Mary, Martha and their brother Lazarus in John 11?  Mary and Martha sent word that Lazarus was sick and for Jesus to hurry and come?  And Jesus told the disciples, Lazarus is already dead.  By the time He got the word, Lazarus had already died.  And then Jesus waited even longer before leaving for their house.  He knew that He would raise Lazarus from the dead, and that in so doing He would accomplish not only Lazarus’ healing, but also teach some important things concerning His power over death. Jesus said, “I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe."  Jesus came to Nain on purpose to meet this funeral procession, so that they might believe that He had the power over death and life which only God has.

You know, as great as a miracle raising the dead may seem to be, there is another miracle here that often goes unnoticed.  And that is the miracle of divine providence.  A miracle is often the means by which God stops the normal events of life, and interjects a supernatural event.  But an act of providence is when God constructs a miracle within the context of timing and the normal order of life, and weaves together many, many disparate circumstances to bring about His will.  And I believe that oftentimes the greater miracle is that of providence.

Jesus, as a member of the Godhead, was able by divine providence to coordinate time and earthly events in such a manner as to make sure that He appears on the scene just as the widow is leading the funeral procession out of town past the gate on the way to the cemetery.  To the average person, it seemed like a lucky circumstance.  But in divine providence, God had planned it all eons before, and all the events were being brought together as part of the plan.  A plan that included, in my opinion, the desperate prayers of this widow who was losing her only son.

Listen, some of you folks here today are wondering if God hears your prayers.  Maybe you have been praying for years about someone you love that is lost, or someone that you know that is away from God.  God does not promise to give us every request we ask God for.  But God does promise to hear every request.  And He promises that He will work everything according to His will.  His purposes will not be thwarted.  He said in Isaiah 55:11 “So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, Without accomplishing what I desire, And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.”

We don’t know the spiritual condition of this widow when she prayed to God.  All we know is she was a Jewish woman.  But we know that God heard her petition and decided even before there was a word on her lips to answer her prayer.  Some of you folks here today, you know you are a child of God.  You accepted Jesus as your Savior and you were adopted into the family of God.  And because God is your Father, you have every right to believe that not only does God hear your prayer, but He wants to answer the prayers of those who pray according to His will.

Jesus said in Matt. 7:9 "Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!”

I say all of that to say to those mothers and fathers and others that are praying for a loved one today.  Don’t stop praying.  Keep on praying.  God hears your prayers.  The Bible says God keeps our tears in a bottle.  He knows the pain in your heart, even as He knew the anguish in this widow’s heart.  And if Jesus walked 20 miles in the desert sun to answer this widows cry, then I believe that God can providentially work in our lives to bring about His will as well.  The Bible says that God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.  So we can pray with confidence that God hears our prayer and will work out His will.

There is another aspect about this miracle that I want to point out.  Notice in vs.13, “When the Lord saw her, He felt compassion for her, and said to her, " Do not weep."
And He came up and touched the coffin; and the bearers came to a halt. And He said, "Young man, I say to you, arise!" The dead man sat up and began to speak. And Jesus gave him back to his mother.

Imagine walking up to a funeral and going over to the woman that is grieving for her son and saying, “Don’t cry.”  That would be a foolish thing to do.  It’s natural to cry for the loss of a loved one.  The only reason that Jesus was able to say that to this widow was that He knew what He had come to do. It says He had compassion on her.  He was moved with compassion so He came to help her, to restore her son. He knew that the time for weeping was passing away, and the time for rejoicing was beginning.

But then think about how strange and seemingly foolish the next thing Jesus says is.  First He tells the widow, stop crying, and then He starts talking to the dead boy on the stretcher. “Young man, I say to you arise!” Listen, I don’t have a lot of time to develop this doctrine completely today, but I think it is important to ask ourselves the question, where was this boy when Jesus issued that command to arise?

I don’t put a lot of stock in 99.9% of the near death or after death experiences that you hear about all the time.  I’m not going to try to explain them, but I will say first of all, that if they do not agree completely with what scripture says about death, and heaven and hell, then I don’t care how sensational the story, or how marvelous the experience, or how many books have been sold, I don’t believe them.  I believe what the scripture says, and I believe that experiences can be deceiving.  Every experience must be verified by scripture or it is suspect.

But what I will say I accept about all of them, and there must be thousands of recorded near death experiences today, is that everyone who had a near death experience felt themselves separate from their body.  That much we can agree upon. In Genesis 2:7 it says that when God created man from the dust of the ground He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.  There are three parts to the human being;  body, soul and spirit.  And though the body will die according to the curse, the soul and the spirit of man will live forever, because we have received the life breath from God who lives forever.

At the point of death, the Bible teaches us that the body dies, but the soul lives on.  Jesus said to the thief on the cross as they were dying, “today you will be with Me in Paradise.”  And that day, when Jesus gave up His Spirit, though His body was put in the tomb, His spirit went to Paradise.  Now where is Paradise?  Well, Jesus gave us a story in Luke 16, not a parable, but an actual event featuring a real man by the name of Lazarus, who was lame and a beggar living at the gate of a rich man.  And Jesus tells us that Lazarus died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom and the rich man also died and was buried and he lifted up his eyes being in torment in Hades and he saw Lazarus far away being comforted in Abraham’s bosom. Jesus goes on to say that there was a great chasm between the two, so that none could cross over.  So we can understand that Jesus and the thief on the cross went immediately upon death to Paradise, or Abraham’s bosom, which is adjacent to Hades across a great chasm.

Folks, it is important that we understand that death brings the  spirit of a man to either Paradise or Hades, either a place of rest and comforting, or a place of torment. 1Peter 3:18 confirms this saying, “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, (that is Hades, or Hell) who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water.”

Jesus appears by providential design to this widow on the road to the graveyard to bury her son.  And moved with compassion He walks up and touches the stretcher and calls this young man to arise, to rise up out of Paradise, and death cannot hold this boy, because the Creator of the universe has spoken and He has the power over life and death.  Jesus made a providential trip to a small town in the middle of nowhere, to a widow who had no special credentials other than a desperate prayer to God, and the merciful God in the flesh, Jesus Christ was moved to compassion and comes to the body and summons this boy’s spirit to return.  And immediately, the boy sits up and speaks and Jesus gives him back to his mother.   And He does so to illustrate that He has the power over life and death. Jesus said at the resurrection of Lazarus; “"I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.”

Listen, Jesus didn’t come to earth to deliver everyone from physical illness or physical  death.  During Jesus lifetime, I’m sure thousands and thousands of people died in Judea and Galilee and yet Jesus raised only 3 of them from the dead. There were so many sick people at the pool of Bethesda waiting for the movement upon the water that they couldn’t all get in the pool, but Jesus only healed one of them.  However,  Jesus did come to earth to deliver man from spiritual death.  Jesus came to deliver man from the sickness of sin.

Oftentimes in scripture Jesus referred to death as being asleep.  What He is talking about is the body is sleeping but the soul and spirit is alive.  And what the Bible often refers to as death is really spiritual death.  Rev. 21 says that for the unbelieving and unregenerate sinners, there part will be in the lake of fire and brimstone, which is the second death.

Notice also that Jesus raised this boy from the dead without the help of anyone’s faith.  The fake healers you see on television want to tell you that if you have enough faith you can be healed, that God’s deliverance is dependent upon the size of your faith.  Or that the answer to your prayers for a new job, or healing or health, or wealth are all dependent upon the size of your faith.  This story doesn’t support that concept does it?  There is no mention of the widow’s faith.  It certainly wasn’t possible for the young man who was deceased to have any faith.  It is evidence of a Sovereign God who works all things after the counsel of His will, who is compassionate and full of mercy.

Please don’t miss the point of this miracle today.  The Bible teaches us that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  It also says in Romans 6:23 that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.  The point that Jesus was illustrating that day, and the point of the gospel, is that every man, woman and child on the planet is under the condemnation of death, we are all spiritually dead, waiting for our physical bodies to expire and if we die without the spiritual life given by God then we will be instantly in hell.  

But God has seen our dire situation, and He is a compassionate, merciful God, and so He has sent Jesus to call us back from death into life.  Jesus took our death upon himself, that we might receive life.  2 Cor. 5:21 says that God made Jesus, who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”

Listen, you may think that you just happened by chance to see a sign on the road about our church the other day and decided to check it out.  But I am here to tell you that God has brought you here today to hear this message by an act of divine providence.  God has compassion towards you and wants to give you the opportunity to escape the judgment upon sin.

But, the choice is yours.  Perhaps due to the nature of this venue  on the beach and not knowing how much longer I will be allowed to do it, I find myself preaching every message as if it might be my last.  And due to the transient nature of this town, some of you here today I will never see again.  But right now, today, you have heard the gospel, the good news, that Jesus has come that you might have everlasting life.  If you died today, where will you be?  Will you be in Paradise, in a place of comfort and rest in the arms of God?  Or will you be in torment, in Hades, awaiting the final judgment when God will cast all immoral unbelievers into the Lake of Fire?

You, like the thief on the cross, can be with Jesus in Paradise when you die.  The thief on the cross recognized that he was worthy of death, that because of his sins he deserved that punishment.  But he also knew that Jesus did not.  He confessed his sins, and he believed that Jesus was the Christ the Son of God.  He confessed his sinfulness, and he called upon Jesus for mercy.  And that is the way to Paradise.  That is the way to eternal life.  1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  The righteous shall live by faith and are made righteous by faith in Jesus Christ.  Jesus said, He that believes in Me shall never die.

The Bible says that Noah was a preacher of righteousness and he preached to the world the need for repentance for 120 years.  But eventually the patience of God came to an end.  Noah must have been considered to be one of the great wonders of the world.  People must have planned vacations to see this crazy man building a boat in the middle of the wilderness far from any ocean.  They must have wondered at the array of strange animals he was assembling that they had never seen before.  But Noah preached that God’s judgment was coming and no one repented.  In 120 years, no one got saved.  But one day, God said, “Noah, get inside,” and He shut the door.  And the Bible says the floodgates opened up and the judgment of God came upon the world.

Listen, some of you here today have been in and out of church all your life.  You may even believe in an historical Jesus.  But you have never been saved.  You may be trying to live a moral life, a good life.   Or you may have tried a few times and given up.  You can’t seem to do it.  Maybe you have given up on God.  But God has you here today to hear this message of the gospel one more time before He shuts the door.  There will come a time when God shuts the door.  There will come an end to the patience of God. The Bible says it is appointed unto man once to die, and after that the judgment. Please don’t keep pushing God aside. Today is the day of salvation.

Some of you listening today might be offended.  You are offended that I would infer that you are sinners in need of salvation.  But I would argue that it’s my duty to tell you when your house is on fire and you are sleeping soundly in your bed thinking that everything is ok.  It’s my duty to run to the house and bang on the door and warn you that your house is burning down.  Only a fool would say, “go away, I’m enjoying my sleep. I’m comfortable in my bed.”

Listen to John 3:16;  God so loved the world, that is, He was so compassionate towards us, that He gave His only Son, that is divine providence that provides mercy, that whosoever believes in Him, that is salvation by faith, would not perish, that is would not die a spiritual death in Hell, but have everlasting life.  They will be given eternal life with Christ in Paradise.  The choice is yours.

Deut. 30:19 says, "I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the LORD your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days.”  Amen.