Recently, my brother in law, who had been a missionary for
37 years passed away from an illness.
And of course, he left my sister as a widow who is going to have to
figure out a way to support herself now without a husband. His death made my wife and I think
about the fact that I should get some life insurance in case something should
happen to me. And so last week I
contacted a man in this church who sells insurance and he helped show me some
of my options.
From what I gathered I could lock in a rate over 10 or 20
years by paying a certain amount of money each month. But the more I thought
about it, I couldn’t help but think how ironic it is that the insurance company
is betting that I would not die before the end of my term, and I am betting
that I will die. If I had the faith of my insurance company in my long term
health, then I wouldn’t buy insurance.
But the insurance company isn’t stupid. They are going to go over my health
with a fine tooth comb. They are
going to narrow the odds down as much as possible. And for my part, I am seriously considering all the options
as well. This is a big financial
commitment for me. There are a lot
of things that are going to factor into my decision, and of course, it has
potentially significant long term effects and benefits.
All of that prompted me to think, as I was preparing for
this message, that a lot of people are more likely to spend more time, more
money and more consideration on something like buying life insurance than on
their eternal security. Blood
tests, Doctor visits, urine samples, you name it, it all comes under scrutiny
before I get the insurance, and then I commit to paying month by month for 10 to
20 years. And the really funny
thing is, if I die, I win the bet, but I don’t get the money. My wife does. It makes you wonder who she is betting on.
But I’m afraid the average Joe is not nearly as concerned
about his eternal security. From
my experience, I think the average guy treats religion a little bit like buying life
insurance, but with a whole lot less diligence. Someone suggested to me that I should look at some of those
life insurance companies you see advertised on late night television and see if
I could find something cheaper.
And my response was, “No way.
The last thing I want to do is spend all that money for 10 or 20 years
and then find out that the insurance company was some flim flam outfit and have
it not pay off.” And yet that is
exactly the way a lot of people treat religion. They don’t really examine their doctrine. They blindly think that sincerity or
good intentions is some measure of security. They are really just hoping that
in the end it will all pay off somehow, but they really don’t know for sure.
Well, today’s passage addresses that very issue. The issue of mindlessly following a
religion and hoping that somehow your sincerity will be of some merit in the
hereafter. Hoping that God doesn’t
care all that much about the details.
Thinking He won’t look that closely. The average person doesn’t really
know what he believes, and he certainly can’t say why he believes what he
claims. He is just hoping for the
best. He has no authority to back
up what he is hoping for.
Well Jesus taught about the kingdom of God as one having
authority. He spoke with authority because He was the Word of God made flesh,
speaking the word of God to flesh.
His message was the gospel of the kingdom of God. He was the way to the kingdom; no one
can come to the Father except through Him, only by His sacrifice can we be
saved. Jesus was teaching the gospel in the temple every day in
the last hours before His crucifixion.
And as you will recall, a delegation made up of the
religious leaders had been asking Him a series of trick questions, hoping to
entrap Him in something they could use to arrest Him. So when the religious
leaders had exhausted their trick questions and weren’t able to trap Him, Jesus
turns the tables upon them and asks them a question. “How is it that the
scribes say that the Christ is the son of David?” It isn’t a trick question, it is a theological
question. It is a doctrinal
question. Listen, doctrine is not
a dirty word, ladies and gentlemen.
On the contrary, you need to know doctrine. You need to rightly divide the word of truth so that you
will not be ashamed at His coming.
There are many false doctrines out there. There are many deviant theologies out there. There are many
false prophets and false teachers in the world. They cannot all be true. The Bible says, “Let God be true, and every man a
liar.” You better know sound
Biblical doctrine. You need to know what you believe and why.
I saw a bumper sticker on a car the other day in Rehoboth,
and it said, “God is too big for just one religion.” Wow. What
theology. What utter
nonsense. First of all, you admit
that there is a God. Then by that
very reason, is it not reasonable to assume that if there is a God then He
should have a say in how we are to approach Him? If God is really as big as you say, then does it not behoove
us to find out how He desires to be worshipped? Jesus said, “God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must
worship Him in spirit and in truth.”
You better know the truth, because only the truth will set you free.
So Jesus asks a question focused on that very point. You see, these religious leaders had a
religion. They had a belief
system. And what is really
significant is that their religion believed in the one, true Jehovah God, and
furthermore, they accepted the teaching that there would come one who was the
Messiah who would be the deliverer of Israel. And yet, it’s obvious from our study of Luke, that these
religious leaders were not saved, they were lost. In fact, they were so blinded by their religion that they
were plotting to kill the Messiah who was Jesus Christ because they did not
think that He fit into their religious doctrine of the Messiah. So they were very religious and yet
very lost.
I would imagine that in a crowd this size that there must be
someone here today that are
lost. If you died today you would
end up in Hell. You are lost even though
you believe in the existence of God.
You believe that we should worship God. That is presumably why you are here today. And yet you are lost and on your way to
Hell. You may even believe in
Jesus. You believe that He lived
on this earth 2000 years ago. You
might even believe that somehow or another He was divine. And yet you can still be lost.
These scribes and Pharisees that Jesus is addressing are
proof that it is possible to have a sort of mindless, thoughtless religion that
has a modicum of truth in it and yet be lost. You can go through the motions without knowing why you are
doing it. Many people are worshipping somewhere today, today
being Sunday, and they don’t know why they are worshipping on Sunday rather
than Saturday. And they really
don’t care. They are just going
through the motions. Some of them
are mumbling catechisms and Latin phrases and opening their mouths to receive a
tiny wafer and they don’t know why they are doing it. And yet they hope that it will somehow suffice on judgment
day. Someone told them that they
can achieve righteousness by going through certain rituals.
And on the other end of the spectrum it’s just as bad if not
worse. People in some evangelical
churches are being told that if they hold their palms up a certain way they are
receiving something spiritual. And
if they clap their hands together they are worshipping. And if they speak in some
unintelligible gibberish they are praying to God. These poor folks are being taught that they don’t need to focus
on doctrine, they need to focus on feeling. They just need to feel the love. That is all that matters. They have forgotten the exhortation of Jesus that if you
love Me, you will keep My commandments. No, they want to experience something, even if it is
mindless.
These poor people are being exploited in the name of
religion. They are being told that
feeling spiritual is equal to being spiritual. So anything that makes you feel a certain way, or act a
certain way must be of the Holy Spirit.
And so in some churches today people are falling down on the ground and
going into convulsions and they are told that is being slain in the
Spirit. Others are falling down
drunk, laughing and reeling around unable to act or speak coherently and they
are being told that they are drunk in the Spirit. Others are laughing, howling at the moon, shrieking in
laughter to the point that it drowns out everything else, and they are told
that is holy laughter. Listen,
don’t be deceived; Christianity is not a mindless religion. God is not the author of confusion but
of order and discipline and truth.
The Holy Spirit is not a feeling, He’s not a force, He is the Spirit of
Jesus Christ living among us. If
Jesus didn’t do it, then the Holy Spirit will not do it. They are not different entities, they
are One God. As God is, so
was Jesus in the flesh, (if you
have seen Me you have seen the Father) and as Jesus is, so is the Holy Spirit.
(John 16:13, “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into
all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He
hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will
glorify Me…”) God is One. You need
to know your theology and doctrine.
Because many deceivers have gone out into the world and are leading many
people astray. And these false
prophets that are blaspheming the name of the Holy Spirit by teaching people to
go after strange spirits have forgotten what Jesus said in Matt. 12:31
"Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people,
but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven.”
It is not possible to have a sort of mindless, thoughtless
form of Christianity that is void of sound doctrine and Biblical theology. But it isn’t possible to have an
experiential type of Christianity that is divorced from sound doctrine. You are either worshipping God in
Spirit and in truth or you will be found outside of the door of the kingdom of
God, saying, “Lord, Lord, did we not do great things in your name? Lord, Lord, did we not even do miracles
in your name?” And they will hear
Jesus say as He promised in Matthew 7:23, “I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME,
YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.”
Listen, you want to guard against a superficial, mindless
religion? Then you need to go to
the Word of God and get serious about studying it. Not reading books loosely based on the word of God, not
watching movies with a mildly religious, positive theme. “But studying to show yourselves
approved unto God a workman that doesn’t need to be ashamed, rightly dividing
the word of truth.” (2 Tim. 2:15)
You need to understand the primacy, the authority, and the sufficiency
of scripture. You need to
understand that Jesus is described in John 1 as the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God. And
that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And then you need to understand that the Holy Spirit
breathed upon certain appointed men, inspiring them to write down His words,
bringing to their minds remembrance of the things which He had told them so
that we may have confidence in the scriptures. 2Tim. 3:16-17 says, “All scripture is given by inspiration
of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction
in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect(complete), thoroughly
furnished unto all good works.”
You want to be a complete Christian? It’s not found in some mystical spiritual experience. Immerse yourself in the Word of God and
obey it.
So the religious leaders confronting Jesus that day are
mindless. They are thoughtlessly, blindly following a phony religion, in spite
of having everything that they needed for salvation right in front of
them. They have seen the truth and
yet rejected it. They have stopped
short of becoming a disciple. Folks,
I am afraid that is exactly our problem here today. There are some people that come out here on the beach to hear
what that crazy surfer preacher might say this week. There are some that might come because it’s a beautiful day,
and maybe they might see a dolphin while I’m preaching and they can work on
their tan at the same time. They have heard all they need to know in order to
be saved and yet they are not saved.
One of the saddest verses of scripture that comes to mind about this
time of year is Jeremiah 8:20 "Harvest is past, summer is ended, And we are not saved."
And so we wonder why we don’t grow.
We wonder why every year when we go back indoors we no longer see some
people anymore. The fact is that
we don’t grow by getting more and more people to come out on the beach for a
service on a sunny day. The church
grows by making disciples. We grow by making disciples, not by adding
spectators to the church. Making
disciples is being obedient to the word.
So true to form, when Jesus teaches He relies upon the
scriptures. He confronts their
mindless religion by asking them to consider the scriptures and make a rational
decision on the basis of what it says.
He asks the question, ““How is it that they say the Christ is David’s
son? For David himself says in the book of Psalms, THE LORD SAID TO MY LORD,
‘SIT AT MY RIGHT HAND, UNTIL I MAKE YOUR ENEMIES A FOOTSTOOL FOR YOUR FEET.’
Therefore David calls Him ‘Lord,’ and how is He his son?”
Now the answer to His question is one that they either
cannot or will not allow themselves to see. And there is an element to this
question that may be hard for us to see, because we aren’t reading it in the
Hebrew. Luke is writing in Greek
obviously. But Jesus is quoting
from Psalm 110 which was written in Hebrew. And in the Hebrew there is a distinction in the word
Lord. The Jews considered the
proper name of God as sacred to the point that they did not say it aloud. And so they had a tradition of writing
the name of God, the name Jehovah, with just the consonants. And then when reading the name of
Jehovah, they would insert the word Lord in it’s place. This was an ultra conservative approach
to avoiding using the name of the Lord in vain. Now in your Old Testament, you will sometimes notice that
the word Lord is in all capital letters.
That is done to show you that the word LORD is substituted for the name
Jehovah. So when the Psalmist
David says, “The LORD said to my Lord,” he is saying, Jehovah said to my
Lord.
The word Lord with a capital L and small letters is from the
Hebrew word, Adonai. Adonai means
Lord, either used of God or sometimes used in reference to men. It means the supreme ruler. He to whom a person or thing belongs,
about which he has power of deciding; master. The possessor and disposer of a
thing or person. The owner; one who has control of the person, the master. In matters of state: the sovereign,
prince, chief, the emperor. It is
a title of honor expressive of respect and reverence, with which servants greet
their master. This title is given to: God, the Messiah.
So the question is how can the Messiah be David’s son, when
David writes in Ps. 110 that Jehovah says to my Lord? The scribes and Pharisees can’t answer that. They haven’t thought about it. They have a template for the Messiah
that He will be a descendent of David and sit on his throne, and so therefore
they are looking for a human descendent of David who will literally sit on the
throne of Israel, and defeat their enemies. And so they refuse to consider any scriptures that don’t
align with that doctrine.
What Jesus is trying to teach them, is that the Messiah is
God in human flesh. Revelation
22:16 says that He is the root and the offspring of David. In other words, by his human nature he
was the offspring of David, a branch of his family; by his divine nature he was
the root of David, from whom David had his being and life, salvation by grace. What Jesus is teaching is that Christ,
as God, was David's Lord, but Christ, as man, was David's Son.
Listen, the reason that the scribes and Pharisees were not
saved, was that they would not recognize Jesus as Lord, as God. I think that we have almost the
opposite problem today in the church.
We recognize Jesus as God, but not as Lord. The doctrine of the lordship of Jesus Christ is not a
popular doctrine today. At the
very best modern theologians and preachers want to regulate it to some sort of
advanced stage of sanctification that really isn’t necessary for salvation. But for the most part it is not taught
at all. The whole emphasis today
is upon justification by grace. But Hebrews 12:14 says that without
sanctification, no one will see the Lord.
Rom 10:9 says, “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as
Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be
saved.” To understand what it
means to confess Jesus as Lord you just need to turn back a few verses to Luke
19 where Jesus gives a parable about the land owner who planted a vineyard and
sent his servants to receive his yearly allowance. And the vinegrowers kept beating up his servants and sending
them back empty handed. And it
says in vs. 14, “But his citizens hated him and sent a delegation after him,
saying, ‘We do not want this man to reign over us.’” See, lordship is recognizing that Jesus Christ is the Master
of the vineyard. He is the supreme
ruler of the earth. Everything
that we have is given to us by
God. Our very lives are upheld by
His power. Our heart keeps beating
by the power of God. Our next
breath is taken because God gives it to us. And so lordship is recognizing, confessing, that Jesus is
Lord of your life. Confessing that
we belong to Him. He is our Master, He decides our
purpose. We live according to His
will, not manipulate Him to serve our will.
These Pharisees were indicative of the citizens that said,
“We do not want this man to rule over us.” They rejected Jesus as Lord. And Jesus said in the parable that when the Master returns
to take His vineyard, He said “But these enemies of mine, who did not want me
to reign over them, bring them here and slay them in my presence.”
Jesus then gives a scathing indictment of these scribes and
Pharisees, while at the same time warning His disciples. See, even disciples can fall prey to
this kind of self righteous posturing, this religious fervor, that is actually
a damning phony religion. He is
highlighting hypocritical religion.
He says in vs. 46, ““Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in
long robes, and love respectful greetings in the market places, and chief seats
in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets, who devour widows’ houses,
and for appearance’s sake offer long prayers. These will receive greater
condemnation.”
What Jesus is warning about is religion for show. About seeking publicity, seeking honor,
seeking earthly prominence in the religious realm. Matthews gospel records some
more of what Jesus said in this regard.
He says in Matt. 23:13, "But woe to you, scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people;
for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to
go in.” See, that is the danger of
phony religion. They not only are
not saved themselves, they make sure that no one else is saved either. And then in vs. 15 "Woe to you,
scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to
make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son
of hell as yourselves.” That is
another scathing indictment. Their
false doctrine spreads like gangrene and corrupts everyone who hears it. And
that is why Jesus says that these false teachers will receive a greater
condemnation.
Jesus is not only describing the scribes and Pharisees, but
He is painting a picture that should serve as a warning for us today as
well. Beware of religious leaders
who put on a show, who parade around in long, flowing robes, Christian
costumes, hoping that they will look pious by the clothes and funny hats they
are wearing. They love to be
called “the right Reverend Dr. so and so, and they have all these degrees that
are attached to their titles that are designed to convince you they know what
they are talking about. They love
the places of honor, and they love to make long public prayers so that people
can be sure to see how holy they are.
And yet the fact is it is all a hypocritical mask. Jesus says they do it to devour widow’s
houses. What He means is they take
from vulnerable widows, defrauding old ladies who are maybe easily deceived by
their fake piety and they take their money by promising them some eternal
benefit due to their holiness. One
of the very people that the temple was to be concerned about and seek to help
were widows. It is still a
priority for the church though we do not have the same social structure that
they had which left these women without much recourse. But the fact is that they take
advantage of the most vulnerable among us for monetary gain.
I must tell you that a lot of the modern Christian
television preachers capitalize on the sympathies of vulnerable, elderly
women. They are flying around the
country in multimillion dollar jets living in $10,000 a night hotel suites
while making money off of old ladies who are hoping that their gift will be
multiplied by God according to the false teaching of these shysters. Beware of
these false prophets.
Finally, Luke presents an illustration to ram this principle
home. I will not belabor it, since
you are all familiar with it, I’m sure.
But as Jesus was teaching He was sitting in the Court of the Women in
the Temple where the people would come and present their offerings. The temple priests had made these
trumpet type of horns that were mounted on the walls so that people could drop
in their offerings. And Luke says
that as Jesus is teaching He looks up and sees the rich putting their offerings
in the treasury. And He sees an
opportunity for an illustration.
The illustration has a two fold application as we will see in a
moment. But let’s look at it
first.
Luke 21:2-4 “And He saw a poor widow putting in two small
copper coins. And He said, ‘Truly
I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all of them; for they all out of
their surplus put into the offering; but she out of her poverty put in all that
she had to live on.’"
So here is the picture; Jesus has just finished condemning
the religious leaders for their rejection of His Lordship, and He has
characterized them as showboating self righteous hypocrites who take advantage
of old ladies. Now He looks up and
all these rich people come in to the treasury and make their offerings. They had engineered it in such a way
that it was a very public thing.
People could watch the worshippers come in and present their
offerings. They could hear the
sound of the coins clinking in the horns and tell how much or how little a
person was giving. The Pharisees
were known for actually blowing a horn before they gave in order to make sure
that everyone knew that they were giving.
But then Jesus juxtaposes this grandiose religious expression with a
little old widow who comes in and probably would have escaped all notice in the
activity of the temple. She wasn’t
dressed in finery, she didn’t blow a trumpet, and the sound of her two cents
I’m sure didn’t make a dint in the din of the temple court. No one noticed her. No one nodded approvingly or applauded. But God saw her. God knew that she gave all that she had
to live on. She gave everything
she had to the Lord.
Listen, I go out of my way to not talk about giving here at
the Beach Fellowship. I may
occasionally talk about money, as the word talks about it, then I talk about it. But I don’t talk about giving if I don’t have to. I believe that God loves a cheerful
giver. So I am not going to try to
compel people to give. All that I
will say about this illustration is that it shows that God sees the gift, but
more importantly God sees the sacrifice involved in the gift. David said in 2 Samuel 24:24 that he
would not give God that which cost him nothing. God sees not the monetary size of the gift, but the
sacrificial proportion of the gift.
Jesus noted this widow because while others gave out of their surplus,
she gave out of her poverty.
But the greater illustration that I think is here is that of
the lordship principle. This widow
had a proper view of the lordship of God.
She rightly recognized that everything she had was the Lord’s. She didn’t have a ten percent view, but
a 100% view. You know, that’s why
I don’t preach about tithing.
Tithing is an OT law that required Israelites to give a tenth of all
they had to the Lord. And in the
new covenant, we are no longer under the law. We are under grace.
But listen, grace does not do away with the law, grace fulfills the law
and then more. If the law was 10%,
then grace is 100%. It’s
recognizing that Jesus deserves everything I have because of the gratitude I
have for His immeasurable gift to me.
Salvation is about giving all that I have to the Lord to be used for His
glory. I give Him all of me,
everything I renounce, everything I turn over to Him. And so the lordship of Christ requires that I surrender all.
And there is, as I said another application of this
incident. And that is that this
sincere, God loving woman gave her offering to the treasury of the very men
that were devouring widow’s houses.
Though this woman was a great illustration of surrendering everything to
God, there is no indication that she was saved. If she did not recognize Jesus as God then she could not be
saved. Luke just records that she went in, gave her offering, and presumably
left. God saw her gift. But unfortunately she was still
victimized by a false system of
religion that promised her some sort of righteousness as a result of her
offering. And so she probably
didn’t leave feeling all that great about her offering. The rabbis taught that the giving alms
was a means of pardoning sin.
It was a false
doctrine. It was designed to fill
their coffers, but it could not atone for sin. It serves as a classic example of how these false religious
leaders were devouring widow’s houses.
And as we look at the next section in this chapter next
week, we will see Jesus pronouncement of judgment upon this temple, and this
system which victimized the very ones that they were supposed to be helping by
teaching them a false religion and ignoring the truth of God’s word. Within 35 years from that day, the temple
would be destroyed and all the priests killed or scattered. God’s judgment would be poured out on
them for their false religion.
Folks, I wonder how many of you here this morning would
rather continue in your comfortable, established false religion than find
freedom in the truth of God’ word?
I wonder how many prefer a form of religion, without the power of it,
the power of the truth which brings about conversion and produces
sanctification? I wonder how many
will reject the lordship of Jesus Christ, and say “we will not let Christ rule
over us, He will not decide for us, He will not tell us what to do.” I wonder how many will continue to
think that they can be saved and not sanctified. I hope no one. Jesus said in Luke 6:46 "Why do you call
Me, 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say?”
I hope no one leaves here today without submitting to the
Lordship of Jesus Christ. Giving
of themselves first and foremost, 100% to the Lord, realizing that He is Lord,
and all their life and being belong to Him.
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