The nature of hypocrisy; Luke 11: 37-54

When I was a boy, there was a hit show on TV called Kung Fu that completely mesmerized my friends and I.  Suddenly, we all wanted to become martial artists.  So we made homemade nunchakus and practiced jumping high kicks on unsuspecting friends.  It was a miracle that we didn’t knock one another’s brains out.  We formed  kung fu clubs where we did a lot of kicking and yelling “Hai!”  and tried to karate chop through two by fours.  I also remember these great debates where we would argue about the martial arts abilities of the show’s lead actor, David Carradine with unbelievers.  We firmly believed that our hero could in fact beat up legions of men singlehandedly.  We believed that he was actually as adept at Kung Fu in real life as his character appeared to be on screen.  What we were too naïve to understand  was that he was just an actor, who was being paid to look and act like the character he was portraying, but in real life, had no real knowledge of the martial arts.

There is a word found in the Greek New Testament that was used to describe this type of actor, one who played a role on stage for the applause of the audience.  It is the Greek word “hypokritēs” (hu pok cree tase).  In English, it is the basis for our word hypocrite.  We don’t ascribe it to actors or actresses anymore as the Greeks once did, but instead we use it to describe someone who is a pretender, who isn’t really what he seems to be.  It means someone who puts on a front of self righteousness, but in real life is far from it.

Now the word hypocrite is not actually used in this passage. But it’s obvious from the context of Jesus’ teaching that hypocrisy is the subject of His message.  In fact, in a similar message found in Matthew 23, Jesus repeats many of these same statements and reiterates nearly identical woes upon the Pharisees and lawyers who were opposing him.  And in each of Jesus denunciations, He says, “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!”   So though the word hypocrite may be missing from this account, it is obvious that Jesus is preaching about hypocrisy.

So first Jesus lays out the principle of hypocrisy in vs.39 as relating to that of a spiritual or religious hypocrite. And then starting in vs. 42 He gives six illustrations of that principle of hypocrisy which were characteristic of the Pharisees.  Now in vs. 37 and 38 Jesus has been asked to lunch at a Pharisee’s house and He shocks the host by not ceremonially washing his hands before the meal as was their custom.  And Jesus responds in vs. 39 with this statement which describes the nature of hypocrisy; “Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the platter; but inside of you, you are full of robbery and wickedness.”  Jesus is presenting  the principle of religious hypocrisy, to appear shiny and clean on the outside, but inside be full of uncleanness.

And this is really the principle of this message today.  It would be a lot easier on all of us if I just replayed this scene from a historical point of view and talked about how the Pharisees were such horrible hypocrites.  That would be a fairly palatable message for all of us, because none of us are Pharisees in the literal sense of the word.  In fact, Pharisees do not exist any more.  They are an extinct religious organization that existed 2000 years ago in Judaism.  And so most of us could comfortably excuse ourselves from this message altogether on the basis of the fact that we are not technically Pharisees.

But if you look at this passage on the basis of it being a message against hypocrisy, then none of us are exempt.   Because religious hypocrisy is very much in practice today in the church.  Though we may not always recognize hypocrisy among ourselves, yet the unsaved seem to see it very clearly. In fact, the number one reason most unsaved people avoid the church is that they say that it is full of hypocrites.  They see us claiming righteousness, but living lives that are anything but righteous.  And don’t think for a moment that having a bumper sticker on your car that says “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven” excludes you from the sin of hypocrisy.  But if the sin of hypocrisy isn’t bad enough as a personal indictment as to one’s genuineness as a Christian, I think an even greater condemnation is the effect of hypocrisy on our children.  Our young people are very perceptive regarding hypocrisy.  They don’t need it explained.  And that hypocrisy, whether in the home, our work or in the church turns them off and causes them to stumble and in many cases causes them to fall away all together.   Jesus said for those that cause one of these little ones to stumble, it would be better that they have a mill stone tied around their neck and thrown into the sea.  It’s a terrible thing to put a stumbling block of hypocrisy in front of our young people or any unsaved person.

So it behooves us to take seriously what Jesus is talking about here.  Because it only takes a cursory look at the gospels to see that this was a reoccurring theme of Jesus’ preaching.  In fact, He is much more incensed over hypocrisy than He is over any other sin.  We don’t see this type of scathing rebuke against the woman caught in adultery, for instance.  We don’t see Jesus pronouncing a series of woes against the obvious sinners like the prostitutes or the tax collectors or the drunkards.  But we do see many instances of Jesus rebuking the sin of hypocrisy and furthermore pronouncing a terrible judgment to come against those that remain as such.

To comprehend this better it might help if we understand what prompted this message by Jesus in the first place.  It says in vs. 38 that Jesus had not ceremoniously washed his hands before eating lunch and his host, who was a Pharisee was surprised by that. And the next thing you know, Jesus starts in with this sermon on hypocrisy which undoubtedly offended his host and probably embarrassed him before his dinner companions.  So why was Jesus so incensed?

Well, the fact of the matter is, Jesus may have deliberately set the guy up by purposely not washing, knowing that they were watching Him to find fault with Him.  And so rather than complying with their tradition, Jesus uses this as an opportunity to knock them off their pedestal and preach to them the truth.  You know, whoever thinks that the gospel of Jesus Christ is never going to offend anyone has really never read the scriptures.  Jesus sometimes went out of His way to be offensive, and this seems to be one of those occasions.   Jesus said in Matt. 10:34, “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”  Jesus came to separate truth from a lie.  And a works based religion that focuses on outward performance without an inward transformation is a lie that was not only damning men to hell in Jesus day, but damning men to hell today as well.

So the Pharisees had taken some Old Testament laws concerning cleanliness that God had given for the dual purpose of protecting His people from diseases and which showing the need for spiritual purification and they added to these laws certain rituals that God had never prescribed.  The Jews ended up with a book that was bigger than the Pentateuch called the Mishna which extrapolated all the laws of God and added to them all sorts of embellishments and rituals and minutia which on the surface seemed to have the purpose of helping a person keep the law.  But instead it had fostered a religion of works designed for an elaborate show or ritual of being religious, when in fact it had become a matter of pride and  created a class of the spiritually elite. So this ritual hand washing had nothing really to do with hygiene, but was a very public way of proclaiming your spiritual cleanness, when in fact the people practicing it were unregenerate sinners who refused to repent of their sins.  And so Jesus uses this instance to declare to them that they were still in their sins, and therefore spiritually unclean.

You know, I wonder how often we are confronted with a friend or acquaintance who for what ever reason tells us about some religious thing that they are doing. Perhaps they know that we are one of those “born again” type of Christians, and so in order to try to justify themselves they  tell us about something that they did or that happened to them that they think is spiritual or significantly religious.  And I wonder how often in those situations we tend to just affirm the person’s good intentions,  or commend them perhaps for thinking about God, or for doing some good deed, or to commend them for participating in something like Lent, or going to Mass, just for the sake of keeping the peace or just to keep from offending them.  And yet Jesus doesn’t do that.  Jesus uses that kind of situation as an opportunity to show the person that they need to be saved; that they are still dead in their sins, still unclean, and that they need to be washed clean by the grace of God in response to their repentant hearts.  But I wonder how many opportunities we have to proclaim the gospel that we don’t take advantage of because we don’t want to seem uncool and offend someone.

But look at how Jesus handles this situation.  He says “you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the platter; but inside of you, you are full of robbery and wickedness. You foolish ones, did not He who made the outside make the inside also? But give that which is within as charity, and then all things are clean for you.”

So first, Jesus presents their dire situation. Jesus says, your ritual cleaning doesn’t do anything but show off your self righteousness for public consumption so people will think you are spiritual.  But though you wash your hands, inside you are full of corruption.  In spite of your religious rituals, your baptisms, your church going, your good deeds, the religious front you wear for other people to see, in spite of all that external religion, inside you are full of dirty rotten sin that has never been cleaned.

That’s their situation. And then secondly, Jesus presents the solution.  He says give that which is within as charity and then all things are clean for you.  Charity as used in that verse is kind of confusing for us because of how we tend to think of charity today.  But the word for charity is translated as alms in just about every other place it is used in scripture. That word gives us a better understanding of what He is talking about.  Because alms means what was given to God to be used by God.  Alms is another way of saying an offering to God.  So what Jesus is saying is give what is within, that is your heart, to God as an offering, and then all things are clean.  Give God your heart – your mind, your will, your emotions, your soul- give that to God as an offering to be used by Him and for Him, and then you will be made clean.

Listen to what Jesus says in Matt. 23 talking about the same statement; “You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also.”  So here is the principle; no religious ritual, no religious service can make you clean in your heart.  God will not accept our sacrifices or our burnt offerings or our church membership, or our fasts or our tithes or our good deeds.  The only way to be made clean before God, the only way to be accepted to God is to have the righteousness of Jesus Christ applied towards our account through repentance of our sins and faith in Christ’s substitionary death on the cross for us.

Eph. 2:8 says, “By grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast.” And then in 2Cor. 5:11 the spiritual equation is explained; “But God made Jesus who knew no sin to become sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God through Him.”  That is the only way to be made clean, through the righteousness of Jesus Christ applied to our account.

Then after stating the principle of hypocrisy, Jesus gives six woes, or six illustrations of their hypocrisy.  The first one is found in vs. 42 and for our purposes you can substitute the word hypocrites for Pharisees; “But woe to you Pharisees [hypocrites]! For you pay tithe of mint and rue and every kind of garden herb, and yet disregard justice and the love of God; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others.”

As we pointed out, in vs. 41 Jesus is talking about alms or tithes that are given to God.  And so Jesus uses that to segue into this rebuke of their tithing.  He says that they tithed of mint, rue and every kind of garden herb.  Now the law required that they give a tithe of all that they made to the temple for the support of the temple and the priests.  But what the hypocrites were doing was making a great show of tithing of inconsequential things such as herbs from their gardens, when actually they were missing the whole point of the tithe.  Many of the herbs of the garden such as rue were expressly exempted from tithing in the law, and yet they were making a great show of their fastidiousness in order to show people their righteousness.

In Matt. 6 Jesus is preaching against hypocrites and the way that they gave tithes to be seen of men. He says, “So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.  But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving will be in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.”

But the point Jesus is making is that they neglected the other weightier provisions of the law such as justice and loving God, while emphasizing the external things that could be seen by others. Jesus isn’t saying that they shouldn’t tithe, but that they should not neglect the other aspects of God’s requirements.

And we too can be hypocritical in that same way;  we can emphasize the aspects of Christianity that we like to focus on, and neglect others that we do not like.  I’ve said many times we like to emphasize the love of God and the grace of God but we often neglect the parts of the gospel like offering our bodies as a living sacrifice in service to God.  We too often use grace as a license to sin or do whatever we want.  And yet God has called us to be holy even as He is holy.  We like to emphasize the love of God which we think gives us liberty to live as we please.  But the point is not God’s love for us, but our love for God.  If we obey the first commandment then we will love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our soul and all our mind and all our strength.  That kind of love leaves very little room for self indulgence, but is an all consuming passion that drives me to serve Him with every fiber of my being.

Jesus gives a second woe or illustration in vs. 43;“Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the chief seats in the synagogues and the respectful greetings in the market places.”  Jesus gives yet another stinging rebuke of their hypocrisy.  Part of what they loved about being a Pharisee was having the public approval that resulted in being seated in the front seats in the synagogues.  Now Jesus isn’t talking about sitting on the front row and facing the preacher.  But rather sitting in the front of the synagogue in the chairs of the authorities and facing the congregation.

In Matt. 23:5 Jesus expands upon this theme.  He says concerning the hypocrites, “But they do all their deeds to be noticed by men; for they broaden their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments. They love the place of honor at banquets and the chief seats in the synagogues, and respectful greetings in the market places, and being called Rabbi by men.” Jesus goes on to say that those that want to be great in the kingdom of God will be the ones who take the role of a servant, not those that elevate their stature, or magnify titles or wear elaborate priestly robes and funny hats to appear holy before men.

That is the hallmark of counterfeit religion by the way: in order to live out your religion for public approval and put on a convincing show, you elaborate the external, so you expand the emblems; you expand the functions; you expand the ceremonies; you expand the rituals; you proliferate the prescriptions.  You add more pomp and circumstance to the external things while leaving the inward man unregenerate and corrupt.  You end up with a priesthood made up of pedophiles.

The third illustration of hypocrisy is found in vs. 44; ““Woe to you! For you are like concealed tombs, and the people who walk over them are unaware of it.”  Now Jesus is revealing the aspect of hypocrisy I spoke of earlier.  That of being a stumbling block to others.  Here is what He is saying;  These Pharisees were supposed to be teachers, showing others the way to God, how to become righteous.  And as such they claimed to know the Bible, to know the truth about God.  And yet Jesus says they were like concealed tombs that caused others to become unclean by their association.  See, there was an injunction in the law for a Jew to stay away from dead bodies.  And if you had contact with a dead person, there was a ceremony that you had to go through where you were considered unclean for seven days, during which you avoided personal contact with others.  So the point Jesus is making is that these hypocrites who claimed to be clean were in fact like dead bodies, and others being deceived by their lives were made unclean as a result of being around them.  This is the danger of hypocrites, they not only condemn themselves, but because of their false teaching they cause others to be condemned along with them.

Then the rest of the illustrations are addressed to lawyers.  As Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees a lawyer spoke up and said, “Teacher, when You say this, You insult us too.”  And so Jesus turned around and promptly included them in His diatribe.  See, the lawyers didn’t defend people from the law as we think of lawyers today, but these lawyers interpreted the law and held the people accountable to their teachings.  They were in fact usually Pharisees, but they had a different role.  But they were just as guilty as the rest of the sin of hypocrisy.

Vs. 46: “But He said, “Woe to you lawyers as well! For you weigh men down with burdens hard to bear, while you yourselves will not even touch the burdens with one of your fingers.”  Here’s the short explanation of this statement.  The lawyers taught strict adherence to the law of Moses and enforced unreasonable demands upon the people.  For instance, the Sabbath Day was made to be a day of rest for man.  That is why God made it, for man’s benefit, so that he wouldn’t have to work.  But in interpreting this law, they added so many restrictions that the people found it a great burden.  And yet the lawyers also figured out ways that they could personally get around the law to their advantage while leaving the people bound up.

Time will not permit us to go into the plethora of modern day examples of this type of hypocrisy within the church.  But all you have to do is turn on the TV and see the lavishly gilded production sets of the television evangelists, their private jets and multiple mansions and then contrast that with their pleas for little old ladies living off of social security to send in a few dollars by promising God will multiply their money.  That kind of hypocrisy of burdening the people that you are supposed to be serving is the worse kind of hypocrisy.  These are people that are adept at pointing out the fault in others, but neglect the faults of their own.  Jesus said in Matt. 7:3, “Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

The next illustration is found in vs. 47: “Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and it was your fathers who killed them. So you are witnesses and approve the deeds of your fathers; because it was they who killed them, and you build their tombs. For this reason also the wisdom of God said, ‘I will send to them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and some they will persecute,
so that the blood of all the prophets, shed since the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the house of God; yes, I tell you, it shall be charged against this generation.’

The sin of hypocrisy is nothing short of refusing to repent.  That pridefulness is at the heart of hypocrisy. God had sent prophet after prophet to his people, the Jews, to get them to repent and yet they would not.  Instead they had persecuted the prophets and in many cases killed them.  Now, someone greater than Moses was here.  Someone greater than Elijah was here.  And what would they do when they heard Him?  They would ultimately reject Him and crucify Him.

Listen, it is a terrible thing to reject the prophet of the Lord, to harden your neck against reproof, to say that you have no sin, that you don’t need to repent, that you are good enough, you are righteous enough because of all the good works you think that you have done.  It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an angry God.  And God has every right to be angry when you reject His Son whom He sacrificed on a cross for you.

Finally the last illustration of hypocrisy is found in vs. 52; “Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you yourselves did not enter, and you hindered those who were entering.”  Once again Jesus reemphasizes this terrible effect of hypocrisy whereby not only does it condemn the hypocrite, but it condemns others as well.  These men were supposed to be teachers of God’s law.  But instead they had subverted the truth into a lie. They had taken away from their people the source of their salvation, that is recognizing that Jesus was the Messiah who had come to take away the sins of the world, and as such they deprived their own people the opportunity to be saved as well. They condemned their own people by their hypocrisy.  How many times I have seen this right here in this church.  People get offended because of the preaching of the truth and so stop coming to church, and as a result drag others away with them, hindering their salvation.

That’s why James says in 3:1, “Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment.”  Listen, we need to understand that we are teaching by example.  And we need more examples of godly living.  We need more disciple makers who can say to a young person, “come and follow me”.  Watch what I do.  Watch how I act.  Do as I do.  I ask you today, “Where are your disciples?”  Jesus said we are to go and make disciples.  Where are your disciples?  Can you let someone follow you around work, when you are on vacation, when you go about your normal routine? We need to be in the process of making disciples.  We can’t do that if we are one thing in church and another thing in the workplace.  We can’t even raise godly children if we are living life as a hypocrite.  It doesn’t matter how many church programs you stick your child into.  You better be living a life that he or she can look at and know that Mom or Dad is not a hypocrite.

Well, the gospel of Jesus Christ is an offensive gospel.  This message hits me squarely between the eyes and I have a feeling that it hits some of you that way as well.  The question is how will we respond to it.  Are we going to get mad at the messenger?  I have a feeling that I get crucified over a few lunch tables from time to time.  But folks, this is not my gospel.  I’m just the messenger.  And I’m convicted just as much as anyone by what is being taught here today.  The question is what are we going to do about it?

The Pharisees showed the wrong response.  In vs. 53 it says, “When He left there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to be very hostile and to question Him closely on many subjects, plotting against Him to catch Him in something He might say.” I hope no one here has that response to the message today.  But examine your hearts, ask God to show you where you need to be corrected.  See if you are practicing what you preach.  And then get on your knees before God and ask Him to help you, to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. 1John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Let’s pray that we might truly become His disciples and then be able to make disciples of others.

The nature of conversion; Luke 11: 27-36

As I study the book of Luke, I am more cognizant than ever that in addition to the biographical aspect of Luke’s gospel, he is also arranging the events in a certain order which is designed to produce a certain message, which may be less obvious, but is essential to understanding his gospel.  In other words, Luke includes biographical events in a particular order so as to present an almost subliminal message in addition to Jesus’ biography.  So as we come to this passage today, we need to remember that we are jumping into an ongoing message that Luke is presenting through specific, historical events, and as such we should endeavor to understand how these events contribute to his underlying message.

As we look at the context of this passage, I believe that it can be determined that this is a message regarding the true nature of conversion, or the true nature of salvation.  Luke started this section with the Lord’s prayer and we noted that the key to understanding the Lord’s prayer is that because of conversion we have the privilege of calling God our Father.  And verses 5-13 continue to emphasize that relationship with God our Father born out of our new birth, or conversion.

The next section deals with another aspect of conversion: that salvation is comprehensive.  Luke’s record of Jesus’ teaching in vs. 14-26 makes it clear that you are either in the kingdom of God or you are not.  You are either a child of God or a child of the devil.  That there is no middle ground.  You can’t be sort of converted, or half way saved.  You either are saved or you aren’t.  You are either for Christ or you are against Him.  Conversion is comprehensive, it is all consuming.  Repentance requires a complete reversal, a complete change of direction.

And the next three passages we are going to look at today continue to deal with the nature of conversion. I have given them three headings under the title of the nature of conversion; first the nature of relationship, second the nature of repentance, and third the nature of revelation. 

Let’s look first at the nature of relationship starting in vs. 27, “While Jesus was saying these things, one of the women in the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, “Blessed is the womb that bore You and the breasts at which You nursed.”  But He said, “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.”

In the scene presented Jesus is preaching about the comprehensiveness of conversion, that you are either born of God or you are born of your father the devil, and suddenly out of the crowd a woman calls out, “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts at which You nursed.”  Not exactly the sort of thing you commonly hear yelled out at most church services. But many commentators seem to think that what this woman called out wasn’t such a bad thing.  They say that this could have been a colloquialism that basically meant “You are so wonderful that whoever was your mother would be proud of you and is blessed to have a Son like You.”  But I am not so sure this woman was being quite so altruistic.   I think she was deliberately distracting attention from Jesus and shifting it over to His mother. 

This is a ploy that Satan has been using for  hundreds of years, by the way.  The Catholics in particular have produced a doctrine concerning the blessedness of Mary that in some aspects surpasses that of Christ.  Mary is venerated and prayed to at the exclusion of worshipping Jesus Christ as the Son of God.  Certainly Mary was blessed above all women in that she was chosen to be the vessel by which Jesus Christ would come into human form.  But let’s not forget that Jesus existed from eternity as God before He was given birth to by Mary.  Whereas Mary was a mere mortal who needed salvation just like everyone does.  Catholics teach a number of erroneous doctrines concerning Mary; one is that she remained a virgin.  And yet the Bible teaches that she had other sons and daughters after the birth of Jesus. In Matt. 13:55 the Jews asked, “Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us?”

Another false doctrine is taught concerning the assumption of Mary which teaches that she was taken into heaven in bodily form.  Some Catholic officials have claimed that she never died, that she was not guilty of any sin and so God took her to heaven because death is the punishment for sin and since she never sinned then she would not have to die.  None of this, of course, is mentioned in scripture, and even the Catholics have a hard time finding any evidence for this doctrine except through circular reasoning from their own tradition. 

And the other primary false doctrine is that which teaches that one can pray to Mary and she will intercede for them in heaven.  Again, there is no Biblical basis whatsoever to support this practice, but conversely verses such as 1 Tim.2:5 tells us that there is only one intercessor between God and man and that is Christ Jesus.

So I believe that this woman’s comment was meant to distract their attention away from Jesus who is the only way to salvation and to turn people’s attention to his mother who never can be a means of salvation. Acts 4:12, “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.”

In fact, in both this verse and in Luke 8, Jesus had the opportunity to affirm some divine role of Mary in addition to being His earthly mother, but instead Jesus consistently chooses to downplay her significance.  Jesus says, “on the contrary…” He isn’t agreeing with this woman’s statement, but He is offering an alternative, even contradictory statement.  In Luke 8:21 Jesus answers to those who said His mother and brothers were outside, “My mother and My brothers are these who hear the word of God and do it.”

Notice how similar that statement is to the one here in vs. 28, “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.”  They are practically identical statements.  First Jesus is emphasizing the importance of the word of God.  The word of God must be preeminent in our worship.  We don’t preach the word here because we have no other resources, or because we don’t have enough imagination to come up with some clever media presentation, but we preach the word of God because it is the power of God unto salvation.  Because 2 Tim. 4:2 says “Preach the word, in season and out of season.” The word of God is the instrument of the Holy Spirit which is described as a double edged sword going deep into our hearts to divide between soul and spirit, to convict us of sin, to instruct us in righteousness, to rebuke us when necessary and to build us up in our faith. 

But it’s not enough to merely hear the word, but to be doers of the word. James 1:22 says, “But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.”  And see, that is the point that Jesus is making.  It’s not those that just hear the word that are converted, but those that obey the word.  The nature of conversion is that there will be obedience to what the word says.  Jesus said in Luke 6:46 “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say?”  If you truly have established Jesus as Lord of your life, then you will do what He commands. 

And so Jesus is making a point here about the nature of relationship.  You hear so many evangelical’s today talking about one’s need to have a relationship with Jesus Christ.  They emphasize that He loves you and just wants to have a relationship with you.  But listen, His relationship with us is described in Ephesians 5 as the relationship between a husband and his wife.  It’s a relationship founded upon our submissiveness to Him as the head, Jesus as our Lord, and our fidelity only to Him, forsaking all others, loving and serving only Him.  Jesus is teaching that there can be no relationship without obedience.  No one, including even His mother, is excluded from the need for a supernatural rebirth, by which we gain our relationship to God as our Father and that comes only on the basis of faith and repentance.  You can’t claim a relationship with God based on your lineage, or your nationality, or some ritual, but only through adoption which comes as a result of faith and repentance.

That brings us to the next point regarding the nature of conversion, which is the nature of repentance.  As the crowds were increasing, it says in vs. 29, “He began to say, “This generation is a wicked generation; it seeks for a sign, and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah.”  Now this is really Jesus response to the unbelievers who had asked Him back in vs. 16 for a sign.  Jesus had been doing many signs all throughout Galilee and Judea.  Everyone had heard of the healings and casting out demons and so forth that He had done.  And yet they wanted something more, they remained unconvinced and unrepentant.  We could speculate on what it was that they wanted to see, perhaps a flaming sign in the sky which would declare Him to be God. 

But I think that in reality nothing was going to change some of the people’s minds that were there.  First of all, God has established that the just shall live by faith, not by sight.  So their desire to have Him prove Himself to meet their expectations was really a test, similar to the tests that Satan tempted Jesus with in the wilderness. Satan tried to get Jesus to cast Himself off a building in order to prove to the multitudes that He was the Christ.  But Jesus says to him in  Matthew 4:7, “It is written, ‘YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.’”  In every instance, Jesus answers back the temptations of Satan with the scriptures, once again emphasizing the sufficiency of scripture.  And that was exactly what these unbelievers were trying to do. They wanted to set a standard that Christ would have to meet in order for them to believe Him.  But if He did what they wanted, Jesus would become their puppet, rather than their God.

Jesus called these people who wanted Him to produce some sign an evil generation.  And I cannot help but think of the great fascination there is in the church today with signs and wonders.  This desire for signs has led many foolish people into the world of fake healers and charlatans and to ultimately a disregard for the word of God.  Their experience supersedes the supremacy of scripture.  So they go astray further and further from the truth of God’s word believing that God reveals truth just to them, often in opposition to what He has revealed in His word.  But folks, every thing must be compared to God’s revealed word in scripture.  He cannot deny Himself, He cannot contradict Himself, for that would make Him a liar.

So Jesus says there will be no sign given to them other than the sign of Jonah.  Vs. 30, “For just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so will the Son of Man be to this generation.”  Now the obvious question is what was the sign to the Ninevites?  The answer is found in the parallel gospel account in  Matt. 12:40, “for just as JONAH WAS THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS IN THE BELLY OF THE SEA MONSTER, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”  Jesus is saying that the sign is going to be His resurrection from the dead. 

And yet the fact is, we are told in Acts that only 500 of Jesus’ disciples witnessed His resurrected body.  That illustrates an important Biblical principle found in Luke 8:18, that to him who has, more shall be given.  It’s the progressive nature of revelation. That’s why it’s important to believe by faith and then be obedient to what you have believed and God will then continue to reveal Himself to you through His word and through His working in your life.  But when you choose to remain unconvinced unless you get all your questions answered just to your liking, and basically get God to bow to your will, then you aren’t going to get anything more.  God says in Romans 1 that He gave enough evidence in creation to teach man to seek God and to understand the eternal character of God, but yet man turned to speculation and eventually to worship the creature rather than the Creator.  And so God gave them over to a depraved mind, to reap the penalty of their error.

So Jesus pronounces judgment on them in vs. 31, “The Queen of the South will rise up with the men of this generation at the judgment and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, something greater than Solomon is here. The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.”

And these statements speak to the nature of repentance.  The Queen of the South was the Queen of Sheba who came with all her entourage to see the wisdom of Solomon.  And the Bible says that she gave untold riches to hear the truth about the God of the Israelites.  And when she left to go back home, she blessed God.  Now she speaks of the nature of repentance in the sense that she understood that the wisdom of God was of more importance than any riches, and gladly gave up her kingdom and her riches to come to the kingdom of God. Jesus gave a parable to that effect in Matt. 13:45, “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.”

The second statement Jesus makes regarding the men of Nineveh speaks to another element of the nature of repentance.  You may remember the story that when Jonah preached of the coming judgment, that the king of Nineveh issued a proclamation which said, “In Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let man, beast, herd, or flock taste a thing. Do not let them eat or drink water. But both man and beast must be covered with sackcloth; and let men call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which is in his hands.”

Listen, the nature of true repentance requires not just being sorry for your sins, nor just wishing to be relieved of the consequences of your sin, but like the Ninevites turning from your sin.  That is what the entire city of Nineveh did.  They did a wholesale reversal, a complete capitulation. They abandoned their sin and called out to God for forgiveness.  They showed true repentance, and in Jonah 3:10 it says when God saw their deeds, He did not bring the calamity upon them.    

See, this is what John the Baptist was talking about in Matt. 3:8 when the Pharisees came to be baptized by John’s baptism of repentance.  He said, ““Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance.”  It’s not just confession or some ritual that saves you, it’s the fruit of repentance.  Obedience to what God has told us to do.  The same thing Jesus said back in vs. 28. “Blessed are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”

Now let’s look at the final aspect of conversion which is the nature of revelation.  Vs. 33; Jesus says, “No one, after lighting a lamp, puts it away in a cellar nor under a basket, but on the lamp stand, so that those who enter may see the light. The eye is the lamp of your body; when your eye is clear, your whole body also is full of light; but when it is bad, your body also is full of darkness.  Then watch out that the light in you is not darkness.  If therefore your whole body is full of light, with no dark part in it, it will be wholly illumined, as when the lamp illumines you with its rays.”

This is the point that Jesus is making: that we are illumined by the word of God in order to be a light to the world.  Jesus explained this principle in  Luke 8:16, “Now no one after lighting a lamp covers it over with a container, or puts it under a bed; but he puts it on a lamp stand, so that those who come in may see the light.”  Jesus said in Matt. 5:16  that we are the light of the world, a city sat on a hill cannot be hidden. 

Now there are two aspects to this principle.  One is that we cannot be a testimony to the world if we are still living in sin.  Christians are illumined with the truth of God’s word.  We are then to reflect that light to the world.  But when we fall back into the sin of the world we have been saved from, then our light grows dim and sometimes goes out altogether.  When the unsaved world sees a Christian living like the devil, then he isn’t drawn to the light.  But he is repelled by our hypocrisy. 

The final section of this passage Jesus preaches against hypocrisy.  He preaches against those that wash the outside of the cup and yet the inside is full of wickedness.   But rather true repentance results in the full revelation of God upon you as you become obedient to His word, so that according to Matt. 5:16 we may “Let our light shine before men in such a way that they may see our good works, and glorify our Father who is in heaven.”

One other aspect concerning the nature of revelation is that it will be denied to those who are unbelieving.  He says in vs. 34, “The eye is the lamp of your body; when your eye is clear, your whole body also is full of light; but when it is bad, your body also is full of darkness. Then watch out that the light in you is not darkness. If therefore your whole body is full of light, with no dark part in it, it will be wholly illumined, as when the lamp illumines you with its rays.” Here is what He is saying, that if you don’t have the illumination on the inside that comes from the Spirit of God, then you won’t be able to see the truth.  You will be blind to the truth.  No amount of signs and wonders are going to be able to save you, because you have an unbelieving heart, a heart still in darkness. The problem is not that of light, Jesus is the light of the world.  There is plenty of light revealed through creation and the word of God that we might be saved.  The problem is a matter of sight.  The problem is they were blind and yet they thought that they could see. 

Paul says Rom. 11:8, quoting from the Old Testament, “just as it is written, GOD GAVE THEM A SPIRIT OF STUPOR, EYES TO SEE NOT AND EARS TO HEAR NOT,

DOWN TO THIS VERY DAY.”  See, the point is the Pharisees said they could see, but they were in fact blind.  They failed to believe in the Son of God and obey His word, and so rather than being given eyes to see, they remained blind.

Jesus said something similar by quoting another Old Testament passage in Mark 4:12, He said, “so that WHILE SEEING, THEY MAY SEE AND NOT PERCEIVE, AND WHILE HEARING, THEY MAY HEAR AND NOT UNDERSTAND, OTHERWISE THEY MIGHT RETURN AND BE FORGIVEN.”

Listen folks, don’t lose sight of the truth of the gospel and the purpose of the gospel in our fascination with signs and wonders and miracles. Remember Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. But Jesus healed the blind so that we might have the blindness of our hearts healed, so that we might see the truth of the word of God.  Jesus healed the sick so that we might have the disease of sin healed in our hearts, that we might be saved.  Jesus raised the dead so that we might be raised from the deadness of sin in our hearts into new life with Christ.  Jesus cast out demons so that we might be taken from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. 

Listen, the nature of conversion is to first of all recognize that you are blind, that you are sick, you are dead in your sins and you need deliverance from the trap of the devil.  And the Bible says that if you come to Him with a broken and contrite heart, a truly repentant heart that wants to turn completely away from your sins, you can be saved.  You can be converted from darkness to light, from a child of the devil into a child of God and have that relationship Jesus talked about with God as your Father. 

And if you are a child of God, and you have been given the illumination that comes through the revelation of His word, then I hope that you will purpose today to be a light that is set on a hill, that men will see your good works and glorify God.  We were not given light that we should hide it under a basket.  Let’s live it out and obey Christ as a testimony to the power of salvation before the world.

A tale of two kingdoms, Luke 11: 14-26

The more I look at the scriptures, the more I am convinced that the church, or at least most people involved in religion, have entirely the wrong view of demonology.  For the most part, I think that we have completely underestimated the enemy, and furthermore, I think that Satan is well content to have it so.  I think that part of his plan for deception is to allow himself to be caricatured as some monstrous, hideous looking creature that smells of cordite and sulfur and has horns, a tail and carries a pitchfork.  I think that this image works to his advantage in furthering our superstitions and has succeeded in us looking completely in the wrong direction and often unaware that he is in fact often working right under our noses undetected.

The fact of the matter is that Satan and his demons are fallen angels from heaven.  Since they are spirits, they do not have bodies such as we imagine, but instead disguise themselves by seeking a human body.  You might remember Legion, the demoniac that Jesus delivered who had up to 6000 demons which had inhabited him.  And when Jesus came to cast them out, they requested that he not cast them into the abyss, but into a herd of pigs.  Demons have an inherent desire for a body. 

We see the same principle presented here in this passage.  Jesus said in vs. 24, “When the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and not finding any, it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds it swept and put in order. Then it goes and takes along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first.”  If nothing else is learned from this story, the least should be an understanding that demons, or unclean spirits, seek a host body in which to live, and humans provide a desirable house.

Our misconceptions of the spirit world should be corrected by  2Cor. 11:14 which says that “Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.”  So, far from appearing as an evil looking monstrous creature, he disguises himself as an angel of light, which means as a holy angel of God.  Here we are, looking under rocks so to speak for the grotesque, while the devil is walking around in plain view pretending to be a holy angel.  And the implication is that he is doing evil activities while masquerading as good.  Furthermore, Ezekiel 28 tells us that Satan was the covering cherub, the most beautiful of all the angelic beings, whose beauty and splendor became the basis for pride which caused his fall.  Such descriptions hardly confirms our superstitions which only serves to disguise the one who is called the ruler of this world.

This misunderstanding of demons is apparent in the passage we are looking at today.  Most commentators believe that this deliverance that Jesus does for this mute man is the same one recorded in Matthew 12.  Only in Matthew’s version, he adds that the man was also blind.  So the man was blind and mute, and the text tells us that it was because of a demon, or an evil spirit.  The point which I think needs to be made is that there would not have been any way for the average person to know that this man was demon possessed just by looking at him.  Obviously, he would have appeared severely handicapped, but I think it’s doubtful that anyone would have realized that it was due to demon possession.  That must have only become apparent by the way in which Jesus delivered him, perhaps by verbally commanding the demon to come out of him.  And the point I want to emphasize is that this is a case where we would have attributed something to purely natural factors, but Christ was able to discern that there was something demonic that was going on.  Jesus was so filled with the Spirit of God, that in His Spirit He was able to discern the evil spirits and they in turn could discern that He was the Son of God, because they operated in the spiritual realm.  Whereas the average person who does not operate in the spiritual realm cannot discern such things. 

This explains why Jesus seemed to encounter demon possessed people somewhat frequently.  The demons recognized Him as deity, and He recognized them.  And that is not something that is always the privilege of the average person.  While it may be possible to meet a demon possessed person, yet though I have been a Christian for 50 years and may have wondered about a couple of people that I have met, yet for the most part I cannot say unequivocally that someone was demon possessed.  However, I do believe that I routinely meet people that are under the influence of the devil to some degree or another on a regular basis.  

Eph.2:1 teaches us that Satan engineers the events of this world, the course of our world, even the daily circumstances of our lives in such a way as to control us or influence us to work out his will. “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.”  What that says is that all men naturally followed the course of the world, and the spirit of Satan works in them producing disobedience, making us in effect his children. The real work of the devil is not to cause people to necessarily become demon possessed and do crazy things, but to cause normal people to become controlled by the world system that steers them away from God.

While I don’t believe that there is a devil hiding in my closet, or behind every bush, I do heartily believe that most of the evil influence that is happening in and around our lives goes totally undetected by us.  What seems to us to be normal, but perhaps unfortunate occurrences in our lives are often deliberate attempts by the devil to cause us to go off track.  I can attest to dozens of examples, for instance, of people that begin to show an interest in the things of the Lord,  and suddenly they get really busy at work.  Or suddenly they become attractive to the opposite sex.  They suddenly get a girlfriend or boyfriend.  Perhaps they are really convicted about their relationship to God and suddenly they get offered a promotion at work, which of course requires more commitment to work and preempts them from coming to Bible study.  I could go on and on, but I want to tell you that you need to become aware of the devil’s schemes.  He is more clever and more devious than to come to you in a black hooded cloak and seduce you with an outright sin.  But rather he comes as an angel of light, and offers you enlightenment like he did to Eve when he tempted her that she could become like God. He offers something that seems good on the surface but leads to damnation.

I don’t know what circumstances you may encounter in your life from day to day and week to week.  But I will warn you that the devil goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.  But you can’t hear him roar.  You can’t see him.  You only know that so and so called you and wants you to do this or that, when you  should be going to church.  You only know of the immediacy of some problem that got you to take your eyes off of the goal of following Christ and you turned away just for a little while, you just plan to miss just this one church service, or just going to skip this morning’s devotion time, or you just don’t have time to pray today, and the next thing you know, it’s been three weeks and you’re so far away from God it will take a miracle to deliver you from the path of destruction.  You failed to realize the working of the devil in your life and you fell right into his trap.

I’ll tell you what, some of you, no, all of us, should have the mindset that a team of wild horses will not be able to drag us away from going to church.  We should have the mindset that come hell or high water we are going to have our devotion time in the morning.  We should have as our mindset that nothing will keep us from our goal of being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.  We need to wake up to the devil’s schemes.  As  2Cor. 2:11says, “so that no advantage would be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes.” 

Some of you Christians are being played by the devil.  And you are totally ignorant of his schemes.  You think you are good.  You think you are safe because you had an experience 20 years ago, or you used to go to some church where you really learned a lot of stuff.  But you don’t realize that you have left your first love.  You don’t realize that your love has grown cold.  And that you no longer do the deeds which you did at first.  Jesus said to the church at Ephesus in Revelation 2:4, “‘But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lamp stand out of its place—unless you repent.”

Now I want you to look at a verse we kind of flew over last week, but which I think helps us understand why Luke includes this event in this passage. Look at vs. 13, “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” Notice the phrase, “if you then, being evil…”  The principle that Jesus is teaching here is that there are only two kingdoms in this world; the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the devil.  There is the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness.  You are either holy or you are evil. And all of us belong to either one kingdom or the other. There is no middle ground, there is no neutral corner.

Now this principle is the basis for what is being taught in this passage.  A lot of people will hear me say that you are either holy or you are evil and will be offended.  Because they will acknowledge the evil of someone caught in the throes of alcohol or drug addiction or some other vice, and they will say, but I am not like that person.  I don’t do those kinds of things.  I’m not really evil.  I may not be a religious fanatic like you, but I certainly am not evil. 

But  John 16:8 says, “And He [the Holy Spirit], when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment; concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me.”  See, the condemning sin is that they do not believe in Jesus.  It is the sin of unbelief.  There are those who would maintain that they aren’t evil, that they are good people, and yet sin is what determines evil, and unbelief is the worst kind of sin.  Now please understand what constitutes unbelief.  The Bible says that the devils believe and tremble, that is they recognized Jesus as the Son of God.  But they do not believe unto righteousness. Romans 10:10, “for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.”  Belief is faith in all that Christ is and all that He came to do, and then confessing Him as Lord,  resulting in our salvation.

Now that is the situation of the people who were in attendance when Jesus delivered this blind, mute man from the power of a demon.  Matthew’s version tells us that though the crowds were wondering if this was indeed the Messiah, the Pharisees spoke up and said that Jesus “casts out demons only by Beelzebul the ruler of the demons.”  See, they had already become hardened in their unbelief.  Jesus did not meet their standards, their expectations.  More importantly, He did not come from their ranks, but rather exposed them as being hypocrites.  And consequently, they hated Jesus, and nothing He did or said would change their minds. 

Ironically, the Pharisees were the really religious people in the crowd.  They were made up of the priests and scribes and religious lawyers who professed to be godly.  But Jesus routinely called these guys out as being hypocrites.  And they hated Him for that.  Jesus put them on the same level as the guy in the gutter.  In fact, Jesus put the Pharisees as being worse off than the guy in the gutter, because they trusted in their good works, which were all self aggrandizing, and though they had washed the outside of the cup, yet the inside Jesus said was full of rottenness.

And so their response when they saw Jesus’ miracle was to blaspheme against Him by saying that He cast out demons by the power of the devil.  In other words, they said that Jesus had a devil Himself.  It was the ultimate blasphemy.

Jesus answers these men with a wisdom that cannot be refuted. He says, “Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and a house divided against itself falls.”  That’s a self evident statement that the Pharisees had to see the validity of. And so He showing that if He casts out demons by the power of Satan as they suggested, then the kingdom of Satan cannot stand.  It will fall.  And obviously Satan is not going to give power to destroy his kingdom.

And then secondly, Jesus uses their own exorcists who they promoted and believed in, to condemn what they said. Vs. 19, “And if I by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? So they will be your judges.”  See, they profited financially from these supposed exorcists that operated in Judaism who actually were  frauds.  We see an example of that in Acts 19, when these exorcists tried to cast out an evil spirit by using the name of Jesus and Paul, and the evil spirit said, “Paul I know, and Jesus I know, but who are you?” And the evil spirit in the man jumped on the seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, undoubtedly those who Jesus was talking about that day, and the evil spirit beat them up and sent them running away naked.  They were frauds, and Jesus knew they were frauds, and it’s possible that the Pharisees themselves knew they were frauds, and yet they condemned Jesus for what they allowed their own people to do.  Again, it was a testament to their hypocrisy.

But the real point of that exchange is found in vs. 20; Jesus says, “But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” First of all, He is saying that the works that He is doing by the finger of God is a testament to the fact that the kingdom of God has come. He is the king of the kingdom of God. The kingdom of darkness cannot stand against the kingdom of light.  And so when Jesus came as the King of the kingdom of God, then the result is that the kingdom of darkness falls.  He was works were proof that He was the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  By the way, Beelzebul was a name for Satan which is interpreted “lord of the flies”.  It means lord of the dung heap.  The Jews had taken the name of the god Baal and changed it to a degrading term which in time had become the name of the devil.  But Jesus is saying that He is Lord of all.  That His kingdom had come down to them and yet they were not part of it, though they were seeing the signs attesting to it.

Then in vs.21 He offers an illustration of that principle.  “When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are undisturbed. But when someone stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him, he takes away from him all his armor on which he had relied and distributes his plunder.”  In other words, Satan is the strong man.  He is guarding his castle, he guards his kingdom and he keeps his possessions.  People are his possessions.  2 Tim. 2:26 tells us that the unsaved are those who are held captive by Satan to do his will. But when someone stronger comes and attacks him and overpowers him, he takes away his armor and distributes his plunder.  Jesus Christ is the one who comes who is stronger, who defeats the power of Satan.  What is the power of Satan?  It is the power of death.

Hebrews 2:14, “Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.”  See, Satan seduced man to sin knowing that sin produces death, and through death he was able to take captive mankind into the darkness of his kingdom and hold them there to do his will, which is to destroy God’s creation.  But God sent Jesus Christ to Earth who overcame sin and death and defeated Satan’s kingdom, broke his power to hold men in sin, and set the captives free.   Ephesians 4 says that when Jesus arose from the dead He took captivity captive.  He took the captives of Satan and made them His captives.  That we that have been saved might be transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light, and we are now captives of the stronger man, the God man, Jesus Christ.  And nothing on earth, not even Satan is powerful enough to take us from the hand of God. 

Romans 8:38, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,(that’s the devil and his realm) nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” John 10:28, “and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.”

I like the part in our text that says that Jesus Christ not only takes away the devil’s weapons, but distributes the plunder.  That means that He not only takes us, but our personality, our talents, our abilities, our minds, and our energies, and everything that was once used for the devil’s purposes now Jesus has transformed that they might be used for His purposes.  Satan doesn’t have a hold on you anymore, unless you give yourself back to him.  And let me tell you, your body is not yours to give back to him.  You have been bought with a price. 1Cor. 6:19, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”

Therefore, consider your bodies as holy to the Lord, sacred, set apart, and use your time, talents and treasure for the kingdom of God.  You have been bought with a great price, rescued from the domain of darkness and brought into inapproachable light.  Therefore walk as children of light, for the days are evil.

Listen, the main point Jesus is teaching is there is no middle ground.  There is no neutral corner.  You are either working for Him, or you are either deliberately or inadvertently working against the kingdom of God.  Jesus says in vs. 23, “He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me, scatters.”    Folks, there is a simple question that is being asked of you today;  are you with Jesus or are you with the devil?  Are you working for the kingdom or are you living for the devil?  Oh, you may not want to believe that you are living for the devil.  But if you are living just for yourself, if you are just pleasing yourself, living for your agenda and putting your purposes first, then you are working for the devil.  You need to honestly examine yourself today in light of that question and see where you stand. 

Let me phrase that statement another way.  Does what you do glorify Satan and his world system, his kingdom’s goals, or does it glorify God?  How about this one, does what you listen to on TV and the radio glorify Satan and his kingdom or does it glorify God’s kingdom?  How about what you do in your free time, how about the kind of work that you do, how about the way you talk, how you act, what kind of movies you like to watch…does it glorify Satan’s kingdom or God’s kingdom?  I challenge you to examine yourselves and be honest with your answers.

Jesus knew that such statements would cause people to be taken aback.  It might even make some people angry to consider that they were not automatically in the kingdom of God.  That certainly was the case with the Pharisees.  And the normal protest is that we point out some time in our lives when we turned over a new leaf, or we had some traumatic experience that caused us to take a different tack in life.  And we try to find justification through that.  And so Jesus gives us one more illustration to show that being transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God is not an act of will power, but of supernatural conversion.

Jesus says in Vs. 24, “When the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and not finding any, it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds it swept and put in order. Then it goes and takes along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first.”

Here is what Jesus is warning against.  He is warning against turning over a new leaf.  He is warning against recognizing in the flesh that there is something that is unhealthy or even that is evil in your life and getting rid of it, but not having something better, something stronger that replaces it. This is the danger of 12 step programs that try to “free” you from alcohol or drugs, yet only teaches a vague belief in a higher power that has no real power to transfer you to God’s kingdom. 

Jesus says that evil spirit goes out of a man and seeks rest, seeks a place to call home, and not finding any, goes back to the house which he left and finds it empty.  This is the danger of transcendental meditation, by the way.  There is an old saying that an idle mind is the devils workshop.  But Jesus is saying that it goes much further than that.  An empty spirit is the devil’s home.

And so the evil spirit comes back and finds it swept and empty and so brings 7 demons worse than himself and they take up residence there, and the last state of the man is worse than the first.  Listen, the idea of some spirits being worse than others is perhaps better understood as being more devious, more deceptive, more crafty and ultimately more damning.  Because these demons deceive the man into thinking that he has escaped the obvious snare of the devil through drugs or some vice, and yet he remains in sin, and consequently dead in his sins.  He is worse off because at least in his first condition he recognized that he was messed up, but in his last state he thinks he is not so bad.  After all, when he was a drunkard it was obvious that he was pretty bad off.  But now he looks like he has his life together.  He doesn’t drink or do drugs anymore. But in fact, he is still dead in his trespasses and sins, and doesn’t realize that he is going to die and go to hell.  And the last state is certainly worse than the first.

Listen, there is only one way that you can have that assurance that you have been not only delivered from your sins but forgiven of your sins and transferred into the kingdom of God.  And that is by repentance of your sins and faith that Jesus Christ is Lord, and then confess Him to be your Lord and Savior.  Jesus taught on the Sermon on the Mount that if we are to enter into the kingdom of God we must come as a beggar and recognize our spiritual bankruptcy.  That saving faith depends entirely upon what God did for us by sending His Son to die in our place that we might be made righteous through Him. And then having been made righteous, He promises to come live in us through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit then is that guarantee, that deposit of God that He will keep us, and the devil cannot take up residence in us anymore, because someone much stronger now lives in our house.  We are now the temple of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.

The question for us today is the same as it was for the Pharisees 2000 years ago.  Are you for Christ or against Him? Are you a part of His kingdom or are you still a captive of the prince of darkness?  There is no middle ground.  I trust you choose Christ, and that you will live for Him.

Our Father’s response to prayer; Luke 11:5-13

Perhaps one of the most telling signatures of shallow, superficial living in our modern sound bite culture is a series of books that are very popular and cover the how to of almost every conceivable subject.  I’m sure you have seen them and perhaps even used them on occasion.  They are known as the Dummies series of books.  You’re probably familiar with some of the titles such as Microsoft Word for Dummies, Photoshop for Dummies, Photography for Dummies, …you name it, there is a how to reference book for it in the Dummy series. 

Believe it or not, there is even a book called Christian Prayer for Dummies. I had to resist the urge to make that the title of my message.  But I was afraid that some of you might be offended by that.  However, while I think it may be perfectly acceptable to desire a dumbed down version of computer basics, as I may only want enough information about computers to just get by,  I find some real problems in incorporating that kind of mindset in regards to Christianity.  But unfortunately, that type of thinking has pervaded the Christian attitude in a lot of areas, but particularly in the doctrine of prayer. Far too often a lot of teaching in the church today falls into a similar type of pattern found in those books, a how to reference for getting results in our Christianity. Twenty first century Christians, particularly American Christians,  love to boil everything down and reduce it to a simple step by step process by which we can guarantee ourselves success in the shortest amount of time possible and then presumably get back to our normal agenda.  And unfortunately, our doctrine and practice of prayer has suffered under this type of thinking.

Today’s passage in Luke can easily be subjected to that kind of shallow, superficial rendering if you aren’t careful.  That kind of results oriented attitude has given birth to a false doctrine of prayer known as “name it and claim it,” by which Christians have seized on the word “faith” and attempt to use it as an instrument by which they hope to manipulate circumstances to their benefit.  But what really happens is that they end up trying to manipulate God by a formulaic method of prayer to grant them their wishes.

So as we approach this passage today, we have to first of all ask the Holy Spirit to undo any false programming on the subject of prayer that we may have been seduced by at some point in our life, and ask God for the wisdom to discern what Jesus is really teaching here, and how we are to apply it. 

First of all, to fully understand what Jesus is saying, vs. 5-13 must be considered as part of the greater teaching that Jesus gave in response to the disciples request in verse one.  One of the disciples said, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John also taught his disciples.”  And so Jesus gave them a four part teaching on the subject of prayer that we began looking at last week.

The first part that Jesus taught was the instruction of a model prayer commonly referred to as the Lord’s prayer.  We looked at that last week, so I don’t want to spend too much time again today except to point out that this prayer is not intended to be something that we just recite by rote and in so doing accomplish God’s purpose for prayer.  Jesus gave us this instruction to provide us with an outline for prayer, as an example of prayer. 

But perhaps the most important point taught in  Jesus’ example is that our God to whom we are praying may be invoked as our Father.  This is a tremendous principle in light of the fact that in the same example, Jesus also presents God as hallowed, which means Holy, Exalted, and Righteous, the Sovereign King of His Kingdom.  We enjoy the immense privilege of being sons and daughters of God Almighty. 

As an illustration of that, just consider for a moment the exalted position of the President of the United States.  Regardless of what your political views may be towards the sitting president, there is a great deal of respect and power that is afforded to his position.  A lot of people all over the world would give anything to gain access to him to present their case or their agenda in hopes of gaining his favor.  But very few are given that privilege.  Yet I want you to think about his daughters for a moment.   They have a tremendous privilege due to their relationship with their father that enables them to get past every security detail in the White House. They have an immense privilege that no one else can possibly obtain due to their relationship with their father.  But added to that they have an even greater benefit because their father loves them.  And because he loves them he is not only willing to hear them and to accept them but he naturally desires to do good things for them. 

I really think that this is the overarching principle that Jesus is trying to teach in this passage; not necessarily a formula for prayer, but that we have this unbelievable privilege of going directly and boldly into the throne of grace, and not just as a subject of the King, but also as a child of the King.  And so Jesus teaches this by first giving us this instruction, then an illustration, an application and a contemplation. 

So in addition to the instruction found in the example of the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus gives us an illustration. In this illustration Jesus tells a parable of a man who came to his friend at midnight to ask him for 3 loaves of bread.  Now the man had a legitimate need but at an illegitimate hour.  It’s important to understand that in the Middle East, there is an understanding of hospitality that is quite a bit more advanced than in our society.  Being from the South, I am quite proud of the heritage of Southern Hospitality that Southerners are known for.  However, I can tell you that our idea of hospitality pales in comparison to that commonly found in the Middle East.  In that area, not only do you invite someone to come under your roof and eat with you, but there is an understanding that if you do that, then you must protect them even if it means having to risk your life to defend them against an enemy.  So this guy wasn’t just having a desire for a late night snack with his long lost friend and  so runs out to the neighbor to borrow some bread, like we would run to the 7-11.   There was a strict tradition of hospitality that demanded taking care of his visitor’s need that his neighbor would appreciate, even though it was late at night. So it’s a legitimate need.

I also think that Jesus intentionally presents a parallel in this parable to the model prayer. In the prayer we have the line; “give us this day our daily bread”.  So  it’s interesting that in this parable the issue is a need for bread, which is, as I said, a legitimate need.  It’s not a frivolous request but a necessity. 

Now  most commentators view of this parable is that Jesus emphasized the need for persistence.  Jesus says that though the neighbor doesn’t want to wake up his family and come to the door, yet because of the man’s persistence he will get up and give him what they need.  And so many theologians tend to latch on to that word and the principle found in vs. 9 and teach that Christians need to come in prayer to God in determined persistence, that we must keep banging away at the door until we get what we need or even what we want.  That’s the common interpretation.

But the implication in such teaching is that God is a reluctant provider.  And somehow, by our persistence we can overcome God’s reluctance and win over God to our desire.  Obviously, such thinking is contrary to the scripture’s depiction of God as a loving Father.  The principle Jesus is teaching here is that due to the man’s boldness in his relationship as a friend, he will give him all that he needs.  The word in the Greek is anaideia (ah knee day ah).  It’s a word that means shamelessness.  And while it does have the connotation of boldness, I think that it is used in reference to the neighbor’s relationship as a friend.  Now you can only really come to that interpretation by looking at the context of the passage.  The common rendering of the verse would make it seem that he wasn’t going to help him even though he was his friend, but because he was annoying, he would help him eventually. 

But I think that the context shown in the later verses emphasizing the father’s relationship to his son indicates that we would be better to think of it in terms that the man shamed his neighbor because he was his friend. That’s the logical sense of the story.  Wouldn’t you do something like that if you had a sincere need and you came to a friend and asked him to borrow a tool or something that you desperately needed and he refused you?  Wouldn’t you say, “Hey man, you say you are my friend and yet you won’t loan me your hammer?  What kind of friend is that?”  Isn’t that  the way we would handle it?  I think that what Jesus is saying is that because he shames him, the man finally gives him all that he needs.  He shames him by appealing to his friendship, his relationship.  The obvious correlation then is that we have a greater relationship because we go to our Father.  The rabbis had a distinctly Jewish practice of arguing from the lesser to the greater.  And so Jesus is using that kind of rabbinical style of instruction to show the relationship of a friend in order to contrast  with the greater relationship of a father.

So next comes the application in vs. 9; “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you;  seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and he who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks, it will be opened.”  Now once again, I have to warn you that this verse is ripe for taking out of context and providing fuel for those who teach that Jesus is promising a blank check  for anything our heart desires.  And that misunderstanding is compounded by some translations renderings of the verbs, ask, seek and knock. They will argue the need for persistence again by saying that those words are better interpreted as “keep on asking, keep on seeking and keep on knocking.” 

I am not a Greek scholar.  But I will tell you that there are 67 verses in the Greek concordance for the word translated as “ask” for instance, and in almost all of those cases it is translated as just to simply ask.  To request.  Singular. And notice that in the NASB, to use my translation, they do not apply the same idea of continuance in verse 10.  The statement of Jesus in response is simply that they that ask, receives, they that seek, will find and they that knock it will be opened.  Vs.10 doesn’t imply a requirement for persistence in order to get the answer.

But the point Jesus is teaching is simply this; that a good Father will not deny His children what is necessary.  If you are God’s child and you ask Him, He will answer.  If you seek Him, you will find Him, and if you knock, He will open.  But the prerequisite for understanding this statement is found in the principle of a good Father who wants what is good for His children.  That’s the principle. Not an inference that God is lazy, or reluctant, or doesn’t want to be bothered with our petty needs. Not a suggestion that we need to develop persistence in order to manipulate God to do our will. That kind of teaching is incompatible with the scripture’s teaching about the character of God.  That is incompatible with Jesus teaching that we can call God Father, and expect the response of a loving Father and hallow all the attributes of love, compassion and goodness His holy name conveys.

And so Jesus wraps up this teaching with what we can call the contemplation.  Here is the core principle that Jesus is teaching that we need to understand.  God is our Father, and He is a good Father, and He wants what is good for us.  All of the verses concerning prayer in this chapter must be understood in relation to that goodness of the Father and His desire for what is good for us.  And so Jesus uses an earthly father again to illustrate this principle. He is arguing again from the lesser to the greater, from an earthly father to our Heavenly Father. He says starting in vs. 11; “Now suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a fish; he will not give him a snake instead of a fish, will he? Or if he is asked for an egg, he will not give him a scorpion, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?”

See, there is the point of the whole passage.  The point is our Heavenly Father is good and He wants what is good for us.  If human fathers, who are inherently evil, give good things to their children, then how much more so will our heavenly Father who is supremely good, give good things to us?

Jesus asks a rhetorical question to enforce that point; If you ask your earthly father for food, he will not give you something to hurt you, will he?  If you ask him for some fish, he isn’t going to give you a snake that might kill you, will he?  If you ask him for an egg, he isn’t going to give you a scorpion which might sting you, will he?  Obviously not.  Even the worst fathers are going to give food when their child is hungry and not deliberately harm them.

But consider another aspect to that point  Jesus is making here.  God is going to give good things to His children, but a good Father is not going to give bad things to His children.  And that is a key principle to a correct understanding of verse 10.  We don’t always know what is good for us, do we?  For example, we may think that that girlfriend may be exactly what we need, but maybe God knows she is not going to be good for you.  And so God doesn’t give us what will be harmful.  Even though you ask Him for that girlfriend, God is not going to give you a woman that will hurt you or destroy your life. 

If we were to take vs. 10 out of context and hold God to a promise to answer in the affirmative every prayer we pray according to a formula, then most of us would very soon have completely messed up lives.  Because we don’t know what is good for us.  When my kids were little, they wanted to eat whipped cream for breakfast.  They would have eaten candy for dinner.  They asked for things that weren’t always good for them. But being a good father, I did not always let them have what they wanted.  And if I being evil, know how to do good for my kids, then how much more does our heavenly Father know what is good for us?  The worst thing God could do for us is to let us manipulate Him into being some kind of genie that we can pop out of our prayer lamp anytime we want by a formula of praying in just the right way, making sure we believe it,  are persistent in asking for it, tack on “in Jesus name, Amen” and abracadabra, we get exactly what we asked for.  That would be catastrophic for most of us.  Thank the Lord we have a good Father who gives us what we need, and what is good for us, and doesn’t always get us what we want or we think we need.

There is one more little principle here that can almost be overlooked.  I wonder if you noticed it.  It’s found in vs. 13.  And that is the promise that God gives the Holy Spirit to those that ask Him.  Now Jesus was talking about food, and giving good things, so how did the Holy Spirit get in there?  What does that mean?

Well, this is the best thing of all.  Jesus said earthly fathers give good gifts, but the heavenly Father gives the Holy Spirit.  God not only gives us what is good, and gives us good gifts, but He goes so far beyond that- He gives us the Holy Spirit who is the source of every good and perfect gift to indwell His children. He gives us the Giver, not just the gift. 

The Holy Spirit is the giver of life.  And according to Galatians 5:22, the Holy Spirit is the giver of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and faithfulness.  I mean, that’s a little better than the new trinket we were praying for, isn’t it?  A new car kind of pales in comparison to receiving the indwelling of the Spirit of God Himself, doesn’t it?  Would you rather have the joy of a pay raise in your job or the joy of the Holy Spirit that never fades away, that is a deposit of the eternal joy of your salvation?  I’d take the Holy Spirit, wouldn’t you? Would you rather have peace in the Middle East, or would you rather have a peace that passes all understanding? Would you rather have a particular person love you, or would you rather know the love of God that nothing on earth can separate you from? 

Listen, the bottom line is that God our Father knows what we need.  And God knows what is good for us.  He wants what is best for us.  We don’t always know what is good for us.  But we can rest in the fact that we have an all knowing Father in heaven who loves us and wants to bless us with what is good for us.   Romans 8:28 says that “we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”  We need to rest in that promise folks.  We need to stop trying to manipulate God, stop trying to twist His arm and get Him to do what we want Him to do.  But rather, as Jesus said in His example of prayer, say “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”  When we understand who our heavenly Father is, when we come to appreciate His character and His goodness, then we can trust our heavenly Father to take care of us, and to give us what is good, because He is a good Father.  And He knows our needs, because He knows our beginning and our end, He knows our thoughts from afar, He knew us when we were still in our mother’s womb, He has numbered our days and even the hairs on our head.  And if we are His children then He is intimately acquainted with us, because His Spirit lives inside us.  Let us pray with that kind of confidence in our heavenly Father.