Rather than simply presenting an historical narrative, every story, every parable that Luke records is teaching a particular facet of the gospel, or reinforcing a particular principle of the gospel, or adding another layer to the gospel.  In other words, these stories are not just a random biographical detail in the life of Christ.  They may fulfill that biographical function, but more importantly they enrich the gospel message by means of an illustration.

As in the story of the prodigal son and other accounts of healing etc, this story is a real story, an actual historical event, but with allegorical implications.  I don’t think it’s coincidental that there are 10 lepers in this story.  In chapter 15 there were 100 sheep and one is found, there were 10 coins and one is found, there are two sons and one returns.  And so in this story there are 10 lepers and one returns.

What is always the focus of Jesus’ preaching is the nature of salvation.  Jesus went about preaching the kingdom of heaven.  And the point He repeatedly makes is that entrance into the kingdom is only through salvation.  He stresses that entrance into the kingdom is not by heritage, not by nationality, not by family, not through religion, and not through works.  Now there are several facets or doctrines of salvation.  And Jesus keeps revealing these doctrines progressively as He is traveling towards Jerusalem.  And it is apparent that if you are going to fully understand the doctrine of salvation then you must continue to follow Jesus Christ, continuing to learn from Him and continuing to be obedient to Him.  He doesn’t explain every doctrine in every teaching, in every illustration. But He keeps revealing more and more as people continue to follow Him in obedience.  And the same principle of progressive revelation is true for us today as we are obedient to what He shows us.

I’m always kind of bemused by these people that come for a while, and they say we like your teaching, you taught us a lot, you taught us about salvation, but I’m good now.  I got it.  I’m good to go.  And so off they go.  The truth is they only got as far as they wanted to go.  They don’t want to deal with any more, because they don’t like where you are going.  Well, Jesus experienced the same thing.  A lot of people followed Him for a while, but when they found out He was going to be crucified, they got off the bus.  They didn’t want any part of “take up your cross and follow Me.”

Now this story illustrates a great problem in modern evangelical Christianity.  The modern evangelical movement has tried to reduce the doctrine of salvation to embracing a couple of catchwords in hopes of being more seeker friendly.  They have tried to reduce discipleship to maybe working with Habitat for Humanity for a week or two, or maybe going on a short term mission trip.  And they have tried to reduce worship to singing a couple of songs or clapping your hands.  But the truth is that true Christianity is so much more than that.

You know Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are called the gospels.  That is they proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ in more or less a biographical form.  The epistles, which were coauthored by the apostles through the Holy Spirit, explain the gospels.  So in the 4 gospels the teaching of Christ is proclaimed, and in the epistles the gospel of Christ is explained.  But when the Apostle Paul sought to write an epistle to the Romans to tell them the truth of the gospel it took him 16 chapters.  Amazingly, our modern preachers manage to present it in it’s entirety in about 20 minutes or less.  But I can’t but feel that we have lost most of it’s meaning in the translation.

Hosea 4:6 says, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”  And this story illustrates the danger of a short sided view of salvation that does not address the complete scope of salvation.  A lot of people today when asked how they became a Christian will say something along the lines of this;  “Several years ago, I was diagnosed with a disease, and I prayed to God that He would heal me.  And then I had this operation and I haven’t had a recurrence of it to this day.  And so I began to go to church.”  Or maybe it is something like this;  “well I used to be an alcoholic.  And I finally reached the point where it was destroying my life.  So I started going to AA and I’ve been sober now for 5 years.”  Or maybe their story is like this;  “I was in a terrible marriage. I suffered a lot of psychological abuse.  So I prayed to God to get me out of it.  And one day I left my wife/husband.”  The stories are all different.  But the theme is the same in many of them.  I was in a mess, and I called out to God for help, and He helped me.  That constitutes their salvation in their minds.

Now I don’t want to diminish someone who has had a traumatic event happen in their life.  Very often such an event can be the inducement to turn to God, and as they come to understand their need and how that relates to the gospel, they end up being truly saved. But there is another type of person that I am really talking about, and I believe this story is illustrating, and that is the person who is drawn to God because they are in a crisis of some sort, they have some sort of experience which they consider spiritual or religious, and yet they may have never been truly saved. They may have even had something happen that seems to be miraculous in their lives, truly an act of God, and yet they have never been saved.

I can think of numerous examples of people like that in the years I have been preaching.   They were religious people.  They considered themselves Christians. Some of them even held leadership positions in neighboring churches.  And somehow they came to some of our services for a while and they were stunned at the presentation of the gospel.  They had no prior knowledge of the truth of the gospel.  So when they first heard it preached, they were stunned.  I’ve seen such people cry at the end of the service.  I’ve heard them even call their husbands or someone on the phone afterwards and say something like “I just heard the gospel clearly presented for the first time in my life.”  And yet a few weeks or a few months later they have moved on.  They heard the gospel, but when they found out what salvation actually entailed, they were not really ready to surrender everything to obtain it.  They stopped short.  As Jesus said in chapter 14, when they counted the cost of discipleship they came up short.  They thought that a little knowledge was enough.  A religious experience  or two was quite satisfactory, in their view.  They liked the version of God that they had created and didn’t particularly care for the all consuming version of God that the Bible teaches.

Listen, if you want the gospel of salvation in a nutshell, then here it is:  It is surrendering completely to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Authentic, saving faith in Jesus is ultimately a submission to His Lordship. That is salvation in a nutshell.  It’s the right of the Sovereign to rule over His subjects. Every experience, every crisis, every prayer, every divine response, whether it be grace or a miracle or healing or whatever, is designed to bring you to repentance of self rule, and to prostrate yourself at the feet of Jesus and say “I surrender all to you, and I will serve you all of my days.”  That is surrendering to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and that is the means of salvation.  Nothing less will do.

Anything less than that and you will find yourself as Jesus described in Matt. 7:22“Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’  In other words, they called themselves Christians, they even claimed to be proclaiming the gospel, they claimed to casting out demons and even doing miracles, and yet Jesus says “I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.” They failed to obey Jesus as Lord of their lives.

So Jesus has been going to great lengths and with great patience pointing this principle out to the people that were following Him in sermon after sermon, and one illustration after another.  And now Luke records yet another incident which helps to illustrate the narrow door of salvation.  It’s very convenient to look at this passage and just say it’s a little story that illustrates our need for gratitude.  But that isn’t the point of the story at all.  Yes, we need to be thankful.  And yes, gratitude should prompt us to respond to God in way that is pleasing to Him.  But don’t think for a moment that this is just an illustration that God is sitting up there in heaven, kind of moping around, a little dejected perhaps, hoping that someone will just remember to tell Him how much they appreciate Him.  God is not that trite.  God is not dependent upon our praise for His happiness.  God is self sufficient.

We sometimes paint this picture of God that is really actually blasphemous.  It’s a picture of a narcissistic God that just lives for the praise of men.  How ridiculous.  God said in Isaiah 1: 11 “What are your multiplied sacrifices to Me?” Says the LORD. “I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams And the fat of fed cattle; And I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, lambs or goats. “When you come to appear before Me, Who requires of you this trampling of My courts? “Bring your worthless offerings no longer, Incense is an abomination to Me. New moon and sabbath, the calling of assemblies– I cannot endure iniquity and the solemn assembly.”  He goes on to say that because they come with unrepented iniquity in their hearts when they pray, He will not listen.  God isn’t wringing His hands in heaven hoping we will call.  He is  self sufficient.  In theology it is called the attribute of aseity. (eh see i ty) In Acts 17:25 Paul says that God “is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything.” He is self sufficient.  He doesn’t depend on our praise for His well being.

Now let’s look at this simple story and what it does illustrate for us.  Jesus is traveling towards Jerusalem.  He is heading for the cross in just a few months time.  He knows that and He purposefully is heading there to offer Himself as an acceptable sacrifice for the sins of the world. And as He comes to a little village between Samaria and Galilee, He is met by 10 lepers who must have heard he was coming and in desperation to be healed come out to meet Him.

Leprosy was a terrible disease.  It’s something that is still around in some third world countries, but today it is called Hanson’s disease.  Thankfully there are medicines today that can treat it.  But for thousands of years it was a terrible disease.  It was characterized by horrible scaling of the skin, loss of hair, loss of appendages such as ears or noses or fingers. It attacked the nervous system which deadens the skin and appendages in such a way that they are destroyed. It was a terrible, crippling, blinding disease that was also quite communicable.  In Leviticus 13 and 14 God gives a series of laws concerning how this disease was to be handled among the Jewish people.  They were put away from the rest of the people. They were cut off from all contact.  They had to announce that they were unclean when they came near anyone so that the person could be sure to keep their distance.  It was a terrible, terrible disease that isolated a person from the rest of society and ultimately destroyed them.

Now in this case there were ten of them that were together on the outskirts of this village.  And they hear that Jesus is coming.  They know that they are going to die from this disease.  They know that there is no cure.  And yet when they hear that Jesus is coming they come out to meet Him.  They are desperate.  They want to be healed more than anything else in the world.

So they call out to Jesus, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”  Now the word Master shows that they recognized Jesus as one having authority.  The Jews said that about Jesus that He taught as one having authority.  And undoubtedly they knew that He had authority over diseases and evil spirits as well.  These were indisputable facts of Jesus’ ministry.  There was never any denying of His miracles.  So that is what they are appealing to.  Someone who has authority over disease.

And vs. 14 says, when Jesus “saw them, He said to them, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’ And as they were going, they were cleansed.”  Boy what a difference between the way Jesus heals and the fake healers heal on television.  Jesus doesn’t remonstrate in a loud voice.  He doesn’t draw attention to himself.  He doesn’t smack anyone on the forehead and knock them down.  He simply tells them to go and show themselves to the priest and as they were going, the 10 lepers were healed.

Now the reason that he told them to go show themselves to the priest is two fold.  One, it was in keeping with the Old Testament law concerning leprosy found in Leviticus 13.  The priests were to examine the person to see if there was any sign of leprosy.  And there was an eight day period where the priest had to reexamine them in order to declare them clean.  So first of all, Jesus is keeping the law regarding leprosy.  Secondly, this examination by the priests will also serve to be a witness to the priesthood.  You can be sure that this was a section of the law that wasn’t utilized very often.  There was no record of the  healing of leprosy  except in the case of Elisha healing Naaman the Syrian about 600 years earlier.  They had to dust off the books for this one.  And you can imagine that the priests would want to know how the lepers had been healed.  This would have been a really fantastic thing;  ten lepers walk in and say we have been healed and Jesus told us to come present ourselves to you.  What a testimony it would have been to the priesthood, who for the most part were not believing in Jesus.

But there is one guy that as he is healed turns back and returns to Jesus, glorifying God with a loud voice.  The Greek says megas phone.  That is where we get the word megaphone.  He came back bellowing as if he had a megaphone, praising God.  And the next vs. says that when he came to Jesus he prostrated himself at His feet giving thanks to Him.  Now there is a connection there.  He is coming to Jesus, glorifying God and then casting himself down at Jesus feet, giving thanks to Him.  I think the connection is that this leper realized that Jesus was in fact the Messiah, nothing less than God in the flesh.  This is the same realization that Peter comes to when Jesus asks the disciples in Matthew 16, “who do men say that I am?”  And Peter answers, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  Christ is the Greek word for Messiah, and Son of God renders Him God in the flesh.  I think that is what is represented by this leper prostrating himself at the feet of Jesus.  I think it is symbolic of worship of the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

Then Luke adds in vs. 16 that this leper was a Samaritan.  Now the Samaritans were considered unclean sinners in the eyes of the Jews.  A good Jew would walk twenty miles out of his way to avoid walking through Samaria.  They hated them.  And to some extent they had good reason.  The Samaritans had disobeyed the commandment of God and intermarried with pagans.  And as such their worship was flawed and they no longer worshipped in the temple, and they only considered certain scriptures valid while discounting others.  So this guy that comes back and worships Jesus is actually really low on the totem pole from a Jew’s perspective.  He was not only a leper but a Samaritan.  But now he is healed and worshipping Jesus.

So Jesus says in vs. 17, “Were there not ten cleansed? But the nine—where are they? Was no one found who returned to give glory to God, except this foreigner?”   Here is the deal; the nine are healed but continue on to the priests.  They are going back to what that represents; being reinstated in the community.  Being able to rejoin their families, back to their careers.  I’m sure they were thrilled to be healed, but the result is that they go back to the lives that they once knew.

So in vs. 19, Jesus turns back to the Samaritan and says, “Stand up and go; your faith has made you well.”  Actually, the Greek text says your faith has saved you.  The word translated “made you well” is the Greek word sozo, which is almost always translated as saved in most other times it is used.  I guess the translators were considering the physical implications of the word rather than the spiritual.  But I think that it should be translated saved.  He had already been healed.  The other 9 lepers had also been healed.  But the distinction for this man is that in addition to being healed, he was also saved.

Now quickly here are the spiritual applications of this story.  All of the 10 men suffered from the same terrible disease.  And spiritually speaking, nothing speaks of the nature of sin in the eyes of God more so than the disease of leprosy.  You know, the devil does his best to glorify and glamorize sin.  But the fact is that under it’s initially appealing exterior is a corrupt disease that once it gets into your system will continue to eat away at you until it destroys you.  It is disfiguring.  Sin kills the conscience, it destroys the spiritual nervous system of the soul in the same way that leprosy deadens the nerves in the skin and appendages of the body so that they are destroyed.  Sin is a contagious disease.  I think that is another reason that Luke juxtaposes this illustration so shortly after the admonition of Jesus in the beginning of this chapter not to put a stumbling block in front of another person.  Because that is the way sin is spread; from person to person.  It’s a communicable disease.  It got it’s start with Adam and Eve and is passed down from generation to generation.  We all have inherited the bad gene of this disease.  Like leprosy, sin isolates.  Because God is holy we are estranged from God.  We cannot come near God.  We are unclean in the sight of God because of our sin.

O ladies and gentlemen!  We need to see God’s perspective of the horror of sin.  If we saw sin as it really was we would stop playing around with it.  We would stop courting it.  We would run from it, flee from it.  We would be desperate to be saved from it.  And we would be desperate to save our friends and families from the ravages of sin.  Sin is disfiguring.  Sin is crippling.  Sin is a monster that God told Cain in Genesis 4 is crouching at the door and if you don’t master it, it will destroy you.

One of the couples in our church is involved in Teen Challenge which helps people get free from substance abuse.  And just last week they came upon a scene of police cars and ambulances and as they drove up they were told that one of their graduates from Teen Challenge was in the car ahead.  And when they walked up on the car, there sat a man that they knew very well, who had gone through the program, who was sitting in the car dead, overdosed on heroin.  I wonder how this man started on drugs all those years ago.  I wonder if it was just a joint.  Just a little pot, which is harmless of course.  It’s  fun.  It’s no big deal.  But how much heart ache must he have gone through.  How many years did he waste being wasted.  He left behind two boys who will undoubtedly never get over it.  Sin is a cruel master.  Sin is destructive.  Sin makes leprosy look like a fever blister in comparison.  It has eternal complications.  It not only destroys you in this life, it sends men and women to hell.

There is another spiritual application in this story.  And that is that you can have a religious experience, you can be delivered from some great physical crisis in your life, and yet still be unsaved.  I think that is what these 9 lepers who failed to glorify God represent.  They are like people who call out to God for help overcoming something like alcohol and are delivered, but not saved.  They are like someone who comes out of an abusive relationship which they think was a result of prayer to God, and yet they are not saved.  Like someone who is healed from a disease and yet not saved. Whatever the crisis, no matter how dramatic the incident, they experience some sort of physical deliverance which they even ascribe to God, and yet they are unsaved.  They return to their lives.  They go back to the way things were before and they forget the God who delivered them.  They forget that Romans 2:4 says that the kindness of God is supposed to lead you to repentance.  They go on their way, thinking all is well with their soul, and yet though they have been delivered from some physical crisis, they are still unsaved.  I trust that no one here leaves here trusting in some experience that comes short of salvation.

Now lastly, the spiritual application of the Samaritan’s response.  Though the other 9 went on their way, the Samaritan was sozo.  He was saved.  He recognized the depravity of his condition.  He came to Christ in desperation.  He realized the bankruptcy of his soul.  He was helpless and trusted in Jesus to help Him. And when in faith he turned and went towards the priests and suddenly realized that he had been healed, he turned around and ran back towards Jesus.  He runs to Jesus realizing that He is the Messiah, He is the Son of God, He is the source of life that is now coursing through his once dead flesh.  And so he comes back glorifying God and throws himself down at the feet of Jesus and worships Him, praising Him.

This Samaritan reveals the nature of repentance.  He turns away from the past life and runs to Jesus.  He prostrates himself.  That means he has the humility that God requires.  He has the right kind of attitude that God requires.  He may not know every doctrine of the gospel at this stage.  But his attitude is right. He doesn’t just have faith, but he has saving faith. He has the correct view of the Lordship of Jesus Christ.  That He is Master, Messiah, Savior, Son of God.  Jesus is deserving of his allegiance, of his servitude, of his adoration, of his worship, of his trust and of his obedience.  That is what it means to accept the Lordship of Jesus Christ.  To bow at the feet of Jesus as Lord.  To say I surrender my all to you, to be at your service.  Like the prodigal son who returned to his father and said, “I am not worthy to be your son, let me be as one of your hired servants.”  That is the attitude required in Lordship. This man exemplifies that.  His faith in Jesus as Lord saved him.

That gospel of salvation is explained further in Rom. 10:8-10,  “But what does it say? “THE WORD IS NEAR YOU, IN YOUR MOUTH AND IN YOUR HEART”–that is, the word of faith which we are preaching,  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;  for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.”

Listen, please examine yourselves today in the light of God’s word.  Have you come to surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in your life? This Samaritan was saved Jesus said because of his faith. Authentic, saving faith in Jesus is ultimately a submission to His lordship. Not just believing that He existed.  But having faith to be obedient to Him no matter how great the cost. Have you surrendered everything to Him, to do with as He wishes, to use your life for His glory, to live according to His will?  That is the faith that results in righteousness.  That is the way of salvation.  There is no other way that we can be saved.  We must come all the way to the feet of Jesus and prostrate ourselves in submission to His will.  Nothing less than full surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ is what God requires of us.

Edward Perronet wrote All hail the power of Jesus name in 1780.

All hail the power of Jesus’ Name!  Let angels prostrate fall; Bring forth the royal diadem, And crown Him Lord of all!

Ye chosen seed of Israel’s race, Ye ransomed from the fall, Hail Him Who saves you by His grace, And crown Him Lord of all!

Let every kindred, every tribe, On this terrestrial ball, To Him all majesty ascribe,And crown Him Lord of all!

Oh, that with yonder sacred throng We at His feet may fall! We’ll join the everlasting song, And crown Him Lord of all!

Today’s passage of scripture is one that I have found to be one of the most important in the New Testament in regards to understanding the afterlife.   However, my view is not one that is widely shared among Biblical commentators.   There is much disagreement over the proper interpretation of this passage amongst Biblical scholars.  By way of disclaimer, I do not profess in any way to be a Biblical scholar.

However, I will tell you how I view Biblical interpretation.  I believe that God’s word is sufficient in and of itself through the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit working within us. To make a practical illustration;  I think that if a man living on a desert island alone in the middle of the Pacific Ocean found a Bible washed up on the beach, even though he had never heard the gospel before that time, if he read the Bible he would have enough understanding to be saved.  Furthermore, if he continued to apply what he learned, and be obedient to what the Bible says, he could learn all the essential doctrine that is necessary.  I believe in the sufficiency of scripture. I believe in the completeness of scripture.  We don’t need some additional revelation and furthermore we should not seek it. And I believe in the absolute authority of scripture.  But I think the caveat to that understanding is that one must be obedient to the Holy Spirit to be taught by the Holy Spirit.  I believe in what I call progressive revelation.  That is as you are obedient to what the Holy Spirit teaches you through the word, then He will continue to lead you and guide you to all truth.  I think that is what is meant by Jesus in John 16:13 says speaking of the Holy Spirit, “that He will guide you into all truth.”

So as I have studied this passage for the last 25 years or so, I have come to see it in some respects as a missing piece to the puzzle of eschatology. Twenty five years ago when my father died I wanted to understand exactly where he was now.  And as I began to seriously study scripture for the answer I began to see how this passage links with other passages to give us a glimpse into the afterlife.  I think that this passage is significant in that it speaks to the issues of heaven and hell straight from the mouth of God Himself.  And so therefore it provides insight that no other person could have regarding the afterlife.

Unfortunately, this passage has suffered almost irreparable harm from well respected commentators and Biblical teachers because it has been relegated to an allegory.  Many well meaning and well respected men have called this a parable and as such have diminished the significance of what Jesus had to say regarding the afterlife.  My contention is that they call it a parable or an allegory in order to sustain what for many of them is a faulty doctrine of eschatology.  In other words, they came by their view of the end times by various means such as being taught a particular view in seminary and this passage does not fit into their doctrine of the afterlife.  Therefore some say that Jesus used fanciful allegorical elements that were not founded in reality in order to teach a principle.  So while they maintain that the principle is important, they say the incidental details described by Jesus are not important and may not even exist as He described them.  He was just using a fable that was popular with the rabbis of that day as a allegory to teach a principle.

I find that approach to be unsatisfactory on a number of fronts.  First of all, I believe it is an actual story of real people, not a parable.  And to support that view I simply point out that in none of the other 40 or so parables that Jesus gave did He ever attach a name to any of the characters.  But this story has 2 characters that are named; Lazarus and Abraham. Abraham was obviously a real person, so it is logical to assume that Lazarus was as well.  Secondly, Luke does not present this story as a parable.  He did not always do so, but many times he did introduce a parable by saying Jesus taught them another parable.  And thirdly, in order to dismiss all the incidental details that Jesus gave as allegorical, you also have to dismiss the normal template that Jesus employed for parables.  But again that is contrary to all the other parables that Jesus gave.  In all the other parables, Jesus used earthly stories to teach a heavenly principle.  And in order to do that He had to use illustrations from real life situations that the people would have been familiar with such a sowing a field with seed, or tending to sheep, or fishing or whatever.  But in this story, they want to say that Jesus uses an imaginary situation with no basis in reality in order to make a spiritual point.

So before we can really understand all that Jesus is teaching here, we must accept it as it appears; an actual story of two men that died which Jesus is able to tell because He is God and knows all things.  And if this information conflicts with what we learned from reading the “Left Behind” series of books, or what some television preacher taught, then we need to be suspect of those sources of information that are in conflict with what Jesus says.  We need to recognize fiction for what it is, and believe that Jesus is only able to speak the truth.

Now that being said, let’s make sure we don’t lose sight of the main point that Jesus was making and focus on the secondary points.  I think that a lot of information can be gleaned here about what happens after death and how that fits with the doctrine of the end times.  And I will address that briefly as we get to it.  But eschatology is not the main point of what Jesus is teaching.

What Jesus is teaching is the same thing He always taught; the gospel of the kingdom of God.  In parable after parable, in  illustration after illustration, and in confrontation after confrontation, Jesus was teaching about the kingdom of God.  How to enter the kingdom of God and the distinctiveness of the kingdom of God.  And Jesus does that incrementally by a series of messages.  Sort of like the progressive revelation that I spoke of earlier.  Jesus doesn’t reduce the gospel of the kingdom to a pocket sized tract that says if you want to go to heaven then do these 5 steps in this order and you will be saved.  He doesn’t reduce the gospel to a little formula that says if you pray in just this way you will be saved.  He doesn’t dumb down the gospel to the point of just one word such as “Love”.  He doesn’t say that all you need to do is have a relationship with God.

No, if anything, Jesus seems to be making it more and more difficult to enter the kingdom of God.  When you look back over the last few chapters, it’s obvious that Jesus’ message becomes ever more confrontational.  He keeps talking about the same themes but from different perspectives.  But instead of making it easier to enter the kingdom Jesus seems to be making it harder.  He keeps raising the bar.

Just a cursory glimpse back reveals this fact. In chapter 14 Jesus said that no one can be His disciple who isn’t willing to count the cost of what it takes to follow Him.  He says no one can be His disciple that isn’t willing to give up his own possessions.  He goes on to say it may be necessary to leave your family in order to follow Him. He says that no one can follow Him unless he is willing to carry his own cross and come after Him.  He was going to Calvary to be crucified, and He says you have to be willing to do the same thing.

And to illustrate those principles He then gave a parable about a rich man who gave a big feast and invited all these people to his dinner.  They all said they wanted to come.  But when the time came for the dinner they all were busy doing other things; some were busy with work, others were busy with family, and others were busy buying and selling.  And Jesus said the host became very angry because they would not come to his dinner, and so he swore that none of those who were invited would taste of his dinner, but instead he would bring in people from the highways and the outer reaches to eat his dinner.

And so Jesus just keeps turning up the heat, revealing the exclusivity of the kingdom.  Repeatedly emphasizing that God will not be relegated to second place but must have preeminence.   By the time we get to chapter 16, Jesus has focused His attention on money and the world’s goods as symptoms of an unregenerate heart.  He says you cannot serve God and mammon.  You are either loving the world and the things of the world, or you love God and the things of God. He was illustrating that how you live reveals who you belong to.  See, the problem was that there were a lot of people in Jesus’ day, just as there are a lot of people in our day, that claim to be in the kingdom of God.  They seem to be pretty religious people on the surface.  But Jesus said God looks on the heart.  God sees the heart.  He knows the motives.  And Jesus sees the hypocrisy of those that say that they love God and yet in reality love the world.  They haven’t left anything for Christ.  They haven’t forsaken the world, but yet they want to claim the benefits of the kingdom.

In Jesus time, much as it is in our time, people thought that they were in the kingdom of God because of a relationship.  The Jews claimed their relationship to Abraham who they felt was their spiritual father.  And because they were descendants of Abraham they believed they were in the kingdom.  And so as proof of their favored status, they believed that prosperity was a blessing from God.  So the more religious you were, the more money that you had because that is how they defined blessing.

That sounds a lot like the prosperity gospel  that false teachers like Joel Olsteen and Joyce Meyers and others on the CBN network love to espouse today.  They tell you that it costs nothing to have a relationship to God, that He just loves you so much and He wants to bless you.  And if you just have faith in God then He will give you all kinds of blessings.  Particularly monetary blessings.  God wants you to be rich.  That concept of blessing happens to be completely at odds with Jesus’ teaching.

So Jesus tells this story to once again show the disparity between what you claim to be and what you are.  He tells this story to show that how you live is a reflection of what you believe.  And that if earthly prosperity is what you are living for, then eternal destitution is what you are headed for. Furthermore, He teaches that you cannot discard the law of God to please yourself and still claim to love God.  You cannot love God and despise your neighbor.

Now as we look at this story, Jesus says that the rich man had all that the world could offer;  Jesus said “he habitually dressed in purple and fine linen, joyously living in splendor every day.”  Purple was a very expensive dye in those days.  And so this guy had all the best clothes that money could buy.  He ate the finest food. Luxury characterized this man’s life.

Then Jesus contrasts that life of luxury with that of a beggar.  He  said that there was a poor man named Lazarus who laid outside the gate of the rich man’s house.  This beggar was covered in sores and longed to even eat of the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table.  In those days, dogs were not pets like we have now.  They roamed the street in packs and were filthy, mangy dogs that carried diseases.  And we can assume from this description that Lazarus is probably disabled because Jesus said he laid at the gate and the dogs came up and licked his sores.  He was unable to defend himself against the wild dogs roaming the streets.

Now from a superficial point of view, Lazarus was a nobody.  He had nothing.  No friends, no family and no resources.  And in contrast to him, the rich man had everything the world had to offer.

But what goes without saying was that obviously Lazarus had something of the greatest value that wasn’t apparent on the outside, but God knew his heart.  And so when Lazarus died, God sent His angels to take him to Abraham’s bosom.  Lazarus was so poor that he didn’t even get a proper burial.  They probably carted him off to the local dump and dropped him off there.

The rich man also dies.  You know, death is the great equalizer, isn’t it?  Death comes to us all, whether we live in a cottage or a castle.  Whether rich or poor, death comes to us all.  Hebrews 9:27 says that it is appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgment.  Jesus says the rich man was buried.  I’m sure he had a nice funeral.  Lots of people may have said nice things about him.  But though he was rich in the world’s goods he was destitute in the matter of eternity. The rich man died and found himself in Hades.

Vs. 23 Jesus says, “In Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in his bosom.”

Now I don’t want to lose sight of the primary focus of the message.  But I will take a moment to teach you what I think this passage is saying concerning the afterlife.  In the Old Testament, the afterlife was referred to as Sheol.  It was the abode of the dead.  In the New Testament, Sheol is referred to as Hades.  And according to what is implied in Scripture, Hades is in the middle of the Earth.  It is composed of two compartments, an upper and lower region.  The upper region is what is called Paradise.  And the lower regions is simply called Hades; a place of torment and fire.  Between the two, Jesus says, is a great gulf, or chasm.

Now that brings up a lot of questions that the Bible does not answer.  We don’t know how this all functions.  We don’t know how spirits experience torment from flames, for instance.  We don’t know how Abraham and the rich man were able to communicate across such great distances between Paradise and Hades.  We are just given glimpses behind the veil of death that do not answer all our questions.

But here is what we do know.  Jesus said to the thief on the cross as He was dying, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.  And yet three days later He told Mary after His resurrection to “stop clinging to Me, I have not yet ascended to My Father.”  So if God is in heaven and Jesus went to Paradise then He must have gone to Hades.  And so He did according to a number of passages in the Bible.  Acts 2:27 “Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither will  You suffer your Holy One to see corruption.”  Peter says that while He was there He preached to those in prison.  That would be the souls in Hades. 1Pet. 3:18-19  “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison,”   Paul tells us where Hades is located in Eph. 4:8-9 “Wherefore he said, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. Now this expression, “He ascended,” what does it mean except that He also had descended into the lower parts of the earth?” The apostle’s creed confirms that; “Suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead and buried: He descended into hell: The third day he rose again from the dead.”

Furthermore, we know that in Paradise we experience the presence of the Lord.  Paul said to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.  Jesus is omnipresent because He is God.  And God will comfort His people in Paradise.  And we also know that we will not stay there, but we are awaiting the resurrection of the dead.  One day Jesus promised to return for His people and Paul describes this in 1Thess. 4:15, “For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.” [asleep is a Biblical term for the dead in Christ, those in Paradise] “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. [this is the first resurrection, the dead in Christ] “Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.  Therefore comfort one another with these words.”

Now there will be another resurrection that is described in Revelation 20:13, that of the dead in Hades, the unsaved awaiting the judgment.  It says, “And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds.  Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.”  Now that’s a summary of my view of eschatology.  I am not going to break fellowship with someone who disagrees with me on a point or two.  And I hope you will have the same attitude and don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater.  But hopefully I have illustrated why I think this passage is the key to understanding what happens after we die.

But even if you disagree with me on some of the particulars of eschatology, one thing should be absolutely clear from this illustration.  There are two possible outcomes when you die.  There are only two possible destinies.  If you want to call it heaven or hell that is fine by me.  Jesus calls it Hades and Abraham’s bosom.

Now let’s look at the rest of the story. The rich man in Hades, being in torment in the flames, lifts up his eyes and sees Lazarus afar off in Abraham’s bosom.  Now in a previous chapter, Jesus said to the Pharisees “In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but yourselves being thrown out.”  See, the Jews thought that Abraham was their father and they inherited the kingdom of God from him.  But Jesus is saying that they would not enter because they were children of Abraham but only if they were children of God.  Entrance into the kingdom is not by the means of the flesh but by the work of the Spirit.

For Lazarus, Abraham’s bosom is a reference to the celebratory feast like that the father of the prodigal son threw in his honor.  Jesus said that there was celebration among the angels over one sinner who repents.  Abraham’s bosom is a way of speaking of the place of honor at that feast, leaning against the person at the head of the table. It is a place of comfort, of peace, of reward, of being filled with good things.

Jesus does not describe the conversion of Lazarus.  But please understand that there is no social gospel here that is teaching that there is some sort of merit to being poor.  But rather Lazarus typifies the attitude of a person enters the kingdom.  In the sermon on the mount in Matthew 5, Jesus says “blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.”  “Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted.”  Jesus was picturing in that sermon just the sort of attitude that Lazarus symbolized.  If you will enter the kingdom of God, then you must recognize that your own righteousness counts for nothing.  You must come to God as a beggar, begging for forgiveness.  You must come like the prodigal son who said I am not worthy to be your son, please let me be as your servant.  You must come mourning over your sin.  That is repentance.

In contrast, the rich man is in torment.  He whose life was one of ease and luxury on earth is now in terrible torment.  But again, Jesus isn’t advocating some sort of social justice, but He is describing divine justice.  He is describing the wrath of God against sinners.  He is illustrating the same principle He espoused in the earlier parable concerning the invitation to the dinner and the people that were too busy to come.  He is displaying the judgment of God upon those that are too busy living a life in the world to value the things of God’s kingdom.  His life of selfishness and self fulfillment did nothing to store up for himself treasure in the kingdom of God.  He has not invested in eternity and so he is now destitute.

The rich man calls out to Abraham to send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water so that a drop could be given to quench his agony in the flames.   This statement reveals first of all that he knew Lazarus.  He knew his name.  He obviously had seen him lying at his gate begging all those years and known who he was and his condition and yet he had ignored him.  And in so doing he ignored the law of God.  Jesus was asked what was the greatest commandment in the law, and He said, “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength and the second one is like unto it; you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  Well the rich man had defied the law of God.  He neither loved God nor his neighbor.  You can’t get a much closer neighbor than one that lays outside your driveway every day.  Here is a guy who never lifted a finger to help Lazarus, and now that he is helpless he wants Lazarus to help him by dipping his finger in water. He is still trying to order people around to serve himself.  He loved only himself.

Listen, love is not about liking someone.  It’s not about loving your friends.  It’s about loving the unloveable, loving your enemies. Loving those that don’t deserve it.  Love is not an emotion, but an act of will.  God’s love is sacrificial love; agape love.  It’s the kind of love that Christ had for us that He laid down His life for us.  God says if you love Me, you will feed My sheep.  If you love Me, tend My lambs.  If you say you are in the kingdom of God, that you are a child of God, then act like God.  Be gracious to those who need it and even to those who don’t deserve it.  The rich man lived luxuriously for himself.  His lifestyle manifested the kind of person that he was.  He revealed what he believed by how he lived.  Listen, God isn’t interested in lip service.  This idea that we can honor God by giving Him lip service, singing a few “praise” songs and then live the rest of the week for ourselves is a lie from the devil.  God is honored by obedience.  “If you love Me, keep My commandments.”

Then the rich man tries to order another service from Lazarus.  If you can’t help me, how about helping out my family?  I have five brothers back home.  Send Lazarus back there to warn them so they will not to come to this place.  But once again Abraham tells him it isn’t going to happen. Vs. 29, “But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’  “But he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent!’ “But he said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’”

This little exchange is insightful because it speaks of the way people think about the gospel.  If God would just reveal Himself to me then I would be saved.  If God would just do some great miracle that I want Him to do then I would be saved. We try to dictate the terms of our surrender.  But the truth is that they wouldn’t be saved.  Salvation is by faith.  And what is seen is not faith, but that which is unseen.  Salvation is nothing less than unconditional surrender to the God of the universe, to serve Him completely.  Abraham says that they have Moses and the prophets and that is enough.  Let them listen to them.  What he is referring to is the entire scriptures up to that point.  That was a way of referring to all of the known scriptures, from Genesis to Malachi.  Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible, commonly known as the Law.  And all the rest of the scriptures was called the prophets.

You may remember how on the road to Emmaus after His resurrection, Jesus joins two disciples who are walking and are discussing among themselves in a very discouraged way the events of the last few days.  And as Jesus joins their conversation, it says in Luke 24:27“And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.”  The point being is that they had even in the Old Testament more than enough revelation to know that Jesus was the Messiah.  He was the seed of the woman who would crush Satan’s head, He was the offspring of Abraham who would bless all the nations of the earth, He was the substitute for the sacrifice that Abraham was offered in place of his son.  He was the Great High Priest who would enter into the Holy of Holies once for all.  He was the scapegoat that was driven outside the camp.  He was the lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world.

The scripture is still the way to enter the kingdom of God. Romans 1 says it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes.  We want to try to use all sorts of modern media, to try to dumb down the gospel, we want to make our churches seeker friendly so we don’t scare someone out of the church.  But we have forgotten the admonition of Jesus; John 6:63, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”

1Cor. 1:18, Paul said, “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.  For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.  Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.  For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:  But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”

In closing, I am very concerned that so very many people exist today in the church that think that they are ok, that think they are in the kingdom of God.  They claim to have a relationship with God based on some external thing or other and yet their hearts are unchanged.  They may have been baptized.  Or they may have had an emotional experience once that they thought was spiritual.  Maybe they had some crisis and they were told to have faith in God and they think that was how they got saved.  Some raised their hand in an emotionally charged service one time and maybe came forward and said a prayer.  I don’t know what you are trusting in for your eternal destiny.  But I hope you are trusting in the truth of the gospel.  I hope you have come to Christ as the prodigal son came home, in repentance, willing to become a servant.  I hope that you have come like Lazarus, as a beggar, mourning over your sinful condition.  Helpless, hoping only in God’s grace and Christ’s righteousness and begging to be made a new creation.  Listen, it’s not about just believing in God.  The Bible says the devil’s believe in God and they are not saved. Eph. 2:8 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”

Grace is the gift of God; sending Jesus to take your place on the cross to pay the penalty of your sins.  Faith is believing in all that God is and all that God says that He is in His word.  Abraham was the father of faith.  Abraham believed God and it was counted unto Him as righteousness.  How did Abraham show he believed God?  By obeying, going out to a place that he didn’t know, living in tents, confessing that he was  a stranger and a sojourner in this world.  He had faith to obey God.  That is the result of faith; to be given a new heart, a new spirit,  created for good works, so that we would walk in them.  Salvation is a desperate appeal unto God to remake you and forgive you and change you so that you might serve Christ and Christ alone.

Listen, the rich man’s lifestyle revealed what he believed. As a man thinks in his heart so is he. You can fool other people into thinking you are a Christian.  You can even fool yourself into thinking you are a Christian.  But you cannot fool God.  God sees the heart.   I pray that today you examine yourself in the light of God’s word. Today is the acceptable day of salvation. There are only two possible destinations when you die.  There are no second chances. God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.  Let’s pray.

As we have been looking at the last few chapters, we have noticed a steady downward progression in the attitude of the scribes and Pharisees towards Jesus and His gospel which He has been preaching.  At first, there was a curiosity on the part of the Pharisees towards Jesus.  They heard great crowds were following Him.  They heard that He was supposed to be a great teacher.  They heard about some of the miracles that He was doing.  And so they had a certain curiosity to see what He was doing.

Then that curiosity progressed to the point of becoming offended by Him.  When they got past the novelty of Him and His preaching they began to understand that often He was condemning them as well.  That was an uncomfortable position to be in. They were used to having people compliment them because of how religious they were.  They were used to people noticing their good works.  And so when Jesus lumps them into the same territory as all the rest of the sinners they were offended.

In this case, it says in verse 14 that they were offended because they were lovers of money.  That means that they loved the currency of the world.  They were living to satisfy their carnal desires with the things that money could buy and yet putting up a religious veneer of self righteousness before men.

Soon that offended attitude morphed into an attitude of finding fault.  They began to try to pick at His message.  They found fault with His disciples.  They tried to find something that He was doing wrong so that they could justify themselves.  His message made them feel guilty, so they tried to find fault with Him so they could feel better about themselves.

And then by the time we get to the last chapter, 15:2, you read that they began to grumble about Him.  That means they began to vocalize their irritation.  They began to complain, to talk about Him behind His back.  They tried to tear down His reputation.  They tried to influence others to turn away from Him by speaking ill of Him.

Now today, as we look at this passage, we see that their grumbling has turned to scorn.  They began to scoff at Him.   That means they began to openly ridicule Him.  Their attitude towards Him was worsening.  It was a growing hatred that began to come out in open, public ridicule.  The Pharisees had rejected His message, they had rejected that He was the Messiah, and they are on the way to full blown hatred.

And as we continue in this gospel, we will see their hatred worsen until they reach the point of plotting His murder.  And as you know, that culminates in actually carrying out the plan to murder the Son of God by having Rome hang Him on a cross.

Listen, this should illustrate the danger of rejecting the gospel.  The danger is that as Jesus Himself said, “you are either for Me or against Me.”  It says in 1 Samuel 15 that rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.  Jesus also recognized rebellion as a manifestation of the works of Satan.  That’s why He said to the Pharisees in John 8:44, “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him.”  The rejection of the truth and believing a lie results in the attitude of a murderer.  And in the case of the Pharisees, they eventually act on that murderous attitude.

What a warning that should be for all of us.  In today’s relativistic society, we don’t want to believe in absolute truth.  Nothing makes the agnostic or atheist more mad than to be told that there is a God in heaven that has given us His word and that His word is absolute truth.  The world hates Christians because we believe that there is absolute truth and that truth condemns their sin.

But listen, there is another danger, and that is to put this attitude at arms length and see it as a fault of others, or see it as something that really only applies in a historical context to an extinct type of religious zealots called Pharisees, and so therefore find ourselves excused.  The danger is in thinking that this doesn’t apply to you.  But let me assure you that there are still Pharisees today in the spiritual sense of the word.  The Pharisees were much more like you and I than we would care to admit.  They believed in God.  They went to the temple regularly.  They tithed.  They fasted.  They prayed a lot, especially in public.  They read the scriptures regularly.  They even memorized large sections of it.  They were very moral people.  They kept the ten commandments.  And they participated in philanthropic events.   They did good deeds.

And yet they rejected God’s word and that rebellion grew into a hatred that eventually conspired to kill the Son of God.  Now I’m telling you that there are spiritual Pharisees alive and well in the church today.  Even in so called evangelical Christianity there is a large cross section of the church that fits the description of a Pharisee.  They believe in God.  They go to church regularly.  They tithe occasionally.  They fast on Lent.  They like to pray in public.  They even read the scriptures now and then.  They love to champion a particular religious themed book or movie.  They are considered good moral people in the community.  They appear to keep the ten commandments.  They participate in philanthropic events.  They do good deeds.  And yet I tell you that they are as rebellious Pharisees.  They are carnal and love the mammon of this world.  And in order to satisfy their desires they have rejected the complete truth of the gospel for a partial gospel, and they are in danger of having that rebellion against the truth escalate into grumbling, into scorn, and even outright hatred for the absolute truth of God’s word and His messengers.

Listen folks, you cannot separate God from His word.  You cannot pick and choose the character attributes of God that you prefer and discard the rest.  You cannot carve out a God of your own design without resulting in idol worship.  To reject the truth of God is to reject God Himself and by extension to crucify Jesus Christ.

Please understand the truth of the gospel. The truth of the gospel starts with the law.  You cannot separate the God of justice from the God of love.  Everyone wants the God of love.  But as modern day evangelicals we recoil at the thought of the God of justice, of holiness and of righteousness that cannot tolerate sin. But when we reject the God of justice and extract those passages from scripture that sustain our doctrine of love, then actually we are rejecting the God of the Bible.

I know that it seems as though the doctrine of justice and the doctrine of love are polar opposites.  We would like to discard God’s justice and just focus on love.  But God cannot and will not be divided.  God’s love and God’s justice were met together at the cross.  That is where the justice and the wrath of God was poured out upon His only Son, so that we might be shown the love of God which results in salvation.  But one cannot exist without the other.  And any so called gospel which denies the one in favor of the other is to hold to the standards of the Pharisees.  And there are many today that are spiritual Pharisees.  Holding to a form of religion, but denying the power of it.  Denying the truth of the gospel while trying to hold on to part of it.

And that is why a lot of people have come to this church for a while, curious, intrigued by the novelty of being on the beach, having some interest in worshipping God.  But having that interest tempered by their own image of God which they have formed according to their own desires, that they might satisfy the lusts of the flesh without guilt.  And that is why so many have come and gone.  That is why some people’s attitudes have progressed from curiosity to becoming offended by my preaching concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.  And that is why their attitude has degenerated to the point of grumbling and outright scorn and ridicule and even hatred.

So there is still today a type of spiritual Pharisee in the church.  And in addressing this attitude of the Pharisees which has progressed to open scoffing and derision of the gospel,  Jesus presents a couple of principles and then an illustration which characterize spiritual Pharisees.

The first principle is spiritual Pharisees justify themselves to men, but  not to God. Vs. 15, “And He said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men, but God knows your hearts; for that which is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the sight of God.”  Paul spoke of this same principle in 2Cor. 10:12 “For we are not bold to class or compare ourselves with some of those who commend themselves; but when they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are without understanding.”

The problem is that spiritual Pharisees have a wrong standard; they measure themselves by themselves.  They compare themselves to one another, to the guy down the street.  They see themselves as better than others because they are using the wrong standard.  That is the standard  of relativism.  That’s the standard of the culture.  It’s the standard of what seems right in their own eyes.  The standard of what they think should be important or not important to God.

This standard is not based on the word of God, it’s not based on God’s standard, but it’s based on what they collectively have extracted or redacted from the word of God to produce their own version of the truth.  Paul says such people lack understanding.  He says in Romans 10:3 “For not knowing about God’s righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.”

God established the standard of righteousness in the Law.  That is where the attributes of a holy God are established.  The law is where the standards of righteousness are established.  The law is the beginning of the gospel.  It shows us our sinfulness and causes the repentant to fly unto Christ as His Savior.  But the spiritual Pharisee has either eliminated the law altogether or altered it to meet his own specifications.  He refuses to accept God’s standard, and so he is without understanding of who God is, and actually ends up rebelling against God, scoffing at God’s standards.

Such an attitude may justify you in the sight of men.  People may think you are really religious as they observe your rituals.  They may think you are really spiritual as they witness your external veneer of religion.  But Jesus says, “But God knows your hearts.”  God knows if you have really repented or not.  He knows when you refuse to bow the knee to God because you want to hold on to your sin.  Such was the case with the Pharisees.  They had altered the law.  They had lawyers work out the extent of the law so that they could appear to be keeping it, but in fact work it to their advantage.  But God knows the hearts.  He knows the motivation.  As Jesus preached in the Sermon on the Mount, if you hate your brother you are guilty of murder.  If you lust for a woman in your heart you are guilty of adultery.  God knows your heart.  He knows your motives.  He knows your thoughts.

Jesus condemns this kind of self justification in Matt. 23:25.  “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence.  You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also.”  This is where spiritual Pharisees go wrong.  They  seek justification from men before justification before God.  And so they go about cleaning the exterior, doing good works, cleaning up their act, turning over a new leaf, quitting drinking, etc., but they have never been cleansed from within.  Jesus said clean the inside first, and then the outside may become clean also.  And the only way to be clean on the inside is by repentance of your sins and completely humbling yourself before God by faith in Christ, resulting in forgiveness.  Then when the inside is clean, the outside can become clean.  That is the process of sanctification where by the Spirit of God working in you conforms you to the image of Jesus Christ.  Don’t be deceived, God desires good works.  That is why we are saved. Eph. 2:10, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”  But good deeds is a result of working out your salvation, not the means of working for your salvation.  The inside must be  supernaturally cleaned first.

The second principle of a spiritual Pharisee is they are unwilling to pay the price of becoming a disciple.  Now this principle is couched in a rather obscure statement that Jesus made concerning the law in vs. 16; “The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John; since that time the gospel of the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it.” Here is the way to understand this verse.  Remember He is addressing the Pharisees.  They believed they were accepted by God because of their nationality.  The Law and the Prophets refers to the Old Testament covenant which was given to the Jews.  It was given to the children of Abraham through Moses to the Israelites at Mt. Sinai.  And so there was a degree of entitlement that these Pharisees had because they traced their lineage back to Abraham. They thought they were born into the kingdom of God.  They were true Jews and everyone else was in their eyes considered a sinner.   Furthermore, they thought that they were entitled to the kingdom because they were circumcised.  This was probably the most important law of all in their minds.  You could not even enter the temple grounds unless you had been circumcised.  The rabbis actually taught that Father Abraham stood at the gates of Hades and checked to make sure that no circumcised Jews entered into hell.

So these were the two pillars of Judaism that the Pharisees rested upon. Their nationality and their circumcision.  Both of them outward, external signs of their self righteousness.  And thirdly, there was the keeping of the rest of the law.  However, they had added volumes to the law in writings called the Mishna which on the surface had the appearance of being fastidious in keeping the law, but in reality had limited the law, and provided ways of getting around the law of God.  But in their minds at least, and in the minds of others, they thought they were keeping the law.  The bottom line was that the Pharisees rejected the gospel, because they saw no need for repentance. They thought they were in the kingdom. It was theirs by right, by virtue of keeping certain requirements of the covenant.  That’s why Jesus tells a leader of the Pharisees named Nicodemus that in order to enter the kingdom of God he needed to born all over again.  His nationality counted for nothing.

So Jesus contrasts that attitude of entitlement with the gospel of repentance.  He says the old covenant was taught until John the Baptist, but since then the gospel of repentance has been preached, and those that heeded that call to repentance are rushing to it.  The idea is that while Pharisees rejected the gospel in their self righteousness, meanwhile sinners were forcing their way into the kingdom out of their desperation.

This principle is found in chapter 15 when Jesus gave three parables; the lost sheep, the lost coin and the prodigal son.  In each case, the one that was lost was accepted back into the house, in other words accepted into the kingdom with great celebration and rejoicing.  Jesus said that heaven rejoiced over one sinner that repents rather than those 9 or 99 or the one brother who needed no repentance.  Because the door to the kingdom of heaven is none other than Jesus Christ, and you enter that door by faith in His ability to pay for your sins and repentance from your sins.  That is why Jesus said He came to seek and to save those that were lost.  Quite simply, you cannot be saved unless you first realize you are lost.  It doesn’t matter what kind of external  actions you have done which justify you in the sight of other men.  What justifies you before God is a broken and contrite heart that throws oneself in desperation at the feet of Jesus and begs for forgiveness.  That person that is willing to count the cost of leaving the world, leaving the lusts of the world, forsaking the pride of life, the pursuit of money, the pursuit of career, in total surrender, in desperation coming to Christ for forgiveness.  That is who the kingdom of God belongs to.

The principle goes back even to chapter 14:27 when Jesus said, “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.”  It refers to vs. 33 when Jesus said, “So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.” It goes back to vs. 26 when Jesus said, “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.”  Those that are willing to do whatever it takes, to surrender everything, those are the ones that are forcing their way into the kingdom, while the self righteous, the complacent, and the self justified are unwilling to surrender everything and so are outside.

I’m afraid that spiritual Pharisees are still taking that attitude even today in the church.  They have an attitude of entitlement.  We have a version of the gospel that is prevalent today among many evangelicals which is that as Americans we are the recipients of God’s grace.  We call ourselves a Christian nation.  We think that God owes us an upper middle class version of the prosperity gospel.  It’s too bad for the poor Christians being martyred for their faith in other parts of the world like the Middle East or Far East.  But we are the favored ones.  We have an inside track with God and if you just claim some sort of relationship to God based on feelings or good works or whatever then God is obligated to make all your dreams come true.  It’s not that different than what the Pharisees believed.  Spiritual Pharisees are not willing to pay any price of carnality for the kingdom of God.  They want their heaven on earth and eternity too.  But Jesus makes it clear that you can’t have both, you can’t serve God and mammon.

Then Jesus adds the statement found in vs. 17 which is a segue to the following illustration.  He says in vs. 17, “But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one stroke of a letter of the Law to fail.”  I heard one linguist expert say it like this;  not one little stroke (jot or tittle) of a letter refers to something like the difference between the capital letter F and the capital letter E.  That one little stroke that distinguishes a capital F from a capital E.  It would be easier in the sight of God for all the heavens, all the sun, moon and stars to be swept away into oblivion than to eliminate one little part of just one letter of the law.

Now that should give us a glimpse of how important God considers His law.  As I said earlier, the law presents the standard of God.  It’s unattainable.  It’s beyond our reach.  The law condemns us and shows us our need for a Savior.  Jesus said in Matt. 5:17, “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.”

Listen, what Jesus is teaching in this passage is that yes, the old covenant taught the law and the prophets, and then since John the gospel of Christ is preached, but God hasn’t stopped counting sin.  God hasn’t stopped counting trespasses.  God just counts them against Jesus Christ.  For those that come to Him in repentance and faith, surrendering everything to follow Him, God counts our sins upon Jesus and transfers His righteousness upon us.  Jesus didn’t do away with the Law.  Jesus kept the law perfectly.  He was the only person to ever do so.  And He did it as a man, that we might be saved through faith in Him.  2Cor. 5: 21 says, “God made Him (that is Jesus) who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”

Then finally, Jesus gives an illustration of the statement that He made concerning the law; that not even the smallest part of the law can be annulled or done away with.  And this illustration must have hit these Pharisees pretty hard, because it was an illustration of exactly the way that the Pharisees had adjusted the law to accommodate their lusts.

Jesus says in vs. 18, “Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries one who is divorced from a husband commits adultery.”  Jesus is referencing the law concerning divorce found in Duet. 24.  And though the law had required that the penalty for adultery was to be death, yet the rabbis had used a contingency of Moses to change the law to say that you could divorce your wife for basically anything that you felt she had done wrong.  Literally the rabbis taught that if your wife burned your breakfast that was grounds for divorce.

In Matthew 19 some Pharisees asked Jesus about divorce.  They said, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?”  And Jesus quoted from Genesis which says, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE, and said, ‘FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH’? “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to GIVE HER A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE AND SEND her AWAY?” He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way.  And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

In Mal. Chapter 2 it says clearly that God hates divorce.  And yet they had changed the law to accommodate their carnal desires.  And still they claimed that they were keepers of the law.  In fact they were adulterers and were guilty of the punishment of death according to the law.

Spiritual Pharisees today change the law for the sake of accommodating their desires as well. Under the claim of grace they have thrown the moral laws of God under the bus. Divorce rates are as high in Christian churches as it is in the world. But please understand that God’s standard of sin hasn’t changed.  God’s standard of righteousness hasn’t changed.  And God’s standard of justice hasn’t changed either.  God will judge all unrighteousness.  God will hold everyone accountable for what he has done. 2Cor. 5:10 says, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.”

Listen, the only hope for all of us is to throw ourselves before the throne of God and ask for forgiveness of our sins.  As it says in Isaiah 53, we need to recognize that all we like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned everyone to his own way.  And that the only way for us to be made right before God is for  the LORD to cause the iniquity of us all to fall on Christ.  If we are going to be acceptable to God, to enter into the kingdom of God, then  Christ’s righteousness is the only way.  And the only way we can appropriate salvation is to turn from our sin in repentance and throw ourselves upon the mercy of God and ask for forgiveness.

I will close with Isaiah 55:6 which says, “Seek the LORD while He may be found; Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way And the unrighteous man his thoughts; And let him return to the LORD, And He will have compassion on him, And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon.”