Category Archives: Sermons

The hypocrisy of the church, Luke 13: 10-21

One thing that I have grown to love and appreciate about Luke’s gospel, is that he doesn’t ever seem to just add random biographical selections from the life of Christ.  But Luke strategically weaves together historical events into a theological commentary that endeavors to teach us important doctrines in a systematic way.  And so the key to understanding Luke is to find this thread that ties these incidents and passages together.

I heard Alistair Begg refer to this idea as finding the melody line in a music score.  And perhaps that is a good analogy.  We need to always remember to keep in mind the underlying melody line as we consider the individual notes in order to understand the intended message of the Holy Spirit.

Today’s passage is no exception.  At first glance, it may seem that this is just another miracle of Jesus and a couple of little parables which have no relation either to each other or to the surrounding content.  But I would like to encourage you to look closer today to discover what I think is an important message to the church.

But before we go into the story here we should understand the correlation between the modern 21st century church and the synagogue that Jesus visited in this passage on the Sabbath day.  I’m afraid that the significance of the synagogue is lost on most modern Christians.  The synagogue was a place of assembly.  It was something that had evolved in Judaism as a result of the Babylonian exile when the Jews were displaced from their homeland and the first destruction of the temple.  The Jews living in Babylon did not have a temple, they had none of their religious and national edifices in the land in which they were exiled, and so the synagogue was a means of bringing the Jewish people together in an assembly where they could worship God.  And they did this through prayer and in reading and being taught the word of God, or the Torah.

But I think it’s important to understand that the synagogue was never an organization that was designed by God.  This was the Jew’s attempt to bring their community together for social, religious, educational and political purposes and to preserve their traditions.  Furthermore, the leaders of the synagogue were not necessarily of the Levitical priesthood as it was in the temple.  But where the leadership really got their authority can be traced all the way back to the book of Numbers 11 when Moses established 70 men to be judges over Israel during the exodus.  These 70 officials that he established became the foundation for what would be called eventually the Sanhedrin.  They were the religious rulers  or judges of Israel.  They were made up of two opposing political/religious groups known as the Pharisees and the Sadducees.  And in the evolutionary process that Judaism went through after the Babylonian exile up until the time of Christ, these religious leaders developed teachings called the Mishna which was a collection of rabbinical instructions which interpreted the scriptures and particularly the law.  So by the time of Christ’s and the Apostle’s ministry, the synagogue, the Sanhedrin and the Mishna had basically taken the place of authority in Judaism.  The priesthood had become corrupt due to the fact that the High Priest was a politically appointed office that was purchased by bribing the Roman government.  This was the status of Judaism in the time of Christ.  It had strayed far away from the original intent of God and plan of God given at Mount Sinai.  It had a lot of shared characteristics with God’s plan, but it had been subverted and changed to the point of outright apostasy. It’s leadership was not appointed by God but appointed by man.  They had their own self interests at heart.  God’s primary way of speaking to the people had always been through prophets who were called by God.  And the prophets, whether Moses or Jeremiah or Hosea, had always been vilified and rejected by not only the national leadership but most of the people as well.

Now I cannot help but point out the parallels between the synagogue and the Judaism of Jesus day and the modern church and Christianity today.  The church was supposed to be the new covenant’s answer to the failures of Judaism.  We were supposed to be the stewards of the new covenant, just as  Judaism was the steward of the old covenant.  But just like our counterparts in the synagogue, the modern church I’m afraid has deviated far from the original plan of God.  That doesn’t mean that God doesn’t have a few people in His church that haven’t bowed their knee to Baal so to speak, but for the most part I’m afraid that the organization known as the church is like rotten fruit, that is swollen in it’s corruption and is ready to burst.  We have added so much disinformation to the scriptures that we have basically emasculated the gospel. We have added so many traditions to the church that it has almost completely obscured the gospel message.  We have leadership and teachers today in the church which God neither ordained nor did He call them to be His ministers.  We see corruption of both a political nature and in every other way, especially morally, in it’s clergy.  And we have produced a false gospel that rivals that of the Mishna which teaches a gospel of self fulfillment and false righteousness and robs people of their chance of salvation.

This is the same type of corruption that Jesus faced in His day, and we find history repeating itself in the 21st century.  Jesus has been preaching against this hypocrisy ever since chapter 12 vs. 1.  Jesus is preaching against the hypocrisy of the synagogue, the hypocrisy of Judaism, and particularly the hypocrisy of the Pharisees.  He says in His opening sentence of His message in ch.12; “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.”  In other words, beware of the corruption of the Pharisees, the leaders and teachers of the synagogue.  We can say the same thing today, “Beware of the corruption of the leaders of the church.”  I believe this is Christ’s message today for the church as we know it.  Beware of the hypocrisy that is in the church.

The apostle Paul says the same thing to the church in 1 Cor. 5:6, “Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”

The problem in Jesus day was that they had taken the law of God which was given by God to produce repentance, and they had twisted it to produce self righteousness by works.   So God made Jesus the scapegoat to take on Himself the penalty of the law that we might be given the gift of righteousness in the new covenant.  But the problem with the church today is that we have taken the grace  which was supposed to produce repentance, and we have twisted it to produce self righteousness without works. 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.”

In spite of the fact that grace has paid the penalty of the law, we still have hypocrisy paramount in the church.  Instead of grace producing godliness, we have grace producing licentiousness; lawlessness.  We have hypocrisy today running rampant in the church under the name of freedom, but there is no sense of repentance, there is no conviction over sin, there is no abhorrence of evil, and there is very little godly works as the result of grace.  What was supposed to be the result of this magnificent gift of grace has been turned once again into an opportunity to indulge the lusts of the flesh.  And we have done just like our forefathers the Jews have done, we have had every privilege,  and yet have not born fruit in keeping with repentance.

Jesus had just given a parable concerning this situation in vs. 6-9, in which He says the owner of the vineyard came year after year to see if the fig tree had born any fruit and yet it had not.  And so the caretaker was going to fertilize and dig around the tree, perhaps prune the tree for one more year to see if it brought forth fruit.  But if at that time it still had not brought forth fruit, it would be cut down.

And God did cut down the fig tree that was Israel in 70 AD.  The temple was destroyed again.  The synagogues were shut down or destroyed.  The rulers and religious leaders were put to death.  Tens of thousands of Jews were massacred and the remnant scattered to the four corners of the world.  And then God took this magnificent gospel, this great gift to mankind, and He gave it to every tribe and every nation of the world that it might go and bear fruit.  But 2000 years later I have to ask, if Christ should return today, would He find fruit in the church?  Would God be pleased with the stewardship that we have given to the gospel purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ?  Would God be pleased with the stewardship of His Word, the Bible?  Would God find the church employed in the business of the kingdom of God or would He find a church that has deviated from the gospel of salvation to teaching a gospel of self gratification and self righteousness devoid of fruit?

My opinion is that there is scant difference between the hypocrisy of the synagogue and the hypocrisy of the church.  Notice our text again and let’s see what it says in this regard.  I think Jesus deliberately picks a fight in this synagogue.  I know that is at odds with some people’s theology, but I think that Jesus knows that He has less than a year left to His ministry, and they aren’t getting the message.  And so He takes the gloves off so to speak from this point on.  He is deliberately confrontational.  But the fact is that He doesn’t have to work very hard at it.  The gospel is by itself confrontational.  All you have to do is speak the truth of the gospel and people will take offense.  But Jesus isn’t dodging the issues to avoid confrontation, He is actually spurring it on.  He has already said in chapter 12 vs. 49, “I have come to cast fire upon the earth; and how I wish it were already kindled!”

So Jesus comes into the synagogue and begins to teach on the Sabbath.  This is sort of like walking into enemy territory.  He knows that this is hostile territory.  But He also knows that this is an opportunity to present the gospel. And by the way, this may have been the last time that He came into a synagogue.  But He came because this would have been where the Jews would congregate on the Sabbath.  There is thought to have been almost 500 synagogues in Jerusalem. Jerusalem’s population swelled to as many as 600,000 people during festivals according to some estimates.  So each synagogue might have served a thousand people or so. Jesus and the apostles after Him saw these assemblies as an opportunity to reach the Jews with the gospel.

Now the details of the story are important, but remember that the healing of this woman is not the central objective of Luke recounting this story.  The purpose is to reveal the hypocrisy of Judaism.  But nevertheless, let’s look at the particulars.  Notice that Jesus summons the woman to Him.  Jesus sees this woman bent double and supernaturally recognizes that she is suffering from a demonic spirit.  And so He calls her over to Himself and says in vs. 12, ““Woman, you are freed from your sickness.” And He laid His hands on her; and immediately she was made erect again and began glorifying God.

Now my purpose today is not to teach a message about healing.  But as a point of interest, please note that the woman did not have to have any faith to be healed.  She didn’t even ask to be healed.  Jesus initiated the whole thing.  Listen, the point that needs to be clear is that this woman was seriously deformed.  She was bent over double for 18 years.  And Jesus healed her instantly. Blind and mute people were healed instantly. Paralyzed people were healed instantly.  Dead people were raised instantly.  It is criminal the way these fake healers like Oral Roberts or Pat Robertson or Benny Hinn get away with this charlatan hocus pocus in these healing services where no one who has any real visible signs of illness are ever healed, and the poor disfigured, deformed people are turned away and led to believe that they did not have enough faith.  If you want to know what that feels like to be one of the seriously handicapped people in wheelchairs that get ushered out the side door after their services, then see me afterwards and I will give you a link to Joni Eareckson Tada’s testimony of her experience with faith healers after becoming paralyzed from her neck down. I don’t deny the possibility that Jesus still may heal someone today, but I want to assure you that Jesus never healed like those guys purport to heal.

But the main point that Luke wants to make in this account is the response of the synagogue official.  He says the synagogue official was indignant.  Indignant is the typical response of a hypocrite.  Here is a woman that comes into the synagogue, probably had been coming there for years bent over double, in pain and suffering, and in a moment she is made well and glorifying God.  But the indignant, self righteous official says, “There are six days in which work should be done; so come during them and get healed, and not on the Sabbath day.”

Jesus responds to that ridiculous statement by calling the guy a hypocrite.  Look at vs. 15, “But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites, does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the stall and lead him away to water him? And this woman, a daughter of Abraham as she is, whom Satan has bound for eighteen long years, should she not have been released from this bond on the Sabbath day?”

See, even their own Mishna had provided for the relief of suffering animals on the Sabbath day, and the law of God provided for relief of suffering on the Sabbath, so Jesus says, why shouldn’t this woman be released from suffering on the Sabbath?

Jesus said in Mark 2:27, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.”  The Sabbath is a picture of God’s provision of rest. Hebrews 4:9 says, “So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.”

So here is the hypocrisy of this synagogue official.  The Sabbath is a picture of the rest we can find in the salvation of God, and yet he is denying the rest that Christ provided for this woman by healing her from this oppression by Satan. This woman then is a picture of the sovereign work of the Lord in salvation, a picture of the enslaved, oppressed sinner under the burden and bondage of Satan, helpless and hopeless, robbed of dignity, bent over under the burden of sin. And she is met by the Lord and He out of His compassion delivers her, straightens her up and brings glory to God. This is the picture of the work of God in salvation.

But it is the hypocrisy of the synagogue official that I think is the main point of this story.  He is indignant.  He is self righteous.  He is trusting in his form of religion.  But he shows no true compassion because he has never been repentant. He has never seen himself revealed in the light of the law as depraved, utterly sinful and in need of salvation.  He saw himself in the light of the law that he manipulated and believed that he was good enough.  And not only is he still in bondage, dead in his sins, but he wants to keep his people dead in bondage as well.  He doesn’t want them healed.

I think that a majority of the church today is still in the bondage of sin.  Because what is lacking most in the church today is preaching on the utter depravity of man; man’s utter sinfulness, hopelessly lost condition.  That we are totally without merit.  And concurrently what is missing is teaching of God’s absolute holiness.  Absolute pure righteousness.  And what the message of the gospel must be first and foremost is that sinful man is an abomination to God’s holiness.  The church today doesn’t speak of sin and doesn’t teach what holiness means, but just wants to tell people that they can have a relationship with God.  But God cannot have any sort of relationship to man because He is holy and we are so sinful.  We do not have a real understanding of our total depravity and God’s total holiness and how far apart those two realities are.  That’s why the primary message of the gospel has to be that of repentance.  Repentance, absolute remorse over your sinful condition, recognition of your absolute bankruptcy before God, and your need for forgiveness. Repentance is the prerequisite for forgiveness.  And the fruit of repentance is a desire to turn away, to forsake our sin and follow after righteousness.  To hunger and thirst after righteousness.

Immediately following this healing of the woman, Jesus gives two short parables that illustrate the hypocrisy of the synagogue and the danger of false teaching.  But I’m afraid that the true significance of these two parables has been lost in much modern teaching. I’ve often read and heard these two parables interpreted as if they stood alone and that leads to a wrong interpretation.  But the first word of vs. 18 should tie these parables to the preceding passage.  It is  “oun” in the original Greek, and it should be translated, “then, therefore, accordingly, consequently, these things being so.”  So vs. 18 should read “So therefore He was saying, “What is the kingdom of God like, and to what shall I compare it? It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and threw into his own garden; and it grew and became a tree, and THE BIRDS OF THE AIR NESTED IN ITS BRANCHES.”

Now if you’ve been here faithfully in the past then you know that I have said that the kingdom of God on earth is the church.  It is the visible manifestation of the invisible kingdom of God on earth, that is God reigning in the hearts and minds of His people.  The church is the body of Christ, and He is the head.  So Jesus is saying that the church is like a mustard seed which a man planted in his garden and it grew and became a tree and the birds of the air nested in it’s branches.  Now at first we may think that’s just an inscrutable riddle, but on the other hand think that it doesn’t sound too bad.  We all remember Jesus saying that we need to have faith like a mustard seed.  So the first reaction is that this is something good Jesus is saying about the church or the kingdom of God.

But actually Jesus is saying the exact opposite.  Remember, this comes in context with His rebuke of the synagogue official’s hypocrisy.  First of all, it’s important to understand that mustard seeds produce bushes, not trees.  What Jesus is describing is an abnormal growth of the seed to become a tree that birds nested in it’s branches.  And there is an important element to understanding birds in Jesus parables.  If you remember in the parable of the soils in Matthew 13, Jesus said the birds that ate the seed were the devil and his angels.  And so the picture Jesus is presenting here is that the church grows abnormally large, and the devil and his angels find nesting places in the branches of the church.

Folks, this is such a clear picture of the Christian church today.  The church today has become a monstrosity that incorporates every strange foul doctrine that the demons of hell can devise. 1Tim. 4:1, “But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron.”  Listen, as I keep saying, don’t for a moment think that the devil is not in the church.  Don’t think that just because some wacky experience happened in church that it must be of God.  And don’t forget that the devil knows more scripture than you do.  He has had thousands of years to perfect his schemes and deceit.

Paul told the church in Acts 20 to be on guard, because he said, “I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.”  Listen, the greatest enemy the church has today is not the forces of evil outside the church, but within the church itself.  And it’s always been that way.  This is what Jesus is preaching against. Remember the fig tree.  It is a flourishing tree that should bear fruit, but instead it is just become a roosting place for birds, for doctrines of demons, for false teachers.  And Jesus said if it doesn’t bear fruit then He will cut it down.

And so Jesus gives one more illustration of the corruption that is in the church.  Vs. 20, “And again He said, “To what shall I compare the kingdom of God?  It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three pecks of flour until it was all leavened.”  Now once again, this parable is often interpreted incorrectly, as some sort of prophecy of the growth of the future church.  But if you remember the context of this message, that it started with Jesus saying “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy,” then that should give you a clue as to how you are to interpret it.

Leaven is always presented in the Bible as a picture of sin.  And so this parable is warning that the church is able to be corrupted by sin.  The mention of three measures of meal was the standard grain offering that was given to God.  So the correlation is clear.  This is unconfessed sin in the church that is a corrupting influence. Essentially, Jesus is giving a picture of corrupt worship. Hiding sin within corrupted an offering to God.  And I’m afraid that once again this is a picture of the current condition of the church.  The call of the church today is to come as you are to worship God.  That as long as you offer to God the praise of your lips and maybe raise your hands or something then that is all that God requires of us.  And there is no mention whatsoever in the church today by and large about the need for repentance, for confession, for turning away from sin.  And I’m afraid that the church is as guilty as the self righteous Jews of the synagogue who refused to repent at the preaching of Jesus.  We’re guilty of coming with unconfessed sin to the worship of God in the church.

This is why today’s Christian church is more carnal than that found in Corinth.  You can be living with your boyfriend in immorality and be perfectly content in church today.  You can divorce your husband at will and be perfectly content in church.  You can smoke pot on the weekends and get drunk on Friday nights and be perfectly happy at a church.  Because we have no concept of the abhorrence that God has for sin, and furthermore, we have no abhorrence of it ourselves, and rather than just tolerate sin, we embrace it, even celebrate it in the church.

But I put the blame squarely on the shoulders of the leaders of the church. That is why Jesus most scathing criticism is not of the prostitute or the person enslaved to sin, but of the synagogue officials, of the Pharisees and rabbis that were teaching a false doctrine that permitted sin to flourish without remedy.  And that is my primary concern today.  As a shepherd I am tasked with protecting the sheep from the ravaging wolves that rise up among ourselves, from within our own ranks.  My job is to expose it for what it is; hypocrisy, the doctrines of demons, designed by the architect of all false religions, Satan himself.  We need to cleanse ourselves from the old leaven. 1 Cor. 5:6, “Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”

In Revelation 2 and 3, Jesus gives one last message to seven churches.  And all but two of those churches had moved away from the truth and towards apostasy.  And Jesus gives a similar message to all of them.  I believe that the church today is in the last days, and the message Jesus gave to the last church was that of Laodicea, to which Jesus said, “‘I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot.  So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.  Because you say, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,” and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked,  I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent.  Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.”

The signs of the times, Luke 12:54-59

As most of you know, I was traveling last week to a pastor’s conference in California and while I was on the trip I came into contact  with a lot of people as a matter of course.  And from time to time as I traveled to various places and waited in line at airports or car rentals or wherever, people would out of a sense of friendliness would speak hello and say something about the weather.  And I found myself reflecting that perhaps the most common topic of conversation today is that of the weather.  It is a rather innocuous way of making small talk with someone that you may not know very well, or because you want to fill an awkward silence between someone you are next to and have nothing else in common to talk about. I think the reason we like talking about the weather is that it is a safe conversational topic.  We all know that proper social etiquette requires that we don’t speak of anything too serious in polite conversation.  We have been warned that we should avoid talking of politics or religion, for instance.

And that is understandable to a certain degree.  Sometimes there may be a place for banal conversation.  But I don’t quite understand people’s fascination with the weather.  Especially in a place like Los Angles.  I saw a monitor in the airport showing the weather forecast for the next five days in LA and it said 71 degrees every day for the next week.  But yet they still want to talk about it.  The weather seems to predominate the news nowadays.  They have an entire network on television that is all about the weather.  And even on our local television stations news programs more time is spent on the weather than almost all other considerations.  There could be wars going on all over the world, and every kind of scandal going on in Washington DC, and yet all of that can be eclipsed by whether or not they think  it may rain the next day.

It really should be disconcerting that people’s lives are filled with trivial things like talking about the weather, or entertainment or sports and yet we studiously avoid talking about what is really important.  There is nothing wrong with those things in and of themselves if they are kept in perspective.  But I’m afraid our fascination with these trivial subjects have taken precedence over focusing on what is really important.

Perhaps that is why Jesus uses an illustration of discerning the weather as a metaphor in His sermon about the judgment of God.  At first glance, it seems like suddenly Jesus throws a couple of unrelated illustrations in at the close of His message that don’t really seem to have much relevance to what He has been preaching so far.

If you look back in this chapter at the beginning of Christ’s sermon, we see Him using one illustration after another to build a case before the crowd that there is coming for every man a day of reckoning with God.  A day when the thoughts of man will be revealed.  When what was whispered in the back room will be shouted on the housetops.  There will be a day of judgment as He illustrated with His parable of the rich fool who laid up so much treasure here on earth that he needed to build more barns to hold it all, and yet  failed to plan for his death and the subsequent judgment of his soul.

The theme of Jesus sermon up to this point has been to present one scenario after another to show that man needs to be concerned first about the kingdom of heaven and emphasizing the fact that what a man has done in response to His knowledge of God will be required of him at the judgment.  Jesus goes on to allude to this coming judgment as a judgment of fire,  which will burn up those things that can be burned up, leaving only what is eternal.  He says that this judgment will divide between those that have accepted Him and those that rejected Him.

And then suddenly in the midst of this message Jesus starts talking about the weather.  In an agrarian community, the weather would have been a familiar topic.   And so Jesus says in vs. 54, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘A shower is coming,’ and so it turns out.  And when you see a south wind blowing, you say, ‘It will be a hot day,’ and it turns out that way.”

Now that was sort of common knowledge.  You didn’t have to be a trained meteorologist to be able to know that in that country, as well as in ours, weather typically moves from west to east.  And even though they didn’t have the radar maps and computer models that we have today, still they would have taken note of the fact that when clouds appeared on the western horizon they usually brought rain and storms as they moved east.  And again, you didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to notice that when the wind blew out of the south the air got warmer, and when the wind blows out of the north the weather gets colder.  This would have been pretty elementary stuff for most people in that day who could not depend upon flipping on the TV at night to hear the weather forecast.

So what’s the point that Jesus is making?  Well, look at vs. 56, Jesus continues; “You hypocrites! You know how to analyze the appearance of the earth and the sky, but why do you not analyze this present time?”  In other words, you can deduce the upcoming weather from analyzing the characteristics of the sky and the wind, but you can’t discern the signs of the times, which are just as obvious.

And I think it’s interesting that Jesus calls them hypocrites.  At first, we might wonder what is hypocritical about lacking discernment.  After all, earlier in the chapter we saw hypocrites being defined as someone who hides their sin, while pretending to be righteous.  So why call these people hypocrites?  Well, the answer is that Jesus is saying that they are choosing to believe a lie so that they can continue living in sin.  This form of hypocrisy denies the truth and believes a lie.  Jesus is saying that they have had ample evidence that He was the promised Messiah and yet they had chosen to disregard it. They chose to believe a lie because they loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. John 3:19 “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.”

Look at Rom 1:18 for a moment which says, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.”

What that passage is saying is that God’s wrath is coming upon all men because they have rejected truth and loved sin.  Listen, Paul isn’t just talking hypothetically about a few reprobates out there that have turned away from the truth and indulged themselves in gross sin.  But he is talking about the nature of all mankind.  As he said in Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”  This is the curse of the fall, that all men by nature reject the truth of God because they love their sin.  It’s the characteristic of all of us, that at one time we rejected salvation. We liked being our own master and lord, to be the captain of our destiny, so to speak.  And it comes naturally to all of us.

But ever since the beginning, Paul says, God made it clear to men that their was a God by virtue of the creation, of the stars, the heavens, the earth and it’s produce and all the wonders of creation, all of that order, all of that precision, all of that creativity, all of the wonder of creation illustrated that there was a God.  And furthermore, Paul says, creation alone was enough to reveal to men the invisible attributes of God, His eternal power and divine nature.  And yet Paul goes on to say that men rejected that revealed truth about God and substituted instead something out of their own imagination.  They exchanged the truth of God for a lie because their deeds were evil.  That is the hypocrisy.  That truth was available and yet they said it wasn’t and so therefore they claimed immunity and the freedom to do as they wanted.

Jesus says that is why they were hypocrites.  They had not only the benefit of all men by the wonders of creation, but they had the additional benefit of witnessing the life and words and miracles of Jesus Christ and yet they still rejected Him.  In spite of all that He was, in spite of His teaching of which they said, “Never a man spoke like this man spoke,”  in spite of His miracles which numbered in the hundreds and were indisputable proof of His deity, yet they called for more signs as the reason that they still did not believe.  But it wasn’t for a lack of signs.  Many people had believed and had less signs than they did, but Jesus said it was because they wanted to continue in their form of religion without the fruit of it.  They wanted to claim citizenship in the kingdom of heaven, but they were not willing to renounce the kingdom of darkness.

And so they are by their rejection of Jesus bringing upon themselves the judgment that they rightly deserve.  Jesus speaks of this coming judgment again by means of another illustration starting  in vs.57, “And why do you not even on your own initiative judge what is right? For while you are going with your opponent to appear before the magistrate, on your way there make an effort to settle with him, so that he may not drag you before the judge, and the judge turn you over to the officer, and the officer throw you into prison.  I say to you, you will not get out of there until you have paid the very last cent.”

What Jesus is illustrating here is someone who has done wrong against someone in his community, and so they send the magistrate to arrest him and bring him before a judge who will announce his sentence and his punishment.  And Jesus says, why wouldn’t you try to settle with the one who you defrauded before you go to court?  Why wouldn’t you try to make things right with him on your own?  You know you sinned against the man.  You know you’re going to have to make retribution for that sin.  So why not do what is right and reconcile with him on your own.  Why wait for the court to come after you?  You’re just going to make it worse on yourself.

The parallel here should have been clear from the context of His message.  The parallel is this.  We  have all sinned against God.  We have defrauded Him who made us for His glory by denying Him and serving ourselves.  We had the truth revealed in creation, we had the truth revealed in Jesus Christ, and yet we rejected the truth because we loved our sin.  Jesus says, you have time right now to go to your Heavenly Father and ask for forgiveness.  You have time now to reconcile with God.  But there is a day coming, and coming soon, when your reprieve will be up.  And when that day comes, it will be too late then to try to work out a deal.  God will judge you by what you have done in response to His Truth.  When that day comes, every man will give an account for himself before God.  Every man, every woman, every teenager will stand before God and give an account for what he or she did with God’s truth.  And on that day, God will test every man’s work by fire, and what is of earthly wood, hay and stubble will be burned up.  But that which is eternal will endure. Those that are found wanting will be cast into the Lake of Fire and their punishment will be eternal torment.

How are we then to apply this message?  What should our response be?  I know what my response is.  On that day, when I stand before God I don’t want to be ashamed.  I don’t want to be found lacking, having determined my own version of what I think life is all about.  Having lived a life according to what the world said was important and finding myself wanting in the day of judgment.  The Bible says that there is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is the way of death.  I don’t want that to be my judgment.  I don’t want to be ashamed when I stand before God.

The good news is that Romans 1:16 tells me how that is possible.  It says “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.”  That’s the good news, that is what the word gospel means.  That there is salvation available to every one that believes in Jesus Christ.  That means that if we believe in Jesus Christ, and accept by faith the righteousness of Christ which is offered to us, we will be saved from that wrath which is to come.  The wrath we so rightly deserved.

Because the gospel tells us in 2 Cor. 5:21, that “God made Jesus, who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”  This righteousness which we receive by faith is the only way we might stand before God unashamed.  And this gospel of Jesus Christ is powerful in that it is able to accomplish that transaction for everyone who confesses their sinfulness and their need for a Savior.

God has provided reconciliation through Jesus Christ. God wants you to settle out of court and the way you settle is to make peace with Him through His Son, through faith in Christ, whom God made sin for us that we might be made the righteous of God in Him. God punished Him, the just for the unjust, that we might be brought to God. Grace is available. Forgiveness is available. Freedom from sin is available. Freedom from punishment, the hope of eternal life, escape from judgment. You can settle with God out of court. If you don’t, you’ll get to court and you will pay in full down to the last cent.

I would close by asking you this simple question.  Have you personally accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior?  Have you called out in faith and repentance to God and asked Jesus to take your life and make it clean?  Sometimes I think that some people come to an intellectual acknowledgement of the gospel, they more or less see the truth in it, and they more or less see the value in it, but they have yet to call upon God and ask Him to come into their life and change it.  To forgive them from sin and give them the righteousness that has been procured by Jesus Christ.   I hope you will honestly examine yourself and see if you have actually called on God to save you.

Today, this is your chance.  2 Corinthians 6 says  that “Today is the acceptable time of salvation.”  And Isaiah 55 says, “Seek the Lord while He may be found. Call on Him while He is near.”  Don’t wait until it’s too late.  The Jews had no idea when Jesus warned them that the judgment would come upon the nation of Israel within their lifetimes.  In just 30 years the Romans would destroy the temple and kill thousands upon thousands of Jews, scattering them into the far corners of the world, displaced from their homeland and everything that they held dear.

God’s judgment is coming on the entire world.  The signs of the times point to His imminent return.  It could be any day.  I hope you will call upon Him today and make peace with God.  I hope you will know the peace that comes from forgiveness and reconciliation with God.

While I was away this last week, for some reason I found myself thinking a lot about my own mortality.  And while that may sound depressing, it really wasn’t.  It actually was a time of confirmation, that I was doing what God wanted me to do.  And as I think about my mortality, I know that I want to use the time that I have left in the service of the King.  I decided I would rather die for something, than to live for nothing. And what nobler cause to give my life for than in service to Jesus Christ.

One thing that might have contributed to this sense of mortality was some conversations that the key note speakers had during a question and answer period during one of the sessions.  These were some of the highest profile religious leaders and thinkers of the conservative evangelical movement.  And what came out of those talks was that they were seriously concerned about the future of the church in America as we know it.  There are precedents in the courts already established that if applied to our situation, and there is mounting pressure from our enemies for them to do so, that can effectively shut down  churches all across America.  They may never shut down the preaching of the  gospel completely, but what we have taken for granted in terms of the church in America may be  but a memory in just a few short years.  And as Christians we may find ourselves in the midst of a persecution that rivals that which happened to the Jews in AD 70.

Folks, we need to make the most of the time, because the days are evil.  We need to discern the signs of the times and make the most of the opportunities that we have today to do the work of the kingdom. Romans 13:11 says, “Do this, knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed. The night is almost gone, and the day is near. Therefore let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.  Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy.  But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.”

The Fruit of Hypocrisy, Luke 12: 13-21

The other night my wife and daughter and I were watching an old movie called “It could happen to you.”  It was the story of a guy who did not have the money for a tip at a restaurant and so he told the waitress that if he won the lottery he would give her half of what he won.  So as Hollywood would have it,  that night he finds out he did in fact win the lottery and he ends up having  this great debate with his wife who was not quite so honorable as he was about whether or not to honor the commitment he made to the waitress to split the lottery winnings with her.

Now I don’t want to spoil the movie for you if you haven’t seen it.  And by no means in telling this story should you infer that I endorse playing the lottery.  But I say all that to say that the movie prompted a discussion in my family about what we would do if we won a lot of money  like the man did in the movie. It’s kind of fun to fantasize about what you would do with a couple of million dollars, isn’t it?  I mean, I had it all figured out; how much I would spend on a new car, what new surfing gear I would buy, how much I’d use to pay off bills, how much to invest, the whole works.

And then a couple of days later I started studying for this message.  And I realized that I wasn’t much better than the rich man in Jesus’ parable.   Never once when I played that fantasy scenario of winning the lottery in my mind did I think how I would invest any of that money in the kingdom of heaven. It never crossed my mind to think of spending it on anyone other than myself.  I would hope that in real life I would consider what purpose the Lord would have for that money and that I would use at least a percentage of it for the kingdom.  So I have to say at the outset that on a personal level I was convicted by this parable.

Now what Christ is teaching here in this parable is not so much a diatribe against riches, or against making a lot of money, but what Christ is illustrating is that a man’s heart is revealed by his actions.  This section of scripture is actually a continuation of what we have been looking at for the last couple of weeks.  We first looked at the end of chapter 11 at the nature of hypocrisy, then last week we saw the crisis, the cure and the curse of hypocrisy, and now today we are looking at the fruit of hypocrisy.  The principle that what is in the heart comes out  in our actions.  That is the fruit of hypocrisy that we are examining today in light of the word.

As we look back in the text we see that Jesus was teaching concerning hypocrisy that there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed.  And then, seemingly out of nowhere and completely unrelated to the message, some random guy in the crowd calls out that he wants Jesus to intervene in a family dispute about his inheritance.  And many commentators and students of the Bible scratch their heads and wonder what does this have to do with what Jesus is preaching about?  But when you consider how Jesus uses this as an opportunity to illustrate the principle of hypocrisy, then it becomes clear why Luke includes this interruption here.

So in vs. 13, this random guy yells out to Jesus as He was preaching, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.”  Seems totally unrelated to what was going on, doesn’t it?  But Jesus turns this into an opportunity to teach the truth.  Vs. 14, “But He said to him, “Man, who appointed Me a judge or arbitrator over you?”  Now an arbitrator was a type of judge that settled civil disputes.  And this would have been a position provided through the government or even possibly through the synagogue to judge civil affairs, matters of property, and boundary lines and so forth.  And even a certain portion of the Levitical law was given to arbitrate in civil matters, because the people of God were designed to operate under a theocracy, and the priests and rabbis and synagogue officials would implement that function of arbitrator in the Jewish community.

But Jesus doesn’t want to get sidelined by that sort of petty legal wrangling.  Jesus said to Nicodemus in  John 3:17 that “God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.”  See, it’s not that Jesus didn’t care about the man’s petty problems.  But His purpose in coming to earth was not to settle property disputes but to save men’s hearts.  Jesus knew that when the heart is right with God, then a right heart will produce right actions.  The way to bring peace on the earth was not for Him to set up a throne in Jerusalem and start hearing court cases in an effort to help people to start getting along, but the way to bring peace on the earth is to convict men of their sinful nature, have them repent and be saved, and then their new heart will produce works of righteousness. Eph. 2:10, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”

So Jesus is concerned with the heart of man.  God told Samuel that man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart.  And so this whole teaching then comes out of His earlier teaching about hypocrisy and sin being likened to leaven, which produces fermentation in the loaf of bread and how that corruption becomes evident by the bread rising.  In other words, what is in the heart is revealed in one’s actions.  And so following up on that message, Jesus is going to use this man’s question to segue into another manifestation of hypocrisy which is the sin of greed.

So first Jesus gives the principle. Look at vs. 15, “Then He said to them, “Beware, and be on your guard against every form of greed; for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions.”    Notice first of all that this principle starts off with a warning, “Beware, be on your guard…”  Basically the same thing He said earlier in regards to hypocrisy in vs. 12.  “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.” Beware of hypocrisy, beware of greed.  Both are indicators of a corrupt spiritual nature. Both are the fruit of an evil heart.

So be on your guard, beware every form of greed, for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions.  The point Jesus is making is very critical, especially with the modern prosperity view of Christianity that is so prevalent today.  The point is this, that abundance isn’t evidence of an abundant life.  Or to put it another way, earthly blessings don’t necessarily produce a godly life.  Or simply, abundant life is defined as much more than the sum total of your possessions.  But I will tell you what a godly life does produce –  a godly life produces blessings to others.  A godly life gives as God gives, loves as God loves, is faithful as God is faithful. A godly life is not measured by possessions, but by godly fruit.

See the type of life Jesus is talking about is not a quality of life defined by possessions, or how much you make, or what you have achieved in social stature or worldly fame, but the Greek word used for life is zoe, which means real life, the fullness of life designed for man by the Creator.   Jesus said in John 10:10 “I came that they may have life, and have it more abundantly.”  Same word, zoe, talking about the fullness of everlasting life, and yet so many people today want to take this to mean the exact opposite of what Jesus is talking about.  They want to use this verse to claim that God is promising prosperity in earthly possessions and wealth.  We have somehow gotten the wrong view of Christianity here in America.  It’s a view that God loves Christians in America more than Christians in China, or Russia, or Africa.  And as an extension of that love we are somehow guaranteed a lifestyle that is light years away from what the other parts of the body around the world would dare to even dream of.  Even those of us that live at the poverty level in America are wealthy by the  standards of most Christians in those countries.

Christians today too often equate prosperity with blessing.  Such a mindset indicates that we have fallen for the seduction of the world.  Our minds have been conformed to the world rather than being transformed into the image of Christ.  But Jesus is saying here that abundant life is not found in possessions.  It’s not found in wealth.  An abundant life is found in a transformed heart.  And to illustrate that He gives them a parable.

Vs. 16, “And He told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man was very productive.”  In other words, a rich man made a lot of money from his farmland.  The Bible says that God causes it to rain on the just and the unjust, on the righteous and the unrighteous.  Romans 2:4 says that God does this so that His kindness will draw men to repentance.  God doesn’t always strike down the ungodly.  God in His sovereign wisdom rains His mercy on both the good and the evil.  His purpose is to show Himself good and to cause men to give thanks to Him.  But gratefulness doesn’t come from the heart of this rich man.  He doesn’t see the hand of God in the land producing a bountiful crop.  He doesn’t see the hand of God in the sunshine or the rain.  But in his arrogance, he sees this all as just the rightful return on his own labor.  You know, I have heard of a lot of rich men that claimed to be self made men.  But I have yet to truly meet one.  No one is self made. God made you.  God gives gifts to men of life, of breath, of health, of the earth and of peace on the earth. And yet very few so called self made men ever thank God for that.

So this rich man won the lottery so to speak.  He got considerably more wealthy from this very productive season.  And in vs. 17 Jesus tells us what the man decided to do with this windfall.  “And he began reasoning to himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.”  Do you see what’s striking about that? There are eight I’s and four my’s in two verses. That gives us some insight into his heart.  His heart is not spiritual but carnal, and so what he thinks of when he gets this great harvest is himself.  He has no thoughts for others, no thought for the synagogue or the temple, no thoughts of God, but only thoughts for himself.  It’s his money and he will use it for his pleasure and enjoyment.  It’s the natural outpouring of an unregenerate heart.  It’s all self indulgence, self fulfillment and selfish ambition.

See, Jesus is illustrating that what’s in the heart comes out of the mouth, what’s in a man’s heart comes out in their actions or in this case, his heart is revealed by his bank account.  See, Jesus isn’t speaking against the guy making a lot of money, but He is showing that how the man acts in response to money reveals his heart.  I’ve heard it said  before that you can tell a lot about a man by his checkbook.  And I believe you can tell a lot about a man’s faith by his checkbook as well.

A person who is first of all God’s steward will use his resources for God’s purposes.  I try my best not to talk  very much about money from this pulpit.  I neglect teaching about giving very often to our church’s detriment.  But please understand something.  Jesus is using money here as an illustration only because it has universal application.  He could just as easily be talking about time, or commitment, or responsibility, or faithfulness, or even being a witness.  There are many things that we are commanded to do in the New Testament.  Giving is just one of them.  But money happens to be something that pertains to all of us to one degree or another.

But don’t forget that all of this is coming under the heading of hypocrisy.  See, the flip side of this is that if you are God’s child, if you have a heart for God then that should result in a desire to give back to the Lord.  But the hypocrite claims  some sort of self righteousness, but their lack of fruit, their lack of consistency, their lack of commitment, their lack of generosity prove otherwise.  When  people ask me about their responsibility to tithe, I tell them that tithing is an Old Testament commandment.  We aren’t under that requirement the same way that the Jews were.  But please understand something.  If grace provides more than the law ever could, then shouldn’t being under grace produce more than the law did?  Of course it should.  So being under grace then do you give more or less than the law required? Is grace a license to sin or an impetus to give?  The Bible says that we are not to give under compulsion anymore; that is we’re not under the requirement of the law to tithe.  But it says that God loves a cheerful giver. So then if we give cheerfully, not under compulsion, but under grace, do we give less then than the law required or do we give more?  If you are under the greater law of grace, then is your giving greater or less than the law?  The Biblical principle is that grace doesn’t provide less than the law, grace provides more.

So when people ask me about giving I say you are not under the law of tithing.  The law required 10%.  But you are under grace.  And grace isn’t 10%.  Grace is 100%.  Grace says Jesus paid all your debt that the law could never pay so that He might be Lord of all.  Lord of all of you, all of your resources, all of your energies, all of your affection, all of your service, all of your commitment, all of your faithfulness.  All the law is summarized in two laws;  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength. That’s 100%.  And then you are to love your neighbor as yourself.  That’s 110%.  Going the extra mile.

Listen, when Jesus commended the poor widow that dropped in two half pennies in the box at the temple He said she gave more than all the hypocrites who had come before her giving ten percent because she gave all that she had to live on.  She gave 100%. That was commendable to God.  I’m sure that she willingly gave 100% because she knew the chorus that I used to sing in Sunday School growing up as a boy,  “that He owns the cattle on a thousand hills, the wealth in every mine.  He owns the rivers and the rocks and rills, the sun and stars that shine.  Wonderful riches more than tongue can tell, He is My Father so their mine as well.”

But back in vs.19 the rich man says, ‘And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry.”’  The rich man thought he had a pretty good investment strategy.  He had a lot of money in the bank, he had all his needs for the future under control, and he planned on living out his life to a ripe old age enjoying his life, enjoying all that his money could provide.  Jesus presents a picture here of  a life that is characterized by sensuality.  Ease, luxury, taking time off, eating, drinking, and having a good time.  That’s what he thought life was all about.  Money, possessions, vacations, dining out, partying, living the good life.

But Jesus refers to  him in vs. 20 as a fool.  “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?’ Jesus said in Mark 8:36, “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? “For what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”  That’s the $10000 question; what will a man give in exchange for his soul?  The answer is simple;  his life.  If you want to save your soul, you must give up your life.  That is what Jesus said in vs. 35, “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.” That is why He calls us to take up our cross and follow Him.  Dying to self, results in life.

The rich fool didn’t die to self.  His life was all about getting more, enjoying more, building more, buying more.  He may even have practiced an external religion, he may even have had all his doctrine and scriptures down pat, but his heart was unregenerate, and his actions revealed his heart’s condition.  You know, there are some so called Christians out there that are like that.  They claim the doctrines of Christianity, but their lives produce very little to convict them of it.  In fact their lives declare something different than they profess is in their hearts.  But what is in the heart eventually comes out.  That is why Jesus said in Matthew 7 that you shall know those that are truly His disciples by their fruits.

God said to the rich fool that this very night he was going to die and someone else would use all that he had acquired.  The Bible says that is appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgment.  That means that all of us are going to die, some sooner and some later.  But we all are going to die.  There is going to be a day of reckoning for all of us. Isaiah 2:12 says, “For the LORD of hosts will have a day of reckoning against everyone who is proud and lofty and against everyone who is lifted up, that he may be abased.”

That’s why Jesus finishes this parable by saying in vs. 21, ““So is the man who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”  Just as there was a day of reckoning for the rich fool, there will come a day when all men’s works are judged. Romans 2:6 says that God will bring about the day of judgment, and He “WILL RENDER TO EACH PERSON ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS: to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, [they will receive] eternal life; but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness,[they will receive] wrath and indignation. There will be tribulation and distress for every soul of man who does evil, but glory and honor and peace to everyone who does good.”

Jesus said in Matthew 6:19, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Listen, the rich fool revealed the nature of his selfish heart by what he did with his treasure.  He laid up his treasure on earth, he put it in barns, and then even bigger barns so he could live a life of self indulgence and pleasure.  He thought of himself only and his needs, his desires.  There was no love for God in his heart.  There was no love for his neighbor in his heart.  And that selfishness of his heart became manifested by his actions.

The sin of hypocrisy is also manifested by our actions.  When we hold onto our rights, our time, our energies, our money and don’t use them for the kingdom of God then we reveal that our hearts are not right with God.  You’re either backslidden or you aren’t saved.  But that kind of selfish heart is not the result of righteousness.

Because righteousness results in right acting.  Righteousness results in storing up treasures in heaven by our deeds here on earth.  And those treasures God will keep and one day reward us for.  But don’t be deceived, where your treasure is, there is your heart.  You want to know the condition of your heart?  Then find out where your treasure is.  Examine what you spend all your time, money and energies on.  Examine your bank account and see where you spend all your money.  Examine your faithfulness and see where you spend all your time.  The proof is not in your profession of your lips, the proof as they say is in the pudding.  Is your heart producing right actions? True Christianity is not all hyper spiritual or theoretical, but it is lived out in the natural realm, it is lived out by producing the fruit of righteousness.  The fruit of grace is that it gives.  The fruit of love is that it loves.  The fruit of righteousness is that it is righteous.  The fruit of faith is that it is faithful.  But the fruit of hypocrisy is greediness. And greed is the fruit of an unrepentant heart.