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A Banquet with Jesus (Luke 14:1-24)

by Dr. F. J May | Nov 1, 2021

Luke 14:1-24

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1

And it came to pass, as he went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the sabbath day, that they watched him.

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And, behold, there was a certain man before him which had the dropsy.

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And Jesus answering spake unto the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day?

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And they held their peace. And he took him, and healed him, and let him go;

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And answered them, saying, Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the sabbath day?

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And they could not answer him again to these things.

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And he put forth a parable to those which were bidden, when he marked how they chose out the chief rooms; saying unto them.

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When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room; lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him;

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And he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place; and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room.

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But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee.

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For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

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Then said he also to him that bade him, When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbours; lest they also bid thee again, and a recompence be made thee.

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But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind:

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And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.

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And when one of them that sat at meat with him heard these things, he said unto him, Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God.

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Then said he unto him, A certain man made a great supper, and bade many:

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And sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready.

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And they all with one consent began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it: I pray thee have me excused.

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And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray thee have me excused.

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And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.

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So that servant came, and shewed his lord these things. Then the master of the house being angry said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind.

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And the servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room.

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And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.

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For I say unto you, That none of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper.

Please keep your Bible open and follow along as we talk about what Jesus did at this particular banquet and the sayings, the teachings that He gave in regard to how people are to act when invited to a banquet. Or, if a person is a host and he issues an invitation, and then finally, the emphasis on the great final banquet of the Lord when He invited people to come and share at His table, the Great Banquet Hall of the Messianic Banquet that is to come.

In the setting of this particular situation, Jesus has been invited into the home of an unusual man. He is a chief of the Pharisees. Right away, when we know that we become suspicious as to what this man may have in mind inviting Jesus to come to a meal in his own house, and especially bringing a group of people together along with Jesus on the Sabbath Day in particular for a special banqueted time. So Jesus accepted the invitation and He came to eat bread. Right away He noticed the attitude of the people. They were sort of suspicious as they watched Him. They didn’t seem to be relaxing and enjoying the meal so much as they were intent on keeping their eyes on Jesus to see what He was going to do or what He might say at this particular setting. I want to tell you and we already know that when Jesus attends, you can expect anything to take place. When the Lord is present, whether it is a worship service or at a banquet table, there is no telling what might happen when Jesus is present and when He takes charge of the situation. There is something about Him that regardless of the attitudes of criticism that may be against Him, regardless of the unbelief that may be coming against Him, there is this supernatural pull upon Him when there is someone in need. I believe that wherever people meet together in honor of Jesus Christ, regardless of what the needs are, and you may have needs here tonight, but I’m saying to you I believe on the authority of this Word that I’m talking to you about tonight that your situation, your need pulls at Him. It just simply attracts His attention.

In this case, the Pharisees had brought in a man who was very sick. They had put Jesus on the spot. They were literally giving Him a test to see what He would do on the Sabbath day. Jesus knew that. He knew their motives, but He also had His own motive and I thank God that Jesus can push aside ulterior motives in regard to who He is and His power and just simply take charge of a situation and allow the great blessing to come from Him to meet needs of people. I’m so glad that it is so. Christ has the power and the authority to do miraculous things even in the midst of unbelief and criticism and attitudes that are very suspicious about Him. The Bible says in verse 3 ‘Jesus answering spake unto the lawyers and Pharisees,…’ This seems a little odd because up until now they haven’t said anything, so what is He answering. They haven’t made any statements yet it says He answered the lawyers and Pharisees. What He is doing is answering the critical attitude that they are manifesting. You know you can be around some people who are overwhelmed with hostility and you seem to get vibrations of that hostility. Or, you can be around someone with a very critical attitude and you seem to get the vibrations of it in some way. Jesus is answering their attitude. He always knows what is on the inside of peoples’ hearts and minds. So He starts answering the very questions that they have raised in their minds, in their thinking. So He answers them with a question. He asks ‘Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day?’ That put them on the spot. They thought they had Him on the spot, but in the gospels again and again we see what is called the reversing of the tables. When people who are trying to move in on Jesus and put Him on the spot, they turn out to be the victims as He turns the tables upon their own heads as it were. He asked ‘Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?’ They are afraid to answer because if they say no, they will be taking a stand against the marvelous works of God. If they say yes, they’ll be condemning their own theory and their own doctrine and their own regulations about keeping the Sabbath day. So they are the ones who turn out to be on the spot themselves. So, not answering Jesus and staying silent just caused the Lord to go ahead and take charge and do whatever He felt in His heart to do. So, He reached out to this man and He took him. Oh hallelujah! I’m glad when the Lord takes our case, aren’t you? It does not matter what it is. When the Lord reaches out and He takes your case then you are in good hands. You’re in good hands when the Lord takes your case. How many of you have had the Lord, when you didn’t have any hope and you didn’t know exactly which way to turn, and this Great Physician took your case and you felt a peace because you knew your life was in His hands and you were given over to His perfect will? Amen! What a wonderful experience when He is on the scene and takes your case.

He took him and He healed him. Then He let him go. He let him go. He delivered him and brought freedom to this man from this terrible disease. He knew that this man had not been invited here to share in the fellowship of this great meal. He knew that this man had just been put there to challenge Jesus. So, He let him go on his way. I imagine the man could feel a lot more like rejoicing as he went on his way with the delivering power of Jesus working in his life.

Then Jesus took that opportunity then to take charge a little further and He began to teach. He spoke to three different groups of people. I want us to look at each of them.

First of all, He gives us lessons about the guests at a banquet. He had watched them as they gathered and the way they did and they clamored for the highest and best seats and best positions in the room. He saw that what was really going on here was a banquet that was to put on display the riches of the host that would cause people to jockey for position, a sort of politics of who would get to sit in what seat and at what particular table in the place of honor. And Jesus says ‘When you are invited to a banquet, you don’t need to be doing this clamoring and pushing and pulling and trying to elevate yourself and be sure that you are at the head table or at the seat of honor. You may be embarrassed. You go and sit in the highest position and you get all comfortable and ready to receive the honor of the people and then the one in charge comes up to you and says Look, I need you to step down because there is a more important person that needs to sit in this seat. You go away embarrassed.’ Jesus was teaching this: whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

There are so many paradoxical teachings in Scripture. Things don’t add up according to human reasoning and rationality. Here He is saying that if you humble yourself you abase yourself, you will be exalted. The way up is first of all down. But if you exalt yourself and you try to rise higher, there is a divine law at work that is going to cause you to be abased and cause you to come down. You and I have seen the examples through the years and through history in the whole political world and in other situations, but especially in the church world. We have seen people who started out to decide they would be superstars and we watched them crumble and fall. We watched others who were unassuming and who feared God and whose lives were dedicated to God and they humbled their hearts and we watched the great hand of God just exalt them and lift them up. There is a law at work. It is a divine law and God is saying if you want to be exalted, then you must humble yourself. He chooses these greedy, grasping people at this banquet to preach this message. I’m sure it didn’t fall very kindly on their ears. They must have been pricked to their heart.

Then He went on in verses 12-14 to give instruction to people who host banquets. Here again, it is a tremendous lesson because He is saying when you plan and you put on a great wedding feast or a banquet or whatever it is, don’t be exclusive about whom you invite to this banquet. Don’t just pick out the choice people that you want to be there, the special friends and special family, rich neighbors and people that could do you some good. He said because when people do that, they just want to be recompensed. They invite the people that can do them good. I think we all know about business lunches and expense accounts and people are wined and dined, not because of hospitality, but because of what that individual can do for me or my company or this situation or that one. Hypocrisy…the face of hypocrisy, trying to be hospitable, but it’s not hospitality when you are giving a party or a banquet and your main concern is how this will benefit me. While Jesus was talking, He was striking deep into the heart of this chief of Pharisees, the host, because that is exactly what his intention had been. Jesus said ‘When you are hosting a banquet, don’t call those kinds of people. Instead reach out to people who really have need; the poor, the maimed, the lame and the blind.’ Then look at this, the tremendous blessing attached to this kind of attitude, He said you shall be blessed. You want to invite important people, Jesus said, so that you will be recompensed, but that’s not the way you get it. You invite the poor and you feed them and you look after the needy. You look after people who need help and you will be blessed because they cannot recompense thee. They can’t pay you. They don’t have money. They can’t invite you back. They can’t put on a big spread and invite you in return. They can’t do anything in any great political sense.

It reminds us of the story of the woman of Shunam. She and her husband made a tremendous investment in behalf of the prophet of God. The prophet says ‘Look, for all this great hospitality you’ve given me, what would you like for me to do? Would you be spoken of to the king? You want me to tell everybody how great you are? She said ‘Oh, no. Everything is alright with us. This is an act of love. This is an investment of love into the work of the ministry of the prophet of God.’ Elisha was thinking it over and his servant said they have not child. Here was a woman and her husband who had been married a long time and had no child. Because of her generosity and her attitude, the prophet pronounced that she would indeed have a child and she did. She was blessed, not because she had selfishly or greedily tried to entertain the prophet to gain an advantage through him, but out of a heart of love she had recognized God at work in his life and honored God through him by making an investment in the ministry of the prophet of God. Jesus said thou shalt be blessed when you feed the people who can’t help you in return. He said for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.

Wouldn’t that be something that on the day of the resurrection, all of a sudden, you begin to understand some of the great reward that’s coming to you and it’s coming to you because of something that you already forgot. You did it. You did it as unto the Lord, as Jesus would later say like a cup of cold water in My Name, you will not lose your reward. Things, simple small things you have done for people who maybe could not help themselves and all of a sudden the reward is being heaped upon you and you are being recompensed far beyond your expectation and your imagination. Here you are receiving rewards that you didn’t count on for things you perhaps have already forgotten about.

That’s the way the Lord does spiritual mathematics. That’s the way He does spiritual bookkeeping. That’s the way He does spiritual accounting. Sometimes we may think this is something He will surely add to our account and it may not be written down. Other times we may not be aware of what He is writing down to our account. What a lesson he would learn that doing things out of love for people and out of love for God brings to us a reward we may not see it fully in this life but we will certainly see it fully in the resurrection of the just.

Then He goes on to talk about a third banquet. Here He is talking about a general one where the Lord sends out invitations. This is an unusual one. This is the banquet that really counts and He says ‘When the invitations were sent out for this great banquet, the response was very, very disappointing.’ The people that you would have thought would have responded right away began to offer the most pitiful excuses. Again and again in the gospels we come up against this fact that Jesus came to His own and His own received Him not. The very people that He came to bless and to seek and to save, were the ones who were disinterested and who turned a deaf ear to His voice and His teaching. Here Jesus is bringing it out in the open so very, very clearly.

Look at these feeble excuses they made. Not only do they show that the people are feeble in their excuses, but they are somewhat dumb and foolish in the kind of excuses they made. One man said in his response, ‘Well, I have bought some land and I have to go and look at it and I can’t come to this banquet.’ Now isn’t that dumb? Not a one of you would go and buy and land sight unseen. You would go look at it and you would see it and examine it and you would get all kinds of reports before you laid down the good hard cash to buy a house or land or property. What a dumb excuse. It almost sounds like he is lying. Another one is the same way. He said ‘I bought a yoke of oxen and I must go and try them.’ Again, how dumb. Now the old saying is true, I don’t know where it came from or how far back in the centuries it goes, that you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. If somebody gives you a horse, well you don’t do like the old horse traders and farmers and grab hold of the horse and look at his teeth to see how old he is and if he is sound. Being raised on a farm, I know all about this that I’m talking about. That’s the way you tell. But if somebody gives you a horse, you don’t go through all that. You just thank them and go on. But if you’re about to buy one you examine it. And nobody is going to buy a yoke of oxen without seeing them work and without trying them and seeing how it is done. I doubt if there is anyone here old enough to remember ever seeing oxen work, but I have. You don’t go and buy them without you seeing if they are going to work or if they are just going to be stubborn and lie down and you can’t control them and can’t get any work out of them. You see, the people who reject the invitation of the Lord to the Great Banquet, it is pathetic what they offer up for excuses. One even said I’ve married and wife and we can’t be at this banquet. Don’t look for us. You see, people are looking at possessions, business, and the working world, and they are looking at things of natural affection and all these are crowding in to keep them from responding to the invitation of the Lord to His Great Banquet.

I think perhaps one of the greatest shocks that a lost person is going to have when he has to stand before God is the feeble kinds of excuses he used to not accept the invitation of the Lord to the Great Banquet. You see, the plans that He has for us, and sometimes I think we need to stop and look again at what the coming of the Lord is going to be like and the Great Marriage Supper of the Lamb, the Great Messianic Banquet when the redeemed of all the ages have been brought in. The Bible teaches that Jesus Himself will gird Himself and wait on the people and serve. One thing is for sure and for certain here. The Lord intends to have His house filled when He gets ready to do His great banquet. The people who reject and do not respond to Him, who use flimsy excuses, they can go on and do whatever they will. They will just not make it, but He says I want you to go out in the highways and byways and everywhere to the poor and the maim and the halt and the blind. Go into the streets and the lanes and the alleys. Take the invitation everywhere to the people who are unfortunate and invite them.

We have been somewhat preoccupied with the news during this season and will be as we have looked at the horrible realistic pictures of people starving to death in places like Somalia; people who never will know in this world what a real banquet is like, people who will never know in this world what it is to have plenty to eat and a good place to sleep and good medical care, all these kinds of things. Oh, how they would respond to the bringing of an offering of food to them if they had opportunity. And now then our government is going to endanger the lives of many of our military personnel just to be sure that the food gets to where it is supposed to go; to the starving people. We hope and pray they will be successful. That gives me a picture tonight that is heart-breaking when we realize that this world spiritually is in similar condition and Satan is trying to rob the very food supply that comes to feed the life, the soul of individuals. There are people who attack the very ones who bring the gospel. There are dangers on every hand, but the Lord says you go where the poor and the halt and maim and the people who can appreciate an expression of love, people who can appreciate a hand of kindness and generosity that reaches toward them. Those are the ones I want you to serve and reach and bless.

When we come to the Marriage Supper, I think we will be surprised to see who the guests really are that the Lord Jesus feeds and waits upon and blesses. Oh God, help us to have the right attitude. Help us to become a part of this group that goes out to bring them in. There is something about this Spirit that drives us forth to share the love of Christ with others. That is the most wonderful thing in this whole world. It brings the deepest satisfaction. In fact, Jesus expressed it like this in the fourth chapter of John. When his disciples came and He was hungry, they had gone to buy food, but in the meantime He had dealt with the Samaritan woman and had touched her life and had touched the very thirst of her life with the explanation of the Living Water. She had gone proclaiming that this must be the Christ. When they said ‘Lord, we are ready to eat,’ He said ‘I have meat to eat that ye know not of.’ How long has it been since you’ve attended a banquet like that; where you had a part in bringing a blessing to somebody who was desperately in need and you felt the tremendous satisfaction and peace and contentment in your own heart as a result?

I’m going to ask you now to stand for our prayer together tonight. We often sing ‘Jesus has a table spread,’ and the invitation goes out to ‘Come and dine.’ I want to ask you tonight if there is a hunger, if there is a thirst in your life, will you just open up your heart and receive from Him. When Jesus attends the banquet, He brings healing. He brings the bread of life. He brings His miraculous power. He brings His greatest love and He showers forth His abundant blessings upon us. Let us pray.

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A Friend to Sinners (Luke 5:27-32)

by Dr. F. J May | Nov 1, 2021

Luke 5:27-32

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And after these things he went forth, and saw a publican, named Levi, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he said unto him, Follow me.

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And he left all, rose up, and followed him.

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And Levi made him a great feast in his own house: and there was a great company of publicans and of others that sat down with them.

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But their scribes and Pharisees murmured against his disciples, saying, Why do ye eat and drink with publicans and sinners?

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And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick.

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I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

Each one of the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, record this event. That leads me to believe that it must have been very important for it to have been included in the gospel story. Both Luke and Mark named this person, this tax collector, Levi. Mark calls him Levi, the son of Alpheus. But in the gospel of Matthew, he names this tax collector he is talking about himself and calls him Matthew. So at some stage evidently in his own life, he received perhaps a new name, so to speak, called Matthew, from and added on to his name of Levi, the son of Alpheus, very much perhaps like others in Scripture received new names like Simon, who became Peter. At any rate, when each one of the gospel writers makes the list of the disciples of Jesus, they all call him Matthew and that can be seen in Luke. We will see that a little later on.

The story of Matthew or Levi is one that brings to us a beautiful truth. That is that Christ came to this world to reach out to fallen human beings, sinners, and He brought Himself down on such a level with them that He could understand them absolutely and reach out in love and grace to bring forgiveness and justification into the lives of people who were bound in sin. It seems to me that that is the most remarkable good news that we ever hear or come in contact and that Christ so loved the world, the world even as bad as it is, made up of the people and we’re not talking about the cosmos itself, the planet and natural things though He may very well have loved that. We are talking about the people, the people of this world that He so loved that He gave Himself. The Father so loved it that He gave His only begotten Son. I don’t think there is any message that can ever be preached that is greater, that represents the good news from heaven any more than that message that Christ became a friend to sinners.

He came to call them to change their lives and to come and follow Him and to become His disciple and be changed and transformed. It started with a simple step of obedience, becoming a disciple of Jesus. But it would grow and develop and there would be a process and there would be step-by-step growth and development in following Jesus because, after all, to follow Him means that you journey all your life. So, I want us to look tonight at three particular developments in this story and see if we can determine the actual message or truth that is coming up out of these pages that the Lord would have us to receive.

First of all, let’s talk about responding to His call. Jesus came and touched the man with a simple word. The man was busy. They man was preoccupied. The man was working hard. He was seen as a person who was charging and collecting custom on the traffic and trade that came through wherever his place of business was. And any of you who have had experience travelling abroad and going through customs in a foreign country or coming back home and going through customs, you know what a tedious kind of experience it can be if the tax collector or the customs officer just wants to be mean and he just wants to give you a hard time, he can certainly do it. He wants to know what all you’ve brought in and what you have to declare and to be able to charge a certain fee for custom charges. Most of the time these kinds of people, tax collectors, people of the IRS, they are not looked upon so very much as real close friends that you want to take out to dinner. The fact is, we sometimes wonder if there is not something devilish in the way they approach collecting taxes, as if there must be some kind of great delight or you get a cut out of it, the more you collect! That’s the way it was for Matthew and others like Zaccheus. Publicans they were called. Public servants who worked in the service of the Roman government and they probably had a set rate they had to collect and anything they collected over that they could put into their own pockets. The Scripture indicates that most of these people were very wealthy because they knew how to get more than what was actually demanded.

Yet, that is the kind of person that Jesus came and saw a man. Matthew said He saw a man named Matthew. Mark said He saw Levi sitting at the seat of customs and Luke says He saw a Publican. That name itself, that title Publican, had a lot of connotation of being real bad and disagreeable, as I’ve already indicated. But I’m glad that Jesus does not look upon people for what they are nor where they are. He understands about sin and fallen nature. He understands about bondage. He understands what happens to people in this world. He understands. He understands what Satan does and the affect of evil upon the lives of people in this world and He is able to look beyond it. Sometimes we see things happen to people and we cannot get beyond the act that they have committed or what they have done. We can’t see through it or beyond it to see that somehow God might come into a very bad situation and change it and make something good and beautiful out of that life. It’s hard for us to see that. Even as Christians who have been transformed and changed, yet, sometimes it’s hard for us to look back on others and see any hope of any kind of deliverance and change – lasting change in the lives of others. We almost become skeptical, especially when we see people performing certain things. I’m glad Jesus sees beyond and He sees what people can become by His grace and power. He sees the whole new world of life and joy and peace that can come into a person’s life who is living deep into trouble and into sin.

Oh, somehow I like the old song that is built on the old Irish tune that says He looked beyond my faults and saw my need. He sees more than the need. Thank God, He sees the need. Thank God that He can look beyond that and see what we can become beyond the problem. Oh hallelujah!

The problem with the Pharisees and Scribes was they could not see that potential. They could not see the potential of good in anybody unless they lined up a certain way and lined up with the system of Judaism and the prescribed method and manner. That’s the only way you could ever become anything other than a sinner. But Jesus just walked up to him and with some kind of an overwhelming influence, and this is hard to explain, He just simply said Follow me and the Bible says he immediately responded. He immediately arose and he left everything – he just left it right where it was. He walked out of his office, closed his books, got up, I don’t know what he did with the cash receipts for that day, I don’t know, but he just got up and followed him. Now what in the world is it about somebody that is so compelling and so magnetic and so powerful that just one simple command of Follow me can cause a man to turn his back on business and past life and just simply hang on to the words of that simple command and follow the Lord Jesus Christ.

I want to tell you folks that you and I who have followed Him, we know what that something is. We know what it means to have His voice of love and tenderness reach us even when we were steeped in sin. We know what it means to have a look of forgiveness coming from Him and an atmosphere of His mercy to come to us in a time of sinfulness we know. We can’t explain it. I can’t explain it. I can’t explain that there is forgiveness with Him when there is not forgiveness with others. I can’t explain that there is a welcome from Him when there is not a welcome from others. But it is the most marvelous and wonderful thing that Jesus Christ who is a friend to sinners would come and show that friendship and that love and be so compelling and so magnetic in what He says that just one simple command, one word Follow me, that one simple command would cause a person to respond in a simple act of obedience. The fact is, when Jesus called His disciples, that is the one and only claim that He laid on people first of all. Others would come later, but the first one was just a simple obedience claim. Now, I want to tell you, most of us in this house tonight, we know what it means to obey Christ and the tremendous rewards and potential that come to us with simple acts of obedience. I think it’s the greatest lesson you could ever learn.

Not fuss with Him, not argue with Him, just put your foot out and take that step of simple obedience. In fact, that may be the manifestation of the greatest faith you can ever have because some of the greatest miracles in the Bible and outside of the Bible, greatest miracles and testimonies of people’s lives have come about because they just took one simple step of obedience. It wasn’t that they were so overloaded with great faith, but the very fact of rising up and turning your back on the other way and following Him was a great step of faith that brought about His transforming power at work in our own lives. Answering that call is the greatest reward a person will ever receive. What we receive when a person answers the call of Jesus is the greatest reward you can ever have in this world and indeed, in the world to come.

I want us to look next of all at not only responding to this call, but the rejoicing in this new challenge. Here is a man, this Levi or Matthew, whichever you want to call his name, was so overwhelmed and so influenced and so excited until he prepared a great feast in his house in honor of Jesus and His disciples and he invited them in. And then he invited many other publicans, probably the most despised class of people in that day as we indicated earlier. And he invited many others who would be classified by the self-righteous Pharisees as sinners. So here he is. He is evidently a wealthy man. He probably has a spacious home. He has a place to bring in dozens of guests. He has money to spare to put on a great feast and he is honoring Jesus and the disciples. But he brings to that not the high priestly people, not the great religious people, not any of that, he brings publicans and sinners. I guess there’s something already working in his heart that is so exciting that he has to get his friends in touch with the transforming power of Christ that has touched him. Amen!

With Christians, the older we get sometimes the less sinner friends we really have. Well here is a kind of campaign, a sinner for dinner kind of campaign for evangelism! This is one of the greatest strategies for evangelism that has ever been known. The Lord Himself invented it and He modeled it and He showed how to do it and that is to associate with sinners, go into their home. How long has it been since you had sinner friends come in and sit down at your table and drink coffee with you and eat with you? I’m talking about being a friend to sinners. Matthew brought them all in and he was rejoicing. Money didn’t seem to be any object. He was totally generous in this great feast that he had prepared for him and all his friends.

I read of a woman who was a bartender in Albuquerque, New Mexico that when she got saved one of the first things she did was to invite all of her liquor drinking, bar attending friends and sent them an engraved invitation and said I want you to come and witness my being baptized in water on a certain Sunday and then there will be a reception in my apartment afterwards. She had the pastor there and seems like thirty-something of her friends came and they witnessed the baptismal service, they heard what the pastor had to say about what water baptism meant and what had happened to her. And later on, the record came that at the last record 17 of her friends had been converted. A friend to sinners. Why not be a friend to sinners? If anybody in this world needs a friend, it’s somebody who is lost. If anybody needs a friend, it is somebody who is bound by the power of evil and sin and Satan. If anybody needs a friend, it is somebody who has made a mistake and fallen into error and fallen into transgression and fallen into sin. That person needs a friend. Would you say Amen?

But there were religious people sitting by gathering around and watching always like a posse following Jesus, wanting to criticize Him, find something that they could trap Him with where He would – where they could accuse Him of breaking the law of Moses and the regulations of the temple and so on and they were there. They became indignant and they began to murmur. You have to watch these people who start murmuring and talking behind your back and murmuring because after awhile it will lead to something else. What we see in this series of controversies here, these five, they started out by silently reasoning in their hearts, you remember we talked about that last week. But Jesus read their thoughts. He knew what was in their hearts. This time they are murmuring to the disciples. Next time they are going to be talking and challenging Jesus Himself openly. And after awhile it will end up with them wanting to kill Him. You see, that reasoning in your heart and murmuring leads to something heavier and worse all the time. It is a kind of process that people give themselves to that end up sometimes in violence.

And they murmured. What they murmured about was the fact that Jesus was associating with sinners. They said how can this thing be? And Jesus responded. Once again, He didn’t have to hear what they had said to His disciples. He knew what was going on and He just simply responded. I love the time when He rebuked these critics. He said a simple analogy. They that are well, they don’t need a physician, but it’s the people who are sick. They need the physician to come to them.

That’s something we don’t see anymore hardly. Have any of you in the past ten, twenty years had a doctor come to your house to visit you and to examine you? Anybody here? Let me see your hand. I didn’t see anybody! No, you’ve got to go to the clinic. It doesn’t matter how sick you are. You’ve got to drag in there. You may faint and fall out in the floor, but somebody will come and shake you and say wait a minute, we’ve got to get this information…what’s your insurance number and what’s your social security number and where do you live? Don’t die yet til we get the records filled out. It’s almost ridiculous, some sitting there dying and you have to fill out everything, no matter how hard you are hurting. I went to the emergency one night up here and I didn’t know what was happening to me. I thought I was dying. Of course, you know my reputation, I can’t stand pain at all! The least little thing and I’m almost dying, I want my wife to be right there real quick and put her hand on my head and talk to me real nice. That’s just the way I am, but anyway they had to go through all these forms and everything. And here I am, I feel like I’m dying. You know, oddly enough, that’s the way the church is a lot of times. They say to people who are hurting and dying and who are sinful Come on over to our clinic. We advertised in the paper. We have a great clinic. We have everything you need. Just come on over and get it. And somehow or other they don’t come to our clinics much anymore. But here is the Great Physician who went to the home. I remember when one of my sisters and I had typhoid in my first year of high school. We were sick five weeks and couldn’t eat. Old Dr. Johnson would come to our house now from the great metropolitan area of Sebastapool, Mississippi. If you’ve never been there, well you’ve missed a whole lot. He’d come out. He’d have a bottle of pills and he’d bring castor oil and we’d have to take castor oil every day. Whew! I said then I’d never force any of my kids to take castor oil if I ever have children. He was great. The only thing that bothered us was he would say Well, you feel like you could eat a piece of fried chicken? Dear Lord. If you haven’t eaten for three solid weeks, that will nearly about wipe you out! My sister and I, this in incredible – you won’t believe this, but I can prove it, you can check it out. My sister and I were both skinny when we took typhoid. After starving for five weeks, we’ve been hungry ever since and both of us have a weight problem. I heard my sister cry and say I wish I weighed 200 pounds. She was so skinny and she was growing up and she wanted to fill out with a nice figure and all that as a young girl and she would cry. Well, she got her wish! Now, there’s probably a real reason that both of us are overweight besides all that, but we lay it off on that. That’s as good an excuse as any, I guess. But I never will forget old Dr. Johnson. He came to our house. He sat down by the bed in a chair. He took our hand. He felt our pulse. He took our temperature. He talked and then he bundled up his little black satchel and he went on his way. After awhile we were over it. You don’t have that kind of attention anymore.

But Jesus said it’s the sick who need a physician. And He said besides that the Son of Man came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. It is odd that He was addressing the so-called righteous people and saying to them that the Son of Man didn’t come to call you necessarily. But He came to reach sinners because in the estimation of the Pharisees, they were the righteous because they kept all the rules of Judaism, every practice. We’ll see later on controversies over the fact that Jesus would dare break the law of the Sabbath. Oh, they had thousands, fifteen hundred or so laws governing your activity on the Sabbath day that you could break. That’s what being righteous was all about. If you lived by the specific rules of Judaism, it didn’t matter if you didn’t know God. It didn’t matter if you had a temple that was void of the glory of God, like our pastor has been talking about preaching on wineskins, empty wineskins that can hold no new wine. That’s just one of the illustrations that Jesus used to talk about Judaism. Another one was when he cursed the barren fig tree. He wasn’t just beating up on a fig tree. It was an acted parable to show that unfruitfulness is cursed, especially if it pretends to be religious.

And so here are the righteous that are really self-righteous. And they judge the others and they call them sinners. And a sinner could be easily identified in those days and be classified. That’s harder to do now. But back then the Pharisees could look at a person crossing the street or coming down the road and tell you if he is a sinner or not because he had to dress a certain way and he had to wear certain things on him and he had to act a certain way and so forth to be righteous. And they could tell them.

So they judged all these people in there and they knew right away they were sinners because they weren’t doing and acting like they had been doing. For them, somebody who is a sinner is somebody who is not like us. That’s the way they could say it. And Jesus said I came not to call the righteous, but I came to call sinners to repentance. That’s what being a friend to sinners is all about. It is going to them and giving them the invitation as He gave to Matthew. Going to them and giving them the Good News of forgiveness and love and calling people to repentance because after all, the malady, the sickness that fills lives is a kind of sickness that is caused by the lack of repentance and turning to God. There’s a lot of people tonight who would be free of their sufferings and especially condemnations if they could just simply learn what it means to repent and to simply do that. Because there is one thing about it, when you come with real repentance to the Lord Jesus Christ, He says he that cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out. It’s a strange thing to me that the very emotion of sorry and guilt and regret that goes into repentance is the very act that brings the relief and the cleansing and the purging and the deliverance from the bondage. Hallelujah!

We talk about so many things that are therapeutic. Well, nothing is any more therapeutic and cleansing than weeping before God in confession and being honest and open with God. Jesus would say it again in another place. He would talk about two men who went up to the temple to pray. One was self-righteous and bragged on himself and the other just dropped his head and smote his chest and said God be merciful to me a sinner. Then Jesus said he went home, that sinner that confessed went home justified rather than the other.

Thank God He is a friend to sinners. Thank God He was our friend. You know, I might just get impatient with people and as I mentioned earlier, not see any potential for change. As a pastor, I have literally marked some off only to have God to come along and say Put them back on your list. And later they would pray through and get right because God could see the potential and I could only see the failure. But there’s one little extra application I want to give you tonight in closing in this message. I think it is that in these days somehow we need to catch the spirit of Jesus and see if we cannot become friends to sinners. Sometime we don’t get excited about it unless it’s somebody in our own family who has a real problem. Then we get all choked up and stirred up. I was the pastor at one church and we started to have a revival and some of the people said You can’t have a revival now. It’s not the right time. It’s the wrong time. And we said Well we’ll just try. I’m not going to try to count and see who is here and who is not and whoever comes we’ll have church. Brother C. E. French was our evangelist and he preached one Sunday morning and about 16 adults came to the altar and got saved. We pulled a trick on them! They were the crowd who had been leaving after Sunday School and wouldn’t stay for church, so I just got up and said We’re going to have preaching first and then we can have Sunday School. Come on Brother French. And man, he hit the pulpit like his coat tail was on fire and it was ninety miles to the first water hole and when he got through preaching, the altar was filled. One of those brothers who had told me so vehemently You can’t have a revival in July, his 40-something year old son walked the aisle that day. His daughter-in-law came. Other people in the church sons and daughters came. And when they saw John walking the aisle, the father who sat on this side of the church, he jumped up and threw up his hands and screamed and the mother who sat on this side of the church she jumped up and threw up her hands and screamed and they came running. They got excited and stirred up about the revival. But they didn’t get disturbed about that until that moment when they saw God was having mercy upon their son.

I’m just closing this message tonight with this simple appeal that I think that one of the greatest things that we need is a greater openness and a greater love and an attitude of friendliness that reaches out in love to sinner friends. They tell us that 70-90% of the people who are saved and belong to a church have been saved and come to the church because a loved one or a friend loved them, prayed for them, talked to them, invited them. Far more than our great advertisements or our great plans for meetings or any strategy, this works…being a friend to a sinner.

I want us to close this service tonight with a prayer that God would indeed touch our own hearts to help us not to wait for somebody else, but to help us as each individual to become a friend to a sinner who needs help from God. Do you know one? Do you know one? Do you know one?

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Authority to Forgive Sins (Luke 5:15-26)

by Dr. F. J May | Nov 1, 2021

Luke 5:15-26

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15

But so much the more went there a fame abroad of him: and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by him of their infirmities.

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16

And He withdrew himself into the wilderness, and prayed.

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17

And it came to pass on a certain day, as he was teaching, that there were Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by, which were come out of every town of Galilee, and Judaea, and Jerusalem: and the power of the Lord was present to heal them.

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18

And, behold, men brought in a bed a man which was taken with a palsy: and they sought means to bring him in, and to lay him before him.

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19

And when they could not find by what way they might bring him in because of the multitude, they went upon the housetop, and let him down through the tiling with his couch into the midst before Jesus.

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20

And when he saw their faith, he said unto him, Man, thy sins are forgiven thee.

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21

And the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, Who is this which speaketh blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but God alone?

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22

But when Jesus perceived their thoughts, he answering said unto them, What reason ye in your hearts?

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23

Whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Rise up and walk?

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24

But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power upon earth to forgive sins, (he said unto the sick of the palsy,) I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy couch, and go into thine house.

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25

And immediately he rose up before them, and took up that whereon he lay, and departed to his own house, glorifying God.

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26

And they were all amazed, and they glorified God, and were filled with fear, saying, We have seen strange things to day.

I want to talk to you about this great episode in the ministry of Jesus when He brings healing and salvation both to a man that was in desperate need. He is questioned about His authority to forgive sins, but He demonstrates His great authority and power, not only over sickness and disease but over sin as well.

We are told in verse 15 that His fame was growing abroad so that He was attracting great multitudes. Luke has used that expression of Jesus and talking about His fame two times before this. Each time where the King James has translated the Greek term here and called it fame, Luke actually uses three different words to talk about the spreading of His fame. The first word just simply means “a rumor or a saying’. People began to say and rumor it around and spread a rumor. You know if you want something to move really fast, you just start a rumor and that goes much faster than anything else. So that’s the first word he uses. The next word in chapter 4, verse 37 (the other one was in 4:14), but 4:37 that word means “a loud noise” and His fame was spreading. It got out of that kind of silent rumor where people just say one thing or another, but it got really picked up and it was spread like a loud noise. It’s the word from which we get ‘echo’ and it’s as if there is just yelling and hollering about it and it is echoing across the country, so to speak, to everybody they see. And then the word here in 5:15 is the word ‘logos’ which means “the Word”. They were hearing the truth and the Word about Jesus and what He was saying and what He was teaching and it indicates that they were receiving some understanding of His ministry and what He was really doing. So it attracted great crowds.

I’m glad that there is always a beautiful magnetism about Jesus and His ministry and His presence and His power. There is nothing in this world that is so attractive in any church that draws people like the manifestation of the power and presence of God. We can do all kinds of things, but nothing gets the attention of people more than hearing the report of a miracle of God…someone being healed, someone being saved whose life has been transformed, a miraculous work of God that has been done because there is a tremendous magnetism. People are hungry to hear from God. They are hungry for the touch of God. They are hungry to see the demonstration of God’s Spirit and His power.

The greatest thing the church has ever had going for it –I’m talking about the Church of God – is the fact that we were Pentecostal and we had the demonstration of the Spirit and power of God. That’s the greatest thing we’ve ever had going for us. When we lose that then we don’t have much left. We might have a few things that we could feel proud about, but that doesn’t do anything about bringing people to Christ. But it’s wherever Jesus is and His presence and His power is working as is indicated here just a little later on where He was teaching and it says ‘the presence of the Lord was there to heal.’ That is a tremendous statement. When He was teaching and preaching the presence of God to deliver and heal was there in the midst of the people. Nothing is any greater than that.

So, we begin here to talk about one of the first events of Jesus’ ministry here that creates a tremendous controversy and conflict. There are five of them just stacked back to back. Luke has done this and placed them together and just show that Jesus, here in the midst of great unbelief and criticism is nevertheless preaching and teaching and performing miracles. I like the fact that even though there may be controversy about His ministry and what He says and what He does, yet the devil cannot tie His hands. He goes on preaching and teaching and the power of God is manifested.

For in these five different controversies, they start off with the people, as you will see, reasoning in their minds and Jesus reads their minds, so to speak. He perceives their thoughts the Bible says. But as we go on to other things that they criticize Him about, well the criticism becomes more open. Next time, they are murmuring to the disciples. And then they’re speaking right out and questioning Him. And then the first thing you know, they are becoming open and almost violent in their contradictions of what He is doing. That’s the way opposition grows, you see. The more the power of God is manifested, the more the opposition increases and Satan gets more stirred up and that’s great. It’s a great thing when you make the devil mad enough that he kicks up a fuss about what God is doing in the midst of God’s people. Our problem these days is we never quite do enough to make him real mad! But oh, hallelujah! It’s a great and glorious thing when there is enough of God’s presence being manifested in the lives of His people and in worship that Satan gets uneasy and he really starts working against the church. Then you know you’re really about to dislodge him and his influence and his power and that causes him great disturbance and distress. But who cares if the devil gets distressed? Amen? Who cares?! Let him be distressed. Let him be worried. Let him get upset. That’s alright. Amen.

I’m glad that right in the midst of unbelief and opposition and criticism the Lord Jesus still has the authority to speak peace to a sinful heart and bring cleansing and healing to a life that was just broken and who needed help so very much. It’s still that way. I know that unbelief can tie your hands with a lot of things, but not with Christ. I like to think for example of Elijah on Mt. Carmel. Here he is with 450 prophets and 850, I think in all, and everyone of them standing against him and it doesn’t matter. He just prays a short prayer and the fire of God falls. Amen! Aren’t you glad that God knows how to bring the fire down and manifest his power even in the midst of tremendous opposition. Oh, thank God, hallelujah!

Well, let’s look at this story tonight and go just a little further and really see this great truth that I think is embodied in this passage and that is: Jesus heals and performs miracles and forgives sins and He does this on the basis of faith that reaches out to Him despite of the opposition that may be around. Thank God.

In the first place, I want you to look at this thing of people who are concerned about somebody who is in need and because of their burden and vision and concern they participate in a great miracle. There is something about the gospels that indicates that in almost every miracle that Jesus performed, many of the miracles, somebody played a part in helping that miracle come to pass. You see, the Lord loves to work through people who have vision and burden and concern about somebody who is hurting and who needs healing and who needs salvation. The Lord loves to link up with people like that. Here are crowds of people around Him. His fame has been increasing more and more. He is in a particular place and He is evidently in a house and the place is filled. Nobody else can get in. The yard seems to be filled. There are just crowds of people. There are really important folks, too, the Pharisees and doctors of the Law. They came from all over Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem. It’s a picture of all kinds of prominent people. But here are some men who don’t care. They don’t care who the visitors are. They don’t care if they are big shots from all over. That’s not really their concern. Their concern is ‘here is a neighbor, a friend that they love, they want to get him to Jesus.’ I wish we had that kind of reckless determination that says we don’t care who’s around Jesus – here’s somebody we’ve got to get to Him. Amen! And so they just simply carried him. They picked up his cot, or his little bed or whatever he was on, and they just simply took him. They took him. Now I don’t know how far I could go with this application in urging you to just take people, get ahold of them, take them. Probably not as far as Bryant Collins. He was raised up with a fellow and they were both very sinful and one of them was called Bad Boy and Bryant was called Big Boy. They were mean. You didn’t want to tangle with either one of them. But after Bryant got saved, he had this dream. He was out in a field. He saw a bunch of people. He went out to see what they were doing. They were standing around an old well, a big dug well and down in this well was somebody crying for help. When he looked down and recognized the voice, he said ‘That’s old Bad Boy’ and he said ‘Hold on, Bad Boy, all I need to get you out of there is a rope.’ And he woke up, just like that. The next day he put a rope in his old station wagon and he went to invite Bad Boy to church, and Bad Boy wasn’t going to go. He said ‘Yep, you’re going with me today.’ And he ran him down, tied him up and took him! He set him on the front seat right in front of the preacher, tied up and gagged! After awhile, he said ‘Now, Bad Boy, if you won’t cuss and make noise I’ll take that gag out of your mouth,’ and he nodded. And then he said ‘Now if you’ll behave yourself I’ll loose these ropes off of you,’ and he nodded. And the preacher preached like that was a common thing. I can just imagine what some of us would have done with somebody come in with a hunk of a guy on his shoulder and slams him down on the pew. Well, he got saved that night! Two weeks later, Bryant was awakened calling him and he said ‘Oh, that’s Bad Boy calling me.’ He got up and went to his house. No telephone, went to his house. He went in and Bad Boy was dying and he had been calling him. Bryant, I want you to preach my funeral.

I don’t know how far you can go, but these four fellows just grabbed the man’s bed and picked him u p and carried him. They said ‘We’re going to get him to Jesus and we’re going to get him right down in front of Jesus. We’re going to lay him before the Lord. We’re going to get the Lord’s attention on this case.’ Amen! I believe with all my heart that when you get that kind of burden and that kind of vision about somebody and you really lay them before the Lord and you get his attention on that case I believe He will act. I believe He will do something about it because the Bible says that when he saw their faith, it was not the faith of the palsied man, it was THEIR faith. There’s no telling how much good gets done in this world for people and they don’t even realize how it came about because somebody else touched God and believed God and laid them before the throne of grace to obtain mercy. I believe you can pray people in. I believe you can pray people out of bondage. I believe you can bring them before Jesus and He will do something about it. Praise God! Why don’t you testify just a little bit? How many of you have brought somebody in prayer before God and He has delivered them? Would you raise your hand as a testimony? Oh, yes! You know what I’m talking about. Oh, hallelujah! Praise His wonderful name!

And then Jesus spoke to him. He is always influenced and touched by people who have burden and people who have faith, people who have love and concern have faith. They didn’t tell Him what to do. They knew He would know what to do. Oh, hallelujah! We don’t have to give the Lord instructions as to how we want it done. He knows how. Amen! So he started off in an unusual way. He turned to this young man and he said ‘Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.’ Now there’s going to be a lot come of that with these people who are standing around wanting to find something to criticize him about. You know, they’ve still got a lot of kinfolks all over the world. People who just stand around the church to see if there will be something happen that they can criticize and find fault with. I don’t like this church because __________. Man, you can fill in that blank every which way. I don’t like that preacher because __________. You know, you can fill in that blank with all kinds of things. But the Lord didn’t care. He said ‘Your sins be forgiven you.’ So they started tightening up. The tension went up the back of their necks like crazy. They reasoned in their heart that this man is blaspheming – who can forgive sins but God? But Jesus perceived their thoughts. I don’t know about these so-called mind readers and modern psychology and stuff and I don’t know all I’d like to know about that perhaps, but I know that the Lord Jesus Christ can look right deep into your heart and mind. He knows your thoughts even from afar off. That ought to fill us with some sense of awe that He reads us through and through all time. They reasoned.

That’s another thing that’s in this chapter. It shows us that when it comes to faith and miracles of salvation and healing, you have to throw reasoning out the door. If you wait until you can figure out everything and reason it out, well you’ll never see God work. Just believe Him and His power and accept what He does by faith. Faith has to take over and reason has to be set aside because the Lord has done many, many things that are totally unexplainable. You can’t reason it out. You can’t figure it out. He does it according to His own divine love and purpose and will. He understood their thoughts, so He took some time to kind of show them an active parable and some proof that He had power to forgive sins. You see, the Jews, those Pharisees and others they had it all figured out. The only way you can get to God is through the system. Institutionalized religion of Judaism…that’s the only way, through the temple and through certain priests and all this. It’s going to cost you money. You have to pay dearly. You’ve got to pay for sacrifices and all that. They don’t realize what they did when they said ‘Let His blood be on us and our children.’ They never realized it.

But the whole New Testament is written to let us know that there is no system, no organized religion that can declare the rights to bring you grace and peace just through their system alone and this is the only way to get to God. You can’t sell indulgences and you can’t – no matter how big you get as a church group in this world – you cannot hoard the grace of God and handle it and keep it to yourself so that nobody else can get through to the mercy and the throne of grace. It just doesn’t work that way. As a matter of fact, when you look at what Jesus said about Judaism, He used all kinds of illustrations. When He cleansed the temple, He called it a den of thieves. When He cursed the barren fig tree, He was really looking toward the barren fig tree of Judaism and saying ‘Nobody can ever have any fruit off of this dead thing. It might as well die.’ He looked at the old wineskins that could not hold any new wine and He said ‘You can’t put the new wine of the kingdom of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ in the old shell, the wineskin of Judaism, it’ll burst and everything will be lost.’

What He is saying is there is direct access to God but anybody who comes before the Lord Jesus Christ, the Great High Priest and it does not matter who you are or where you are from, you have the opportunity to walk right up to the throne. He has invited us to come with boldness to obtain mercy to help in the time of need. Hallelujah! Direct, divine access to the throne of God through Jesus Christ, the Lord.

I’m not throwing off on the church and it’s ministry. I’m just trying to state and probably overstating this point that nobody can lock up the grace and say ‘We handled it and you don’t get to God unless you come through us.’ Nobody – it’s wide open. Hallelujah! The river of God’s mercy and grace that flows from the throne of God, it comes to all men alike. Praise God! And nobody can keep you back. Hallelujah! Praise God for His grace!

But Jesus demonstrates His saying, His teaching with a tremendous acted parable of divine healing. He said, ‘Now look, why reason you in your minds like you’re doing? What’s easier to say thy sins be forgiven thee or rise, take up thy bed and walk?’ And to show you that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sin, He healed this young man. I think He shows us another beautiful thing here. Healing has to do with body and soul, mind and spirit, the whole person. Salvation has to do with the whole person. A lot of people want outer, physical healing who desperately need the inner healing from the wounds of sin and disobedience. We are reluctant to open up ourselves to God and confess our need of what’s on the inside. But it was Jesus’ pattern here to set everything straight on the inside of this man’s heart the forgiveness of sin before He healed him with his physical need. And the whole process was one of great healing mercy.

Oh, I could ask you to testify again how many of you have been healed from deep within and you would raise your hand. I could ask how many have been healed with physical healing and you would raise your hand. Thank God for healing mercies that come to us to bring forgiveness and peace and to put our hearts and minds at ease because the scientists keep trying to tell us that there are so many of our afflictions are psychosomatic, that somehow if we could get our insides straightened out and our thinking and our stress and get peace, that a lot of the maladies that we have would just fade away. Praise God.

I tell you what, the most expensive tranquilizer can’t do for you what one touch of the Master’s Hand can do for you. Hallelujah! People do all kinds of things to drown out their guilt and condemnation. But simple forgiveness from God is the greatest healing medicine I know of to take care of maladies like that. The result of the healing is just absolutely tremendous. First of all, the man rose up and he departed to his own house, glorifying God. Now I want you to understand there are reasons why God heals people. There are reasons for miracles. There are reasons for the manifestation of God’s power to deliver people. First of all, He does it out of compassion for hurting people. He doesn’t want to see people suffer and He heals to relieve the sinfulness and the guilt and the condemnation and to heal pain and suffering. Yes, He can be touched with our infirmities and He can be moved by our infirmities. That is one of the first reasons but it may not be the most important reason. I have to be careful how I say this because I don’t suppose there is anything that can surpass or go beyond the mercy and grace of the Lord to reach out touch us. But there’s another important reason.

The Bible says that the people that saw this were all amazed and they glorified God and they were all filled with fear. One of the greatest reasons that miracles are performed, and you can see this throughout the book of Acts in the early church and all those miracles, is to cause people to recognize God at work and to give Him all the glory. Somehow or another if we could ever get to the place that we could just back away and like Jesus taught us to pray and say ‘…For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.’

I told you about a friend of mine who is a pastor in Chattanooga who went to a church growth meeting in Atlanta, Georgia and Carl George said to the group, “I want you to pray and say to God, ‘Lord, what do you want to be in my church?’” “Don’t pray,” he said ‘Lord, what do you want me to be?’” “No, don’t pray, ‘Lord what do you want me to do?’” “Don’t pray that. But pray ‘Lord, what do you want? What do you want to be in my life and in my church?’” And he said when he began to pray like that in sincerity and earnestness, the Lord answered him four things. The first one: I want to be glorified. I want to be glorified. The next one: I want to be seen. They’ve seen you and your church long enough. Let them see Me. Someway, Oh God, wrap us up in the cloak of Your righteousness and holiness and power and let us be hid so that the people can see the glory of God. Can you say Amen? Hallelujah! The thing thing He said was: I want to be known. You know about Me and you talk about the Bible, but I want the people to know Me. And the fourth thing He simply said: I want to be God.

Oh, my heart is hungry for us somehow to let God be God and give Him all the glory and let people see Him and know Him. That friend of mine took that as a theology of ministry and guidelines for his ministry and church and he came back and his church over-doubled in one year. One day he went to pray for a man who was dying of cancer in the hospital and on the way he said ‘God, what would it take for this young man to be healed?’ And God spoke to him again and said ‘If you won’t try to capitalize on the event, if you won’t try to advertise and say come over here to this church where people get healed, if you won’t take the glory, I’ll heal him.’ And he went in crying and praying and God healed the man of cancer! The Lord performs miracles. He brings salvation and healing, first of all to bless people – sure, but that He may be glorified and in this case, the fear of God came upon them. He performs His miraculous powers to bring the fear of God upon us all because we know good and well that when the miraculous power of God is in operation we get ready to bow our faces on the floor in the fear of God and we’re not so exalted in pride and we don’t have such an independent spirit and feeling and we get ready for God to be God and let’s bow before Him. Hallelujah!

If there’s any one thing that the church needs out of a whole lot of lists that we need, it is a new baptism of Godly fear and reverence. We become so familiar with this Pentecostal experience and blessings that sometimes we just take it for granted that it’s going to be there and we no longer have the fear of God that causes us to bow in holiness and humility. You see, when you’re walking in the fear of God, you see Him as the Holy Exalted One and you don’t take things for granted and push in as if it really doesn’t matter.

I’ve been troubled here just recently over ministerial failure. I’ve been trying to study it and I’ve discovered that I think there are – you know F stands for failure – and there are three Fs that I think stand for ministerial failure. One of them is when faith is undermined and it begins to deteriorate and it goes into some kind of liberal theology and liberal thinking and we fail to believe the Word of God for what it says. That’s one of the Fs for failure. When the fire of the Holy Spirit, the fire of our calling as Paul told Timothy, fan the flame of your gift when the fire goes out and we become cold and indifferent and we just go on as if nothing happened. Like one man said, if God would take away the Holy Ghost from the church – the worldwide church – today, 95% of what we do would go on and nobody would know the difference. But then he quickly added, if God had taken the Holy Spirit from the early church, 95% of what they did would have stopped and everybody would have known the difference. The lack of fear, the lack of faith and the lack of fire that I’ve just talked about, those three Fs will cause you to fail when you lost any one of them.

God performs miracles, yes out of compassion to help suffering sinful people because that’s His nature and that’s His heart. But He also does it so people will glorify Him, and oftentimes He does it in such a way that people can’t get the glory and that’s good. And it’s so that we will fear Him and have reverence and respect and awe in His presence.

Hallelujah. I’m aware of the divine presence of God in this house tonight and as we come together for our closing prayer if you have a special need tonight, a need for healing, I want us somehow to get you right in front of Jesus Christ. I don’t know where that is, it may be standing her at this altar. But if you want prayer tonight, if there’s a need that you have, you just come and stand here. We’ll certainly pray for you. We will believe God that somehow we are putting you before the very throne of grace. Hallelujah.

Sometime ago the Lord impressed upon my heart a prayer chorus that says something like ‘Holy Father, God of mercy, let your glory fill this place. Help us bow in humble reverence. Sanctify us by Thy Grace. Blessed Jesus, Lord and Saviour, let Thy presence fill this place. Help us pray in faith believing. Justify us by Thy grace. Holy Spirit, fall upon us. Let Thy glory, Let Thy power fill this place. Come and fill us with Thy presence. Sanctify us by Thy grace. Come and fill us by Thy grace.’ That’s the way my heart is crying out and praying to the Lord tonight.

If you need prayer and want to join us in prayer tonight, come right on. There are people who have come with needs and we want to pray with them. If you have compassion in your heart, that is a good sign that God wants to work through you and use you. If you have some compassion in your heart toward people who are suffering, you come on and join us in this prayer.

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Blessings and Woes (Luke 6:17-26)

by Dr. F. J May | Nov 2, 2020

Luke 6:17-26

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17

And he came down with them, and stood in the plain, and the company of his disciples, and a great multitude of people out of all Judea and Jerusalem, and from the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, which came to hear him, and to be healed of their diseases;

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And they that were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed.

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And the whole multitude sought to touch him: for there went virtue out of him, and healed them all

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And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the Kingdom of God.

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Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh.

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Blessed are ye when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake.

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Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in like manner did their fathers unto the prophets.

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But woe unto you that are rich! For ye have received your consolation.

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Woe unto you that are full! For ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now! For ye shall mourn and weep.

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Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! For so did their fathers to the false prophets.

Here is a very unusual arrangement of what is called the Message on the Plain, similar in some respect to the Sermon on the Mount as recorded in St. Matthew, but evidently a different time, a different situation. Here is Luke emphasizing particular things, especially four blessings, four beatitudes that are followed directly with a great reversal into four woes. Let’s look at this situation tonight and contrast these beatitudes with the woes as we look at what is really taught in this passage of scripture.

Luke describes when Jesus had ordained his apostles and named them as we learned in our lesson last time, that they came down from off that mountain where he had called them up to be with him, and entered into this plain, as it is called here in verse 17. There was a great company of disciples of all descriptions beside the twelve and then the great multitude of people from Judea, Jerusalem, and as far as the coast of Tyre and Sidon to hear him and to receive healing. They already recognized his great healing and delivering ministry and they were drawn to him. They were scrambling to get close enough to touch him, because when anyone touched him healing virtue went forth out of him into them and they were healed. There was just a continual flow of the mighty healing and delivering power. It gives us a glimpse into a tremendous experience of ministry where the miraculous power of God is at work in a broad spattering way touching the multitudes of people who had come. I assume that most of us really enjoy being in that kind of atmosphere where the power of God is being demonstrated, where Jesus is Lord, where healing is taking place, where the love and glory and grace of God is coming upon the whole congregation. But Jesus often took advantage of situations like that to teach serious lessons that would penetrate the heart of the people. He was never willing for anyone to be greatly blessed or healed without also learning a genuine lesson that they needed to understand about him and their relationship to him. John would put it this way later when he would have all the great “I Am” sayings of Jesus. He would indicate that Jesus is what he gives. He gives light, but he is the light of the world, he gives bread, but he is the bread of life. With the idea that you don’t receive his blessings without receiving him and his word and his teaching. You can’t just go running loose on credit, and constantly receive the great blessings of God without also having some qualification brought to bear upon your life where you receive Jesus as Lord as well as savior and healer. You can’t just keep on receiving great spiritual blessings without receiving teaching from the Lord himself, so right in the midst of this great scene where miracles are taking place and the vast multitudes are there and everyone is healed or delivered, Jesus then begins to preach and teach what has been labeled the Sermon on the Plain.

First of all he talks about the blessedness of being a true disciple of Jesus Christ. The way people are blessed is what Jesus called blessed. Sometimes we might not look upon it as a blessing. What he calls woes, we might want to call them a blessing. It is difficult in our humanity and especially if we are overwrought with carnality, it is hard to understand the teachings of Jesus as it relates to what he puts as top priority or what he puts premium value upon.

He said first of all, Blessed are ye poor. This means poor in spirit as it is recorded in Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount; for yours is the kingdom of heaven. When you consider yourselves poor up against God’s riches then you automatically receive the riches of his kingdom. That sounds like a paradox because this being poor represents people who are extremely conscience of their own poverty, their unworthiness, people who are mastered and governed by humility. People who have genuine modesty, people who don’t mind playing second fiddle, so to speak. People who don’t insist upon having their own way and be arrogant and overbearing. Blessed are ye poor for you have the kingdom of God. How can you get a kingdom? How can you get elevated? In the Lord’s teachings, it by humbling yourself. The way up is first of all a way down, as we’ve heard all our lives. The way to glory and the cost of glory is self-denial.

He said blessed are ye who hunger now for ye shall be filled. He is talking about people who have a consuming desire for righteousness, a hunger for spirituality, a hunger for God, a hunger for the truth, a hunger for righteousness. People who have this kind of burning, consuming desire will be filled because they will never be satisfied until they have received his righteousness.

I don’t know about you, but being raised on a farm, as I was, you grow up with certain kinds of foods that you get hungry food and you never quite get satisfied. I just planted forty-nine rows of garden and most of it is black-eyed peas. Sometimes my wife and I just make a meal of cornbread and black-eyed peas. Sometimes you just get hungry for something and you never have a satisfaction until you get that. He is talking about people who have a hunger for the righteousness of God and you will not be satisfied until his righteousness pours forth into your life. Hallelujah!! You get tired of yourself, you get tired of your own goodness and you want the divine heavenly goodness and righteousness to pour forth in your life. He said when you have that kind of hunger you will be filled, you won’t give up until you get it. Praise God! Hallelujah!

Blessed are you that weep now, for ye shall laugh. You mean to say that if I have sorrow, and weeping and burdens I should count myself as blessed? That’s what he is saying. If it is the right kind of weeping and the right kind of sorrow, you will laugh. What he’s talking about here is the kind of mourning and weeping that causes people to be concerned with the conditions of the people around them in this world, conditions caused by sin and evil. You become burdened and weep over it. The psalmist would put it like this, if you go forth weeping bearing precious seed you will doubtless come again rejoicing. That is the kind of weeping and rejoicing he is talking about.

Ezekiel paints a picture in his great book of prophecy that demonstrates and illustrates what I am talking about here, because Ezekiel describes the time when judgment was coming upon Jerusalem and all of Judah and the people were standing ready for the coming in of the Babylonian empire and army. God moves in in judgment and he tells the angel of the Lord to take an ink well and stamp and go through the city of Jerusalem and stamp all the foreheads with a certain mark of the people who are crying and weeping over the abominations of my people, people who are burdened and concerned about all the moral breakdowns and backsliding of Israel and all the people turning away from God, and mark those who are troubled and burdened about it. Because the death angel is coming and all those that are indifferent and cold about what is happening to others and they don’t care about what is happening anywhere, they have no burden, they have no vision they have no concern for the lost and mistreated and the hurt and the straying of the people. The angel of the Lord will come through with the sword and slay all destroy all those that do not have the mark of weeping. This is what Jesus is talking about, you are blessed if you carry the burden upon your heart where you weep over your lost loved ones and you weep over the conditions of this world, and you weep over the trouble of the nations and our own nation and you weep because of the sin and the way things are, because you want people to turn to God. You will laugh and rejoice, and you will be blessed indeed, because you carried the burden and you have wept before God. This strikes deep at this attitude of indifference and unconcern. It is something that can so easily to creep up on you, especially in a nation like ours and a time like ours it is so easy for you not to feel the burden about the needs of so many. Blessed are ye that weep now.

Church, it is a time for weeping and mourning before God, for his mercy. You read this book, you read the Old Testament and you will see that every time there was a great move of God on behalf of his people it was because somebody went fasting and praying and weeping as Daniel did in Daniel chapter nine. Lord help us never to lose that sensitive heart that reaches out in compassion and love through tears on behalf of people who are standing in need of God. Amen!

The fourth Beatitude is: Blessed are ye when men hate you for the Son of man’s sake, not just hate you for the mischief you have done, but hate you for the Son of man’s sake, and here is the way the hatred is manifested and put out when they separate you from their company. No wonder we in Pentecost have felt that this world is not our home and we don’t really belong and we shout and rejoice because we are accepted by the king and purchased by the king, we are in his family and we are heirs of the great promises of God, even though some did not accept us. He said you are blessed when people are reproaching you or insulting you, and I don’t know sometimes if I can handle number three it says when they are casting out your name as evil, literally lying on you.

Have you ever just been blindly mad? The maddest I ever got was when I was in high school and a young man who didn’t have the slightest notion of what he was saying, he made a remark about my girlfriend who is now my wife that he shouldn’t have said. So I took an encyclopedia and raised it up across that table, and I was aiming at him. Luckily, it hit the edge of the table and bounced over him. It didn’t hurt him. But he got the message that you don’t put someone’s name out as evil. That is a grave gross sin. That is what Jesus meant about murdering somebody’s influence. You can say I really like this person and someone says well you don’t know everything about them, and they begin to tell all the rumors that they’ve heard. I have more sanctification now than I had awhile back, but it is still hard to handle when someone puts your name out as evil.

Jesus said even when people call you names and lie about you and put it out that you are not what you say you are, that you are evil, you’re blessed. Blessed are you! Lord, I am not sure that I can live with that. He says yes! They called him a liar and a glutton and a wine bibber. You should read the conflict in John eight, the name calling that went across about Jesus. They called him a liar and they accused him of being crazy enough to commit suicide, and they finally got down to the worst thing you could call a Jew in that day, and that is a Samaritan. Then they went even farther and added an adjective to it and called him a demon-possessed Samaritan. Now if you want to pick a fight you just call a man a name like that in those days, and that is what they called Jesus. And everything they called him was false. He was insulted. He was reproached. He said blessed are you when you get among people and they look down on you and they reproach you and they insult you and they hate you and they make you out as evil. That is the way they did the two prophets of God, in days gone by, but said what you should do is rejoice in that day and leap for joy for your reward is great in heaven. For in the like manner did their fathers to Gods prophets. The fathers that Jesus was talking about, the traditionalists who came down from Judaism always had a bad word to say to true prophets. So Jesus says that if you are going to be true disciples you are going to be hated. You are going to be mocked and scoffed and made fun of. You are going to be insulted and your name will be thrown into the dirt. But don’t worry, you’ll be blessed and you will get a great reward in heaven for going through such things.

Have you ever had somebody lie on you and make it stick? I mean, get somebody to believe it? That’s awful! That’s hard to handle. But Jesus says for you to go ahead and handle that. Be blessed because great is your reward in heaven. This says to me that Jesus takes up for you and defends you and looks out for you. Jesus said when they do you wrong don’t let it get you down, but rejoice and leap for joy. Even when the devil comes to falsely accuse you, Jesus our big brother comes by our side to take care of us.

Let me give you one example of that. You remember when Mary came and broke that box with very expensive ointment and put the whole thing on Jesus because he realized that when Jesus had raised Lazarus her brother from the dead that he had signed his own death warrant. He was going to have to die. So here she was. She anointed him beforehand for his burial. He understood the price he was going to pay for giving life to her brother. And then, Judas…Judas scolded her!

He started complaining about the money and how it was wasted, how the oil should have been sold for money to be used in ministry, but Jesus knew what was in his heart and he looked over at Judas – and I want you to listen to this word, he didn’t soft-pedal or go easy on Judas – he said Let her alone! I like it when Jesus gets tough with other folks. I always want mercy, but when someone interferes with worship and tries to interfere with the relationship to the Lord he takes up for you. He takes up for you! He will rebuke the devil and cast him aside and give you the freedom to worship the way you want to.

Now all of a sudden, Luke reverses the whole thing and gives four woes. He says woe unto those who are rich, for you have received your consolation or your comfort in this life. What he means by that is that people who trust in their riches and they feel big and important and powerful and they try to throw their weight around and their influence around because they are rich, he said the only comfort they are going to get is in this world and in this life. Jesus had a lot to say about those that are rich and trusting in wealth and feeling so important.

The second woe says woe to those who are full for ye shall hunger. The time will come indeed when the very rich, full people in that congregation and that tried to withstand Jesus and the prophets of old, the time would come indeed when they would lose everything.

He said woe unto you that laugh now for you shall mourn and weep. A tremendous illustration is seen in the book of Amos the prophet about this. In one of Amos’s woe sermons, he has three main points: woe unto you who are rich and powerful and you drink wine out of bowls, and you lay on beds decorated with ivory. He began to describe the judgment that would come upon them, because they are not grieved over the affliction of Joseph. What we were talking about earlier, sighing and crying and having a burden for needs, here are people who are so blind to the needs of this world, that they are blinded to the grief of others. They are not grieved what so ever.

Jesus says woe unto you when all men speak well of you, Oh Lord! I thought that is why we take all these “Dale Carnegie” courses to gain popularity, to win friends and influence people and all that. He said woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you for so did their fathers to the false prophets. I want you to look at those words. First, in the Beatitudes, he says they did the prophets, meaning the true prophet, but now when he’s talking about the woes, he said these people who treated the false prophets, these people who blessed them and counted them great, honored them and they let them get by with anything, because the false prophets would preach anything they wanted to hear.

A young seminary student went down to interview for a church and the committee asked him how he preached certain topics, and he stated that he would preach it any way they wanted it. So they hired him. Some of us have missed something. They said this is the way they used to do the false prophets, they patted them on the back and spoke well of them, Ahab and Jezebel fed hundreds of false prophets. That is the way the fathers treated the false prophets, speaking well and living in hypocrisy. Strong language Jesus is using here, blessings in situations that don’t seem like blessings at all; woes upon people with things that we would think would be great blessings. Jesus said the important thing is to have the kingdom, everlasting joy, and the satisfaction that comes from being filled with righteousness, having the hilarious joy that comes from carrying your burdens and weeping at the right times over the right things, being hated and despised, yet bearing up under it because the Lord takes your part and great is your reward in heaven. This is the message that we need to hear good and loud. There is a blessedness in being a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ undergoing discipline even if it means suffering, undergoing rigid discipline even if it means carrying heavy burdens now, because after awhile the reward in the time to come and he starts handing out the rewards, then great will be your reward in heaven.

Let us pray, Lord help us to keep our eyes upon you and not let ourselves be distracted from doing your work by the things people say or do or have. Help us see blessings in our suffering for great is our reward with you in heaven.

Here is Luke emphasizing particular things, especially four blessings, four beatitudes that are followed directly with a great reversal into four woes.

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Binding the Strong Man (Luke 11:14-22)

by Dr. F. J May | Nov 2, 2020

Luke 11:14-22

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And he was casting out a devil, and it was dumb. And it came to pass, when the devil was gone out, the dumb spake; and the people wondered.

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But some of them said, He casteth out devils through Beelzebub the chief of the devils.

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And others, tempting him, sought of him a sign from heaven.

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But he, knowing their thoughts, said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a house divided against a house falleth.

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If Satan also be divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand? because ye say that I cast out devils through Beelzebub.

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And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your sons cast them out? therefore shall they be your judges.

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But if I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you.

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When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace:

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But when a stronger than he shall come upon him, and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armour wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils.

I want to talk to you about “Binding the Strong Man.” Somehow God has really talked to me and touched my heart in regard to this message. I pray that I’ll be able to deliver it to you in a way that will be encouraging and beneficial to each one of us in this house. I think we are faced with spiritual warfare probably in worse stages than we have ever known it before. You talk to anybody anywhere, any church, any pastor, and you will find that it appears that Satan is waging war against families, against churches, trying to break down unity and fellowship and love. He is trying to destroy – that is the only thing he knows how to do is to kill and steal and destroy. I think this passage would help us understand that in our efforts to do spiritual warfare against the forces of evil in our time, that the Lord has made absolute provision for us to be fully equipped with His Holy Spirit and His power so as to be able to have His authority working in our lives, leaning upon His authority, leaning upon His Name, leaning upon the power of the Holy Spirit so that we can be victorious and authoritative in our approach to what Satan would try to do to us or to our family or friends, neighbors, communities or loved ones. This message is an appeal that God will help us use the divine supernatural resources that He has given to the church that we can stand up and stand out against the forces of hell and really taught as soldiers of Jesus Christ, moving in His authority and in His Name, clothed with the power of the Holy Spirit.

I want us to look at what it took for Jesus to set this great example of overcoming the power of Satan. He comes to a man who has a spirit that is possessing his life. This evil spirit has caused the man not to be able to speak. He is mute because of the binding force of this spirit. Last time we talked about the Lord’s Prayer and the disciples wanted to know how to pray like Jesus. One of the main points and main objectives of this entire prayer is to be endued with the Holy Spirit, with the power of the Living God, so that the finger of God works through our lives. I don’t understand how people face what they have to face without the Holy Spirit. I don’t understand how people can face the powers of sin and evil without the baptism of the Holy Ghost. These are days that require us to be full of the Spirit and full of faith and full of power and all the fruits and gifts that the Spirit brings into our hearts and lives. I want you to see, first of all, that Jesus waged warfare against the power of Satan, not with any kind of Satanic spirit, even though that is what they accused Him of. He came and He cast out this devil out of this man. Then the man was able to speak.

I don’t know how long he had been bound, but can you imagine how long it must have been and how horrible it was for him not to talk? For him not to express himself? For him not to be able to carry on a conversation with people? I don’t know if he was able to use some kind of sign language, but to be bound. He could not glorify God with his mouth. He could not speak with his friends, he was so bound. There are a lot of people who may not be bound precisely like that, but they are really hindered from worshipping God and giving honor to God. They are bound by the clutches of sin and evil. They are not their own masters. They may think that they are in charge of their own lives, but they are finding out that something else controls them. They are out of control as far as their own ability to control and something else is carrying them along and causing them to do things that in their right mind they would never do. I think there are crimes being committed now that can only be explained in the sense that Satanic power has control over the mind and lives of people and they simply obey what he gives them to do.

But I say to you that there is divine victory and power over the forces of evil. There is divine authority and the grace of the Almighty God that can come to the lives of people who trust God and stand on the Word and who are full of the Holy Spirit! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Praise His Name! Blessed be the Holy Ghost of God. Hallelujah! Praise His Name!

They accused Jesus of casting out this devil by the power of Beelzebub. That is an unusual name given to what is referred to as “the prince of devils.” It comes from the old Hebrew word ‘Baal’ the god Baal which means ‘lord.’ The other word ‘zebub’ which means ‘flies.’ They are accusing him of being under the control and influence of the lord of flies, this prince of devils. When they called him that, when they accuse him of that, they are heaping upon him one of the greatest indignities that could ever be cast at a person. They have in the connotation of lord of flies that flies fill the dung heaps with their maggots. Here, this so-called god of Satan reigns upon dung heaps where flies are thronged and made. They are bringing down the lovely Lord Jesus to such a low place in their castigations of Him and their accusations of Him.

There are people in our own world whose lives and whose mouths are filled with such corruption and such vulgarity until they despise the grace of God and they despise the Lord Jesus Christ. They don’t care to desecrate anything that is holy and pure. The Lord God Almighty in His sovereign power still has the authority and power to override these forces.

Others were tempting Him. They said, “Why don’t you show us a sign from heaven? If you are what you claim to be, if you are what people say you are, why don’t you show us a sign?” That’s the most ridiculous request I’ve ever heard. Because here they are, standing in his presence and they’ve just seen a man delivered from an unclean spirit. And now he can talk and can speak clearly and give glory and honor to God and they’re wanting a sign. What does it take for somebody to see the hand of God at work? Some people can sit right beside a miracle and never see it. Some people can sit in the presence of God and don’t realize what God is really doing and what He is saying. Some people live in this world and they never understand what God is doing in our world. He is marching on. He is still the sovereign almighty God. He is still able to put down under his feet all powers and all forces and all dominions. He still reigns!

It reminds me of a people after Jesus had fed them. They were standing around, probably picking their teeth from eating fish and bread and saying, “If you are the Son of God, why don’t you show us a sign?” And they were so full of a sign they could hardly breathe! The blindness of this world is so severe, it is time that this world needs to see the divine manifestation of God’s grace and His glory and power at work.

This is what Jesus did. He said ‘You can accuse me, but a divided house won’t stand when it is divided against itself. And if I were working for Beelzebub or through his power, I would be dividing the house of Satan. That’s not the way it works. It is through the finger of God. I am casting out devils by the finger of God – meaning I am casting out devils by the anointing of the Holy Spirit of God.’

That reminds me of a beautiful passage in I Corinthians 12 because Paul says to every person is given gifts and the manifestation of God’s grace and power is given to every person and given gifts. That word ‘manifestation’ is a powerful word. When you look at its meaning, especially in the Latin from which it comes, the first part of that word is ‘manis’ and it has to do with the hand. You get a mani-cure. You get your hands and fingernails taken care of. It has to do with the hand. And the rest of that word in the Latin means to be seized. So the word manifestation means to be seized by the hand of God. Hallelujah! I like it when the hand of God moves upon His people and we are seized by His glorious Spirit and power and we are able to show His glory and power far beyond our ability to even express it. One rendition of the meaning of manifestation is that not only is it seized by the hand of God, but it is the dancing hand of God. It dances from one place to another and it touches down on the lives of people and anoints one with one gift and anoints another with another gift, moves upon with gifts of grace here and there. Oh, thank God for the moving, dancing hand of the Almighty that is able to reach down and touch every life and bring glorious Spirit and power through spiritual gifts that enable us wage successful, effective warfare against the power of Satan and sin.

He then went on to explain this is the way it works. When a strong man like Satan controls and guards his kingdom, his house, his goods and all of his possessions and the people that he thinks he governs and possesses, that he controls it until a stronger man – Hallelujah! – a stronger man binds him. He is able to go in and plunder all his house. He can take from his grasp anything he is trying to hold on to. Jesus explains this is the way it works. This is redemption in action. It is deliverance in action. It is the mighty power of God in action. When the Lord Jesus Christ Himself looked at this strong man Satan in the wilderness of the temptation, He was binding him then. He was not yielding at all to his power or to his temptation. And what He is saying here that He has the authority and the power that when He comes in and He speaks to a person who is possessed of an evil spirit and He tells that evil spirit to go that evil spirit has to go because He has the power to bind the force and spirit and power of the strong man, Satan.

Satan is no match for Jesus Christ. Satan is no match for any angel of God. Any angel can whip the devil. If you don’t believe it, look in the Revelation. The day comes when the angel of God comes down and binds him in a bottomless pit. Then the angel of God not only, but any child of God standing on the Word, filled with faith, filled with the Holy Ghost and fire is more than a match for the power of Satan.

Spoiling – that means that you and I have been given the authority through Jesus Christ and the power through the Holy Spirit to spoil Satan’s kingdom, to walk right in next door to hell and take from his grasp loved ones and friends. Paul the apostle did it. When he started the church in Corinth, it was just like starting a church next door to hell because he was in a place worse than San Francisco. Worse than any of our cities here in the United States, but he walked in and said “I’ve come in the power and demonstration of the Spirit and power of God and that’s what I depend on.” I think God is doing a sovereign work at the North Cleveland Church of God. I believe that God is ready for His church to rise and shine for the light has come and the glory of God has risen upon us. Hallelujah!

Spiritual authority comes because we’ve been blood washed and spirit filled and we stand on the Word of God. It takes away fears. It takes away worries. It takes away doubts. It takes away delusions. We see clearly the hand of God. We hear clearly the voice of God. We move quickly in obedience in the leading of the Spirit and that brings victory. It brings power. It brings deliverance and it brings triumph of the church.

Please stand to your feet and get ready to worship Him in our closing prayer. Let us worship God together, saints, right now.

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Cleansing the Temple (Luke 19:45-48)

by Dr. F. J May | Nov 3, 2019

Luke 19:45-48

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45

And he went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold therein, and them that bought;

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46

Saying unto them, It is written, My house is the house of prayer: but ye have made it a den of thieves.

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47

And he taught daily in the temple. But the chief priests and the scribes and the chief of the people sought to destroy him,

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48

And could not find what they might do: for all the people were very attentive to hear him.

Matthew 21:12-16

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12

And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves,

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13

And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.

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14

And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple; and he healed them.

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15

And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying in the temple, and saying, Hosanna to the son of David; they were sore displeased,

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16

And said unto him, Hearest thou what these say? And Jesus saith unto them, Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?

Think in terms of the Lord being in Jerusalem. We talked last week about His coming into Jerusalem and what should have been the Triumphal Entry and then that triumph, which is like the coronation of the king, turned into one of great weeping and mourning of Jesus. We looked at what Jesus weeps over and it’s over people who miss and do not recognize their time of visitation, people who don’t know the things that belong to their peace. The people who have turned from God and it’s too late, they have missed out on it. As we continue then as He enters into the city, we have this great climactic turning point event in His life and ministry, what is called the purging of the temple.
As I’ve said here in the synoptic, Matthew, Mark and Luke, the purging of the temple is a tremendous turning point in the ministry of Jesus. When He finally comes to Jerusalem and makes Himself known very clearly and He draws attention to who He really is when He makes the triumphal entry. Then He enters into the temple for this purging and then He remains in the temple during the day for maybe a few days. There He is teaching and preaching and healing right in the environment of the temple itself. He is condemning the system of Judaism in the way it carries on its religious work in the temple. He is demonstrating what the temple really should be and how it should minister to others and what ought to be done there. The religious leaders in the temple grow more and more angry and upset and in turmoil. This is the turning point where they start to try to destroy Him absolutely. From this point, they really realize, or they consider, that He must be stopped. His voice must be silenced. That is the way with the old barren fig tree religion that tries to look good.
You know, Jesus went out from the temple and He saw this barren fig tree. Mark tells us about it. Matthew tells us about it. There was no fruit upon this fig tree although it looked full of leaves and looked like it ought to have fruit. He said, “No man will ever eat fruit from you from henceforth forever.” He meant simply in an acted parable that He performs in the presence of His disciples, He is showing that unfruitfulness is cursed. What He is really saying is that the temple of God that is unfruitful and is no longer a blessing to the people has the curse of God in it. He is saying that when the old wineskins of Judaistic religion is empty and it is just an encrusted over shell and it can no longer hold the new wine of Christianity or the Spirit of God, then it is good for nothing. It is only an empty shell that cannot be a blessing to anyone. He is showing that organized religion that leaves God out finally, in the final analysis, becomes a movement that has to be supported. It is not a movement that blesses people. It is a movement that is always calling and draining the people for its support. It cannot be a blessing anymore.

Jesus is going to strike very hard at this emptiness and barrenness of the old system. As a matter of fact, He is going to condemn it absolutely and completely. He comes in to purge the temple.

The first thing He did was come into the outer court, which is supposed to be dedicated for worship for Gentile people like you and me. If we had lived then in the time of Jesus, we could not have entered into the temple at all because the outer court was filled with little hutches and pens where they had animals of different sorts and fowl – doves and pigeons – and all this for the offering of sacrifices. They had tables to exchange money. It didn’t matter where you were from or how much money you had, when you came to offer a sacrifice in the temple, you had to change your money into the temple money. Even when you did that, they short-changed you. They stole from you and didn’t give you full value for your money even then.

This people literally short-changed you. They were cheating the people in the first place. Then they hiked up the prices for the sacrifices. The pigeons, the doves, the sheep, whatever people wanted to make sacrifices, they came to the temple. So there were these tables of money changers. Jesus drove them out! He took a whip and drove them out. He said, “My house should be a house of prayer and of purity.” First of all, He cleansed the temple letting us know that His house should be a house of purity where pure worship to God is carried on, not a place of commerce and certainly not a den of thieves.

I think you and I have looked in church history and every time we studies church history and the decline of some of the great denominations and churches of the past, they began to get in this kind of rut. They began to get to the place where they had very little to offer people. But they had a whole lot to try to demand and draw from the people. God help us never to come to the place where we only want to receive and we have nothing to give. If the time ever comes that people can come to the house of God and can’t be blessed and they can’t meet God and they can’t feel the Holy Spirit and there’s not freedom to worship and freedom for the power of God to move, then you can expect people to start to look elsewhere. People want to go where the fire of God falls. They want to go where there is liberty in the moving of the Spirit. They want to go where the power of God falls. I know some people had just as soon to pass through a service and every once in awhile clap their hands when somebody tells them to, but I like the kind of meetings where clapping your hands is spontaneous, and where the power of God falls on people and we don’t worry about whether they clap their hands or not, but the glory of God comes down! Amen!

These are days we need a touch from God and we need to hear from God and we need His healing power and He wants His house to be, first of all, a house of purity that has been purged. So, He purged the temple. He drove out the money changers. He drove out the cheaters. He drove out the people who had pushed out and made no room for the nations of the world, all the ethnic groups of the world. That word ‘nations’ comes from a Greek word that means literally ‘all ethnic groups, meaning all Gentiles.’

I say again, if you and I had gone to Jerusalem then, we couldn’t have gotten in. We couldn’t have had the advantage of worshipping in the temple of God. We would’ve had to go in a different direction, and gone a different route of God-fearer and gone through all kinds of ceremonies and rituals to become a Jew by religion. It may have taken years before we had really become accepted.

No wonder Paul had such wonderful success in His meetings when he went into the Jewish synagogues and he began to preach Christ and he would preach justification by faith, that you didn’t have to be a good Jew to be saved. They had to prove that in a meeting in Acts 15 by the Jerusalem council. No wonder he had so much success among the God-fearing Gentiles. Because, who wouldn’t turn to the Lord and believe when it says we are justified by believing on Christ. You don’t have to spend five years to become a good Jew and adopt all the food laws, the holy days, the ceremonies and rituals and go through the priesthood and so on. You could just come to the one High Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ, you confess your sins, you are forgiven and you are brought into the kingdom of God by believing. No wonder he had such success among the God-fearing Gentiles. Not many Jewish people believed Paul. A few did. We have an account in Acts, but most of his converts were God-fearing Gentiles. Gentiles, at that time when Jesus purged the temple, couldn’t even get in. They were pushed out.

It was business as usual. Commerce had taken over. Friends, the church is never a business. It is always, now and forever, the Body of Jesus Christ and it functions in a dark, sinful world to bring Christ and His power to the hearts and lives of people who believe on Him. Hallelujah! If it ceases to do that, it has lost its vision and its mission.

In the next place, He said, “My house is to be a house of prayer for all nations.” Now God intends for His people to meet together and pray. He intends for us to pray in our daily lives and in our daily routines by ourselves or in our homes or wherever. But He also intends for us to meet together in the House of God and pray. I have seen miracles happen when the saints came together in prayer that would not have happened if they had not met together in the Name of Jesus Christ and put their hearts and unity with one mind and one accord and prayed and sought God and the glory of God came down. When the church gets in unity and gets in one mind and one accord in prayer, you can look out. Something great and beautiful and powerful is going to happen!

God intends for His house to be a house of prayer! Amen! Then He intends for it to be a house of power. It says that the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple and He healed them. Even the little children were touched. I would like for us to somehow pray and come to the place that we receive revival and renewal again and see the miracles of God in a most powerful way, that the house of God would be a house of power. Paul said to the Corinthians, “I came to you and I preached you the Word and I came in the demonstration of the Spirit and power so that your faith wouldn’t just stand in the words of men, but your faith would stand in the power of God.” Now if somehow or another we could get our generation to see the demonstration of God’s power so that their faith would stand in the miracle working power of God, there would be a lot of difference in this world now.

I feel the anointing of the Holy Ghost in this place tonight. The Lord is in this place to touch your life and to bless you. Just look to Him and believe Him tonight. He is here!

A church of power. There were hindrances. There were people who resisted the truth and resisted the power just like there have always been. You and I know about some. There are some who have always fought holiness and they have always fought real Pentecost, and there has always been somebody who has resisted the power of God. But I say in these last days when there is such a rise of demonic activity, God send the power that will stop the devil and rebuke the devil and get him on the move! Amen! Hallelujah!

Like Paul on that cold day when he was building a fire with sticks and gathered up a bundle and it was raining and he was trying to help and bring a warmth to the people who were cold because of the cold and the rain. There was a viper in there and as soon as it hit the fire, the viper came out. The fire will move Satan absolutely! It fastened on his hand and he shook it off and the people who saw it happen said, ‘Uh oh. He must be some great criminal and even though he has escaped the wrath of the sea, vengeance suffereth him not to live.’ But it says they kept looking and he kept standing. He shook it off. And when they saw him standing, they changed their minds, the Bible says and they said ‘This man must be of God.’ In fact, they thought he was a god. When people are stricken in misfortune and stricken in trouble and under the attack of Satan, and they keep on standing because of the power and grace of God, some people around change their minds and they say ‘They must have God. They’ve got something that I haven’t got.’ When the power of God falls, there are a lot of people in this world who are hungry to receive the power of God in their lives.

Finally, He wants a church of praise. We say a lot about praise and worship in these days. The charismatic people have taught us a lot about praise and worship, but they’ve also taught us a few other things. These other things come first, purity, prayer, power, and praise. Notice that praise is last. I like the idea of purity coming first, don’t you? They said ‘Listen at these kids. They are saying Hosanna to the Son of David.’ That’s king-talk. We talked about that last week – saying Hosanna. They said ‘Are you hearing them? These children are not supposed to be speaking out. They are not supposed to be dancing around. They are not supposed to be praising the Lord. They are not supposed to be involved in worship.’ I want to say something very, very carefully right here. Jesus said ‘Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou has perfected praise.’ Last Sunday night we saw a little program for some of our children. I hope the day never does come when our young children totally miss out on worship services and evangelistic services where they hear the Word of God preached and they see the Spirit fall and they see people pray through and receive the Baptism of the Holy Ghost. Jesus seemed to like it mighty well. I hope our younger generation of people do not miss seeing the outpouring of the Spirit. Don’t ever back up from praying for the children. When I was six years old, I received a touch of the Holy Spirit. I felt it and I knew what the power of God was for the first time in my life. I will never forget it. I will never forget the old tabernacle of Rocky Hill kneeling in the sawdust and some man came and he put his big old hands on my head and as he prayed for me, I felt the warmth of God’s love and I began to weep and I knew it was God. You can say what you want to, but young people know about the Spirit and power of God. Jesus said ‘Don’t you know that in the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise.’ You let them alone. I like it when the mothers brought the children to Him and the disciples rebuked them. He said ‘Let them alone, for of such is the kingdom of heaven. Allow them to come unto Me.’
Jesus took a look at that temple and it was not doing ministry to please the Father. He purged it and when He did, he cut across everything they were doing in those days and they sought to kill Him from then on. They felt they must destroy Him. There was resistance to the Word of God, to the Son of God and to the power of God itself.

I would like for us to join together in praying tonight that in our personal lives and in our church that God would help us, that our church would be maintained as a house of purity and a house of prayer and a house of power and a house of praise. Would you stand and join me for such a prayer?

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Conditions for Discipleship (Luke 14:15-25)

by Dr. F. J May | Nov 3, 2019

Luke 14:25-35

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25

And there went great multitudes with him: and he turned, and said unto them,

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26

If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.

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27

And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.

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28

For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?

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29

Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him,

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30

Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.

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31

Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand?

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32

Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace.

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33

So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.

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34

Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be seasoned?

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35

It is neither fit for the land, nor yet for the dunghill; but men cast it out. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

The Lord Jesus has a great amount to say throughout this gospel in regard to following Him or being a disciple or what it really takes to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Our lesson tonight looks very closely at special conditions that have to be considered and observed in order to be a true disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the main message that we need to learn from this lesson text tonight that, indeed, being a Christian and following Jesus Christ may be filled with many, many great joys and many kinds of excitement and many acts of faith and many experiences of high-soaring faith and revelation. There is also a very sensible, down-to-earth kind of teaching that the Lord does in this passage that lets us know that there are conditions that we really have to take seriously if we are going to be considered followers of Christ or disciples. I’m going to talk about these “Conditions for Discipleship” tonight.

I have summarized this passage into three special conditions that we need to seriously consider if we are going to be followers of the Lord Jesus Christ and really be His disciples. I think we will see just how serious and down-to-earth Jesus is in so much of His teaching, very practical teaching, that causes us to take stock of where we are and what we are doing in this world as we attempt to follow the Lord.

I want to talk to you first about the disciple of Christ must bear his own cross. There is indeed a cross to bear. He introduces this idea by talking in very strong terms, actually using the word ‘hate’, meaning that it is absolutely necessary for us to put Jesus Christ first in our whole lives and let nothing or no one stand between us and following Jesus. Any hindrance that may come up to us, whether it is father or mother, or sisters or brothers, or companion or whoever, any hindrance that comes to us that would sidetrack us and keep us from following Jesus, He says you have to put that aside. In a sense, you have to hate that. You push it aside so that Jesus Christ stands in the forefront. Now that is not easy to do, but a lot of people have known the experience of what that really means of laying aside ties with family, cutting loose from familiar surroundings.

I think of the call of Abraham, for example, a tremendous example of what this is like and what all he gave up. He gave up the familiar for the unknown. God told him he wanted him to come and He would lead him. Abraham asked where they were going and God just said ‘I will show you.’ He gave up his family and family ties to go into what would become a hostile land where he would be faced with trials. He gave up his present, which was very comfortable no doubt, for the future which could be very, very uncertain. In all of this, he trusted God and had faith. Now, that is what it means to really be a disciple: to follow the leading of the Lord and set aside anything that stands in our way of following Jesus Christ. That’s what He is talking about.

Then He zeros in closer to talk about taking up our own cross, denying self. Not only would that be outside hindrances from family and friends and circumstances and other things, but there could be inside hindrances having to do with our own desires and our own likes and dislikes and our problems from within. So, He keeps saying we must deny self: the selfishness of our own lives that would hinder us from being obedient to Jesus Christ. He uses the illustration of taking up your cross.

I don’t know if we all come to understand very early in our Christian experience really what it means to deny yourself and take up your cross. I think perhaps it was quite a little way in our Christian life and ministry before I came to grips with what that really means. But when the Lord revealed it me and helped me to understand it and see it, it was something like this. Just like when the divine will of God, shining down from on high in a vertical dimension, when His will cuts across our will on the horizontal plane, where His will cuts across our will, that’s where our cross is really raised up. That’s what our cross is all about; surrendering our will to the will of God, absolutely saying yes to God. Regardless of how you come to that place, that’s what He is saying. If you are going to be my disciple, if you are going to follow me, then I must be at a place where I can make any demand upon your life and you are willing to obey and accept that challenge without shrinking back in fear, without fussing, and without arguing with God. I want to tell you that the most gracious moment of your whole life is when that absolute surrender comes and you say an eternal ‘Yes’ to the will of God, regardless of what it is.

That removes a lot of troubles. It removes a lot of problems in making decisions. It removes a lot of doubts and worries, because along with the surrender to God’s will comes a peace and a faith and an obedience that helps you to walk steadfastly and be unmovable in your faith and obedience to Him.

Some people have figured that the troubles of life were the cross they had to bear. But I don’t think so. It may be part of it. But everybody has troubles. Everybody has problems. Everybody has sicknesses or hindrances, whether they are Christians or not. That’s not really the cross. It’s like Jesus, in John chapter 12, when He says ‘Father, the hour is come that the Son of man may be glorified.’ What he means by ‘the hour is come’ is three times in that gospel He said ‘My hour is not yet come.’ He is talking about the hour when He will surrender His life. Finally, He says the hour is come. He doesn’t say the hour is come that the Son of man may be killed or crucified. No! He says the hour is come that the Son of man may be glorified. Hallelujah! Because, you see, that’s where the glory comes, when you yield to the will of God. Jesus went on to say in that passage ‘…except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone.’ It is by itselt. It doesn’t reproduce. But if it is planted in the ground and it dies to itself, its own identity, then it reproduces. Anybody knows that when a grain of corn sprouts, it dies to itself, to its nature – what it was like. But it comes alive in a new form that brings life and multiplies. That’s how we need to see what it is like when we surrender to the will of God.

When we take up our cross, it is a time for our glorification, not necessarily suffering, but suffering that brings glory. Simon Peter understood that finally. He didn’t at first, but when he wrote his letter to the saints, he understood it because he used the word suffering fourteen times in that letter. Seven times it has to do with the sufferings of Jesus Christ and seven times it has to do with the sufferings of us, the saints. Some of those sufferings are voluntary. Both what Jesus suffered and what we are to suffer are voluntary. They set examples.

Some of those sufferings are vicarious. They are in behalf of others. But they are redemptive because when you are suffering for Christ’s sake and it brings redeeming love to somebody else, that is when the glory of God is really seen in weakness. Some of those sufferings are victorious and triumphant, the sufferings now for the glory that shall be revealed. No wonder Jesus could say ‘The hour is come when the Son of man must be glorified. He is talking about taking the seed of His own life and throwing it – planting it – in the black hole of death and giving Himself for us and for the sins of the whole world only to produce new life.

So no wonder Jesus said if you are going to follow me, if you are going to really be Christian, you have to come to this place of denying yourself and taking up your personal cross which means that your will has to be under submission to the will of God. That is your cross. Every time self tries to wriggle off that cross, that’s when turmoil and trouble really comes in our own lives. That is when problems really occur and we start losing glimpse of our Lord. But when we focus our attention on Him, then it is far better no matter where you are in this world to be in the will of God than in any other place. When you know you are in the will of God, you can go through all kinds of trials. You can go through all kinds of problems because you know God has placed you there and His hand is upon you. So that is the first serious condition. Let nothing hinder you from following Jesus Christ and you take up your own cross and deny self and follow Him. Now that is serious business. That means that Christianity may be a little bit more down-to-earth and realistic than some of our Christian friends would think as we see them and hear them talk. When some people come face-to-face with the reality of what it means to deny self, then it is easy to start shrinking back and saying ‘Oh, Lord, not me, not there, not this place, not do this or not do that.’

The second condition He talks about is literally counting the cost. There is a cost to being a disciple. There is a cost to following Jesus. There is a price to pay. Some people say you can’t earn salvation. That is true. You can’t buy it. That’s true. You can never have enough money to pay for your salvation, but once you start following Jesus and being His disciple it will cost you something in this world. We’ve heard the great testimonies of people and the cost that they were willing to pay.

I have a young man who is my student assistant at the School of Theology from Kentucky. He is preparing himself as a missionary to Haiti. He and his wife are trying to understand the price they are going to pay to follow the will of God and what the cost really is.

Jesus used two outstanding illustrations. They are so realistic. I don’t know why sometimes we can’t see the reality of the teachings of Jesus. He says, first of all, in terms of building a tower. He said if you are planning to build a tower, (and I don’t know exactly what kind of tower He was talking about – maybe a watchtower for a vineyard or a prayer tower or it may be something connected to a synagogue or a temple, but it was some kind of structure to put you up on a high position, no doubt) you don’t start to do that unless you first sit down and count the total cost. If you don’t do that and you start out and you can’t finish it, you are going to be the object of ridicule and rebuke and criticism and laughter as people see your tremendous efforts that you could not follow through and carry out. We hate to see anything that’s done in the name of the Lord and for the cause of Christ in this world just become a witness to failure. There is no fun in that any way you look at it and it’s just sad. Jesus said if you’re going to be my disciples you have to count the cost and don’t plunge into some big deal and then come to shame and failure.

Then He uses another illustration. He said no king is going to launch on attack in warfare unless he first count the cost and see if his particular size of his army is able to go out and meet an army twice his size. No, it would be better for him to send an ambassador and make peace and quit talking about launching a great warfare.

Jesus is saying to us here that the Christian life is indeed facing a warfare. You don’t start out and you don’t hold out and you don’t success unless you really assess and understand and not underestimate the enemy that you are facing. You have to come back and understand your resources and what is backing you up and the hand of God upon your life before you launch out into great warfare.

I’m glad that Jesus made it absolutely possible that we have the resources behind us to do any task that He challenges us to do. It means sometimes He challenges us to do the impossible. Sometimes the odds are against but when we’re standing in faith upon His Word and we know for certain His divine direction and His hand is upon us, then we launch out in faith. I suppose a lot of things about the church would never get done if you just had to put pencil to paper and figure it all out from a rational reasonable standpoint. I’m not advocating that , but I’m telling you that vision and faith have to be founded on a solid foundation with God standing there with His great hand of provision and power ready to direct.

We have seen many other kinds of towers that couldn’t be built. We have seen other groups that launched a great attach, so to speak, only to be defeated and to return or run in shame. What a realistic kind of teaching about Christianity.

“So,” He says, “likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.” He has to count the cost and then be able to say, “Yes, Lord.”

I remember when once we did our very best to follow the leading of the Lord and we rolled into a town and our hearts sank when we saw the town and we saw the church and the situation. We had left a beautiful church building with air conditioning and went to a church that looked like a barn. I had seen a lot of barns that looked better than this one did. And, oh, you begin to think, ‘Oh, did we miss it? Is this the leading of God?’ It takes some time to come to grips with whether or not you are really in the will of God. When you begin to see that the Lord is with you and He is there, and where He leads you can follow, and when you know you’re in His divine hand and leading, you don’t have to fear a thing in the world. When you have the fear overshadowing your life and it’s motivating you, then you don’t have to be afraid of anything else.

The third condition of being a disciple I want to mention is verses 34 and 35. It has to do with being the salt of the earth. This is the great illustration that Jesus used on the Sermon on the Mount to talk about how Christianity is to spread and the kind of work it is to do. Here He is saying, if there is failure, if the salt has lost its saltiness, then it becomes good for nothing. I don’t know what it would be good for. He said it was not good for anything but just to be thrown away. If you don’t deny self, if you don’t count the cost, then your ability to be the salt – that preserving, penetrating salt that brings about purity and cleanness and preservation – it loses its force and power. Christians can lose their preserving, saving, penetrating power by not allowing God’s will to be done, but allowing self to be in charge. By operating in the power of the flesh or in carnality, and God just does not work and perform in conditions like that, the salt loses its savour, its ability, its power to preserve.

You’ve heard many sermons on the salt of the earth and what all it does and what it can do. That is the goal of being a disciple. It is to so live in following Jesus in this world that His life is flowing through you a divine energy that acts like salt, reaching out to purge and preserve. I think you would agree with me that I believe that what’s holding our world together is Christian people who are in harmony with God and His will. Christian people who are saying ‘Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’

I try to comprehend what’s happening in this world. I wake up at night and I think of it and get up and pray about it. Our world is so mixed up and so confused. There is so much turmoil and so much trouble. I can’t understand why a nation as rich as ours would have people starving to death here and poverty and the violence and the troubles that we’ve got. I can’t understand why a nation like Somalia would have such fighting forces at each other’s throats and totally ignoring the common people who are starving. I can’t comprehend this. I can’t understand it. As I thought about the news this week and tried to make some sense of saying ‘God, where are you in this whole thing? Where is your will? What are you doing? Let us see. Let us understand. We know you are the divine, sovereign, almighty God and your hand is on the nations of this earth. You know what is needed.’ I have only felt peace sometimes when I have backed away and prayed ‘Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’

As I compared that with this message, I came to something deep in my heart that the greatest thing this world’s got going for it is people who will deny themselves and live unselfishly and surrender their lives to the will of God, who will be willing to pay the price to follow Jesus, be willing to pay the price to be the salt of the earth. That is the only thing that is holding it together.

I’m going to ask you to stand to your feet and let us pray.

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Church Growth through Evangelism and Spiritual Renewal

by Larry G. Hess | Nov 3, 2019

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INTRODUCTION

True disciples of Jesus Christ, who implicitly and without reservations believe in God’s Word and in the relevance of the church, are passionate about the growth and the renewal of the church. Parts of the world are becoming increasingly more resistant to the message of the Gospel. Postmodernism, liberal revolutions, proliferation of sexual immorality, affluence mentality, and visionless church leadership have together produced a declining church movement in the Northern Hemisphere. The rapid expansion of Islam and other religious groups and cults have impeded the work of evangelism.

Rapid church growth is taking place in new regions and among surprising cultures. This is true in places such as Latin America, Africa, and Asia. The church growth that is happening is characterized by a spiritual passion for finding the lost and making disciples. In declining churches we see a passionless, selfish attitude with little or no vision to reach lost people and make disciples.

Therefore, church growth seems to depend upon faithfulness to the Great Commission. Only faithfulness and obedience to God’s plan for the church will bring growth and renewal. We must first be completely convinced as to why evangelism and spiritual renewal is necessary. Principles and passion are more important than creative methods.

The critics of religion, especially Biblical Christianity, are bold and have a great impact on modern culture. Internal apostate church leaders who resist the Holy Spirit, lust for power, and resist renewal have weakened Christianity and infused critics with blasphemous courage.

A master plan to achieve church growth through evangelism and spiritual renewal must include the following design:

Commitment to the Core Biblical Premise for Mission and Vision
Steadfastness to the Process of Discipleship
Trust in the Sovereign Work of the Holy Spirit
Faithful and Anointed Pastoral Leadership

1) Commitment to the core biblical premise for mission and vision

It is the Word of God that gives us the knowledge of God’s will and His commission to go into all the world and proclaim the Gospel. The Bible is the powerful witness to God’s plan for salvation through Jesus Christ.

The Bible provides the core foundation for all faith and practice. Evangelism will not happen unless the people of God are totally committed to the authority of God’s Word. Evangelism flows out of the depths of passionate followers of Christ who can articulate their beliefs and demonstrate with credibility the love of God.

Churches whose members have a high commitment to the authority of God’s Word, whose hearts burn with compassion, whose wills are fortified by discipline and devotion, and whose eyes see the ripe harvest have great potential for true church growth.

Growing churches are driven to bring glory to God by winning the lost, building up the saints, preaching the Word in the power and demonstration of the Holy Spirit, and fulfilling God’s purpose with a true eternal perspective.

2) Steadfastness to the process of discipleship

Church growth depends upon the process of discipleship. Evangelism in action is disciples making other disciples. A Biblical profile of a real disciple of Jesus Christ would embody the following characteristics (Scriptures are taken from the New King James Version).

Wholehearted loyalty and surrender to Jesus Christ as Lord.
Luke 14:26-27: If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.
A transformed and renewed mind.
John 8:31-32: Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
Romans 12:2: And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
A journey of unconditional love.
John 13:35: By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.
I Corinthians 13:7-8: …bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail, whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.
A journey of intimacy with God through a life of prayer.
Luke 11:1 – Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”
Philippians 4:6 – Be anxious for nothing, but in everything be prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God.
A journey beyond ourselves toward obedience to God’s call.
I Peter 3:15 – By sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear.
I Corinthians 15:58 – Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.
II Timothy 4:5 – But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill you ministry.
A pursuit of God’s agenda in the Spirit of servanthood.
Luke 14:33 – So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple.
Hebrews 12:1 – Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.

3) Trust in the sovereign work of the holy spirit

Life-giving, anointed churches trust in the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit for the growth of the church. Jesus was empowered by the Holy Spirit from the beginning of His earthly life. The Holy Spirit is called the “Spirit of Life” (Romans 8:2) and the “Spirit of Truth” (John 14:17); the Spirit seals (Ephesians 1:13), indwells (Romans 8:9-11), and fills (Ephesians 5:18) the believer for effective life and ministry.

The Holy Spirit inaugurated the church (Acts 1:5, 2:4) and empowers its witness. As Jesus Christ promised in Acts 1:8, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witness to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

It is the convicting work of the Holy Spirit that leads people to Christ (John 16:8-11). Biblical church growth can not be experienced without the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

Timothy Hill (Secretary-General of the Church of God) said in his article on True Spiritual Revival:

Revival is not a mere rearranging of our ecclesiastical furnishings; nor a resurrecting of our historical memories; neither is it a response to our greatest plans and programs. Revival is that holy and sovereign move of God in an individual’s life that replaces all that is spiritually dead with all that is spiritually alive.

Churches that wish to grow will seek to use proper techniques, methods, and strategies. Their pastors and lay leaders will use the power of their personalities in setting vision, building unity, and empowering laity. But these churches and leaders will carry out their responsibilities in total dependence on the work of the Holy Spirit. It is always God who causes growth (I Corinthians 3:6).

Building a church that glorifies God requires that the Holy Spirit be at the center of the process. In an effort to tap into the power of the Holy Spirit to bring growth and renewal, we see churches involved in the following:

spiritual warfare
prayer evangelism
spiritual mapping
cell group evangelism
covenant support groups
prayer walking
mobilization of intercessors
concerts of prayer
mentoring lay leaders
friendship evangelism
compassionate relief
emphasis on fasting and prayer

Biblical growth and renewal will not take place in churches when leaders and members seek growth through their own wisdom and power rather than by submitting themselves to the direction of the Holy Spirit.

4) Faithful and anointed pastoral leadership

Growing churches are lead by pastors who faithfully serve as a model disciple of Jesus Christ who is passionate about the Great Commission. Spiritual leadership has always been a major factor in the growth of God’s kingdom.

Paul writes, in Ephesians 4:11-13, that:
Christ gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

Paul and Timothy are models for us in building unity and in equipping people for ministry essential to growth and renewal. In Ephesians chapter four, Paul built unity amidst diversity. Paul built a powerful ministry team that was unified in their desire to grow and to do ministry.

The greatest task of the pastor/leader is to equip and build unity. Equipping is a tougher job than shepherding. In order for a pastor to equip people he/she must:

1) CARE for people.

C – communicate the vision
A – affirm trustworthy disciples
R – recognize potential in laity
E – exemplify disciple and commitment

2) Work on weaknesses but function out of strengths.

3) Give people time, energy, and focus.

4) Become a resource person providing.

atmosphere for growth
training in evangelism and leadership
support and motivate loyalty
tools, resources, and opportunities for involvement in evangelism and renewal

5) Clarify expectations and vision.

6) Eliminate de-motivating conditions and barriers.

7) Provide reward, reinforcement, and celebration of victories.

Biblical church growth requires pastors who will shepherd the flock of God with character (integrity of the heart) and competence (skillful hands). Character is the most critical dimension for Biblical leadership. Paul instructed Timothy to be “above reproach” (1 Timothy 3:2). The moral or ethical failure of a pastor will devastate a church. A pastor needs to be competent to lead and to care for the church (flock).

A strong initiating pastor who serves with integrity of heart and serves with skillfulness is important. It is also important that the leadership of the church be a ministry team of laity who are equipped, trained, and empowered to do God’s work.

The pastor as a leader communicates the vision, coaches, and challenges the team to work in unity. The pastor is often the architect of the plans, the goal setter, the influencer, and the path-finder. The pastor must help the laity to stay focused on the mission. A pastor is charting the course when he/she is pointing to a future possibility, communicating that possibility to others, and faithfully leading toward the vision.

Pastoral leadership should not only be concerned with the spiritual growth of the member, but also concerned about the work of evangelism.

5) THE INVOLVEMENT OF THE RIGHT PEOPLE IN LAY LEADERSHIP

The involvement of laity in the total work of the church is essential. Church growth, evangelism, and spiritual renewal is dependent on the laity.

Maturing disciples make growing churches when they are equipped and empowered to fulfill their passion and calling. The goal of developing mature members can become self-serving if the focus on is always Bible knowledge, worship, and fellowship.

Growing, transformational churches are made up of motivated worshipers who willingly invest their lives and resources in life-giving ministry and evangelism.

Today, in order to fulfill the Great Commission and build growing, life-giving, churches, we need to see a “Volunteer Revolution.” Courageous, visionary leadership is about unleashing the power of the laity!

Bill Hybels wrote, “The Volunteer Revolution is about what the local church can be when Christ’s followers offer their hearts, their passions, and their talents to meet the enormous needs all around them.”

Declining Churches have limited potential for growth because they are mostly made up of consumers, not lay ministers.
Plateaued Churches have some potential for growth because they have less passive consumers than declining churches, but still a ministry of active lay members.
Growing Churches have good potential for continued growth because they have a majority of lay members who are actively volunteering in order to fulfill their passion and win people to Jesus Christ.

In order to mobilize laity for the works of ministry and evangelism, the lay members must be recruited, trained, and empowered with trust and responsibility to faithfully obey God and reach their ministry potential.

CONCLUSION

Church growth requires that we have the right philosophy of ministry, and that we know how to impact our culture in ways that will bring people to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ

Jesus is the answer for eternal life. Today, some clergy leaders preach total tolerance and acceptance—that Christianity is good, but not necessarily the only true religion. They say that God is equally accepting of all religions as representing His people.

Evangelism and spiritual renewal will only take place when we have the right philosophy, a Biblical philosophy which preaches Jesus Christ and no other name and no other salvation.

The right philosophy embraces our diverse culture and takes a missiological attitude toward the world. We then must focus our ministries on the target of responsive people. The harvest is ripe if we know how and where to focus our plans for evangelism, discipleship, and transforming spiritual renewal.

May we affirm as Paul did to the Romans, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvations to everyone who believes, to the Jews first and also to the Greek” (Romans 1:16). Paul was uniquely called to reach the gentiles. In order to achieve his goal, Paul was focused on the right target with a God given plan.

Commit your life and your plans to God and He will direct your steps, cause people to be receptive, honor your faithfulness, and anoint your vision.

May God give us the mind of Christ as we prayerfully propagate the gospel and build multiplying churches.

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Doing the Will of God (Luke 9:51-62)

by Dr. F. J May | Nov 4, 2018

Luke 9:51-62

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51

And it came to pass, when the time was come that he should be received up, he stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem,

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52

And sent messengers before his face: and they went, and entered into a village of the Samaritans, to make ready for him.

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53

And they did not receive him, because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem.

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54

And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did?

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55

But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.

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56

For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them. And they went to another village.

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57

And it came to pass, that, as they went in the way, a certain man said unto him, Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest.

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58

And Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.

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59

And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.

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60

Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God.

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61

And when they had brought their ships to land, they forsook all, and followed him.

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62

And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.

Last week we did talk about what it was like down in the valley after the time of the great glory of the transfiguration. Some of the disciples were able to see into the divine supernatural glory of God as it shined upon Jesus and transfigured Him. We saw that down in the valley after that great experience was spiritual warfare waiting for them. We saw that after the glory seemed to have passed over there was the ministry of suffering and the announcement that Jesus would suffer and that His kinship, the Messiah-ship would not be like the disciples have pre-figured and thought it would be. We also looked briefly at the problem of selfish unworthy ambitions that were rising up in the hearts of the disciples. These kinds of things had to be contended with as they tried to get ready to follow Jesus into real discipleship ministry. We also saw the problem of being judgmental and exclusive about who is going to work for God and who would be qualified. A lot of problems just cropped up all of a sudden when they got down in the valley beyond the mountain of glory.

Tonight we continue in that same vein of thought to talk about the cost of discipleship, what it really means to follow Jesus. We will see in this gospel as well as all the gospels the tremendous challenge that Jesus faced to begin to turn the focus of the disciples’ attention away from the here and now and their longings for glory and great power to cope with the day-to-day life they needed to live and ministry they needed to perform. A lot of people are suddenly after they first get in touch with God and especially receive a divine call and sort of come down from the mountain of His glory, they are continually overwhelmed when faced with the realities of what it means for a person to deny himself and take up his cross and follow Jesus. These realities sometimes scare some people and sometimes hinder others and they cause, they seem to be too great a price for people to pay in order to follow Jesus and perform the ministry to which He has called them.

I want us to look at three particular things in this passage tonight that have to be reckoned with. They are realities, the kind of costs that have to be paid in order to follow the Lord Jesus. The first one is to have a Christ-like attitude toward people. I don’t know exactly how to say this to make it sound like it should, but I think one of the symptoms of burn-out in ministry and in service to God is shown and revealed when people begin to have the wrong attitude toward other people and fail to see them as Christ saw them.

Some years ago I was overwhelmed when I began to think about how Christ sees this world. With all of its sin, with all of its rebellion, with all of its rejection of the gospel, with all of its attitudes that are prompted by the power of Satan, yet it is the world of people that God so loved. One man has talked a great deal about when you have church-growth eyes and evangelism eyes and missionary eyes, you see the world as God sees the world, through eyes of love and compassion and understanding. This first example really illustrates that to a great extent. Because Jesus now has set His face to go to Jerusalem, it is going to mean suffering. He’s already told them twice that He must go and must suffer many things and it is going to mean suffering and hardship the rest of His earthly journey. Yes, there will be triumphs and victories and miracles and all kinds of things, but He is setting His face with determination to do the will of the Father. That’s what I’m really talking to you about: doing the will of God regardless of the cost that we have to pay in order to do His perfect will. When He determined to go, He sent some disciples on ahead of Him to open up the way in a sense and determine the attitude of people. They went to the Samaritans and the Samaritans rejected Him. We do not quite understand why they rejected Him because His face was toward Jerusalem, but there are a lot of things involved in that. It could have been racial and religious prejudice for one thing. You know the story of John which elaborates that great theme of the racial and spiritual prejudice that was involved in the Samaritan woman and the Samaritans when she spit out at Jesus that He was a Jew. She tried to start arguments with Him over racial and religious subjects, but finally Jesus broke through it all and He showed us with the tremendous attitude and method and way of reaching in to the lives of people who are rejecting and who are bound down with all kinds of prejudice and are hard to open up their lives to receive the gospel. He shows us how to get through all that and get deep in the hearts of people with the Spirit and the Word of God.

So they rejected Jesus. This really filled the disciples with what we will call righteous indignation. It might have been a lot worse than that but I’m trying to be kind. They said, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven and consume these people that won’t accept you? Like Elijah did on one occasion?” And He said, He rebuked them. He said, “You don’t know what kind of spirit that’s really working on you. The kind of attitude and spirit that’s working in your life now about these people who reject, it’s the wrong kind of spirit because the Son of Man came not to destroy, but He came to give life and to save men’s lives.” Now that’s the attitude, that’s the key we’re talking about here; the Christ-like attitude in dealing with people to save them, not judge them, not bring down wrath upon them.

I heard of one man who preached for some weeks at a place and he folded up his Bible and said, “Take them, devil. God don’t want them.” Nobody made a move. Nobody responded. It was hard to determine what the outcome of that might very well be. But I want to tell you that it is very easy to become impatient with folks who don’t see the light that we see. It is very easy to become impatient with people who don’t open their hearts to the Word and to the truth. As a pastor for 30 years and as a preacher for all these many years, there is something about it that when somebody walks out on a sermon and stomps out when you’re preaching, you can’t help but be touched by it. I remember a young man who walked out one night while I was preaching and that was the last message he ever heard. It was the last time he was in church until they brought him in for his funeral just in a few days, less than a week.

When people reject God, when they reject the Lord, when they keep on turning away and turning to their sin, it is very easy for us to lose patience and lose burden and lose vision and be ready to turn aside to some other place and go to a different village, so to speak. But Jesus said that’s not the way. Just because somebody has rejected today that doesn’t mean that they will reject tomorrow. One of the hard lessons that I learned as a young preacher is you don’t so quickly give up on folks who reject God or who reject the church. I’ve learned that lesson over and over and over again when the lives of great saints of God who held on in faith and in prayer until their loved ones came in. Some of them came in on a late date, but oh thank God they came in because they had continually built a wall of love and a wall of concern and a wall of care around the lives of their loved one. So in doing the will of God, first of all, is to be motivated by the spirit of love for people.

I know there are some people, and we’ve seen it in times past, some people who seek to become great and become superstars in ministry. They love crowds and hate people. They like the crowds to come and give their applause and their money, but when it comes to being with them on a one-to-one basis, and walking with them over rocky roads and walk with them through valleys of sorrow and death and being with them in times of sickness and trouble, they have very little time for anything like that. Jesus is saying here “If you are going to do my work and follow me and be with me, you will need to love people and purpose in your heart to save men’s lives, not destroy, not consume.” Because the enemy of our loved ones and friends, that is his purpose to steal and to kill and to destroy. That is his method. That is his attitude. That is his spirit; to steal, to kill, and to destroy. I think sometimes we need to pray for a fresh, new burden for the lost and a fresh, new burden of love for people who have rejected Christ.

Part of the real cost of discipleship is relating to people, and seeing them through the eyes of compassion and love that Jesus has. We are told so many times in the gospels that He was moved with compassion. I learned something about compassion some time back. I learned that when you are touched with the compassion of the Lord it is heaven’s invitation for you to perform some good and wonderful and glorious work in behalf of somebody. I’ve said that before, but I think it bears repeating, when you’re moved upon with compassion to pray for somebody, it is an open invitation for God to move in a special way or He wouldn’t even touch you with that compassion in the first place. People that we wouldn’t even think of talking to about their soul or trying to win when you are moved with compassion, there is a boldness and a love that constrains and compels, that brings power and brings people in touch with the grace of God. So that is the first cost of this walking and following Jesus in discipleship and ministry, is to have this compassion and this Christ-like attitude toward people, even people who reject the gospel.

In the second place, Jesus has experiences here, three particular experiences with people, that show us – all three experiences show us that there is to be nothing to hinder us from immediate absolute obedience. First of all, one man said “I will follow You, wherever You go, Lord. It does not matter where You go.” He didn’t realize what he was saying. Because Jesus understood the person’s heart, He said “If you’re going to follow me, you’ve got to get ready for something you’ve never done before because the foxes and the animals have dens and places of safety and rest and security. The fowls of the air have their nests. But the Son of Man doesn’t have a house. He has no place, no bed, no place to lay His head that He calls His own.” That first hindrance has to do with a house, possessions, comfort in life. I’ve seen some people make shipwreck because they were going to try to get it all fixed just right before they launched out.

I have some good friends who came to this city to study for the ministry. They got caught up with a house. They are taking care of family. They were making money and have not performed ministry and they’ve suffered divorce. Jesus knew that for this person not having a home, not having a house would keep him from following Jesus. He said to one man, “You follow me.” And he said, “Alright, but let me first go and bury my parents.” He didn’t mean they were dead right then, but what he meant was, let me go and take care of them until they pass away and then I’ll be free. That might take years. Jesus does not want us to postpone obedience to His leading and His will. He knows how to take care of parents who are aged. I want to tell you when they are in His hands, they are in lot better hands than ours anyway. I know sometimes as a young couple, my wife and I left our home in Mississippi and a lot of times we left our parents weeping and we were weeping ourselves. On the other hand, I have known people whose parents got in the way. I knew one young man, I advised, I pled with him and he said, “I’m called to preach.” I told him, “You ought to come on to Cleveland. You ought to come to Lee College and get some Bible training and prepare for the ministry.” His parents stepped in and hindered and said “No, we want you to stay here in the business. We are afraid that you won’t be able to get along well enough.” They were worried about him. That young man went back on God. He became unfaithful, lost his wife, remarried and today he is back with the Lord and preaching the gospel but his influence and his ministry is sorely limited because he didn’t obey the Lord when the Lord said to come on out.

I’m not talking about just answering the call of ministry to preach the gospel. I’m talking about being a disciple of Jesus Christ and allowing things that hinder and get our minds off of following Him and understanding His perfect will and trying to have our own will at the same time. One fellow said “Well, I will follow you, but I want to go and tell my friends good-bye.” Jesus knew what that meant and how long it might take him, and he might be persuaded not to venture out.

And then he brought us this final illustration of not looking back. First, we are to have a Christ-like attitude toward people. Next, we are not to let anything or anybody hinder us from immediately obeying the will of the Father. And then, we are to never look back. I followed a man once in ministry who looked back. He said, “I’ll never pastor another bunch of knot-heads like these.” Now, that’s some way to address the saints of God because I found out there were some of the greatest saints of God that ever lived that he was calling knot-heads. But he would look back and he would look back for material things. He got involved with wanting to make it big and later he came and visited and he bragged about his clothes and the price of his suits and the price of his shoes. But he has never had ministry since. Never look back. Jesus put it this way. He used a plain, simple kind of illustration that I could understand perfectly myself. He said, “No person that puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit or worthy for the kingdom of God.” Now as a country boy raised on a farm who has plowed, I know what that illustration is really saying. Because to look back, you’ve either got to stop the plowing and turn around and take a look, or worse still, try to keep on plowing and looking back, you can really make a mess of things and plow some crooked furrows. Now I’ve done that. I have to admit. I’ve been looking back at something that caught my attention and plow up about a 10’ space of cotton. You don’t want your daddy to be anywhere around when you do something like that. This thing of looking back causes people to mess up. That’s the simple way of putting it. This is what Jesus is saying. You better keep your eyes on what you are doing. You have to keep looking forward. You have to watch where you are going. You have to watch where you are leading and how you are plowing. I’ve graduated finally from mules to tractors, but the same principle applies. You can’t just sit up on a big tractor and look every which way and look back without wreaking havoc all over the field. That’s exactly what happens when some people start looking back and they quit following the Lord Jesus Christ. They mess up and they cause a lot of others to suffer. You know we still grieve over people who have turned back. I don’t have time to talk to you about illustrations from the Scripture and also from real life about the tragedy of looking back like Lot’s wife, who somehow became entangled and get their attention. Listen folks, this thing about living for Christ, and being a witness, and being a disciple, and serving the Lord requires absolute attention to what we are doing and following the One who is leading, keeping our eyes on Him. Oh, hallelujah!

We try to figure too much out. We make baubles, but as long as we keep in sharp focus, spiritual focus what is set before us, and that brings me back to the thought I opened with in conclusion. Jesus set His face to go to Jerusalem. It was going to mean suffering and death and He chose that. Nothing would deter Him. Nothing would sidetrack Him. Nothing would turn Him around. Nothing would cause Him, even if His closest disciples tried to rebuke Him and said, “Lord, not you. No, you’re not to die. No, Lord, it’s going to be a different kind of kingdom.” And He would have to say, “Get thee behind me, Satan.” Even if it was His own loved ones. John gives us the picture in his gospel of how His own brothers did not believe on Him and made some wild suggestions to Him. But Jesus had His face set. What I think that really means is what the lady said when she stood up and testified and she said, “I’ve got a made up mind that I’m going to heaven.” I think that’s what it means. I think somehow by the grace of God when we can actually set our face. One of the gospels gives the picture of a flint, like a flint, like an arrow that is shot straight toward its mark and nothing will deter it or turn it aside. When you’ve got your heart set, your face set, your mind made up, then nothing turns you aside. That’s discipleship. So following Jesus in discipleship means putting Him and His will as the most important thing in our lives. I’m not sure I can tell you how it feels to be out of God’s will. I feel like my wife and I have prayed earnestly in all our times and that we’ve followed the leading of the Lord and were in His will. But I have known some friends that got out of His will. I had one good friend whose father was one time the pastor of this church. He had a few problems. He was in a great church doing well, but he had some problems and he called the overseer and got an exchange and left. After he loaded up that U-Haul moving truck and started to pull out of that city, he stopped because his tears were blinding him and he couldn’t see how to drive. He got out and leaned across his car and wept like his heart would break. He told me, “Joe, I knew right then I was leaving God’s will.” He never seemed to find it again. He died with some bitterness and some disappointment at a young age with heart trouble. I would hate to be out of God’s will. I don’t quite know how to identify with somebody like that. But oh, let me tell you the most wonderful place in this world, regardless of the circumstances, is to be in the will of God. Not looking back, but going forward in faith following the Lord Jesus Christ.

Most of you in this house tonight have already done that. You’ve almost completed your journey. But even when we get closer and closer to the end, that is the time to keep in sharp focus what lies ahead and the reward that is coming. I’m going to ask you to pray that God would indeed help us to continue to do the perfect will of God in our lives.

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