Sermon #121 Luke
Sermons
Title: “That Which is Highly
Esteemed
Among Men”
Text: Luke 16:13-18
Subject: Things Abominable to
God
Date: Sunday Evening—
Tape # Y-8b
Introduction:
(Luke
16:13-18) “No servant can serve two
masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will
hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. (14)
And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things: and they
derided him. (15) And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify
yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly
esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God. (16) The law and
the prophets were until John: since that time the
My message is found in
Luke 16. I want to talk you as plainly as possible, praying that God the Holy
Spirit will teach us the meaning of our Lord’s words in verse 15 and graciously
drive it home to our hearts. Our Savior declares (Lk.
Single
Heart
The Lord Jesus concluded
his parable of the unjust steward with these words, found in Luke 16:13:
― “No
servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the
other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve
God and mammon.”
I.
The lesson he here declares is unmistakable. ― If we would worship and serve our God, we must
worship him and serve him with a single, undivided heart.
“The Lord looketh on
the heart.” In all things concerning faith in Christ, obedience to our God
and worship, the heart is the principle thing. “The Lord looketh on the
heart.”
(Prov
23:26) “My son, give me thine heart, and
let thine eyes observe my ways.”
(Prov
4:23) “Keep thy heart with all
diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”
“The sacrifices of God
are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart” he will not despise. The
one thing he requires of all who come to him in faith is the heart, a sincere,
single, undivided heart. The heart was the one thing lacking in the rich young
ruler. The heart was the thing the Scribes and Pharisees would not give. The
heart the one thing none will give to God, except the Lord God create a broken,
contrite, single, undivided heart in us by his omnipotent grace. Faith in
Christ is the surrender of myself to him. It is giving up my life to him.
― Not a partial consecration, but the entire consecration of myself to my
God. Is that, or is it not, the doctrine of Christ?
(Luke
14:26-27) “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. (27) And
whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.”
(Luke
14:33) “So likewise, whosoever he be of
you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.”
(Mark
8:34-37) “And when he had called the
people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever
will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
(35) For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall
lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it. (36) For
what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own
soul? (37) Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”
The plain and simple fact
is ― “No
servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the
other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve
God and mammon.” ― We are not the servants of God, we do not trust Christ as
our Lord, if we do not give up ourselves so entirely to his service as to make
mammon, that is, all our worldly gain, serviceable to us in his service, his
will, and his glory.
If we love the world and seek to hold on to the
things of the world, we will hate God and despise his grace. Our worship of,
service to, and faith in God will be made to be subservient to our worldly
interests. We will use the things of God to serve the world.
If we love God and seek to hold on to him, serving his
kingdom and his glory, his Son and his gospel, then we will hate the world and
despise all that it offers. That simply means, when the world comes into
competition with God, we throw the world away and hold our God and Savior. We
make our business and worldly interests subservient to the worship of,
obedience to, and service for our God. We make the things of the world to be
neither more nor less than instruments with which we serve the Lord God.
Illustration: The
Preacher and the Businessman
It is a useless show of
hypocrisy to claim that we are worshippers and servants of God, when in
reality we only serve ourselves. God in heaven cannot be served with a divided
heart.
That fact is so obviously
revealed in the New Testament that dispute regarding it would seem to be
unthinkable. Yet, multitudes in this world try to do the thing our Master
declares is impossible. They try to be friends of the world and friends
of God at the same time. Do I speak to you? Your conscience forces you to be
religious. But your heart is chained to earthly things. You live in constant
unrest. You have too much religion to be happy in the world and you have too
much of the world in your heart to be happy in religion. You labor to do that
which cannot be done. You are striving to “serve God and mammon.”
· Whole-hearted, decisive
faith is that which our Lord requires.
· Whole-hearted, decisive
faith is that which is the key contentment and peace in this world.
· Half-heartedness brings up
an evil report of the good land and of God’s promise.
· Whole-hearted faith in Christ,
like Caleb, is of another spirit and follows the Lord fully, saying, ― “The
Lord will bring us into this land and give it to us.”
“The more entirely we live, not to ourselves,
but to Him who died for us, the more powerfully shall we realize what it is to
have ‘joy and peace in believing’ (Rom. 15:13). If it is worthwhile to
serve Christ at all, let us serve Him with all our heart, and soul, and mind
and strength…If we cannot make up our minds to give up everything for Christ's
sake, we must not expect Christ to own us at the last day. He will have all our
hearts or none. “Whoever will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God’
(James 4:4). The end of undecided and half-hearted Christians will be to be
cast out forever.” (J.
C. Ryle)
Sneering
Religionists
II.
When the Scribes and Pharisees heard our Lord’s parable of the
unjust steward and the conclusion he drew from it, “they derided him.”
― These lost religionists
turned up their noses in contempt at our Savior’s doctrine.
(Luke 16:14) “And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things: and they derided him.”
When the Pharisees, a
money-loving, money-obsessed bunch of religionists, heard the Master say these
things, they rolled their eyes, dismissing him as hopelessly out of touch.
These covetous men, these
lovers of the world, turned up their noses, made faces at the Son of God, and
sneered at him. They laughed and scoffed at his doctrine. These men professed
to be, and everyone highly regarded them as being, lovers of God; but that
which was the master passion of their hearts was the love of the world.
“These men were filled with scorn for this
poor, Galilean peasant who talked like that about money. To them, the teaching
Jesus had been giving was so preposterous that they could not restrain their
mockery.” (G.
Campbell Morgan)
There are many in pulpits
and churches around the world today who are of the same opinion. They are
moral. They are religious. But they tell us that such things as our Lord here
emphatically declares are not practical. What blasphemy there is in the use of
that word “practical”!
· When religious people talk
about “being practical,” “teaching practical things,” practical doctrine,” and
practical godliness,” what they usually mean is ― “We’ve heard enough
about Christ and his gospel. That no longer appeals to us!”
· When they talk about
devotion and consecration to the Son of God as something “excessive” and
“impractical,” they are only attempting to cover their own rebellion,
self-interests, and love of the world.
· Nothing, in all the world,
is more reasonable and practical than the whole-hearted consecration of our
lives to our God and Savior (
That man or woman who
loves the world, no matter how religious he or she may be, betrays himself by
the object of his affection.
(1
John 2:15-17) “Love not the world,
neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the
love of the Father is not in him. (16) For all that is in the
world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,
is not of the Father, but is of the world. (17) And the world passeth
away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for
ever.”
A
Biting Reply
III.
The Master had already stung their consciences. They knew he had
been talking about them. And, now, in verse 15, our Savior gives a biting
reply to their sneers. ― God
sees right through the mask of hypocrisy. He knows every man’s heart.
(Luke
16:15) “And he said unto them, Ye are
they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that
which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.”
Hiding behind the mask of
religious devotion, these men passed themselves off as being great lovers of
God and of his law. But their religion was nothing but a mask to hide their
covetousness, their love of all that can be gained in this world. Here, our
Lord unmasked the Pharisees publicly.
In essence, he is saying,
“You are masters at making yourselves look good in front of others, but God
knows what’s behind the appearance. What society sees and calls “monumental,”
God sees through and calls “monstrous.” In doing so, he gives us two, sobering
lessons, if we have ears to hear them.
A.
“God knoweth your hearts.”
B.
“That which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in
the sight of God”
That which is high in the
estimation of men is an abomination in the sight of God. That is to say, those
who attempt to justify themselves by their works, ever making a show of
religion godliness before men, are a stench in the nostrils of God in heaven,
who knows their hearts.
They are a stench in his
nostrils and all their religion is a stench in his nostrils. Their religion and
holiness, their devotion and ceremonies, their zeal and their prayers are a
stench to God! Everything by which they gain the applause of men as “holy,
devoted, godly people,” everything by which they gain the world they covet, is
an abomination to God.
What was our Lord
referring to here? Did he have anything specific in mind? Hear his own words and
see…
(Mat
6:1-4) “Take heed that ye do not
your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward
of your Father which is in heaven. (2) Therefore when thou doest thine
alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the
synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily
I say unto you, They have their reward. (3) But when thou doest alms,
let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: (4) That thine
alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall
reward thee openly.”
(Mat
6:5-8) “And when thou prayest,
thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing
in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of
men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. (6) But thou, when
thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to
thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall
reward thee openly. (7) But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as
the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much
speaking. (8) Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father
knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.”
(Mat
6:16-18) “Moreover when ye fast,
be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their
faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have
their reward. (17) But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and
wash thy face; (18) That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy
Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward
thee openly.”
(Mat
23:1-8) “Then spake Jesus to the
multitude, and to his disciples, (2) Saying, The scribes and the
Pharisees sit in Moses' seat: (3) All therefore whatsoever they bid you
observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works:
for they say, and do not. (4) For they bind heavy burdens and grievous
to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will
not move them with one of their fingers. (5) But all their works
they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and
enlarge the borders of their garments, (6) And love the uppermost rooms
at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, (7) And greetings in
the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi. (8) But be not ye
called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are
brethren.”
(Mat
(Mat
23:23-25) “Woe unto you, scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and
have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and
faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.
(24) Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. (25) Woe
unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the
outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion
and excess.”
(Mat
23:27-28) “Woe unto you, scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which
indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones,
and of all uncleanness. (28) Even so ye also outwardly appear
righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.”
(Mat
23:29-33) “Woe unto you, scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and
garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, (30) And say, If we had
been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in
the blood of the prophets. (31) Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves,
that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. (32) Fill ye
up then the measure of your fathers. (33) Ye serpents, ye generation
of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?”
God’s opinion of a man’s
goodness and his own opinion of his goodness are not quite the same. Your opinion of your
righteousness and God’s opinion of it are as different as heaven and hell.
(Isa
1:10-15) “Hear the word of the LORD, ye
rulers of
(Isa
65:2-5) “I have spread out my hands all
the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not
good, after their own thoughts; (3) A people that provoketh me to anger
continually to my face; that sacrificeth in gardens, and burneth incense upon
altars of brick (Altars of Works ― Ex. 20); (4) Which
remain among the graves, and lodge in the monuments, which eat swine's flesh,
and broth of abominable things is in their vessels; (5) Which
say, Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am holier than thou. These are
a smoke in my nose, a fire that burneth all the day.”
· God loves what men despise: ― Mercy! ―
Grace! ― Lovingkindness! ― and Faith!
· Men love what God despises: ― A Form of
Godliness! ― A Religious Show! ― and The Praise of Men!
(Psa
49:16-20) “Be not thou afraid when one
is made rich, when the glory of his house is increased; (17) For when he
dieth he shall carry nothing away: his glory shall not descend after him.
(18) Though while he lived he blessed his soul: and men will praise
thee, when thou doest well to thyself. (19) He shall go to the
generation of his fathers; they shall never see light. (20) Man that
is in honour, and understandeth not, is like the beasts that perish.”
Legalists
and the Law
IV.
In verses 16-18 our Lord exposes the legalists’ contempt for
God’s holy law. ― The fact is ― All
who claim to live by the law would destroy the law.
All who want you to
believe that they are holy, that they live by the law of God and make
themselves holy by their obedience to God really despise the law and endeavor
to destroy it by lowering it to their level. This is exactly what our Lord
charged against the Pharisees and all their followers in these three verses.
Legalists love to show
their obedience to the law, though they despise it inwardly. (Illus.
How often we hear legalists say, ― “If I didn’t believe I was still under
the law, I could go out and live any way I wanted to.” With their own words
they are judged.) Believers delight in the law after the inward man.
A
New Age
A. Our Savior declares, in
verse 16, that the law and the prophets have now been fulfilled and a new age
has begun.
(Luke
16:16) “The law and the prophets were
until John: since that time the
In the strictest sense,
the law and the prophets were not fulfilled until Christ died and rose again.
But John the Baptist appeared as the forerunner of the Christ, preparing the
way before him, announcing the beginning of this present gospel age. Since the
day John the Baptist pointed to him and cried, “Behold, the Lamb f God that
taketh away the sin of the world,” the types and shadows of the law have
been fulfilled.
The
The law portrayed eternal
things in the words of temporal things and spiritual things by carnal things.
The gospel deals only with the spiritual and the eternal. The old things of the
legal age have passed away. We are no longer looking for a kingdom to
come, but proclaiming a kingdom established, and pressing men and women into it.
· A Kingdom Established by
Christ
· A Kingdom Established upon
Righteousness
· A
· A
· A Kingdom Everlasting
Pressing
In
In the last line of verse
16 we read, “the
· Traditions
· Ceremonies
· Altar Calls
· Scripted Prayers
· Displays of Piety
So what does is mean? ― The word
translated “presseth” in verse 16 is used in only one other place in the New
Testament (Matt.
(Mat
Everyone who enters the
kingdom strives to enter in at the strait gate. He strives against all the
religion and religious duties, against all the saying of prayers and doing of
penance, against all the laws and ceremonies by which lost religionists would
keep them from Christ.
Word
Fulfilled
B. In verse 17 our Lord
declares that the Word of God stands and must be fulfilled in every
detail.
(Luke
16:17) “And it is easier for heaven and
earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail.”
Apply these words to the
Mosaic law or to the whole of divine revelation in the Old Testament, or to
both. They mean exactly the same thing. Our Lord is here declaring, lest any
foolishly say (as many do!) that since they are fulfilled, the law and the
prophets have been destroyed. Fulfilled is not destroyed, but fulfilled!
As all the law was exactly
fulfilled, so every Word of God stands forever. Not one word written in he Book
of God shall fall to the ground. God’s Word is sure and unalterable!
With regard to God’s holy
law, the preaching of the
(Rom
3:24-26) “Being justified freely by his
grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: (25) Whom God hath
set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare
his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the
forbearance of God; (26) To declare, I say, at this time his
righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth
in Jesus.”
(Rom
8:1-4) “There is therefore now no
condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh,
but after the Spirit. (2) For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ
Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. (3) For what the
law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own
Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:
(4) That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk
not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”
(Rom
9:31-33) “But
(Rom
10:1-4) “Brethren, my heart's desire and
prayer to God for
Committeth Adultery
C.
To enforce what he says in verse 17, our Lord declares to
these self-righteous, self-serving, mean-spirited legalists that the specific
law they were most flagrantly guilty of perverting, violating and trying to
destroy means exactly the same thing today as it did when Moses wrote it in
Deuteronomy 24.
(Luke
16:18) “Whosoever putteth away his wife,
and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is
put away from her husband committeth adultery.”
The Word of God
is crystal clear. ― Marriage is the lifelong union of a man and a
woman (Gen. 1:27; 24). Any man or woman who breaks that union, except upon the
grounds of or because of adultery or abandonment (Matt.
The Pharisees
were flagrant in their disregard of God’s law in this regard. The famous rabbi
Hillel, who lived during the days of Herod I, had the right to divorce his wife
if she burned his food! Another rabbi (Akiba) taught that a man could divorce
his wife if he found a woman who was prettier!
So commonly and
easily did these fine religious people divorce their wives and marry another,
that when our Lord’s disciples heard what he had to say about it, they were
shocked. ― They said, “If the case of the man be so with his wife,”
if a man cannot put away his wife for any and every cause as the Pharisees do
(Matt. 19:3), “it is not good to marry” (Matt. 19:10).
Does that sound
familiar? All this looseness and laxity, all this contempt for God’s law was
promoted by men who pretended to be lovers of it and zealous for it, while they
lowered it to their own level. In reality, they were men who simply used
religion and God and the Bible to gratify their own lusts, promote their own
praise, and secure their high esteem in the eyes of men.
Why here?
Many seem to
have great difficulty trying to figure out why the Lord Jesus said what he did
in verse 18 in this context. They think it is out of place, that it has nothing
to do with the parable in verses 1-13, the comments in verses 14-17, or the
parable of the rich man and Lazarus in verse 19-31.
They are all
mistaken. In verse 18 our Lord sticks his finger right on the ever-swelling
chest of every proud legalist, exposing his hypocrisy, and says, “Like the
unjust steward, you live for yourself. Your religion, your great piety, that
you think will get you into heaven is carrying you rapidly, headlong into hell.
And, soon, you who are so rich in your own eyes will lift up you eyes in hell
and see all God’s poor Lazarus’s, all these publicans and sinners who trust me
alone for acceptance with God, these who come to me at Mercy’s open gate as
poor, needy beggars seeking grace, these who feed with me at the Father’s
bounteous table, these you will see in all the riches of heavenly glory with
me. Then, then, you will remember your imaginary riches and good things to the
everlasting torment of your soul.”
(Mat
5:20) “For I say unto you, That except
your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and
Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.”
Oh, poor,
guilty, needy sinners, come to Christ as filthy, empty handed, naked beggars
and find in him the righteousness that God requires. Everything God requires is
in him. And God gives it freely to all who need it.
(1
Cor 1:30-31) “But of him are ye in
Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and
sanctification, and redemption: (31) That, according as it is written,
He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.”
Amen.