Luke 5:27-32 “After
this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi
sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, and
Levi got up, left everything and followed him. Then Levi held a
great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax
collectors and others were eating with them. But the Pharisees and
the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his
disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and
sinners?” Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a
doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but
sinners to repentance.”
After reading this
I asked the question, “How does one know he is sick?” A doctor
examines the patient and then provides his diagnosis. Scripture is
clear on our diagnosis – All have sinned and are dead
in transgressions and sins (Rom 3:23; Eph 2:1,2). How about the
examination? Has God in His Word given humanity the means enabling us
to recognize our condition? I believe He has.
Luke
18:9-14 "He
also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they
were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up
into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax
collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I
thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust,
adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I
give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far
off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast,
saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man
went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone
who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself
will be exalted.”
How many times
have we seen, or been involved in, conversations about others? This
group we see, or are a part of, is basically destroying the character
of another and that person is usually not there. There is a
self-righteous atmosphere amongst the people doing the talking. This
other person who is not there is usually portrayed as the most vile,
evil, stupid person to have ever breathed oxygen on this planet. The
attitude portrayed by those doing the talking is one of smug
confidence in their own moral greatness and virtue. They are masters
at seeing every single fault, real or imagined, in other people, but
lousy when it comes to recognizing their own. This attitude is
summed up in the individual when they say, “I am a good person.”
It is this principle that I believe is active in every single one of
us. We are great at seeing sin in others, but lousy at seeing it in
ourselves. We magnify it in others, but when it comes to our own
lives there is very little to be seen. When we measure ourselves
by Scripture (the examination) what do we see (the diagnosis)?
To
recognize our condition we have been given a great tool – the Law.
Romans 3:20
says,
“Therefore no
one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the
law; rather, through the law we become conscious of
our sin.”
I'll repeat that - Through the Law we become conscious of our own
sin. So lets look at the Law, particularly the 10 Commandments, and
see how we do.
Even the most
cursory glance causes the sinner to quickly realize the truth of
Romans 3:23 – ALL have sinned!, and that “ALL” includes
YOU...and it includes ME. But the sinner might look at these and not
see what is really there. Jesus gave us more info on these, His
interpretation.
Regarding
the 6th Commandment, in Matthew
5:21,22
He says, “You have heard that it was said to those
of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable
to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry
with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever
insults his brother
will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You
fool!’ will be liable to the hell of
fire.” Sure, you haven't
killed anyone. Have you ever been angry with anyone? If you say you
haven't, I'm pretty confident in saying that you've just broken the
9th Commandment.
How about the 7th Commandment?
Jesus said in Matthew
5:27,28 “You
have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But
I say to you that everyone who looks
at a woman with lustful intent has
already committed adultery with her in his heart.” If
you've even looked at another person with sexual lust in your heart,
even if you haven't committed the act, according to Jesus you're
guilty of breaking the Law.
How about number 8? Have you
ever stolen anything? Number 9? Have you ever lied? James
2:10 says, “For
whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is
guilty of breaking all
of it.” So, based
on this examination you are a murderer, adulterer, liar and a thief.
That's just four of the Commandments that you are guilty of breaking
in the sight of God. In the sight of God YOU are GUILTY of breaking
His law!
We have now entered the realm of
what is being described these days as “hate speech”. It is at
this point that people react. You can't do this with a homosexual or
lesbian without hearing “hate speech”, or “bigot”, or
“homophobe”. But whether you do this with the aforementioned
sinners or any other “sinner group” or the individual sinner, the
Christian's desire is not to make himself appear better because he is
so holy and righteous and wonderful. The Christian's desire is that
the sinner will hear God's diagnosis of his illness and seek the
Remedy, the Cure. This is how the sick find out they are sick.
Jesus came for the sick (sinners) and to call them to repentance.
The attitude of the sinner at this point should be like that of the
tax collector in Luke 18.
Another aspect of the sinner's
attitude I want to address has to do with the person who says in
effect, “When I stand before God I'm hoping He will see the good
things I've done and let me into Heaven.” I picture a person
standing before a judge and presenting himself in this wonderful
light, hoping the judge will make a judgement in his favor. The
problem with this is that, using this scenario, the judgment has
already been passed.
The gavel has been
pounded. There are no
appeals. Jesus said in John
3:18 “He who
believes in him is not judged; he who does not believe has
been judged already because he has not believed in the
name of the only begotten Son of God.”
When the sinner stands before God at the judgement that is it!
Ezekiel 18:20
says, “The soul who
sins shall die.” There
is nothing that he can do but be tossed into the lake of fire (Rev
20:15). This is the default position of all humanity – guilty
sinners on their way to the lake of fire. What can be done? How can
you escape? Is there any hope for you? THIS is the very point of
the Christian's desire. Not hate speech. Love speech! You now know
you're sick. THIS is what Jesus was getting at. He came for the
express purpose of calling SINNERS to repentance that He might save
them!
To the ones who have heard and
seen themselves in the mirror of God's Law and still remain as they
are, there is this warning: “But because of your hard and
impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of
wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. He will
render to each one according to his works...” (Romans
2:5,6).
“Storing up” in the Greek is thēsaurízō,
and it is used in the sense of gathering and laying up, to heap up,
store up: to accumulate riches. I live in an area of the world that
has lots of farmers. Every Spring they plant their fields and in
August they harvest. When they bring the seed from the field they
store it in huge bins. My unrepentant friend, YOU are like a grain
bin and you are continuing to store up wrath for yourself. Wrath
that God will bring down on you at the Judgement. Instead of coming
to Christ in repentance and having Him pay your sin debt, YOU will
now have to pay it yourself, and this is a debt that you can NEVER
repay.
John 3: 16-18a says,
“For
God so loved the world, that he gave his
only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have
eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn
the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
Whoever believes in him is not condemned...”
This call goes out to everyone! Salvation is for EVERYONE who
believes in Him. It was these very verses that God used to open my
eyes to His salvation. I thought that I was so awful that God would
want nothing to do with me and these verses put those fears to rest.
He came, not to condemn me (I was already
condemned!), but to save me. He took my sin upon Himself and was
nailed to the cross. In exchange for my sin His goodness, His
righteousness was given to me, credited to me and because of what He
has done God declared me righteous. 2
Corinthians 5:21 says,
“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so
that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Philippians 3:9
says, “and be found in him, not having a righteousness of
my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in
Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith...”
Ephesians 2:1-9
“As for you, you were
dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when
you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom
of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are
disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying
the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts.
Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of
his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with
Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you
have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with
him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the
coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace,
expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace
you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves,
it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.”
Here's a great song by David Wesley to finish this off.
