We're the dark.
So patient with us.
We learn line upon line, truth upon truth,
precept upon precept, that we must be told
over and over again.
And finally the word works its way into
our hearts and minds and lives and becomes
part of us.
We're asking that the Holy Spirit will be
very patient with us and gracious to us,
minister to us, until thy word having found
lodgment in our heart, having taken root in
our minds, will so direct and control our
ministries that we will truly bring glory to
the Lord Jesus Christ.
We want to be workmen that need not
to be ashamed.
We want him in us to see of
the travail of his soul and to be
satisfied.
So to that end bless us as we
continue our study together.
In his worthy name we ask it.
Amen.
Now we've been talking in the past about
repentance and I want you to turn to
Luke 14.
I think it's well for us to get
this in its dimensions.
Luke 14.
In verse 25.
And there went great multitudes with him, and
he turned and said unto them, 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.
And whosoever does not bear his cross, and
come after me, cannot be my disciple.
For which of you, intending to build a
tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the
cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?
Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation,
and is not able to finish it, all
who behold it begin to mock him, saying,
This man began to build, and was not
able to finish.
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?
Or else, while the other is yet a
great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and
desireth conditions of peace.
So likewise, whosoever he be of you that
forsaketh, not all that he hath, he cannot
be my disciple.
Salt is good, but if the salt hath
lost his savour, wherewith shall it be seasoned?
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.
Now we've been talking earlier about the nature
of sin, the essence of it, what it
is, the commitment of the will to please
himself.
Now we listen to the Lord Jesus Christ
as he did evangelism.
He did evangelism in his day and his
time.
A very interesting passage is this.
The 14th chapter begins with the first verse
that Christ was invited to the house of
the chief of the Pharisees to eat bread
on the Sabbath day, and they watched him.
And you remember the man came with Dropsy,
and he said, which of you has an
animal, an ox or a donkey, fallen into
the pit you won't straightway on the Sabbath
day pull him out?
Why should I not release this one who's
been afflicted with Dropsy?
And then he put forth a parable.
Oh, these were some friends that he had
there, to those which were bitten when he
marked how they chose out the chief rooms,
the chief seats, saying unto them, and he
tells them about the one who went to
the place of honour and then was asked
to move further down the table to make
room for someone better.
So and finally, seeing this company of people
with their excuses and so on, he tells
the story about the man who prepared the
feast and how they began to make excuses.
Now, obviously, the Lord had a sense of
humor.
Did you know that?
Oh, yes, he had a sense of humor.
Listen to this.
One of them said, can you imagine a
group of Pharisees that are listening to this
discourse?
And one of these that was invited said,
I bought a piece of ground, and I
have to go and see it.
Why, that's a side-splitting thing there.
Who in the world would buy the ground
and then go and see it?
What's the use if you've already bought it?
What difference does it make?
It's yours.
Whether it's short or long or too much
or too little, you're stuck with it.
You've signed.
And another one says, well, I can't come.
You see, I bought five oaks of oxen,
and I've got to go and see if
they can pull them.
Well, these rabbis, Pharisees, I'm sure got a
lot of enjoyment out of that one.
Who bothers testing them after you bought them?
You test them before you bought them, not
after you bought them.
And then the last one, I tell you,
I bet they almost want to roll in
the ground.
This one says, well, I'd like to come,
you see, but I married a wife.
Remember, she's probably about 15.
I married a wife, and the old girl
won't let me out of the house.
And I can't come.
She won't let me.
Well, he's just showing how inane and how
absurd and how senseless are the excuses that
men give for not repenting of their sin.
And coming to him.
And he goes immediately from this, in a
sense, ridiculous, but telling, cutting, penetrating insight into
the nature of men's reasoning.
And now he begins to put the knife
right where the pain is.
You ever gone to a doctor and said,
doctor, I've come to you because I've got
this very sore elbow.
And he reaches for the elbow you pointed
to and you say, oh, don't touch that
one.
That hurts.
Touch this one.
Well, that's what he's done with the disciples.
He's used a little humor to get them
to see himself.
And now he's telling them the conditions.
You see, the Lord Jesus never wanted to
con anybody.
He never wanted to fool anybody.
And he never wanted to bring anyone against
their will.
And he never wanted anyone to say, you
deceived me.
You didn't tell me.
I had a broad gate.
And then when I get into the woods,
I find a narrow way.
Why weren't you honest with me?
If you've got a narrow way, then give
me a narrow gate.
And if I don't like the gate, I
won't go in.
But you make a broad gate and it
funnels out of a narrow way.
That's not fair.
So the Lord always put the worst first.
And if they didn't want it, that's up
to them.
But he couldn't change it.
He couldn't alter it.
He couldn't revise it.
Oh, they could wait for it, hang around,
hoping he'd put in a bargain day special.
But he didn't have any.
And that never changed.
There's a rich young ruler.
Sell all you have, give it to the
poor, come follow me.
And when the boys started to wait, he
said, oh, well, come on, come on, come
on, hang.
I'm always trying to get somebody on that
one, but nobody seems to like it.
You just believe on me and everything will
be all right.
No, he let the young boy go sorrowing,
but he let him go.
Now, listen to what Christ said.
Listen to him carefully, and you're going to
understand what we've got to do when we
talk to people that we're preparing for grace
by the right and proper use of the
law.
Listen carefully.
I've already read it to you.
In the parable that preceded, he said there
are three main reasons why excuses people give.
What they possess, the land that they purchase,
that's a possession.
Their business and their families.
I married a wife, that's a family relationship.
I bought five yoke of oxen, that's a
business, a dredge business.
And I bought a piece of ground, that's
an investment.
And he said the three main excuses that
people have for not repenting, not receiving him
are, first, family relationships, second, career ambitions, and
third, possessions.
And he's used that telling, humorous approach.
Now he's coming, reversing the order, and he's
pinpointing what it really means.
At least, if any man come to me
and heed not his father and mother and
wife and children and brethren, yea, and sisters,
yea, and his own life also, he cannot
be my disciple.
Years ago, I had a preacher acquaintance and
friend who wrote a book.
I haven't written any books.
Books over my name are sermons I preach
that somebody wanted badly enough to type out
and have published, but I haven't written any.
Maybe the Lord's going to release me to
do it sometime, or help me to do
it, I don't know.
Maybe I've been released, I just need a
lot of help.
At any rate, this man wrote a book.
And he said in there, it's easy to
be saved.
You just accept Jesus.
But it's hard to become a disciple.
Well, you know, it sounded kind of good,
one of those catchy little phrases for which
I had an ear tuned and a vassal
memory, and I picked it up.
And I used it.
And one time after I used it, I
got to thinking about it.
And I figured I better go to the
scripture and find out whether that was right
or not.
I'm kind of like the old, old lady
that got a Jameson, Fawcett, and Brown one
-volume commentary on the Bible.
And after she'd had it a few weeks,
the one who gave it to her said,
Now, what do you think of that book?
Oh, she said, It's a wonderful book.
But it's just amazing to me how much
light the Bible throws on that book.
Well, it was amazing to me how much
light the Bible throws on a lot of
books.
And on this one.
So I went to the Bible to take
the word disciple and trace it through.
And you know what I found it means?
Learner.
Student.
That's all it means.
A student.
And what did he say?
He said, Listen, I don't want to fool
you fellas.
He's talking to the multitude, but he's aiming
back over his shoulder at the Pharisees and
us.
We're over his shoulder.
And he's saying to them, Listen, I don't
want to kid you.
You can't even get into kindergarten and start
learning about me until you understand who I
am.
What was the problem that Father Adam had?
Mother Eve.
He'd grown attached to her.
Didn't take long.
And when she came and says, I ain't.
Now it's up to you.
You either go with him or with me.
He made a choice.
He went with her.
So what's the first condition?
If anyone doesn't recognize that I'm God and
when you come to me, my Lordship must
transcend all human relationships.
You've got to know who I am.
I'm God.
I'm the same one that walked in the
garden in the cool of the evening and
said, Adam, where art thou?
Because the Jehovah of the Old Testament is
the Jesus of the New.
And he is saying, look, if you're going
to come to me, you've got to understand
that you're going to please me, even though
your father and your mother and your brothers
and your sisters and your wife or your
husband all figure that what you are doing
is hatred of them.
Now, he's not teaching positive hatred of these
people.
He's teaching profound love for him.
The essence of sin is I'm going to
please me and then I'm going to please
thee.
And I'm going to say, if it pleases
me to please thee.
And he's saying, now we get that all
turned around now.
When you come to me, you make a
commitment to please me, even if your family
interpret that as being hatred of them.
I went out from Maloot on the Nile
River where our station in school was, where
our home was.
I was asked to drive the TIGO and
the truck to bring the boys back to
school at the end of the break.
We went into one village.
A young lad by the name of Deng
was there.
He was a third year student in school,
one of the youngest student leaders.
He loved the Lord.
He was doing some preaching.
He was a very, very fine young man.
And when we came into the village, his
mother was there.
She was an older woman.
She had taken a broken piece of clay
pot and she'd cut her face with the
sharp edges.
She'd cut her breast.
She'd cut her abdomen.
She'd rub soot or ashes all over her
face.
And she was standing there holding on, clinging
to Deng.
And Deng had his little green basket filled
with his clothes and things he'd taken back
to school, and a woven grass rope around
it with a little loop.
And when we stopped, I could hear the
mother saying at the top of her lungs,
Deng, you hate me.
You hate us.
You hate your father.
You hate me.
You hate us or you would never go
back to that school.
The rest of the family were back there,
but the mother wouldn't accept it.
And this strong young man reached, took the
mother's one hand, and then he put her
second hand in his.
He reached down and took the loop and
handed it to boys in the back of
the truck.
He put one foot up on the top
of the tire.
He took a hold of the steel side,
and with tears in his eyes, he said,
Mother, I know you think I hate you,
but I love you.
I love you more than I've ever loved
you.
But, Mother, Jesus Christ is my Lord and
my Savior, and I love him more than
I do you, and I must please him,
and I must go.
I hope you will understand.
But, Mother, understand this, that I don't hate
you.
It's just that I love him with all
my heart.
And with that, holding her hand, he pulled
himself slowly up.
He started the truck.
He let go of her hand, and she
stood back there saying, You hate us.
You hate us.
For dang's sake, I don't hate you.
I love you, but I love you more.
That's what the Lord Jesus is saying.