Luke 10:27-28

The book of Luke in chapter 10, we’re going to be reading verses 25 through 29. Our focus in particular is going to be on verses 27 and 28. And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tempted him saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? and he said unto him what is written in the law how readest thou he answering said thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart with all thy soul with all thy strength and with all thy mind and thy neighbor as thyself and he said unto him thou hast answered right this do and thou shalt live but he willing to justify himself said unto Jesus and who is my neighbor. And God blessed to us his sacred and holy word this morning. In 1343, Pope Clement the 6th issued a papal bull which allowed for a liberal distribution of indulgences. pilgrims came by the thousands to Rome to purchase indulgences. And they make donations to the papacy. An indulgence was an official document issued by the Roman Catholic Church, which guaranteed the owner eternal life. Any past, present, or future sins would be. cleansed and you were assured of entrance into heaven. In other words, if you were rich enough, you could purchase eternal life. That’s what it boiled down to. Amanda Tetzel became a shameful trafficker in indulgences all throughout Europe. But what happened when they sold these indulgences? The result was that great graft, immorality, incest, murder, and other base sins overwhelmed Europe. Because people thought they could sin with impunity and still have eternal life. Indulgences are wholly without biblical merit, and I can guarantee this, no one was given eternal life by a piece of paper issued by the Roman Catholic Church. In our text, We find an important inquiry by this lawyer, by this legal expert in the law of God, asking what he must do, what shall I do, to inherit eternal life. Now that is an important question for us to weigh and to ponder carefully. Our Lord wisely pointed him to the scriptures to find the answer. What is written in the law? law. How read us that? Now this lawyer, we find, was actually tempting Christ. He was not asking an honest question. He did not agree with the doctrine that evidently did Christ talk, probably the gospel that he proclaimed. So this was an attempt, if you would, to discredit Christ in the eyes of the people. So he had bad intentions in asking the question. You have the lawyer’s response here to Christ’s question in verse 27 about the law’s teaching. And that’s what we want to look at to begin with. You find here the righteous demands of the holy law. And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, with all thy soul, with all thy strength, with all thy mind and thy neighbor as thyself. First, he deals with your duty to God here. Now, the lawyer actually ended up choosing the two great commandments of the law, which really provided a whole summary of the complete law. If you wanted to boil it down to two basic premises, here you have it. Jesus himself, on occasion, answered this way when someone asked him about the commandments of the law. Now, this first commandment, which is found in Deuteronomy chapter 6 and verse 5, relates to your duty to God, that you’ll love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind. Now, to some extent, I would probably say, these terms overlap one another. But the point is they express every aspect of your being. When all these terms are laid out, we could possibly look at the heart as affections, the soul, having to deal with your zeal or sincerity, the strength, all your might, and mind, your intellect. If we wanted to try to divide up a little bit, or try to divide it up a little bit, or try to to make some kind of division out of it. But this is the basic thrust of the passage. Now the language implies here that we have to love God with the totality of our being. Can’t be partial in this. It’s the whole person has to love the Lord God here. The most excellent and holy being that exists. demands, you love God supremely, above everything else, because he is your creator and your preserver. And if you know the Lord, he is your redeemer. You must prize the Lord. You must find delight in him. Your love must be sincere. It must be hearty. It must be fervent toward the Lord. All this is implied by this text. to scripture this morning. And when we think about it, if we have this kind of love for the Lord, it implies some type of communion or fellowship with the Lord God. That we would say with the Psalmist in Psalm 42, 1, as the heart pandeth after the water brooks, so pandeth my soul after thee, O God. To want to know the Lord God. To be close to the Lord God. To be close to the Lord God. or as the psalmist Asaph in Psalm 73 put it, Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there’s not on earth whom I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth. But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Now, if we have this kind of love for the Lord God, this is an active love. You can’t be passive with this kind of love. This is the love of God that we keep His commandments. 1 John 5.3. If you love God, you’ll keep His commandments. He that love the Lord, hate evil, Psalm 9710. You can’t be neutral and have this kind of love for God. This is what the law demands. Sadly, I have to say, there is not in the heart of any man by nature such a principle as this kind of love for God. This principle is only found in the renewed hearts of believers. The unregenerate or describes in Scripture as lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God in 2. Timothy 3, 4. They don’t love God. You don’t by nature love God. Without your mind being renewed, and without a renewed heart, you have no love of God in you? How can you love the Lord your God with all your heart if it’s not renewed? Or if you don’t have a renewed mind, it’s thinking God’s thoughts after him. My friend, this kind of holy affection that we’re talking about this morning must come from God himself. We read it this morning. When Russell read the scripture reading in Deuteronomy, chapter 30. What does God’s law say there? The Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart. Now that’s regeneration. That’s giving you the new birth, if you were. And the heart of thy seed. It’s an ongoing principle in each generation. This is what God will do. To love the Lord by God with all thy heart, with all thy soul that thou mayest live. God says, I have to do this for you or you can’t do. this. The New Testament declares it this way in Romans 5-5. The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which He has given us. If we have not the Spirit, how can we have the love for God that we should have? He produces it within us. The Holy Spirit brings you to acknowledge and belief of God and manifest to you through the Lord Jesus. Christ the truth about God and creates a love for God in you. Thus we love God. Why? Because he first loved us. Look at yourself. Do you love God as the Holy Law commands of you? Do you meet the high standard of the law? Or do you come short of it? Remember what Jesus told. certain of the Jews in John 542, I know that you have not the love of God in you. You don’t love God. Think about how unreasonable, how ungrateful, how ungrateful, how sinful, how sinful. It is not the love the greatest, the wisest, and the best of beings. And consider this. Not to have the love of God is to hate him and to be his enemy. So this is your duty to God. And it’s a high duty, is it not? And then he talks about your duty to man in that brief phrase, not only way to love God, but we would love your neighbor by neighbor as myself. What does this command of us? What implies certainly a benevolent disposition toward your neighbor? That we would respect his rights. That we would treat him kindly. That we’d have a sincere goodwill in our heart toward our neighbor, to seek to do him good in this life. We’d put away lying and speak truth every man to his neighbor, as the scripture says in Ephesians 425. That we would speak well of him and not speak evil of one another, James 411. Unless it’s absolutely necessary, we would not want to speak evil of our neighbor. You must be willing at all times to be willing to overlook their faults that they have. That charity would cover a multitude of sins. You must do all that you could, or toward your neighbor, or you can toward your neighbor, both with regard to his earthly good and regard to his spirit. good. So you must be rich in good works toward your neighbor. Willing to communicate or distribute to your neighbor or something if he needs it according to your ability. You help them. Now you should be anxious, certainly, about the salvation of the soul. That should be a chief concern. That’s as high as good that you would have in mind. In short, we would obey Christ’s command that’s found in Matthew 712, all things whatsoever you would that men should do for you, do ye even so to them. That’s the nutshell of that, isn’t, isn’t it? So this grace too, like the love of God, must be divinely implanted within your soul. It’s not found in a natural man. What does the scripture say? Paul describes the unregenerate man in this manner. in Titus 3.3. We ourselves also were at one time foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving diverse lust, pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. Boy, that says a lot about man, doesn’t it? Selfishness is the chief characteristic for the unregenergenerate man. He thinks about himself alone. He’s not loving his neighbor as himself. Christian loved your neighbor comes in connection with your love for God. What Paul said? You can’t love your neighbor, the person you can see in the flesh before you. Don’t tell me about your love you love God. You don’t love God. You don’t love your brother. You don’t love God. Love is of God and everyone that loveth is born of God. And knoweth God. 1 John 4th said. again, and thus we’re born, regenerate. How can we love our neighbor as ourselves? Now, here’s another very high standard, is it? So here are the righteous demands of God’s law summarized for us in these two commands. There it is. Now, second news from one. You should seek to be declared, you could seek to be declared righteous by perfectly obeying the law’s commands. Now notice verse 28. Jesus says, under this lawyer, thou hast answered right. This do, and thou shalt live. There you go. You got it right. Go ahead. God is not going to condemn you if you perfectly obey the law. You stand before God on the last day, and he’s going to judge you. Is he going to condemn you if you don’t violate the law? No. Now, this lawyer came to tempt and entrap Christ. But what he said is. said here was correct in this sense. Jesus says thou hast answered right. You certainly summarize what the law has to say in quoting these two commandments. Now, if any man should obey the law perfectly, he could have a legal claim to life. This do and thou shalt live. You want eternal life? There you go. You remember last week I quoted you, a similar statement in the New Testament about eternal life, and I told you about the Philippian jailer. This is slightly different than this man, and here’s the difference. What must I do to be saved? That word saved implies he’s lost, that he knows he’s a sinner, and he needs deliverance from his sin. This man does not use that language. even though he’s asking a similar question, how can I inherit eternal life? He’s doing it from a perspective, well, I think I can keep the law of God and therefore could earn eternal life. Because this is the typical view of the Jews at this particular time. I could just render obedience to God’s law and he will accept me. Here’s what the law says. Leviticus 18.5. He shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments which if a man do he shall live in them I am the Lord. Andrew Bonar in his commentary on Leviticus says this so excellent are God’s laws and every special minute detail of these laws that if a man were to keep these always and perfectly this keeping would be eternal life to him. It’s interesting that Paul uses this kind of language in the book of Romans also. Look with me at the book of Romans, if you would, and chapter two. Paul writes here in verse 1, therefore thou art an excusable old man. Whosoever thou art that judgestest, for wherein thou judgestest another, thou condemnest thyself, for thou that judgestest the same things. But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commits such things. And thinkest thou this, O man, that judges them which do such things, and do us the same, thou shalt escape the judgment of God, or despises thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance. But after thy hardness and impententent heart treasures up unto thyself, wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to every man according to his deeds, to them who by patient continuance and well-doing seek for glory and honor and immorality, eternal life. But under them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation, and wrath, tribulation, and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile, but glory, honor, and peace to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile, for there is no respect of persons with God. For as many have sinned without law shall also perish without law, and as many have sinned in law, in the law, shall be judged by the law. For not the heroes of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. The Jews, in condemning the Gentiles as violators of God’s law, those ignorant heathen, ended up condemning themselves, Paul says. Because they had the privilege of possessing the law of God, but that does not prevent guilt. It rather increases it, because now you know more of what God demands of you. God’s goodness in providing the law actually is to lead you to your repentance, to bring you to Christ. But God is a just God, and he’s going to judge every man according to their works. What he’s done, verses 5 to 13 here. Now, to those who by patience and well-doing seek for glory, honor, and immortality, God will give eternal life. Versus six and seven. But those who are self-willed and do not obey. the truth, but obey wickedness, there will be fury and wrath, verse A. And God is not going to show any impartiality in judging. It makes no difference you were a Jew or Gentile, verses 9 to 12. The privilege of hearing the law does not make you just before God. You must be a perpetual doer of the law to be justified before God. Now, you could look at this passage and say, isn’t Paul teaching, justifications? by works in this passage of Scripture? Well, this isn’t the case. The problem is, if you just stop in chapter 2, you might say, well, it seems like he’s saying that. We’ll get to chapter 3. Read verses 9 to 20, where he says there’s none good. There’s none that seeks after God. We’ve all violated the law of God. The whole world stands guilty before God, and so forth. His point here is, God is not going to condemn you if you perfectly obey the law. But you cannot perfectly obey the law as a sinful human being. What Jesus said to this lawyer was for the purpose of convicting him a sin. He’s no intention to thinking of this lawyer can somehow earn eternal life. He knows the man’s heart. But he needs to be brought to a realization that he’s fallen in Adam which makes it impossible for to him obtain eternal life. You know, back in the age of sail, if you were in the British Navy, and you got into trouble and got put on perpetual watch, that was like a death sentence. Because you may be up for days on end. And if you fell asleep, that was the death. They were put to death. So could you imagine being under the gun like that? That was a terrible situation to be under. Here’s the law of God. Keep it perfect. every jot and tittle of it. Love to God, love toward man. But if you fail, curse it is everyone that continueeth not in all the things that are written in the law of God. Right? What does that lead? It’s a death sentence. What else can we say? We’re guilty. Now, this lawyer being willing to justify himself in some way knows he has failed to perfectly keep the law of God. It’s interesting. He starts with the Second Great Commandment with regard to duty to man. Well, just who is my neighbor? What does that mean? He’s thinking back in his life and he’s thinking, well, I haven’t treated everybody as I should have treated him. Or else he wouldn’t seek to justify himself. He’s seeking to reduce the full demands of the law minimizes responsibility so he can say, I’m full compliance with the law. If I just reduce it down to my neighbors as my friends, my fellow Pharisees, or fellow lawyers, or something like that, I’ll be okay. This is a common ploy of those who seek to be declared righteous by keeping the law. Let it be noted here that God’s commandment is exceedingly broken. broad. Psalm 1196. An angry look is murdered. An unchaste desire is adulterable. Covetousness is idolatry. Sinful thoughts as well as acts are wicked in God’s side. And the scripture says your neighbor include your enemies. Matthew chapter 5 verses 43 and 44. Boy, doesn’t give you any wiggle room, does it? So once you learn this, you know, to be striking your breast and crying out with the public and God be merciful to me a sinner. That’s what should happen. The law’s purpose is to give you a knowledge of your sin that you may be driven to Christ, the Savior. And therefore, by the deeds of the law, shall no flesh be justified. in his sight, Romans 320. Never going to happen. God’s law shows you his righteous demands. And if you honestly evaluate yourself, you’re going to say, I can’t meet them. So you should seek to be declared, you could seek to be declared righteous by perfectly obeying God’s law. Let me make three points here in closing this before we get to our Lord’s explanation of who your neighbor is. And that leads us to the story of the Good Samaric, which we’ll look at Lord willing in the next study we have. One is this, you may have a clear knowledge of your duty to God and man and still be unregenerant. Think about this. This lawyer grasped the essence of God’s law. He knew what the two great commandments were. He knew that this summarized the law. He knew what his duty was. But this man, who was, knew what the scripture taught still has a heart full of wickedness. This man talks about loving God and his neighbor while actually tempting Christ and trying to discredit the Lord. It doesn’t sound like he loves the Lord with all his heart. And then he tries to reduce his neighbor down to someone less than every man he meets that happens. to be in need. He’s not keeping the law. Beware of having this kind of religion. Where you have knowledge of God’s word without an inner spiritual change, you’ve never been regenerated by the power of God. Beware of giving lip service to obeying God when your heart is still far from him. As Jesus put it, if you know these things, happy are ye if you do them? Jesus Christ. My friend, the only one who perfectly kept the law of God was Jesus Christ. As Paul declares, the law was our schoolmaster that bring us to Christ that we might be justified or declared righteous by faith. By faith. Galatians 324. Stop trying to be declared righteous by keeping the law. It’s impossible. You can’t do it. Confess you are a transgressor. Repetive. Throw yourself at the mercy of Christ. Who is the Savior of sinners? Who is the friend of sinners? The law’s purpose is to convict you of sin and direct you to the Savior. That’s what it’s for. Thirdly, the high standard of duty that’s found in the law is still your guide and rule of life as a Christian today. Should not you love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your mind and your strength today? Is it just for the Old Testament, saint? Is that it? Is it just you’re the Old Testament guy? I thought we were in a higher level in the New Testament. Jesus indicates that we need to do this. Do you remember Romans 828? We often quote it that all things work together for the good of them who what? Love the Lord. And I recalled according to his name. Paul directly quotes the need to love your neighbor as yourself in Romans 13, 8 to 10. It explains what it means. He goes through the different commandments. He’ll sum it up by saying, love your neighbor as yourself. He directs the New Testament Christian to do that. You see that also in Romans, or excuse me, Galatians 514 and James 2, 8. Do you love God in your neighbors the scripture requires? the best of us come far short of what is laid out for us here. I once had a man in the church who was attending and thought he could reach perfection. I think he had some Wesleyan background in his thinking. And he went to this Romans 2 passage that I read earlier and said, we see, you can do this. I said, do you need to read Romans 3? No, you can’t. I said, go ahead. And as I said, all I got to do is ask your wife. We’ll find out where you’re keeping the law perfectly. My friends, as we look at this, we realize what our duty is. It’s up here, and we’re down here. Then it ought to drive us to daily seek Christ’s blood and righteousness. And be thankful, my friends, that we have a Christ. who perfectly kept these commandments for us and find the forgiveness that he provides. May God blessed to us his sacred and holy word this morning. Let’s have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you for the scriptures and their teaching. We pray, Lord, that we might rightly divide the scriptures, properly understand them, and that you had blessed to us your word. We thank you. for the Savior, knowing that we could never possibly keep the law as you’ve commanded us. Why, we break the law even as a little babies, fresh out of the womb. And we are deceitful, even with our mothers crying out when we don’t need anything but their attention. We have no other need at all. We pray, Lord, that you would be with us. as your people, and that we would rejoice more and more in the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. For he is the one who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood. And in his name we pray. Now this morning, we’re going to observe the Lord’s Supper. And to that end, I’ll direct your attention briefly to the song of Solomon. chapter two I want to look at verse four now you would think it’s such a small little verse I could do it with one study but I’m afraid it took me a long time just to come to the conclusion I came to on the first part of this verse so we’re going to look at the first part of the verse this morning he brought me to the banqueting house and his banner over me was love now Christ in his bride are expressing mutual love one for another in this chapter. In the first two verses, we find this coming out. Christ’s people have delighted in his specialness, his shadow, and his sweetness. We saw that from verse three. But here the people of God rejoice in their fellowship with the Lord. In verse four. Now, this past is that. says that the Lord brings you to his banqueting house. Believe it or not, in my study here, we have all kinds of answers with regard to what this house represents by the different commentators. I’m going to give you, I’m a simple man, give you as simple explanation as I understand it. I’m going to take it the same way as I took chapter one in verse 17 when we talked about the house that is spoken of there. The beams of our house are cedar and our rafters are fir. In the Old Testament, the temple was the house of God, to which all the tribes of Israel assembled for worship. Mine house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations. Isaiah 56-7. Since our text speaks about the bridegroom’s house, I take it it refers to Christ’s house. In the New Testament, this is the assembly of God’s people for worship. We read in 1 Timothy 315, the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. Or, as we read in Hebrews 1025, not forsaking the assembling of yourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another so much the more as you see the day approaching. The members which make up Christ’s bride here, if we put it in the sense of the universal church, the whole number of the elect, are individually brought to local assemblies of the people of God as a place of worship and the place of edification. Christ walks in the midst of these assemblies as Revelation. chapter 1 tells us. He’s present when the people of God meet. So I’m taking the house here as the church, as the assembly of God’s people. Now it’s said to be a banqueting house. Literally, this means a house of wine, which suggests some type of joyous celebration with regard to this house. this feast. Even like the royal feast that Esther held in the book of Esther chapter 7 and verse 2, it’s called a banquet of wine. Now, when you go to a feast, there is an abundance of culinary delights. Every imaginable kind of meats and breads and vegetables and fruits and fruits and desserts are available to you. Now, if I could transfer that to the spiritual realm for a moment, and associate it with God’s assembly of people, Christ’s house. In Christ assembly, there are all kinds of spiritual delights to feed and nourish your soul. Isaiah 256 says, and in this mountain, speaking to the kingdom of God, shall the Lord. Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, and of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined. Like Paul said in Acts chapter 20, verse 28, take ye therefore unto yourselves, you as elders that I’ve gathered, into all the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God. which ye have purchased with his own blood. My friends, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceed of out of the mouth of God. There is such a thing as feeding, ye feasting, if you would, on divine truth. And the assembly of God’s people is where the banquet is spread by Jesus Christ. The truths and the doctrines of Scripture are so rich and abundant, they satisfy all the needs of the people of God. There’s milk for babes, and there’s meat for strong men. So tasty, so pleasurable, it’s the Feast of Christ that it’s sweeter than honey and the honeycomb. It revives, it refreshes those who participate. this gospel feast. All of it is full of Christ, the hidden manna, the bread of life, the living water. The banqueting. And then we read, he brought me to the banquet house. You are brought into Christ’s house by the Savior. The Lord added to the church such as should be saved. You were made a partaker of all the privileges of it. So that you are no more strangers in foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God. The depths in the mysteries of the Holy Scriptures Christ opens to you so that it’s no longer a sealed book, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened that you may behold wondrous things out of God’s law. This enables you to participate in the feast and the nourish your hungry soul. So the Lord brings you to the banqueting house. I think this is what he means. Three points here as we come to the table. Let me mention first of all this. You see how important, how essential the house of God is to the welfare of your soul. It’s harmful to forsake the house of God or to treat the assembly of God’s people within difference. Because it’s the place that Christ is appointed for the edification of your soul. Secondly, one aspect of God’s assembly being a banquet, banqueting house, is the Lord’s Sunday. Because you fellowship with the Lord and you do it in an intimate way in this sacred feast that we’re going to have this morning. It is nourishing to your soul. to draw near to the Savior. Christ brings you to this house. Does he not? So that you might partake of the sacred feast. He encourages you to come and dine. You’re welcome to the table. As a child of God, there’s no reason to be afraid to come because you’re unworthy to come. Who is worthy to come? Let us confess our sins. Let us come to the table. He brings us to the banqueting house that we may be fed and nourished spiritually from the Lord’s Supper, just as well as from the Word. So let us take advantage of that this morning. We always ask that you at first, I’ll speak with the Elton.