Luke 16:14-18 First Things First
Good morning! Let’s turn to Luke 16, verses 14-18, page 875 in the pew Bibles.
Last time we were together we looked at Jesus’ parable about the shrewd manager. The lesson from that passage was simply to use our earthly possessions for eternal purposes, to benefit the lost that they may come to know Christ.
Today we are going to look at a little section sandwiched in between two parables of Jesus that concern the right use of wealth that gets at the heart of the issue of the right use of wealth, and that is the heart itself.
I’ll warn you ahead of time that there may be some pitfalls ahead but I would encourage you to not lose sight of the point that Jesus was trying to make and not see the forest for the trees.
Let’s look at our text together.
14 The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him. 15 And he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.
16 “The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone forces his way into it. 17 But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the Law to become void.
18 “Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.
Let’s pray.
So Jesus had just powerfully said to this crowd of followers and Pharisees that they could not serve both God and money, that they could only be devoted to one and despise the other.
Now just imagine the Pharisees, who happened to all be rich, listening to this homeless wanderer, who was poor and was followed by the poor. What could He possibly know about the right use of wealth?
Verse 14 says, The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him.
They literally turned up their noses at Him. And to this Jesus replied, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.”
Now here is where we run into trouble. The Pharisees existed long ago and far away, but the heart of the Pharisee is alive and well. It is the heart that creates a system of religion that excuses itself from guilt of any kind and exalts itself as pleasing to God and acceptable in His sight.
The problem with this thinking is that it ignores the Word of God and the Law of God.
It exalts what people find, not just acceptable, but desirable. The Pharisees believed they were rich because God was pleased with them and they He somehow owed them recompense for their devotion.
Jesus says to them, and quite possibly to you and me, that this kind of thinking is an abomination in the sight of God. We don’t get to decide what God finds acceptable or not, we don’t get to decide how to please God, He has already determined it, recorded it, and it will not change no matter what.
16 “The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone forces his way into it. 17 But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the Law to become void.
This is a question that is often asked: what do we do with the Old Testament, what is its purpose now, for us the church?
The whole Old Testament, that is what Jesus is referring to, the whole Old Testament up to John the Baptist constitutes a whole, fully complete within itself, which now gives way to the Word of fulfillment that is the preaching of the Good News of the kingdom of God through faith in Jesus Christ.
The whole Old Testament points to the person and work of Jesus.
Alistair Begg said, “You are to read the Old Testament in light of the fact that God has made Himself finally and savingly known in Jesus.”
Jesus said in Matthew 5:17-19, 17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 19 Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
Have you ever looked at ancient Hebrew, the words and letters? It doesn’t look like English. There are all sorts of little swoops and dots and squiggly lines. Each of those tiny marks can change the meaning or the tense or the object of any of those words. Jesus is saying that not even the smallest stroke of the pen in the Law will become void, it would be easier to destroy the universe than to do that.
The Pharisees, who were supposed to be teachers of the Law charged with helping people to enter the kingdom were standing at the gates and trying to prevent people from entering by their teaching. People were having to force their way past them to enter instead of being welcomed by them into it.
The Pharisees were guilty of prodigalling, squandering, the Law and the Prophets.
Instead of using the Law to expose the sin of mankind, they twisted it, added to it, to build for themselves their own little kingdoms on earth. A sin that unfortunately is still alive and well and disguises itself as churches.
The purpose of the Law is to expose sin and the need for saving.
The most well known of all Bible verses is John 3:16. You can see it in the end zone of every football game. There’s always somebody in the crowd holding up a sign that says John 3:16.
And John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever would believe in Him would not perish but would have everlasting life.”
Many of us consider this the heart of the gospel, but is it all of the gospel?
If all people hear is, “God loves you, and Jesus died on the cross for you,” are they hearing the whole gospel?
It is in the Law that it is written, without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin.
Leviticus 17:11 says, The life of every living thing is in the blood, and that is why the Lord has commanded that all blood be poured out on the altar to take away the people’s sins. Blood, which is life, takes away sins.
Alistair Begg said, “Until men and women are confronted with the Law of God which shows them to be sinners, the idea of a Savior dying on the cross doesn’t really make sense.”
It is the Law of God that says to make God our first priority, to not worship any idols, to not take His Name in vain, to keep the Sabbath holy, to honor our mother and father, to not murder, to not commit adultery, to not steal, to not lie, and to not covet.
And we have all violated that Law, we have all sinned, and we all deserve the punishment that goes with our sin: death! That is the bad news that makes the Good News good! Jesus died that death in our place on the cross so that we don’t have to die, we simply trust in Him!
The Law shows us our sin and sends us therefore to Christ and then gives us a framework by which to live a life of gratitude to God for His grace to us.
But the Pharisees relaxed the Law of God where it suited them and enforced it where it suited them and Jesus exposes this in His last statement from our passage.
18 “Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.
The Pharisees, in their books, allowed a man to divorce his wife if she burned his dinner or if he found a prettier woman.
They twisted the design of God, which is one man, one woman, one lifetime, to suit their own desires and benefit themselves.
Now, as Alistair Begg reminds us, “This is not all of Jesus’ teaching on marriage and divorce but it is His teaching.” Allow the weight of these words to rest on your hearts because that was what Jesus was doing to the Pharisees. He was holding up the sanctity of God’s design and prescription in the Old Testament and confronting and showing those men how they had lost sight of it. Maybe we have too.
Warren Wiersbe said that, “Jesus is demanding integrity, total devotion to God that puts Him first in everything.”
And I would suggest to you no less: total devotion to God that puts Him first in everything, in how you spend your money, how you spend your time, who you associate with, what you allow in the windows of your heart. All of that must be in total submission to the Father, total submission to Jesus, by the help of the Holy Spirit.
The Law is our teacher. It teaches us who God is, who we are, what we have done, and how we need a Savior.
If you have never been confronted by the Law of God that shows you your sin and your need for a Savior until today and want to receive forgiveness for your sin all you need to do is ask Him for it.
Admit that you have sinned and turn away from it, and trust that Jesus’ death on the cross dealt with it and follow Him.
Amen.
