After having preached dozens of times from Jesus' trilogy of parables (the sheep, silver, and prodigal son) in Luke chapter fifteen, it aggravated me when I realized that I had never really considered the context of those parables. I mean, what provoked Jesus to utter them? And who was He talking to? The answers are shocking, but they are what they are and it is what it is!
Lu 15:1 Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him.
2 And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.
3 And he spake this parable unto them, saying,
The setting was probably a hillside or market place, but the actual location doesn't really matter. What does matter is that He was surrounded by a multitude of sinners, the outcasts, the riffraff of society. They were not heckling Him. They were not threatening Him. They had come to hear Him speak! There was a magnetic pull about Him. They could not stay away from Him. They found something in Him they had not found in any other person.
There was also a group of Pharisees there. The Pharisees were the super-duper religious that had fallen into the ditch of performance based religion (legalism). Jesus' comfortable acceptance of sinners angered them to the core. The Greek word for "receiveth" ("he receiveth sinners") implies that Jesus was intimate with them, or very tender with them; He held them close. The Pharisees couldn't understand this. They couldn't comprehend why Jesus desired to hang out with sinners! And they couldn't figure out why sinners would want to hang out with Jesus. They thought no teacher of religious things should be associated with such people. The rabbi was to be above such filth. Had He been ripping them to shreds they would have been cool with it, but He wasn't. He was loving them, laughing with them, and crying with them. He held their children. He blessed their mothers. He healed their sick. He spoke to them like they mattered. He handled them in a manner that they knew, without any doubt, He loved them and cared about what they were going through.
You must understand, the Pharisees had mastered the art of destroying the poor and outcast, but here was a man that enjoyed their company. They destroyed anyone that didn't look and think just like them, but Jesus didn't seem to even notice those differences existed. He received them. He loved them just like they were. Insomuch, He was in His element when He was with them. He was comfortable with them. He spent so much time with them the Pharisees started making nasty accusations against Him like those we find in Luke 7:34 where they called Him a friend of publicans and sinners! DID YOU HEAR THAT? THEY CALLED HIM A FRIEND OF SINNERS! HOW DARE THEY! He was much more than just a "friend of sinners"! In Luke 19:10, Jesus His primary purpose for coming to this earth was to SEEK and to SAVE the LOST!
Please, don't forget that the Pharisees were the religious crowd. They were the super spiritual. They were the elite. They were the little gods that made up their own doctrines and beliefs! The unadulterated Word of God wasn't good enough for them; it wasn't holy enough; it wasn't strict enough, so they added to it! And anyone that didn't adhere to their strict extra-Scriptural standards were sinners! They thought to be holy was to be a repellant of anything unholy. They thought the Word of God was merely an instrument of separation and rebuke. Yet there sat the God-man, the holiest man that had ever lived, surrounded by hundreds of SINNERS! Prostitutes lay at His feet, weeping! They washed His feet with their tears and dried them with their hair (Lu 7:38). Blind men screamed over top of multitudes, trying to get heaven's attention! Women with life threatening issues pressed their way through crowds to touch Him! Demoniacs lay at His feet, worshiping Him! This was who He was! He drew the lost, the broken, and the damaged to Himself like a magnet and the Pharisees hated Him for it. So, take note! It was the Pharisees and their harsh attitudes that had provoked Jesus to speak the three parables found in Luke fifteen!
And before I move on, just know that the Prodigal Son was not the principal target of Jesus' discourse in Luke fifteen. It was the elder son (the Pharisee) who stood on the outside of the Father's house while the younger son (the prodigal) was being restored on the inside of the house!
Not once did Jesus rebuke a sinner. Every single rebuke uttered from His holy lips was directed at the church going religious crowd. Isn't that interesting? Isn't that eye opening?
MODERN DAY PHARISEES
I have spent a considerable amount of time hanging out with Pharisees. I have been one most of my Christian life and birds of a feather tend to flock together.
You can recognize a modern day Pharisee a mile away. They add to the Word of God; the Word all by itself isn't good enough. Like little gods, they go to the pulpit and say things like, "I know the Bible doesn't say this is a sin, but it's still wrong. Because I think ..." The modern day Pharisee puts a greater emphasis on external holiness than they do internal purity because the external is easier to achieve and actually hides the lack of the other. In the modern day Pharisee's church, you don't have to be right, just look right. The modern day Pharisee actually boasts about having a small congregation. It is a trophy to them. They put notches on their belt buckle every time they run a Jezebel out the back door! "Bless God, I know we don't have a big crowd, but it's only because we preach the Word of God gun barrel straight and so tight you can hear it squeak! People don't come here because they can't handle real gospel preaching."
That seems to sound good to some people, but I find it perverted and, to be candid with you, insane. Think about it for a moment! We're supposed to believe that the gospel is what causes people to reject Christ, shun their churches, and go to hell? I know that Bible preaching will cause some people to walk away, but ninety-nine percent of everyone that comes in contact with us? Didn't Jesus command us to go into all of the world preaching the gospel, making disciples of all nations (Mt 28:19-20)? Why would He tell us to make disciples of all nations, yet equip us with a tool that brings about the opposite effect? Why would He send us on a mission to reach the lost knowing we were doomed for failure before we began? He wouldn't. Jesus attracted people and Jesus was a gospel preacher. In fact, Jesus is the gospel!
Luke chapter fifteen wasn't the only place that people flocked to hear Jesus preach the GOSPEL! In the fourteenth chapter of Matthew, Jesus got on a ship and went across a lake to encamp in a desert place. He was trying to find some solitude. The people were so desperate for Him they ran around the massive lake and met Him on the other side. Five thousand men, not counting women and children, sat in the burning sun without food or water just to hear the holiest man that ever lived preach about the kingdom of heaven! The same thing happened in the fifteenth chapter of Matthew, except this time four thousand men, not counting women and children, camped out in the hot sun for THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS without food or water! Some scholars say there were as many as 30,000 at either of these events! The following verse sufficiently describes the spirit of these scenes:
Mt 15:30 And great multitudes came unto him, having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, and cast them down at Jesus' feet; and he healed them:
Well, I could go on and on, but the facts of it are you're going to find this truth everywhere you look in the gospels! Jesus attracted people! You will also find this truth in the Acts of the Apostles. Everywhere the saints went, great moves of God came. Three thousand were saved in Acts chapter two. Five thousand were saved in Acts chapter four. By the time we get to chapter five, there were so many people getting saved the writer simply used the word multitudes.
The problem isn't holiness. The problem isn't clean living. God commands His people to be holy! God commands us to be distinct from the world! And the problem certainly isn't the gospel! The problem is Jesus isn't in the church and He fo sho ain't in the pulpit! If He were, He'd draw people to Himself. If He were, people would come from everywhere and sit in the most uncomfortable environments to hear His words. Wake up! We are Laodicea. While we shout and dance and celebrate our holiness, He stands outside the door, knocking, looking for someone to recognize they are poor, blind, naked, wretched, and have need of everything. No! No! No! It isn't holiness driving people away, it's hardness! It is arrogant fools that think they are God, but are actually very small, little, haughty men who destroy men and tear down the kingdom of God! Let us turn from our sins, pray, seek the face of God, and humble ourselves under His mighty hand. If we will, He will heal our lands again!
Jesus attracts people, do you? Does your church? Does your ministry? Does your life? If not, you need to repent! You need to ask God why? And then you need to make the necessary changes!
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