In this sermon, the preacher discusses the nature of sin and the commitment of the will to pleasing oneself. He then refers to a passage in Luke 14 where Jesus is invited to the house of a Pharisee and uses a parable to address the excuses people give for not repenting and receiving him. The three main excuses mentioned are family relationships, career ambitions, and possessions. The preacher emphasizes the importance of repentance and the need to prioritize our relationship with Jesus above all else.

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.