In this sermon, the preacher addresses the question of why people should go to church. He explains that going to church is not just a commandment, but also a testimony of one's belief in Jesus and his second coming. Additionally, the preacher emphasizes the importance of community and the need to learn about the Lord and ourselves through church. He uses the story of Simon and the woman to illustrate the blindness that comes from not truly knowing the Lord and ourselves. The sermon concludes with an invitation to trust in Jesus, admit our sins, and respond to his invitation for forgiveness and rest.

We are reading the word of God from Luke chapter 6 and beginning at verse 36. Luke chapter, I'm sorry, Luke chapter 7. Luke chapter 7 beginning at verse 36. And one of the Pharisees desired him that he would eat with him. And he went into the Pharisee's house and sat down to eat. And behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus was eating in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment and stood at his feet behind him weeping and began to wash his feet with tears and did wipe them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had bidden him saw it, he spoke within himself saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him, for she is a sinner. And Jesus answering said unto him, Simon, I have some what to say unto thee. And he said, Teacher, say on. There was a certain creditor who had two debtors. The one owed 500 pence and the other 50. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most? Simon answered and said, I suppose that he to whom he forgave most. And he said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged. And he turned to the woman and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet, but she hath washed my feet with tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. Thou gavest me no kiss, but this woman, since the time I came in, hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil, thou didst not anoint, but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment. Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven. And they that were eating with him began to say within themselves, Who is this that forgiveth sins also? And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee. Go in peace. And may we find through Christ the same forgiveness and the same peace. When Dr. Luke wrote his beautiful book that we call the Gospel of Luke, the Holy Spirit led him to arrange it in a beautiful way. For example, in Luke chapter 7, you find three miracles. At the beginning of the chapter, you find the Lord Jesus healing the servant of a centurion. That's a great miracle. It's a great miracle to be able to speak the word and the boy was healed. I wish I could go from bed to bed down at Cook County Hospital and speak the word and see people healed. Then in the middle of this chapter, you find the Lord Jesus raising a young man from the dead. His widowed mother was taking him out to bury him. And Jesus spoke the word and the boy was raised from the dead. That's a greater miracle. It's a great miracle to heal somebody. It's a much greater miracle to raise someone from the dead. You say, well, Pastor, can there be anything greater than that? Oh, yes. You get to the end of this chapter, the passage that we read together, and you find the greatest miracle of all. Not the healing of the body, but the healing of the soul. Not the raising of the body from the dead, but the raising of the soul from the dead. My friend, the greatest miracle that Jesus performs is the miracle of salvation. And this is what happened. Simon the Pharisee invited Jesus to come to his house for dinner. And, of course, you realize that when they gave meals in those days, it was out in the open, out in the courtyard. And people could just come in and watch and be nosy if they wanted to be. At that table, the Lord Jesus performed this great miracle in the restoring and forgiving and saving of this woman. You say, what's so great about this miracle? Why do you say it's the greatest miracle of all? Well, for several reasons. To begin with, it meets the greatest need. The greatest need that people have is not for healing. The greatest need that people have is for forgiveness. It meets the greatest need and it costs the greatest price. It didn't cost our Lord too much to heal a sick boy or to raise a boy from the dead, but for him to be able to forgive this woman and start writing a new chapter in her life cost him his life on the cross. The miracle of forgiveness is the greatest miracle because it meets the greatest need and it costs the greatest price and it accomplishes the greatest results. The boy was healed, but one day he died. The boy was raised from the dead, but one day he died. This woman was forgiven and she was given brand new life down inside and, my friend, that lasts forever. And so I say to you, the greatest miracle of all is the miracle of forgiveness. Now, the tragedy of all of this is this. Simon the Pharisee was reclining three feet from a miracle and nothing happened to him. In fact, when the whole thing was over, Simon was in worse shape than when he started. Simon invited Jesus to come and have dinner with him and, as you know, they reclined on cushions. They did not sit on chairs with their feet under the table. This woman did not have to crawl under a table to anoint Jesus' feet. He was reclining there on cushions and she merely came up behind him and she began to weep and her tears became the water with which she washed his feet and her hair and the Bible says that the woman's hair is her glory. Her hair became the towel with which she wiped his feet. She laid her glory at his feet and then she brought the ointment and she broke the bottle and she anointed his feet and Simon couldn't understand this. A miracle was taking place just two or three feet away from him and nothing was happening to Simon the Pharisee. Do you know why? It's because Simon the Pharisee was blind. I don't mean physically blind, I mean spiritually blind. Jesus said to him, do you see this woman? The answer is no. In fact, there were three areas of blindness in Simon's life and these three areas of blindness kept him from experiencing God's miracle. And I speak today to some people who may have these same areas of blindness in your life. As I was praying over this message, I was saying, oh God, don't let me be blind the way Simon the Pharisee was blind. You say, what are these three areas of blindness that keep me from experiencing the blessing of God? Well, let's look at the first one. Simon the Pharisee did not really see himself. Now, most of us don't see ourselves. The Scottish poet said, oh, would some power of the gifty gie us to see ourselves as others see us. But I'm afraid that kind of a gift is not usually given to us. We don't really see ourselves. Simon the Pharisee reminds me of a verse back in the book of Revelation. Maybe you want to turn there. Revelation chapter 3 and verse 17. This verse could have been spoken by some angel when Simon was reclining there with that dour look on his face and that criticism in his heart. Here is this woman pouring out her love upon the Lord Jesus and here is Simon getting bitter and critical. And some voice from heaven could have quoted Revelation chapter 3 verse 17. Simon, because thou sayest I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing and knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. Ah, there it is. How many times have you and I folded our arms and stuck up our noses and said, well, I'm not like that. And some voice from heaven may look at us and say, oh, my friend, you don't really know yourself. That's one of the tragedies of life. We don't really see ourselves. Simon thought he was rich and yet Jesus said he was poor. In that parable he said here were two people who owed money and both of them were bankrupt. Simon thought he was comfortable and God said, ah, you're wretched. Simon thought that he really was wearing the robes of righteousness and God says, you know what, you're naked. Simon thought he really had vision and understanding. He had studied the law and God says, you know what, Simon, you're blind. Miserable and wretched and poor and blind and naked. We don't really see ourselves. Now let's ask the proper question at this point. Why don't we see ourselves? Why is it that when I look into the mirror, I don't see the same pastor that you see? Why is it when church officers sit down to discuss various things, we don't see ourselves as each other would see the other? Why is it students, when they sit in the classroom, see the professor one way and he sees them another way? A friend of mine who is a professional counselor, does a lot of marital counseling, told me, he said, it's amazing that any marriage ever stays together because in every home, in every marriage, there are so many points of view. He sees himself one way, he sees her one way, he sees the way she sees him one way, and she sees herself one way, and she sees him, and she sees the way he sees her. And you get six points of view between two people, you've got something. About that time, add a child or two and you really have something. Why is it we don't see ourselves? I can suggest some answers to that question. One is, we don't really want to. Remember the last time you had a photograph taken? I remember the last time I had a photograph taken. In fact, a friend of mine said it's time to have another one taken. And you get those proofs, the girl smiles at you and she hands you this envelope for which you paid so much money, and you go home and you sort these out on the table, and you look, and you look, and you don't like any of them. And your wife comes along and says, I like that one, not that one. The children say, I don't like any of them. And so you take them back to the photographer and you say, well, I don't like any of these. And he says, just what did you expect? And you say, well, I wanted you to do me justice. He says, sir, what you needed was mercy. We don't really want to see ourselves. That's the first reason. There's something about us that wants to masquerade. I think a second reason is that our hearts are very deceitful. Remember what Jeremiah wrote? Jeremiah said the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick. Who can know it? How often have you said, now if I know my own heart, and Jeremiah says, you don't know your own heart, it's hard for us to get to know ourselves because we don't really want to see ourselves. We want to see the caricature or the image, the picture that we've painted of ourselves. And our heart is so deceitful and sinful, we really can't see ourselves. I think the reason Simon couldn't see himself is because he had a surface kind of religion. Remember Jesus said to the Pharisees, you whitewash the outside of the tomb, you don't clean up the inside. You wash the outside of the platter, you don't wash the inside. Oh, he says, you blind leaders of the blind. And Simon had a kind of a surface religion, and he washed his hands carefully, and he paid his tithes dutifully, but he never really got down to the heart. And sometimes we're like this. We're satisfied with saying our prayers and reading our Bible and going to church. But you know, one reason Simon really did not know himself was because he didn't give the Lord a chance to tell him about himself. You know who knows me more than anybody else? The Lord. Far better than my wife and my children know me. Far better than my associates know me. The Lord knows me. He knows my thoughts before I think them. He knows my words before I speak them. He knows my down sittings. He knows my uprisings. I've had a few uprisings in my life. He knows them. And the Lord wanted Simon to get to know himself. And Simon says, No, I don't want to know myself. Simon was a blind man, and he was trying to bluff his way through the whole thing, and that's why I've called this message Blind Man's Bluff. And there he sat with his eyes open, but they were closed. You see, the only way to really get to know yourself is from the Lord. He made you. And the Lord gets us to know ourselves through His Word. The Word of God is a mirror. And how the Lord Jesus wanted to take the Word of God and hold it up for Simon to see himself. And Simon said, Nope, I have my religion, and I have my tradition, and I have my Pharisaical laws. Don't confuse me. The Word of God is a mirror. I remember preaching at a service some years ago, and a man came up to me after the service, and he was angry. That's always a good sign. And he looked at me and said, Who told you about me? I said, Sir, I don't even know who you are. He said, My wife has been telling you. I said, Sir, I don't even know your wife. But apparently, something in the Word of God had just held before him a picture of himself, and he was under conviction. The Word of God is much more than a mirror. The Word of God is a scalpel. Hebrews chapter 4 verse 12 compares the Word of God to a sword, to a sharp scalpel. The Word of God not only is a mirror for me to see the outside, but the Word of God in the hands of the Divine Surgeon, the Holy Spirit, is a scalpel, and He cuts away at the inside. He says to me, Have you ever had a heart operation? Well, I could use one. I'm going to open up your heart and show you what's there. I'm going to be a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of your heart. We don't really know ourselves. That's blindness number one. Now, because we really don't know ourselves, let's be very careful about bragging about ourselves and promoting ourselves and pushing ourselves. Let's just put ourselves into the hands of the Lord and let Him do the promoting and the pushing because He knows us far better than we know ourselves. I'm thinking of two men in the Bible who really didn't know themselves, one in the Old Testament and one in the New Testament. The Old Testament man is a fellow named Hazael. I said, I never heard of him. Well, he's there. He became king of Syria. Elisha sat down with him one day. Elisha just sat and stared at him. Wouldn't you just love that to have somebody just sit and stare at you? And finally, Hazael got a little bit embarrassed. He said, What's the matter? Then Elisha began to weep. He just began to cry. And the man said, Prophet, what's wrong? Oh, he said, I've been looking at you. You know what you're going to do? One of these days, you're going to pick up little children and smash their brains out against the stones. One of these days, you're going to take women and rip them up with a sword. And you know what Hazael said? He said, Is your servant a dog? That he would do things like that? In other words, he was saying, I'll never do that. But he did. When he became king of Syria by murdering the king, he did those things. You see, the Word of God comes to you and says, Your heart is deceitful. Oh, not me. There comes out of the heart all kinds of rock and filth. Not mine. The New Testament example is Peter. Jesus turned to Peter and said, Peter, before this night is over, you're going to deny me. Oh, you've got the wrong one. No, I'm sorry, Peter, you're the one. Be it far from me, Lord. I'll go to prison and death with you. No, but he didn't. You see, we don't know our own hearts. Therefore, it pays to listen to what God has to say about our hearts. The first area of blindness, we don't really know ourselves. Now, there's a second area of blindness. We don't really know each other. This woman came in, and everybody was embarrassed because she was a prostitute. Now, whenever these Pharisees had these feasts, it was public. They didn't invite the whole town. But the poor people often came and looked. They'd watch them eating, and they were rejoicing at the table. And in comes this woman, and everybody became very quiet. You remember when you were just a little child, whenever Mother was going to have somebody special home for dinner, she'd say, now, look, you behave. We're having guests for dinner. Now, you behave. And the first thing you did after they said grace was knock over a glass of milk. And you got that look across the table. They were embarrassed. And this woman comes in and begins to anoint the Lord Jesus. And instantly, Simon condemned the woman. Instantly. Why? If this man were really a prophet, he'd know the kind of woman she is. She's a sinner. You see, he didn't really know this woman. He was judging her by her past and not by her present. We do this as Christians. Oh, I remember what he did four years ago. Ah, but maybe he's gotten that straightened out with the Lord four years ago. Some Christians have memories like an IBM machine. I remember a couple I counseled for many years, and she could remember everything. My, oh, my. She knew where it happened, what the barometric pressure was, when it happened, what words he said. She knew all about it. And Jesus Christ looked at this woman, and he saw not her past, but her present and her future. Simon looked at her and said, oh, I know her. She's a prostitute. There's something about us that doesn't want people to change. The good news of the gospel is that nobody has to stay the way he is. And this woman heard the gospel, and she believed and was saved. But Simon wouldn't let her change. He looked upon her past and not upon her present. More than that, he looked upon the outside, not the inside. And we do this. We don't really know each other. In the upper room, Jesus said, one of you is going to betray me. And they looked at each other and said, Lord, is it I? Judas had been with the Lord Jesus for some three years, and no one in the band of the disciples knew that Judas was the one who was going to betray him. When Jesus said, Peter, you're going to deny me three times, the apostles were shocked. Our Lord's next words were, let not your heart be troubled. They said, no, it can't be Peter. If anybody's got courage, it's Peter. We don't really know each other. He judged her by the past, and he judged her by the outside, not by the inside. You see, if you take Simon, the Pharisee, and put him here, and you take the woman and put her there, you couldn't find two more opposite people. A man, a woman, a rabbi, a prostitute. The Jewish Pharisees would get up in the morning and say, oh God, I give thanks that I am a Jew and not a Gentile. I give thanks I am a man and not a woman, and that I am free and not a slave. He was at the very height of the religious ladder. She was at the very bottom of not only the religious ladder, but the social ladder, and the moral ladder. He was rich. She was poor. And yet when the Lord Jesus looked at him, at Simon the Pharisee, he said, you're poor. He looked at her and he said, you're rich. He said to Simon, you're miserable. He said to her, go in peace. He said to Simon, you're lost. He said to her, you're forgiven. We don't really know each other. God sees the heart. That's why Jesus told this story. It says in the passage that Jesus answered and said to Simon, verse 40, and Jesus answering said to Simon, but Simon hadn't said anything to Jesus. Jesus was answering his heart. Simon was looking at this woman and saying, about the Lord Jesus, this man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him. She's a sinner. She's a sinner. And instantly my Lord responds to that and says, Simon, I want to tell you a story. There are two people who owed money. One owed $80, the one owed $8. Neither one of them could pay. And so the man said, I'll forgive both of you. In fact, the word that's used up in verse 42, the word frankly forgave, means graciously forgave. He graciously forgave them both. Now he says, which of these two will love him the more? And somewhat contemptuously, Simon says, oh, I suppose the one who owed him the most. Jesus said, you've told the truth. Now let me explain something about this parable. Jesus is not saying that Simon owed $8 because he was moral, and the woman owed $80 because she was immoral. Our Lord's not talking about the amount of debt that we owe. How much sin does a person have to commit to be in debt to God? What he's saying here is this, Simon, you don't really have a conviction of sin. You don't really have a sensitivity to sin. Simon, you don't realize how much in debt you are. This woman realizes her debt. Oh, Simon, you're guilty of sin. Hers may be sins of the flesh, but yours are sins of the spirit, pride, criticism, hypocrisy, self-righteousness. Her sins are known publicly. Yours aren't, but God knows them. See, the difference between the $8 and the $80 is not the difference between much sin and little sin. We've all committed a lot of sin. It's the difference of the consciousness of sin. This woman came and said, oh, I owe so much. Simon said, I don't owe as much as she does. And by so saying, was really saying, I owe more than she because I don't realize my own debt. We don't really know each other. We look at the outside and we look at the past. Jesus looks at the inside and He looks at the future. He didn't come to condemn this woman because her past was so sordid. He came to cleanse this woman and to give her a brand new future. And that's what the Gospel is all about. Now, this woman was not saved because she wept. Nowhere does Jesus say, because she wept, she's saved. Oh, no. He says, her love is an evidence of her faith. And because she has faith in Me, she has been changed. And having been changed, she comes now and she adores Me because of what I've done for her. You can't tell it in the Gospel of Luke, but if you were to get a harmony of the Gospels, that's a book that harmonizes the four Gospels. If you were to read this passage, you'd discover an interesting thing. You know what Jesus said just before this dinner? It's interesting. He was out in the marketplace of Capernaum. And here's what He said, Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. And out there in that crowd was this woman. She said, that's what I've been looking for. I've been wearing this yoke all of my life. And she put her faith in Jesus Christ and she was saved. Jesus left the marketplace and went to Simon's house, and the woman came in to say, Thank you. How was she saved? By believing the Word of God. How was she saved? By trusting the Son of God. How do we know she was saved? Because there was a change in her life outwardly. She showed her love to the Lord Jesus. But Simon didn't really know this woman. It would have been a good thing for Simon to get acquainted with this woman. A Pharisee? Yes. A Jewish rabbi? Yes. A rich man? Yes. He could have learned a lot from her. If Simon would have turned to Jesus and said, Lord, I need what you did for her. I'm a sinner. Oh, what a fellowship they could have had together. We don't really know ourselves. We think we're rich, we're poor, bankrupt. We don't really know each other. We criticize each other. We condemn each other. But the basic blindness that Simon had, area number three, Simon did not know himself, and he did not know the woman, and he did not know the Lord. He couldn't really see the Lord Jesus. That's the problem with the whole thing. That's the root of every difficulty. When we really know the Lord, then we know ourselves. And when we really know the Lord, then we get to know other people. And in the Lord, we get to know ourselves and other people, and the better we know each other, the better we know the Lord, and the better we know the Lord, the better we get to know each other. That's what the church is all about. A couple of years ago, a student came up to me, and he said, Preacher, I want to ask you a question. I said, Go to it. He said, Why go to church? That's a good question. He said, I can stay home. I've got tapes of the greatest preachers in the country. I said, You probably have. I can turn the radio on, turn TV on, and get just as good music, maybe better, just as good preaching, maybe... Why go to church? I said, Well, for one thing, we're commanded to go to church. Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together. It says Hebrews 10. I said, In the second place, it's a testimony that Jesus is alive, and you believe He's coming again. I said, Thirdly, we need each other. We don't go to church just to get. We go to give. We go to learn about the Lord Jesus, and learn about ourselves. In New York City some years ago, a child psychologist separated a group of infants in a foundling home, and they were given no personal attention. Everything that was done for them was done very mechanically, very impersonally. They were never picked up and loved. They were never hugged. They were never talked to. They were fed, clothed, cleansed, and that's it. Another group of infants were loved, and coddled, and babied, and kissed. You know what? The group that was ignored had more disease, more mental problems, and more social problems than the group that was loved. They both had the same food, same clothes, same everything, except one group was ignored. That's just true with Christians. A Christian who tries to live an isolated life does not get to know himself. That Christian who comes to church and says, Well, I'm better than this crowd, he's not going to grow. That one who likes Simon categorizes people. He said this. He did this. He did that. She did this. That's not Christianity. If you really know the Lord, then you want to get to know other people. That's what church is all about. We worship the Lord, and in worshiping the Lord, we're drawn closer to each other. And in being drawn closer to each other, we get to know each other better. And in getting to know each other better, we get to know ourselves better. And we respond to love, and love responds to us. And then we respond to the Lord, and we grow. That's what church is all about. But Simon didn't really know Jesus Christ. This man, if he were a prophet, would know this woman. And all the while, Jesus not only knew the woman, He knew Simon. He was reading Simon's mind. And because Simon didn't get to know Christ, he didn't get to know himself. And because he didn't get to know himself, he didn't get to know this woman. And he missed out on a miracle. Now what is all of this saying? It's saying this. The most important thing in life is being able to see. Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God. Paul says, I pray that the eyes of your heart being opened, that you may see what is the riches of His calling. God wants us to see. God does not want us to walk around blind. God wants us to see ourselves. That's where revival starts. God wants us to see each other. To realize the fellow sitting next to you has got a broken heart, and you don't even know it. That girl you've been criticizing so severely is going through difficulties that you have no idea what it's like. Our Indian friends say, don't judge a man until you have walked in his moccasins for one week. I think there's a lot of truth to that. We need to get to see ourselves, and get to see each other, and get to see the Lord. That's where it all starts. Had Simon said, Oh, teacher, I'm a sinner. I've been hiding behind my facade, my masquerade of religion. Oh, Lord Jesus, I'm a sinner. I'm a worse sinner than she is. I've had better opportunities than she's had. I've sinned against a flood of light. Oh, I need to be forgiven. Had Simon said that, the Lord Jesus would have turned to him and said, I forgive you. Graciously, I forgive you. Simon, I'm glad you've discovered you're in debt. I'm glad you discovered you're bankrupt. I forgive you. And then Simon would have turned to that woman and said, I want to apologize to you. I was ready to get up and throw you out of here, but you know, you brought a blessing into my home. I want to get to know you better. Can I help you get started in any way? You've had a rough life. I've got money. Can I help you get started in any way? Is there something we can do to help each other? Here is a religious, rich Pharisee. Here is an immoral, poor prostitute. What do they have in common? Whatever brought them together? Jesus Christ. Isn't that amazing? How the Lord Jesus Christ, by his grace and his forgiveness, brings people together who by every law ought to be kept apart. He's still doing that. It's the miracle of forgiveness. The greatest miracle in the world. The miracle of changing people's lives. Changing people's attitudes. I would hate for someone to be in Moody Church today and be three feet away from a miracle and miss it. It could happen to you. Perhaps you've never trusted the Savior. Then you ought to come and trust him. Perhaps you've never honestly admitted, Oh Lord, I am in debt and bankrupt. Then admit it. Perhaps you've never responded to his invitation, Come, and I'll give you rest. Wouldn't it be wonderful if Jesus could say to your heart today, Go in peace. You've been fighting a battle, but go in peace. Your sins are forgiven. He'll say that to you if you'll open your heart to him. And wouldn't it be wonderful if some of us who are saved would get our eyes opened and really see ourselves, and really see each other, and really see the Lord. Gracious Father, may the word do its work in our hearts as we need it. If there are those here who need to be saved, help them to come and trust Christ. If some have strayed away and become backslidden, Oh God, may they confess sin and be cleansed. If you're speaking to some about service, if you want to talk to us, Lord, about our attitudes, do whatever needs to be done. We pray, Father, that we might truly have our eyes opened. Deliver us from blindness. May we walk in the light and share in the love. We pray through Christ our Lord, Amen.