Now please if you would turn with me again to those remaining verses in Luke chapter 11 verses 37 through 54. Apostate clergyman. Remember as we go through these verses and consider these men of whom the Lord Jesus speaks to here, be mindful please that the wealth of these men was not honestly and not humanely attained. In Luke chapter 20 and verses 46 and 47, the Lord Jesus warns people again Beware of the scribes, which desired to walk on long robes, they liked the fancy clothes, and loved greetings in the markets, they loved to be bowed and scraped to, and the highest seats in the synagogues, and the chief rooms at feasts. which devour widows' houses, and for a show make long prayers, the same shall receive greater damnation." It was off the back of poor people. It was off the back of widows and the like. that they gained their wealth. And it's a known historical fact that when Jerusalem was raised to the floor, was destroyed in AD 75 in the judgment of God, that vaults were found that were filled with millions, millions, in terms of monetary value. This is the last few weeks of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. And tension, of course, is mounting. It's very high. And here Jesus, he's invited to a meal. And it would seem, anyway, it would seem, on taking the words at face value, it would seem that no hostile motive is intended in the invitation. But there are others present too that obviously have been invited. There are Pharisees, there are scribes, lawyers, and no doubt some of them maybe even Sadducees. But as you read these words in our own sort of environment, our own culture, you would think to yourself, well this is not polite. and it's certainly not politically correct as we would say today to accept an invitation for a minister of the gospel to accept an invitation and then to start raiding people over the religion but I suggest to you such is the integrity such is the integrity, the utter honesty of the Lord Jesus Christ that he will not stay quiet He will not remain quiet in the face of evident and outright heresy and even apostasy. Because not only are these men thieves, they are soul murderers. They are responsible for the damnation of their entire nation. The purpose of religion, as far as these men are concerned, it was something to use for their own ends, for their own personal gain, and to manipulate other people. It's nothing less than hellish religion. The reality of their apostasy, verses 37 through 40. I won't read the verses again. But the Lord Jesus, the scene is, the Lord Jesus goes and he sits down to the meal with them, but he doesn't wash his hands. Now, this does not preclude good hygiene. My granny always taught me that before I had a meal, I had to wash my hands and my granny was never wrong. But the Lord Jesus, it's more than hygiene that's involved here. Jesus has no problem with hygiene. This is a deliberate action on his part. He deliberately does not wash his hands and he deliberately goes and sits down in order to offend these men because of their rabbinical ritual. Verse 38. When the Pharisee saw it, he marveled. He was astonished. that he had not first washed before dinner. He's astonished because the Pharisees, because these apostate clergymen they had strict rules regarding meals that had been handed down by prominent rabbis in former days. It was their tradition handed down from generation to generation and like a snowball as it goes on it gets bigger and bigger it grows and grows as it rolls. They had many, many minute ceremonial rules regarding hundreds and hundreds of matters that were constantly being passed on from one generation to another. But they were passed on like as, you know, like this is a good tradition, you know, this will help. the ministry of God's Word and the building of the Church, the Kingdom of God. This was like these minute and detailed hundreds and thousands of rules that they had. It was like as your salvation depended upon it. If you don't wash your hands before dinner, you'll be damned. Of course it wasn't just washing, it had to be done properly, it wasn't just a case of going to the sink and washing your hands, as you and I would perhaps do this evening. It had to be done properly. It had to be done in a proper fashion. The water had to be poured properly in a ceremonial fashion or you were considered to be defiled. That's how they saw the Lord Jesus as he sat down to this meal with unwashing hands. He was defiled in their estimation. I mean, he might have touched a Gentile on the way to the house. That was their thinking, you see. They come home, they've been out for a walk, maybe in the marketplace, and people have been bowing and scraping to them, and maybe a gentile just, you know, in the passing just, oh, I'm unclean, I'm unclean. So off he'd go home, and he would ritually and ceremonially, he would wash himself. But it had to be done properly. The water, you didn't put your hands in a basin of water, the water had to be poured ceremoniously, over the hands in order to wash them properly. Now the wash here in the verse, in the original New Testament Greek, it uses the word baptize. Now in the context, in the context It can't refer to the total immersion of the body. You see, baptise in the New Testament doesn't always refer to that. Sometimes it does refer to, I'm sorry, but sometimes it does refer to sprinkling, pouring, and sometimes to immersion. You cannot be dogmatic about it, beloved. So it had to be poured. But they were the same, you see, with their Sabbath rules. In Luke 6, too, a certain and certain of the Pharisees said unto them, Why do ye that which is not lawful to do on the Sabbath days? Do you remember in Luke chapter 6 when the disciple was walking alongside the cornfield with his disciples and they were picking grains of corn? They were hungry and they were eating the grains of corn. Well, it wasn't that they were hungry. No problem there. It wasn't that they were actually picking the grain and actually eating the grain. They had other rules you see. Things like ploughing, things like sowing, reaping, binding, threshing, winnowing, grinding. They were actually grinding the corn in their hands and then eating it. That's forbidden by their rabbinical rituals. But all this tradition, all this rabbinical tradition and rituals was placed over and above the Word of God. They had made the Bible null and void with it. ravaging wickedness. Verse 39. The Lord said unto him now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter but your inward part is full of ravening wickedness. The advocates I think maybe of friendship evangelism would somewhat balk at this. They would be in some trouble I think. I mean, out of politeness and out of grace, we say. I think today, in our culture, that we've, I think the Christians have lost sight, really, of what grace actually means. You know, they think, well, out of politeness, you know, let's be gracious, let's hide our principles, let's hide our religion, you know, let's not, I mean, we're having a meal together, so, you know, let's not be ungracious and, you know, Let's hide the truth. Is that grace, beloved? Not with Jesus, it's not. There's far too much at stake here. Any condescension that he shows is his being amongst them at all. That is grace that he is willing to go amongst them and challenge them and even condemn them for their apostate religion. That he is amongst them at all is a token of grace. But he's not there. He's not there to make a gracious gesture. He's not there to receive. He's not there because he wants their favour. He's not there because he wants them to think what a good person, what a good minister of the gospel is. He's not there. He's there to challenge their unbelief and to thoroughly confront them with them, to convict them of their sin, to actually stun them. because if there's any hope of salvation for such wicked apostate clergymen such as these if there's any hope of these men being saved they have to come to a realization of the extremity of their wickedness and unless the Lord Jesus Christ or some other minister of the gospel shakes them to the very foundations of their souls they will be lost And the Lord's mission is not pocketed simply because he's been invited for a meal. You know the attitude. Don't upset the people. We're not here to evangelize. This is a social occasion. We've been invited to a meal. Let's be gracious. Let's be quiet. Let's not say anything. Just let it pass over. Let them perish. Do we really? Do we still believe in the Church in the United Kingdom today, beloved, that a man's life can be taken overnight and he can be in hell and damnation the next morning? You might never get another chance to speak to them about the Saviour. And you said, in grace I'll say nothing. He goes straight for their hearts. You wash your hands, he says, you sprinkle them ceremonially and he says inside you're full of wickedness. Pillage and wickedness. All your fine clothes decked in your Armani and your Gucci and your clean hands and inside of you, you are utterly polluted. You think that you're holy. You think that your holy clergyman, apostate clergyman, with the ridiculous ritual verse 40, ye fools, ye fools, did not he that made that which is without make that which is within also? How about a sermon in those two words? Ye fools. That's the Son of God, that's the Lord Jesus Christ who came full of grace and truth. Ye fools, he says, God made the inside as well as the outside. And God is not concerned with one against the other. Yes, it's good, it's probably a very, very good idea that you wash your hands before a meal, but there's something that's even, even more important, and that's the inside, which God created as well, your heart and mind that's full of this ravaging wickedness. And in our politer evangelical pulpits today in our land, I mean to come against what represents the Antichrist. It's just in this day and generation it's just a non-starter. to come against apostasy and to come against apostates' clodgymen in our polite pulpits today with energy and the fervent zeal that even the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ here does crying down these men who are fools and blind. Ye fools, he said. Enemies of God In our evangelical society, in our country today, we are totally, we are sinfully indifferent in this matter. Luther said that Christ with his zeal, he pointed out, he reminds us that Christ and his zeal for God's truth and God's kingdom called his opponents vipers, blind fools, hypocrites, children of the devil? Paul branded Simon Maggots because he wanted money, he wanted the gift of God so that he could make money out of the gift of God. He branded him as a son of the devil, full of deceit and villainy. What would he say about Benny Hinn today with his 250 million dollars a year? Others are called dogs, deceivers and adulterers by the same Apostle Paul. Not to mention the many, many stinging remarks of the Old Testament prophets. Luther said nowadays, speaking of his own day, of course, nowadays it is true, he says. We are made so sensitive in the raving crowd of flatterers that we cry out that we are stung as soon as we meet with disapproval. We cannot ward off the truth with any other pretext. We flee from it by ascribing it to, oh, he's got a fierce temper. Oh, he's impatient. He's immodest. What is the good, says Luther, of salt if it does not bite? Of what use is the edge of the sword if it does not cut? Cursed is he who does the work of the Lord deceitfully. If someone meets the disapproval of a minister, he's harsh, intemperate, immodest. It's always him. Secondly, the reproach of their apostasy in verses 41-48. But rather give alms of such things as ye have, and behold, all things are clean to you. You see, that would be repentance for them, wouldn't it? The reference with regards to the state of their hearts. Full of extortion and wickedness is the way one version puts it. and he points to their character and he points to their motives and he announces here one after the other five woes and then in the next section there's a sixth woe woe number one verses 41 and 42 but rather give alms in verse 42 but woe unto you pharisees for you tithe mint and ruin all manner of herds and pass over judgment the love of God these ought you to have done and not to leave the other undone You see, repentance for these, these are money grabbers, these are profit mongers, yeah? They're so busy taking money from other people, what would constitute repentance for these people, for these men, would be giving it all away. Like Zacchaeus, you know, that robbed people through his tax business. What does he do when he's converted? He starts to give it all back and fourfold even more than he took from them. Give. Give. Instead of your unscrupulous profit mongering, if you've got any grace in your heart, give, says the Lord Jesus. If they had grace in their hearts, of course, there would be a desire with them to give. The emphasis is on their scrupulous exactness to tiny little details, When they totally and absolutely neglect the matters that are huge, that is justice, the justice of God and the love of God. Even the righteousness of God and the righteousness of God, I remind you, constitutes more than just simply being right. even righteousness and respect to God and towards men in their fanatical and extravagance over secondary issues. They neglect the basics, the basic moral principles of God's law and God's word. The Lord Jesus is not suggesting in these verses for one moment that tithing is secondary. But it is never beloved, it is never a substitute for a heart given and a life given in obedience to God before your money, God wants you! Verse 43, woe number 2. Woe unto you Pharisees for ye love the uppermost seats in the synagogues and greetings in the markets. This is their unholy pride. Matthew 23 verse 6, and love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues. Prominence, a prominent place in the church. Oh, they wouldn't be. They wouldn't settle for anything less than eldership. And of course, they would be wanting to be sat up in the front. They would occupy all these seats up here in the platform. They wouldn't deign to sit down amongst the common folk, amongst the congregation. So that everybody can admire them, sitting there in their fine clothes, in all their pomp and ceremony, plucking, you know, preening their feathers. So that all would be duly impressed by their position. And of course now and again they would be called upon to give wise counsel. Well Pharisee so and so, Pastor Sadducee, what does this mean? What do you think God thinks about this? And of course they would give out in their pride and in their position they would give their most wise counsel. This is what it means. And of course they would have wise counsel on every matter under the sun. And then they parade themselves in the marketplaces. Reverend Pharisee, good morning. Pastor Sadducee, good evening. You know, they love the names and the titles. Let me say something about this. The Bible says Reverend is his name, God's name. The title Reverend, we ought to bury it in the North Sea or the Atlantic Ocean or somewhere likewise. Pastor is not a title. My name is Jim and the only title I have is Mister. Pastor is not a title. But even today in evangelical circles we have men who want to be called Reverend and men who want to be called Pastor, Pastor, Pastor. It is pride. It is pharisaical pride. Pastor is an office. It's not a title. It's an office. Elder is a title. Sorry. Elder is an office. Deacon is an office. They are not titles. None of them. A man may be a pastor, but his title is not pastor. He may be a doctor because of his education. He may be a doctor. That's a legitimate title. But pastor is not a title. It's an office. But this is pharisaical pride. They want people bowing and scraping to them. They've perverted the word of God, utterly destroyed the word of God in the nation of Israel, and they demand the highest honour and the highest accolades for doing so. These fools, as Jesus calls them, these fools wanted the best seats in the synagogues and they wanted to be amongst the best people. You know in their conferences as such, I mean they wouldn't mix with the laity, they would be amongst the doctors, they would be amongst the hierarchy looking down their pharisaical noses at everybody that's below them. They want the place and they want the pomp. They want to be the masters. And what Jesus says to them here is just utterly devastating. And if you lay pharisaical pride, whether it comes dressed in potpourri, whether it comes dressed in evangelicalism, I don't care what kind of title, I care nothing for any label. If it's wrong, you say it's wrong. If it's right, you say it's right. It doesn't matter who's saying it. Lay it all aside, this religious pride. Lay it all beside the Son of God, who came down from Heaven's glory, who left the Majesty of Heaven to be amongst poor, broken sinners. sinful men and women, to minister to them. The Son of Man came, not to minister, not to be ministered to, but to minister, to serve. And anyone in any position of leadership, any position of leadership within the church, who forgets that he's there as a servant, as a servant, a slave to God's church, and he's lost his place. But it's a challenge, isn't it? To our every religious motive and our desire for ministry. It's a challenge to every one of us, or it ought to be. Because it's so easy, beloved. It's so easy. And the more gifted you are, the more easier it is to project yourself instead of presenting the grace of God in Jesus Christ. Matthew 6.2 Therefore when thou doest thine alms, alms do not sound the trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues. Matthew 6, 5, and when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are, for they love to pray, standing in the synagogues and in the corner of the streets, that they may be seen of men. They have the reward. Verse 16, Moreover, when ye fast, be not as the hypocrites of a sad countenance, for they disfigure their faces that may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, they have the reward. These men, if they've got any reward coming to them at all, these apostate clergymen, they have it all. praise of men. Woe number three verse 44. Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites for ye are as graves which appear not and the men that walk over them are not aware of them. The tombs and the graves in Israel were whitewashed so that people, the older ones that is, the ones that weren't fresh, so that people would not walk over them and especially so at Passover time because if you walked over a tomb, if you walked over an unmarked grave, you became defiled and then you couldn't partake of the Passover. Well these hypocrites, says Jesus as he calls them, he says that these apostate clergymen, he says they are like graves, unmarked graves. There's people all around them and all over them and yet they don't realise, they are totally and completely unaware that coming in contact with these scribes and pharisees they are actually becoming defiled. They think that they are amongst holy men but they are actually being defiled. Because these men, these apostate clergymen are contaminating all and everyone around them. Because of what's inside them, their ravening wickedness, verse 39. Foulness, they're like rotted corpses, says the Lord Jesus. The severity is crushing. But it's deserved, beloved, because the entirety of the nation, Israel, is being made, is being rendered uncleaned by these reverend gentlemen. With their apostate religion. We must learn, beloved, we must learn to guard our own influence and the influence of others to us because there are many, many who are dangerous. Philippians 3 verse 18, For many wars, Paul, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. It is no different today. unmarked grace because of the insidious evil that's hidden. They have the outward conformity. They look like Christians. They look like evangelicals. They sound like them. There's some truth there, no doubt. There's a veneer of holiness. Woe number 4 verses 45 and 46 Then answered one of the lawyers, and said unto him, Master, thus saying, Thou reproachest us also. And he said, Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! For ye lay men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers. This reverend gentleman is upset. He's offended. You're upsetting us. You're offending us, don't you know? A bleating wolf. professional teachers and scholars. This is the intellectual variety. These are those that are professional students, supposedly of the word of God, but more of rabbinical rituals. And these are the men who are supposed to pass down, you know, to the laity beneath the understanding, the meaning of God's word. But this believing wolf, you see, he signifies, he lets us all know that their consciences have been stung. But of course that's what Jesus set out to do. The Word of God and proper preaching will do that, beloved. What good is salt if it doesn't bite? What good is a sword if it doesn't cut? But these ivory tower preachers, you know, that's what they're likened to. And we have them today. You know, we have these scholars in high places, I don't know where they dwell apart from Ivory Towers, you know, but they live in this scholarly land, this scholarly territory somewhere, United States of America, maybe Wycliffe College in Oxford or Cambridge, somewhere, I don't know, but they keep lobbing these books into the Christian church, you know, telling everybody what they ought to do, the churches and pastors and leaders, what they ought to do. but they've never experienced the hard graft in the painful business of a pastoral ministry. They know what it's like to rub shoulders with a man who's a rotten, ruined drug addict on the street. They haven't got a clue about these things. Hypocrisy, says the Lord Jesus. It's easy to devise rules and to apply rules to other people. You can make thousands, millions of rules out of this book if you want, and lay them on people, burden people with them. And yet, with very convincing arguments, excuse yourself from them all. Well, that doesn't include me. Us, these hypocrites. Us, these reverend gentlemen. Us, these apostate clergymen. How different from the apostles words Philippians 4 verse 9 these things which ye have both learned and received and heard and seen in me do and the God of peace shall be with you. I don't know a single minister including myself who could say that. Do you? Woe number 5 verses 47 and 48, Woe unto you, for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. Truly ye bear witness that ye allow the deeds of your fathers, for they indeed killed them, and ye build their sepulchres, true sons of their murderous fathers. Their fathers killed the prophets in order to get rid of them, in order to get rid of their voices, in order to get rid of their preaching, their doctrine, they hated it, they stopped their ears and they killed them eventually to get rid of them. And the lawyers, these lawyers, these scribes, they build the tombs and so therefore they bury, they hush the voices of the prophets forever. They had buried the word of God that was delivered by the prophets. They had buried it under an avalanche of rabbinical rules and regulations so that the word of the prophets could never be found. They buried them! signifying says the Lord Jesus that you approve of the murderous deeds of your fathers and the only way that they could condemn the deeds of their murderous fathers would be by believing and doing what the prophets actually preached the word of God but they had no place for that and the results of their apostasy 49 through 54 Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, some of them they shall slay and persecute that the blood of all the prophets which was shed from the foundation of the world may be required of this generation. Therefore for this reason now comes the application, this is the outworking of your apostasy. Your fathers were prophet killers, you agree with them so you know better. Therefore you are as guilty, just as guilty as they are. And now he says the fullness of guilt has come, verses 49 through 51. We are warned in the Bible that there is such a thing as an accumulation of evil and guilt. and it falls on certain generations from time to time as God sovereignly decrees. And that is true of these. And we know that from subsequent history, because as I told you before, in AD 70 through 75, Jerusalem, the temple, the nation, both were reduced to public shame. The whole nation was raised to the floor. in the judgment of God as predicted as prophesied by the Lord Jesus Christ in the Gospels. And it all comes on this generation just as Jesus says here. Now that is very solemn. That is very solemn when you consider our own nation. When you see the organized religious establishment persistently refusing to give credence to biblical ministries and ministers which produce the fruit of changed lives and reconciliation to God. a religious establishment that is hell-bent, hell-bent, in driving the gospel out of this land. thus justifying the wisdom of God. Their preference, you see, their preference, and all like them, their preference is for dead religion. They don't mind you being religious, that's okay, as long as it's dead. They don't mind you being religious as long as it's powerless. They don't even mind if it's mystical religion as long as it's powerless. They had filled the cup up, and vengeance was all that was left for them. Us in the United Kingdom, the cup's not yet full, but I fear that it will be. The full result of their apostasy, verse 52, Woe unto you, liars, for ye have taken away the key of knowledge, ye have entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered. That is awful. That is awful. This is the climax, surely. The guilt of years, of generations, of bloody persecution. And yet it's worse still, says the Lord Jesus. the guilt of keeping the word of God from the nation of Israel and therefore keeping the nation of Israel from the salvation of God. The function of these scribes was to unlock the scriptures to open the scriptures up in the order that the common men and women on the street could understand them and enter into the kingdom of God but they had taken the key and thrown it away. It wasn't just that they were wrong. We can all be wrong, beloved. It wasn't just that they were false. They willfully, that's the accusation, they willfully sidetracked other people. Apostate clergymen, these are wicked, wicked men. But doesn't it highlight the responsibility of the ministry of any church? I mean, Jesus' words must have caused a venomous reaction in the hearts of these men. But, you know, we can be, well, verbally meticulous in our presentation of the gospel in our preaching. and we can ramble, we can ramble about many interesting things. I mean, I guess that there are lots and lots of things that a man could stand in a pulpit such as this and talk about that, that well, people would come, well, he's very interesting, you know, because he talks about very, very many interesting things. So let's go, let's go there instead of going to that other place. and you can be so clever, you can be so gifted and so clever in your presentation that people are taken up with the presentation and forget all about the message about the gospel of God's grace and you can be so mightily impressive, you can be staggeringly impressive not to mention humour, I mean I tell you, if you've not got a line in jokes, you'll never get to preach at Keswick. Because that's the first. You've got to have some good jokes. But the trouble is, beloved, you see people, all they do is, all they remember is the jokes. They forget all about the Word of God. They come away from the conventions, they come away from the conferences, they come away from the church, and they're repeating the joke everywhere. But do they repeat the word of God? They don't. If we don't, in the church's ministry, if we don't break the bread of life to sinners, we are guilty beloved. But these couldn't do that anyway. These couldn't do that anyway. Because they had never entered themselves. They were blind guides and they were just simply leading other blind people into the ditch. No minister, no minister can ever lead a people further than he has gone himself. But understand, verses 53 and 54, the fullness of their wickedness. And as he said these things unto them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to urge him vehemently, to provoke him to speak many things, laying weight for him and seeking to catch something out of his mouth that they might accuse, that they might condemn him. It's little wonder with what's been said. by the Lord Jesus. It's little wonder that we find them trying to set a trap, seeking the destruction of Jesus. It's the same way that they would deal with anyone who accused them of failure. And Ezekiel, if I might just take the time to read this to you because it is important. Ezekiel chapter 34. And the words of the Lord came unto me, saying, the prophet says, Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God unto the shepherds. Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves. Should not the shepherds feed the flocks? Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe ye with the wool. Ye kill them that are fed, but ye feed not the flock. The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost, but with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them. And they were scattered. because there is no shepherd. And they became meat to all the beasts of the field. When they were scattered, My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill. Yea, My flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none did search or seek after them. Therefore, ye shepherds, hear the word of the Lord. As I live, saith the Lord God, surely because my flock became a prey, and my flock became meat to every beast of the field, because there was no shepherd, neither did my shepherds search for my flock. But the shepherds fed themselves and fed not my flock. Therefore, O ye shepherds, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require my flock at their hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the flock. Neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more, for I will deliver my flock from their mouth, that they may not be meat for them. These men betrayed of viciousness. These were not shepherds of God's people. They betrayed a viciousness. And they proved the accusation of Jesus in verse 39, their inner ravening wickedness, to be precisely correct. and he is here too in verse 54 is the answer to all those who think well Jesus is far too severe here he's far far too harsh laying weight for him and seeking to catch something out of his mouth that they might accuse him in order that they might put him to death it's murder that they've got in their hearts Jesus too severe too harsh with these reverend gentlemen, these apostate clergymen? Ye fools! Ye fools! I never heard any minister address a congregation that way. Maybe there's been one down through the generations. I don't know. But there are times when ministers have to use language that is less than, or you might say, less than complementary. The result, but not always, of course. I remember the testimony of Douglas Macmillan, the shepherd from Scotland. He's gone home now to be with the Lord many years, but I remember hearing his testimony and part of it was what led to his being convicted of sin. A new minister came to the village where he lived as a young shepherd, Matt Shepherd. Shepherdman and the minister met him one day in the village and said to him, Douglas, he said, how about coming to church on Sunday evening? Douglas said, yep. He says, I'll come. I'll be there Sunday night. The minister said, that's fine. Good, Douglas. Good, he said. So off he went. Of course, Sunday came and went. Douglas never went to church. The next week he's walking through the village again, and of course who's coming down the street on the other side is the new minister. And Douglas of course is looking at the pavement, looking in the shop windows, looking at everywhere except the minister. And the minister cries out to him, Douglas, Douglas! And of course he wants his attention, he has to turn his attention towards him. And smiling with a great big smile on his face, Douglas he says, you're a liar! You said you would come to church on Sunday. You didn't come. But he testifies. He's right. I'm a liar. It led to the conviction of sin and led to his conversion. Not always. Not always. There was one pastor who was bidding his congregation farewell and a lady A lady came to him at the back of the church afterwards and firmly took his hand and with tear-filled eyes, she shook his hand and she said to him, no minister has ever hurt me as much as you have. But she said, thank God, because I needed it. I needed it. Not always. Jesus here reveals the depth of human depravity. His hearers are divided into two categories. Some would be fit to stone the minister and others, by the grace of God, well, would find the mercy of God. They would cry out, God be merciful to me, a sinner. We don't know. Maybe one of these reverend gentlemen, maybe they, one of them were one of the ones that were subsequently converted because some were, some were. only eternity will tell. But, you know, beloved, we live in a day and generation when people traipse about from one meeting to another, you know, they're getting They call it getting fed by all kinds of means. I've mentioned it before. The internet and television. There's itching ears. Listening to every wind of doctrine. This man and that man and the other man. Listening to all kinds of heresies. They say they can discern. Can you? Can you really? Have you really got that much discernment? Because I say to you, I haven't. The tiniest seed of heresy planted can grow and grow and lead to your ruin. A minister was telling me in the week that he has a woman in his congregation who listens to sermons off the internet. A minister in America and she communes with him by email. They have this lovely relationship going and she listens to his sermons every week. But our own minister says you never see her at a prayer meeting. You never see her at her own Bible study. That's not faithfulness, beloved. That's not faithfulness. Now, a tiny little seat. We need to be careful who we listen to. There's a devil who goes about, and he's like a roaring lion, seeking to devour, seeking to devour.