Well, let's open our Bibles to the gospel according to Luke. We remain in chapter 6. And we're going to be reading and covering verses 39 through 45 this morning. And At first blush, these verses may appear to be like Proverbs that are unrelated to one another. But I believe that there is a relationship between them. And that Luke has arranged these teachings of our Lord to teach us something. To show us something. Verse 39, He also spoke a parable to them. A blind man cannot guide a blind man, can he? will they not both fall into a pit? A pupil is not above his teacher, but everyone, after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher. Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye but do not notice the log or beam that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye, when you yourself do not see the beam that is in your own eye? You hypocrite! First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out that is in your brother's eye. For there is no good tree which produces bad fruit, nor on the other hand a bad tree which produces good fruit. For each tree is known by its fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a briar bush. The good man, out of the good treasure of his heart, brings forth what is good. And the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil, for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart. Well Lord, we thank You that You've given us this Word. We thank You that You left the heavenly glory, came and taught us, died for us, and empowered us to live as Your people. And Lord, we pray that by Your Spirit, You will teach us now that You will empower this Word to us. That it will be spoken and heard in Your power. And that we, Lord, will respond in a way that is useful to the kingdom. In Christ's name, Amen. Well, we continue this morning in Luke's account of Jesus' preaching that's recorded in chapter 6. Many see this as part of what we know as the Sermon on the Mount that's recorded in Matthew 5, 6, and 7. And again, this is not a transcript of an entire sermon. We have to remember these things. Luke has gathered these teachings. But these are Jesus' own words. And of great significance in the beginning of what Luke has given us here, Jesus declared that the kingdom of God belongs to those who recognize their poverty of spirit. Who recognize that they are sinners. Who recognize they lack any righteousness of their own. Who have remorse for their sin. Who recognize their need for a Savior. For righteousness from outside themselves. And Jesus has said some things that are very contrary to the ways of the world here. He has said to His hearers, love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Someone hits you on the cheek, offer him the other. Somebody takes your coat, give him your shirt. Not the way of the world. But this was divine teaching. It still is. Jesus warned His readers then, don't be judgmental or condemning of others. You're going to be judged by the same standard by which you judge others. Rather, be forgiving of others. And be a person who is a giving person. Have a giving heart. Give, He said, and it will be given to you. And we've seen, when we reflect on all that Jesus has said here, that these heart attitudes speak of the character of God Himself. Love of enemies, doing good to those who hate you. And God, when He created man, created man in His own image to be like Him. but by a sin the image of God in man has been marred. And Jesus came into the world to save us from our sin, to justify us before God by His death, to teach us the ways of God, and to restore the image of God in His people. To make us more like Him. To sanctify us. To set us apart unto holiness. So that's what the Lord has been showing us in this passage. He's calling us to turn away from the ways and thinking of the fallen world. And to think and live like Him while we live in this world. What Jesus is saying is be imitators of Him. Be imitators of God. Be merciful, He says, as your Father is merciful. Paul wrote, Ephesians 5, 1, Be imitators of God as beloved children, and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma. Be imitators of God. That's what he's saying. Apostle John assured us, 1 John 3, 2, Now we're children of God, and it's not yet appeared what we will be, but we know that when He appears, we will be like Him. Now this is what we need to be pursuing while we're awaiting His return. So Jesus has taught us that love and mercy and forgiveness are the heart attitudes that demonstrate that a man is His disciple. If you ask somebody to write down your five main descriptive qualities, we hope they'd write down He's loving, merciful, forgiving, and giving. That's what Jesus wants to be written about us. Because those are the things that demonstrate one is His disciple. Those are the things that demonstrate one has been joined into an eternal union with Christ. The risen Christ. Those are the things that show that a man has been and is now being transformed by His Spirit. This isn't about staying like we are. He didn't save us to keep us the way we were. 2 Corinthians 3.18, We all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image, from glory to glory, just as from the Lord the Spirit. This transformation of all believers, which is what I've been preaching about for weeks now. Because that's what Jesus is preaching about here. This is now in progress. It's supposed to be in progress. We're called to actively pursue this transformation, this sanctification. To put on Christ. To now think and live in light of these blessings we've received. In light of the love and the mercy and compassion He has shown us. In light of all that He has given us. And let us be reminded one more time, we have a mission in this world. We're not just left here to wait around, enjoy life until He returns or comes to get us one by one. We have a mission in this world. And we're the only ones who are equipped to fulfill this mission. the people who have been born again of the Spirit of God. And that mission is to share the message of the cross out there. To call others into His kingdom. And our Lord has shown us here that He desires that His gospel message be carried into the world by people who extend love and compassion and kindness and mercy and forgiveness to others. So Luke, verse 39 now. Luke turns to a different matter. But he hasn't forgotten everything he's written to this point. But he now shares with us Jesus' teaching regarding those who had been teaching the people in Galilee and Judea. And those who would soon be their teachers. And what our Lord desires to see in His ministers. And he spoke a parable to them. A blind man cannot guide a blind man, can he? Because they'll both fall into a pit. And we're talking about big pits. If you wanted water, you dug a well in those days. And you had dry holes. And you had pits. And this was a very rocky terrain in Palestine. Now these blind guides he's talking about, he's identified several times in the Gospels. For example, Matthew 15, 14, he expressly refers to the Pharisees, the scribes and the Pharisees, as the blind guides of the blind. He's talking about false teachers here. If anything in Scripture has modern application, it's this. Jehovah's Witness, Mormon, various false versions of Christianity, Buddhists, Islam. New Age, Deepak Chopra. All of that is false. All of those are blind guides leading people to hell. That's what Jesus is saying here. What Jesus preached was not the wisdom of men. As we've seen here on Wednesday nights, this is all wisdom of men that is not of Christ, that is not of God. What He preached was from heaven. What He preached was divine truth. Now the people he's specifically opposing here, scribes and the rabbis, were teaching distortions of, or their own additions to, the word that the sons of Jacob had received from God. That's what they were doing. Remember what he said very early in this chapter. They were teaching, love your neighbor, hate your enemy. Well that didn't come from Scripture. It didn't come from the Word of God. No, they had distorted the Word of God. And they added their own additions. All of these hundreds of ceremonies and rituals and rules that they had made up. None of that was from God. So Jesus, though, is teaching divine truth. In Matthew 7, 28, at the conclusion of Matthew's account of the Sermon on the Mount, look what he says. He says, When Jesus finished these words, the crowds were amazed at His teaching, for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes. He is the authority. And His authority is recorded for us in Scripture. He is the logos, the Word of God incarnate. So the difference in Jesus' teaching and that of the scribes was evident to all who heard Him. This is what upset the Pharisees and the scribes. And Jesus explained the reason for the contrast between His teaching and their teaching. The scribes were blind. They were blind. They were spiritually blind as are Islam, Buddhism, Hindu, all of this, New Age. It's all blindness because it's not based on what Jesus Christ taught us. So they couldn't teach divine truth to the people because they themselves were blind to the truth. And so that's why he makes this picture here, this illustration, a blind man will lead a blind man into a pit. If you're being taught by somebody who is spiritually blind, you're going to end up spiritually blind. Now Jesus used this illustration to show that a man who is blinded to the truth can only lead his student to blindness. He cannot guide him to safety. This was an apt description about falling into a pit because of the terrain, as I said, in Galilee and Judea, full of pits and holes which people might fall into. And the pit to which blind men ultimately fall is hell. That's the eternal pit that's pictured here. So blind guides was Jesus' description of the scribes and Pharisees. And these were men who were not receiving from God and relating to the people. They were self-willed. They were deliberately blind, Jesus said, to the truth that He had brought. They stubbornly chose the darkness, as every unbeliever does. He looks to the wisdom of the world and rejects Christ. And these were also men who Jesus told them, loved the approval and the acclaim and the honor of men. But they knew nothing of God or the things of God. Because the saving knowledge of God is found only in Scripture. It's found only in the gospel. Luke 11, 43, he says to them, Woe to you Pharisees! You love the chief seats in the synagogues and the respectful greetings in the marketplaces. Woe to you, for you are like concealed tombs, and the people who walk over them are unaware of it. Matthew 23, 5, they do all their deeds to be noticed by men. They broaden their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels on their garments. They love the place of honor at banquets, and the chief seats in the synagogues, and respectful greetings in the marketplaces, and being called rabbi by men. These were the people who were leading the people in Israel at the time Jesus came. And had been for many, many, many years. And Jesus repeatedly showed his hearers there was great danger for those who put their trust in such men as these Jewish religious leaders. And it's a warning to us today to be careful whose teaching we follow. Jesus warns us all not to follow such blind guides. Love of others, forgiving spirit, compassionate, and giving heart are qualities which not only teachers but all who are his people must seek. And so, in verse 40, our Lord now speaks specifically of those He calls to teach others. There was a change happening here. Jesus came and taught something very different than what the people were hearing. And now, as He was doing this, He was training some other men to take over this teaching mission. And He says, a pupil is not above, does not outrank his teacher. But everyone, after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher. The student can only learn as much as the teacher knows and teaches him. He can never rise above his teacher. Now at that point, around 30, 28, 30 A.D., among the sons of Jacob and throughout Galilee and Judea, where Jesus did almost all of his preaching, The Word that had been given by God long before in the Law and the Prophets had been badly mutilated. That was the state of things into which He came. That's why He was so harsh with the Jewish religious leaders. It was badly distorted as it is today in so many places. In short, the Word that God had given the sons of Jacob had become badly misunderstood by the teachers And they had amended it and adapted it to allow, as some do today, for the intrusion of the faulty wisdom of men. That's why you have people engaged in open sexual sin in pulpits today. Because people are like these Pharisees. They add to or amend the Word of God. So by the time that Jesus came, The doctrine and the practice of the Jewish religious leaders was far removed from what God had given them. They badly misunderstood God's teaching in the law and the prophets. And yet, these men were now sitting, as they said, in the chair of Moses. They had assumed the role of teaching others. And they were blind guides who could only lead people into a pit. But there they were. They were the teachers. And they were teaching those who would follow them as teachers in Israel, or so they thought. And as a result, what do you suppose happened to the people if they were not getting the pure milk of the Word? Well, they were spiritually famished. They were spiritually dead. There was a dire need, not only for a Savior to die for our sins, but for God's truth to come into this world. And there was a dire need for a new class of teachers. And that's what's happening here. Jesus had begun to gather new teachers around Him. And we saw them, the twelve, minus one of course. And now Luke is recording what Jesus was teaching them as He teaches us. At that very time, our Lord was training those who would follow Him. He was training those He was going to send into the world as witnesses of His resurrection and with the gospel, the good news of forgiveness of sins through faith in Him. And these 11 men, plus Paul, plus Barnabas and others, they could not and would not be blind men. They were being taught the truth. They were being taught the way of salvation. And they would soon be the ones who would declare that word of truth. And here it is. Here it is, handed down to us over 2,000 years. He says no one's going to be above his teacher. Well, of course, no one's going to ever be exactly like Jesus. He's both God and man, and He is sinless perfection. Sinless perfection. But He was preparing men who would teach as He taught, who would be filled with His Spirit and filled with His wisdom to bring it into all the world. What kind of men were these? What kind of colleges had they attended? What kind of education did they have? Well, most of them were men with very little education. Acts 4.13, they were unschooled and untrained. But Jesus now assures them that though they're never going to outrank Him, by His training and direction, they will soon become like their teacher. Not in degree of knowledge, not in wisdom or in sinless perfection, but in truly reflecting His image to the world and in taking divine truth into the world. And the people who would see them and hear them would say, those men have been trained by Jesus. They were with Jesus. On the other hand, as Judaism was coming to its end, those trained by the Jewish religious leaders would become like them. Sons of perdition, Jesus called them. Now we come back to verses 41 and 42. Now we looked at these two verses in conjunction and in connection with verse 37. Do not judge or you will be judged by that same standard. But Luke is showing us something different, making another use of that same teaching here. He reminds us that every teacher, every pastor called by Jesus, must enter into his calling with humility and awareness of his own lack of any righteousness of his own. Let's read the two verses. Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log or the beam that is in your own eye? I can't help but read the King James of that verse. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, Brother, let me take the speck out that's in your eye, when you yourself don't see the log or the beam that's in your own eye? You hypocrite. First, take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out that is in your brother's eye. Now we've seen the speck or moat's a small piece of straw or wood, a splinter. The beam, on the other hand, is this heavy piece of timber. a big long log used for a rafter or a joist in a building. And a speck would be maybe a tiny chip out of a beam. So there's a great difference here. And Jesus asks, why are you focused on a mere speck in your brother's eye? Why do you even ask permission to remove that while you are completely blind to the far larger beam that's in your own eye? One man said, in the heart of every man, including Christ's followers to the extent they haven't been transformed by grace, there lives a Pharisee. So what Jesus says here applies to us all. Now Matthew 7, I put the first four or five verses in your Scripture sheet. This illustration of the beam and the speck follows immediately after Jesus' warning not to judge others according to a standard that you haven't applied to yourself. Matthew inserts it there. When we looked at verse 37 a few weeks ago, we saw in relation to our judging others, we must first examine ourselves before we presume to find fault with or to correct someone else. Everybody with me here? Because he's going to make a different point here with this same passage. Now commentators as to judging others and assessing others cite the case of King David. And really this passage in 2nd Samuel 12, 1 really illuminates what the issue is here. The LORD sent Nathan to David, and he came to him, and he said, There were two men in one city, one rich, the other poor. The rich man had a great many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb, which he bought and nourished, and it grew up together with him and his children. It would eat of his bread and drink of his cup and lie in his bosom and was like a daughter to him. Now a traveler came to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take from his own flock or his own herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him. Rather, he took the poor man's ewe lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him. Then David's anger burned greatly against the man. And he said to Nathan, As the Lord lives, surely the man who has done this deserves to die. He must make restitution for the lamb fourfold because he did this thing and had no compassion. And Nathan then said to David, You are the man. You are the man. David condemned the rich man in the story who had stolen and killed the poor man's little ewe lamb. Not realizing that in condemning him, he was condemning himself. He was blinded by the beam in his own eye. And so he could not be fully prepared to lead the people of God until that log was removed. And we saw the evidence of that in Psalm 51 this morning. He cried out to God, confessed his sin, and begged forgiveness. Beg renewal. Create in me a clean heart. Blot out my transgression. Now the larger issue here presented in this illustration is this. How are we supposed to deal with another man's spiritual condition when we are refusing to deal with our own? Now, I said Luke makes a little different point with this. Luke includes Jesus' words concerning the speck and the beam here, not right after the verse on not judging others, but right after Jesus' statements about blind leaders and about disciples who think they've moved beyond their teachers. We saw some of those in Corinth the other night who thought they had moved beyond what Paul had taught them. So we've got these two verses inserted here in a different place. So in light of those two verses, 39 and 40, Jesus is saying this, no man is equipped to teach another or to correct him if he himself is spiritually blind. That no man is fit to remove the blindness of another man if he is himself blind. See, we see the illustration here of the speck and the beam fits both situations. Jesus, of course, could do that. But it fits both. Remove the log before you judge. Remove the spiritual blindness before you teach. Scribes and the Pharisees. You wonder why Jesus was so harsh with them, always at odds with them? They were eye doctors who had beams in their own eyes. They were blind guides. They were leading people to hell. That's why He was so harsh with them. And he says over and over again throughout Matthew 23 and right here in this verse, such a man is a hypocrite. He calls them hypocrites all the time. A word which Jesus often used to characterize the Jewish religious leaders. He decried a hypocritical, Pharisaic attitude. Think about what they were doing. Remember the prayer. We've got the publican and the Pharisee praying. And the Pharisee actually prays, boy, am I glad I'm not like him. I do all that you want, Lord. Boy, am I glad I'm so righteous. The problem with them wasn't even that they were engaged in some particular sin. It was perhaps worse. They were self-righteous. This is the problem with any works-based religion. Any religion that tells you you can earn heaven by your own works. These guys presumed to teach and correct the faults of others while they were spiritually blind themselves. And Jesus, you look at chapter 18, verse 9 here in Luke, He describes them as men who saw themselves as righteous and viewed others with contempt. Such a man, our Lord tells us, is not equipped to lead other men. And this meant grave danger for those who were following and trusting in the Jewish religious leaders and the scribes and the Pharisees. They were being led into a pit. And this is a warning to us. Be careful whom we follow. Jesus tells us a man must be cured of his own blindness, that he must be properly trained in the things of God before he is adequate to teach other men. And clearly He's exhorting us, all of us, to rigid self-examination here. Well now in the closing three verses of this section, Jesus says, Only a man who is now spiritually alive, as in the case of a good tree, can bear good fruit. No good tree produces bad fruit, nor is there a bad tree which produces good fruit. Each tree is known by its own fruit. Men don't gather figs from thorns. They don't pick grapes from a briar bush. The good man, out of the good treasure of his heart, brings forth what is good. The evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil, for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart. Now all along I've been saying this whole passage, this whole sermon, as it's been collected by Luke, is talking about the heart attitude of the true disciple. Now here it is. In both teachers and all of us. Good people, like good trees, produce good fruit. And the source of this fruit, whether it's good or bad, is the heart. What's in your heart? The way you talk, what you're saying, reflects what's in your heart. All of us. The good man produces his fruit out of the good treasure of his heart. It's what he has within his own inner self that determines what fruit his life will yield. And the converse is true. The evil man whose heart is evil can only produce bad fruit. So the contrast here, and it's clear once we get to verse 44. But the contrast is not between healthy trees and rotting trees. It's between different kinds of trees. Some trees bear good fruit. Apples, cherries, figs, and grapes. We could name others. But other trees bear only what? Thorns. Poisonous berries. Both kinds may look okay to us, but the fruit they produce reveals what their value is to us. It's impossible for any tree to bear some fruit that's contrary to its nature. A good tree, a cherry tree, can only produce cherries, and a briar tree cannot produce cherries. They only produce briars. Bad fruit. Brambles and thorn bushes, he says, bear no figs, no grapes. And the point here, so it is too in the case of every man. Good fruit can only come from a good heart. And it's only the good man. And he's speaking here of a man who has been born again, transformed by the Spirit of Christ. Who out of the good treasure of his heart is able to bring forth good fruit. You can help somebody according to the standards of the world, certainly, in the world. Can't get them any closer to the kingdom of God outside of the gospel. So what is this good fruit that's produced by man? Well Galatians chapter 5 gives us a real good start here, doesn't it? I mean, he's talking about good character in the person himself. We have fruit that comes forth from us. The fruits of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness. We should dwell and meditate on these. And examine ourselves. Gentleness, self-control. against such things. Paul writes, there is no law. So fruit can first of all be the character that emanates from a person. And then good fruit in the context we have here specifically in the content of his teaching. If you haven't received what you teach from God, it's not going to bear fruit for God. And third, in the person's impact on others. In our impact on others. That's the third category of fruit. On those we guide, on those we teach, on those we influence. And Jesus isn't speaking only of teachers here. Although He is speaking of teachers. But also of the attitudes and the fruit He wants to see in all of us. Love, joy, peace in our character. accurate and true doctrine. And an impact on those of our brethren and in the world. Matthew 12, 33, Jesus said this, "...Either make the tree good, and its fruit good, or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad. For the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers..." Here he is again with these Pharisees. How can you, being evil, speak what is good? And then look what he says. For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good. The evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil. For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. Remember, Jesus said we defile ourselves by what we say sometimes. This is why I constantly, constantly exhort you to read the Word of God daily. Because our heart will be filled with divine truth, with God, with His Word, with His expression of righteousness, truth, and justice. And look what he says here. The fruit of our lips speaks what is in our hearts. We got to fill our hearts with Christ. King James says it this way, For of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. So what a man produces from his inner storehouse, from his heart, whether it's good or bad, depends entirely on what we put into it. If you fill yourself with the things of God, you're going to be filling your heart with one thing. If you fill yourself with stuff that is opposed to God, and that speaks of wickedness, you're going to have different things in your heart. What a person says set his heart on. Whatever has filled his heart will sooner or later be revealed though in his speech. David knew his heart had turned to evil. He knew it. He saw himself rightly. What happened? He cried out to God. Look what he said. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. In these seven verses, Jesus has taught us that the Pharisees and the scribes were blind leaders of the people. And they were soon to pass away into history. They would be gone from the earth in 40 years. And our Lord was preparing a new generation of leaders, a new generation of teachers who would be trained by Him, who would soon go into the world, emulating the character and the teaching of Jesus Christ, their Master. And He taught them. And He teaches us what we must seek in those who teach us. Men who've realized their own unrighteousness, and who've been renewed by the Spirit of God, and who've been given eyes to see the divine truth. Because if truth is not communicated to us, we'll never know truth. And the only one, he says, who can bear good fruit is one who himself has been born again of the Spirit of God, who is no longer possessed of an evil heart. That heart with which we were all born. A heart in which evil dwells. No, He now has a heart that is indwelt by and moved by the Spirit of God Himself. It's been reformed by God into one who can now bear good fruit. It's my prayer that the Lord would look down and see people who emulate Christ all over this earth. Not a lot of evidence that that's what he sees. But we can do something about that. This truth taught by Jesus, folks, is undeniable. The heart of every man, the spiritual nature of every man, conceived in sin, born in iniquity, must be transformed before the good fruit of the Spirit of God can come forth. And I just ask, let us pray that He will grant that we will be guided by always, not by the wisdom of the world, but clear-eyed by the wisdom of God.