INTRODUCTION:

1. In the last two weeks we saw a leper cleansed (5:12, 13), and a man taken with a palsy healed (5:24, 25).
2. I have tried to emphasize that man's spiritual need was far greater than his physical needs (cf. 5:20). The miracles served to authenticate that Jesus was the Messiah (cf. Luke 7:22).
3. And we see this again tonight. The Great Physician came into this world to call sinners to repentance (5:31, 32).
4. Mark 2:1 tells us the healing of the man taken with a palsy was in Capernaum, and it was in Capernaum that our Lord met Levi, better known as Matthew, the author of the first book of the New Testament (5:27).
5. Matthew was a publican, a despised tax collector for the Roman government (5:27).
6. Tax collectors were known for being deceitful and dishonest. But rather than being glad that our Lord was saving dishonest and disreputable tax collectors, the religious leaders complained (5:30).
7. As followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, we must try and reach sinners with the Gospel -- the good news that Jesus saves.

 

I. OUR FIRST PRIORITY MUST BE WINNING SOULS

1. Luke 5:32 reminds us that Jesus cares for sinners. He loves sinners. Jesus went after sinners, and so must we.

One of my favorite hymns is, "Jesus!  What a Friend for Sinners!"

Jesus! what a Friend for sinners!
Jesus! Lover of my soul;
Friends may fail me, foes assail me,
He, my Savior, makes me whole.

 

Hallelujah! what a Savior!
Hallelujah! what a Friend!
Saving, helping, keeping, loving,
He is with me to the end. -- J. Wilbur Chapman

2. The key verse in the Gospel of Luke is Luke 19:10 -- "For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost."
3. Proverbs 11:30 says, "He that winneth souls is wise."
4. Our Lord has commanded us to go into all the world and preach the Gospel (Matt. 28:18-20; Mark 16:15, 16), but sadly, for most Christians the Great Commission has become "the Great Omission."
5. First Timothy 1:15 says, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." That is why He came to earth. That is why He died.
6. And that is why we are here. Oswald Smith said, "A church that does not evangelize will soon start to fossilize."
7. Luke 5:28 says Matthew, "left all, rose up, and followed" Jesus.
8. Then he invited all of his unsaved co-workers and friends to meet Jesus (5:29). All new believers should follow his example.
9. In the four Gospels, we see that the religious leaders were very critical of our Lord's ministry (cf. Luke 5:29, 30).
10. This fierce opposition eventually led to His crucifixion.
11. But it did not end there. The same religious leaders who crucified Jesus, persecuted His followers, and we see this repeatedly throughout the book of Acts.
12. Things have not changed much, and today most religious people do not understand the Gospel, and many are hostile to those who preach the Gospel.
13. Recently Bill O'Reilly compared born again Christians to Muslim terrorists. He said he finds it “disturbing” that we believe people need to be born again in order to get into heaven.
14. But that is precisely what Jesus taught. He said to Nicodemus, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3).
15. The scribes and the Pharisees saw our Lord sitting down to eat with publicans and sinners, and they murmured against the disciples, and said, "Why do ye eat and drink with publicans and sinners?" (5:30).
16. And Jesus answering said unto them, "They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick" (Luke 5:31). To go to a physician you first have to acknowledge that you are sick.
17. What would a doctor think if a sick man showed up in his office and insisted he was not sick? This is the problem with many sinners.
18. They refuse to admit they are sick with sin (cf. Romans 3:10-15).
19. Man has a deadly sin virus and it has corrupted him from the top of his head to the soles of his feet.
20. Isaiah 1:6 says, "From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment."
21. Sinners are the people who need to get saved (5:31, 32)!
22. Physicians treat sick people, not people who are healthy!
23. Some people teach you need to get cleaned up and straightened out before you can get saved. But that would be like a sick man calling up a doctor to make an appointment, only to have the doctor say, "Get rid of your sickness first, then come and see me."
24. Sinners need to come to Jesus as they are and then He will forgive them and clean them up and save them.

 

II. SOULWINNERS NEED TO SPEND TIME WITH SINNERS (5:29).

1. Our Lord ate with sinners, but He never endorsed their sinful behaviour (5:29-32). He did not participate with them in sin.
2. Spurgeon prayed, "Lord, grant that if ever I am found in the company of sinners, it may be with the design of healing them, and may I never become myself infected with their disease!” (The Gospel of Matthew).
3. There are some worldly churches that preach strange and terrible things about Jesus. Their "Jesus" is not the Jesus of the Bible. Their "Jesus" is a worldly, liberal, fun-loving fellow. They say if their "Jesus" on earth today He would be found in the nightclubs drinking and dancing. This is nothing but blasphemy.
4. Recently there was a big uproar over the Religious Freedom law in Indiana. Some of the opponents of the law insisted that Jesus approves of so-called "gay marriage." But of course they had no Scripture to back up their ridiculous claims.
5. Writing about our Lord's friendship with publicans and sinners, the great Bible teacher, H.A. Ironside, said: "One thing of which you may be sure: He was not having a jolly time with them. One of the great curses today is the devil’s mission of amusement! Have you ever thought of what the word 'amusement' means? Muse means 'to think,' and the a is 'the negative,' so amuse means 'not to think.'... The devil finds all sorts of things to amuse the people in order to keep them from thinking and facing the realities of eternity. Jesus did not meet with Matthew’s friends in order to amuse them. He was speaking faithfully and earnestly about things pertaining to the kingdom" (Luke).
6. Our Lord did not come to earth to amuse sinners, and our Lord would never participate in their sinful behaviour.
7. The Barna Research Group has been analyzing religious trends since 1984. A recent survey of more than 4,000 U.S. adults online and by phone revealed that only 56 percent of Americans believe in the deity of Christ.
8. Those who reject Jesus as God said He was just another spiritual figure, comparable to Muhammad or Buddha.
9. With such unscriptural views, it is not surprising to discover that 52 percent of Americans said that while living here on earth, Jesus was a sinner like other people.
10. People, especially those who claim to be Christian, should understand that the Bible teaches that Jesus Christ is the sinless Son of God.
11. If Jesus was a sinner, He could not be God.
12. If Jesus was a sinner, He could not have died on the cross as our perfect Substitute.
13. Second Corinthians 5:21 says Christ "knew no sin."
14. First John 3:5 says Christ "was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin."
15. Hebrews 4:15 says Christ "was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin."
16. To win people to Christ we must love them and befriend them, but we are not to engage in sinful behaviour with them.
17. Sinners are "sick" (5:31), and if not cured their sickness will lead to eternity in hell. Physicians need to get close to sick people in order to heal them, and soulwinners need to get close to sinners in order to try and win them to Christ (5:29-32).
18. Separation is not isolation. The doctrine of separation means we are to separate from sin, but this does not mean we are not to have any contact with unsaved people (5:29-32).
19. Some people mistakenly believe Christians should live like monks or hermits, isolated from all of the corruption and pollution of sin. But it is impossible to win souls if we live in some remote area and never have any contact with sinners.
20. First Corinthians 5 deals with immorality in a local church. Referring to immoral church members, Paul says in verse 9, "I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators."
21. But then Paul adds, "Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world. But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat" (I Cor. 5:10, 11). We are to separate from immoral church members.
22. Paul explained that he did not mean they could not eat a meal with the sexually immoral people of this world, because to do that they would need to leave this world.
23. In heaven, we will have no contact with sinners, but while we are here let us try and get them saved.
24. Jude 22 and 23 says, "And of some have compassion, making a difference: And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh."

 

III. SOULWINNERS MUST EMPHASIZE REPENTANCE (5:32).

1. The doctrine of repentance is often ignored and overlooked. People (whether they are lost sinners or backslidden Christians) do not want to repent, and so preachers do not stress it like they should.
2. "Repentance" (5:32) means turning from sin, and turning to God. Repentance is a change of mind which leads to a change of direction.
3. Luke 15:17 says the Prodigal Son "came to himself." That means he changed his mind. Luke 15:20 says he climbed out of the pig pen and returned to his father. This is genuine repentance.
4. The great theme of repentance is very prominent in the gospel of Luke (cf. 3:3, 8; 10:13, 14; 11:32; 13:3, 5; 15:7, 10, 17; 16:30; 17:3, 4; 24:47).
5. Repentance is so closely connected to salvation, that the words are sometimes used interchangeably. Second Peter 3:9 says the Lord is "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."
6. Charles Haddon Spurgeon said in true repentance, "We repent of sin itself as being an insult to God. Anything short of this is a mere surface repentance, and not a repentance which reaches to the bottom of the mischief. Repentance of the evil act, and not of the evil heart, is like men pumping water out of a leaky vessel, but forgetting to stop the leak. Some would dam up the stream, but leave the fountain still flowing; they would remove the eruption from the skin, but leave the disease in the flesh."
7. John the Baptist said, "And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire" (Matthew 3:10).
8. John the Baptist said, "Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance" (Matthew 3:8).
9. Oftentimes we see half-hearted repentance, surface repentance, and insincere repentance.
10. In other words -- false repentance.
11. There are many examples in the Bible of insincere repentance. Judas Iscariot "went and hanged himself" (Matthew 27:5).
12. Other examples of insincere repentance would be Pharaoh and King Saul.

 

CONCLUSION:

1. In Luke 5:33, our Lord was asked about fasting. The practice of fasting was prevalent in Israel, and is mentioned many times in the Bible.
2. In the Bible, fasting often accompanies prayer (cf. Luke 5:33; Daniel 9:3).
3. However, in the days of our Lord, fasting had degenerated among the Pharisees into an external observance used to impress people (cf. Matt. 6:16-18).
4. The Pharisees were constantly observing our Lord and His disciples to see whether they conformed to their Pharisaical traditions and practices. They noticed that neither our Lord nor His disciples fasted. On the other hand, John the Baptist fasted.
5. Therefore, they wanted to know why our Lord and His disciples did not fast (5:33).
6. Our Lord used the imagery of a wedding to illustrate His point (5:34, 35). A wedding is a time of rejoicing, not mourning.
7. Christ is "the bridegroom" and those who are saved are "the children of the bride-chamber" (5:34, 35).
8. After our Lord's death -- "when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them" – then His disciples would fast (5:35).
9. I believe we would see more souls saved if Christians spent more time fasting and praying.