Luke 11:45-54

The passage before us is an example of our Lord Jesus Christ’s faithful dealing with the souls of men. We see Him without fear or favour rebuking the sins of the Jewish expounders of God’s law. That false charity which calls it “unkind” to say that any one is in error, finds no encouragement in the language used by our Lord. He calls things by their right names. He knew that acute diseases need severe remedies. He would have us know that the truest friend to our souls, is not the man who is always “speaking smooth things,” and agreeing with everything we say, but the man who tells us the most truth.

We learn, firstly, from our Lord’s words, how great is the sin of professing to teach others what we do not practice ourselves. He says to the lawyers, “Ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, while ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers.” They required others to observe wearisome ceremonies in religion which they themselves neglected. They had the impudence to lay yokes upon the consciences of other men, and yet to grant exemptions from these yokes for themselves. In a word, they had one set of measures and weights for their hearers, and another set for their own souls.

The stern reproof which our Lord here administers, should come home with special power to certain classes in the church. It is a word in season to all teachers of young people. It is a word to all masters of families and heads of households. It is a word to all fathers and mothers. Above all, it is a word to all clergymen and ministers of religion. Let all such mark well our Lord’s language in this passage. Let them beware of telling others to aim at a standard which they do not aim at themselves. Such conduct, to say the least, is gross inconsistency.

Perfection, no doubt, is unattainable in this world. If nobody is to lay down rules, or teach, or preach, until he is faultless himself, the whole fabric of society would be thrown into confusion. But we have a right to expect some agreement between a man’s words and a man’s works,–between his teaching and his doing,–between his preaching and his practice. One thing at all events is very certain. No lessons produce such effects on men as those which the teacher illustrates by his own daily life. Happy is he who can say with Paul, “Those things which ye have heard and seen in me, do.” (Philip.4:9)

We learn, secondly, from our Lord’s words, how much more easy it is to admire dead saints than living ones. He says to the lawyers, “Ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and your fathers killed them.” They professed to honour the memory of the prophets, while they lived in the very same ways which the prophets had condemned! They openly neglected their advice and teaching, and yet they pretended to respect their graves!

The practice which is here exposed has never been without followers in spirit, if not in the letter. Thousands of wicked men in every age of the church have tried to deceive themselves and others by loud professions of admiration for the saints of God after their decease. By so doing they have endeavoured to ease their own consciences, and blind the eyes of the world. They have sought to raise in the minds of others the thought, “If these men love the memories of the good so dearly they must surely be of one heart with them.” They have forgotten that even a child can see that “dead men tell no tales,” and that to admire men when they can neither reprove us by their lips, nor put us to shame by their lives, is a very cheap admiration indeed.

Would we know what a man’s religious character really is? Let us inquire what he thinks of true Christians while they are yet alive.–Does he love them, and cleave to them, and delight in them, as the excellent of the earth?–Or does he avoid them, and dislike them, and regard them as fanatics, and enthusiasts, and extreme, and righteous overmuch?–The answers to these questions are a pretty safe test of a man’s true character. When a man can see no beauty in living saints, but much in dead ones, his soul is in a very rotten state. The Lord Jesus has pronounced his condemnation. He is a hypocrite in the sight of God.

We learn, thirdly, from our Lord’s words, how surely a reckoning day for persecution will come upon the persecutors. He says that the “blood of all the prophets shall be required.”

There is something peculiarly solemn in this statement. The number of those who have been put to death for the faith of Christ in every age of the world, is exceedingly great. Thousands of men and women have laid down their lives rather than deny their Saviour, and have shed their blood for the truth. At the time they died they seemed to have no helper. Like Zacharias, and James, and Stephen, and John the Baptist, and Ignatius, and Huss, and Hooper, and Latimer, they died without resistance. They were soon buried and forgotten on earth, and their enemies seemed to triumph utterly. But their deaths were not forgotten in heaven. Their blood was had in remembrance before God. The persecutions of Herod, and Nero, and Diocletian, and bloody Mary, and Charles IX, are not forgotten. There shall be a great assize one day, and then all the world shall see that “precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” (Psalm 116:15)

Let us often look forward to the judgment day. There are many things going on in the world which are trying to our faith. The frequent triumphing of the wicked is perplexing. The frequent depression of the godly is a problem that appears hard to solve. But it shall all be made clear one day. The great white throne and the books of God shall put all things in their right places. The tangled maze of God’s providences shall be unravelled. All shall be proved to a wondering world to have been “well done.” Every tear that the wicked have caused the godly to shed shall be reckoned for. Every drop of righteous blood that has been spilled shall at length be required.

We learn, lastly, from our Lord’s words, how great is the wickedness of keeping back others from religious knowledge. He says to the lawyers, “Ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and those that were entering in ye hindered.”

The sin here denounced is awfully common. The guilt of it lies at far more doors than at first sight many are aware. It is the sin of the Romish priest who forbids the poor man to read his Bible.–It is the sin of the unconverted Protestant minister who warns his people against “extreme views,” and sneers at the idea of conversion. It is the sin of the ungodly, thoughtless husband who dislikes his wife becoming “serious.”–It is the sin of the worldly-minded mother who cannot bear the idea of her daughter thinking of spiritual things, and giving up theatres and balls. All these, wittingly or unwittingly, are bringing down on themselves our Lord’s emphatic “woe.” They are hindering others from entering heaven!

Let us pray that this awful sin may never be ours. Whatever we are ourselves in religion, let us dread discouraging others, if they have the least serious concern about their souls. Let us never check any of those around us in their religion, and specially in the matter of reading the Bible, hearing the Gospel, and private prayer. Let us rather cheer them, encourage them, help them, and thank God if they are better than ourselves. “Deliver me from blood-guiltiness,” was a prayer of David’s. (Psalm 51:14) It may be feared that the blood of relatives will be heavy on the heads of some at the last day. They saw them about to “enter” the kingdom of God, and they “hindered” them.