Sure Signs of Self-Deception (Luke 6:39–45) | The Gospel of Luke (Part 50)

Transcript

JRNT 101
01/25/2026
The Gospel of Luke: Sure Signs of Self-Deception
Luke 6:39-45
Jesse Randolph


Well, we are back this morning in our study of the Gospel of Luke, Luke 6, Jesus's Sermon on the Plain. I'd invite you to turn with me in your Bibles to Luke 6 where we are going to pick it up right away in verses 39-45, Luke 6:39-45. God's Word reads, "And He also spoke a parable to them. Can a blind man guide a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit? A student is not above his teacher but everyone after he has been fully trained will be like his teacher. And why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 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 log 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 out the speck 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 own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns nor do they pick grapes from a bramble 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 the abundance of his heart.”

Now as we back out of the gate here I think it's important to remind everybody that while every single word of this book from front to back, from Genesis to Revelation is the very and revealed Word of God, we can tend to fall into these patterns where we read the Bible as though it is just a loose collection of words, a hodgepodge of ethical principles, a sprinkling of a few spiritual thoughts sort of like spiritual parsley, a garnish on the side of our otherwise full and busy plate. That's the opposite of how we are to look at God's Word. We're to look at God's Word as our sustenance, our main dish, the very food that we need to sustain us spiritually as we seek to and strive to walk daily by the Spirit, to keep in step with the Spirit.

Well, this section that we'll be in in Luke today is an example of one of those passages that we can, if we are not careful, simply breeze right by, while missing out on the depths of the text, the richness of the text, the meaning of the text and the significance of the text. We don't want to do that, so we're going to slow it down this morning within reason to take in the pure milk of the Word, to make sure we have a clear understanding of some of the very difficult truths that Jesus was laying down here.

Now Luke, you'll recall, in this Gospel, the Gospel of Luke, was recording history. He was creating his own Spirit-directed record of the life and the ministry of Jesus. He was writing to this man named Theophilus and in Luke 1:4 he tells Theophilus that he is “writing these things so that you have the certainty of the things which you have been taught,” namely about Jesus. In the section of Luke's Gospel that we've been in Luke is giving this account of this sermon that Jesus preached outside this Galilean fishing village known as Capernaum, and I'll mention that again. Jesus here was preaching a sermon. He wasn't giving a talk, He wasn't giving a lesson, He wasn't dryly delivering data, He wasn't stalely transferring facts like your high school chemistry teacher might have transferred facts to you. No, a sermon is a Spirit-driven, Spirit-guided event where those who are here to listen to it are placed into the tube, as it were, and subject to spiritual scanning. A sermon is an event where the Word of God which we know is “living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword,” Hebrews 4:12, “pierces as far as the division of the soul and spirit of both joints and marrow and discerns the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” A sermon with the Spirit's help moves both the consciences and the wills of those who hear it. None, of course, could preach, has preached, will ever preach a better sermon than Jesus. Jesus set the bar of what it looks like to preach a sermon to one crowd and to preach to that one crowd as you are gathering in the sheep and tending the sheep and comforting the sheep and at the same time driving out the wolves, to a single crowd where you are both afflicting the consciences of those who are comfortable and comforting those who are afflicted. That is exactly what we have here in this Sermon on the Plain. It's a sermon which cuts and it's a sermon that convicts and it's a sermon which is oh so very clear about where people stand.

Recall here that Jesus is preaching to a mixed crowd. Standing before Him as He is preaching this sermon are the Twelve, the twelve newly chosen apostles. Also standing before Him is that broader group of disciples, they are mentioned in Luke 6:17, that's the group from whom the Twelve were chosen. Then there is that great multitude, they are also mentioned in Luke 6:17, and they came from all over the region—from Judea and Jerusalem, from Tyre and Sidon. That wider group, they were there to really get something from Jesus. They wanted to see something from Jesus; they wanted to have an experience with Jesus. To put it in modern terms they would be like those who went to the Casting Crowns concert 15 years ago and bought one of those “1 cross + 3 nails = 4 given” t-shirts. That's what this crowd was there for, for the Jesus experience. And Jesus, of course being God, being omniscient, being all-knowing, He knew that standing before Him out there on the plain were both true followers as well as fakes. So here in His Sermon on the Plain He intentionally went about getting at the heart of both groups. That's why He delivers on the one hand His beatitudes to those who are truly of Him, they are blessed in various ways. That's why in this same sermon He delivers His woes, His words of warning to those who are there hearing His words, but they are otherwise on this steep decline to hell. His Sermon on the Plain, in other words, was one that forced all who originally heard it and also for those who read it and hear it today to grapple with questions like which camp am I in, which side of the fence do I sit on, am I a genuine and abiding follower of Jesus Christ, like some outside this crowd in Capernaum would have been, or instead am I an impostor, instead am I a pretender, instead am I a fake, instead am I deceived.

I've titled the message this morning SURE SIGNS OF SELF DECEPTION, and I've given this sermon that title because what we have here is Jesus ever aware of the audience which had gathered around Him, completely aware of the mixed nature of the crowd that was before Him, preaching a sermon where He is drawing a line in the sand between the true and the false, between the real and the phony, between the saved and the unsaved. He does so by way of these three signs. First in verses 39-40 there is the Sign of Blind Following, in verses 41-42 there is the Sign of Being Fake, and in verses 43-45 there is the Sign of Bad Fruit. Blind Following, Being Fake, Bad Fruit from the Lord's lips to our ears, those are sure signs of self-deception.

Let's go ahead and get into it with the first sign of self-deception, the Sign of Blind Following, verses 39-40. It says, “And He also spoke a parable to them. Can a blind man guide a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit? A student is not above his teacher, but everyone after he has been fully trained will be like his teacher.” So, Luke begins this section of the Sermon on the Plain with these words that He, Jesus, spoke a parable to them. Now we typically associate that word “parable” with things like sowers or talents or ten virgins, or mustard seeds. Right? We think of parable and we think of the Gospel account narratives and the parables that are recorded there which are usually these short story form formats where some moral or spiritual truth is being communicated, a prolonged short story. That's one form of parable, the short story form. But there is another way that parable is used in the New Testament, specifically in the Gospels. Which is less short story oriented and more proverbs related, more proverbial where there is a short statement of wisdom, or maybe even a question that is intended to provoke the statement of wisdom like we see in the book of Proverbs, let's say. Well, that's what we have going on here when Luke describes this parable that Jesus spoke to them. It's a proverbs like statement of wisdom that Luke has in view.

Well, as we keep reading on here next come Jesus's questions. If you have a red-letter Bible these are where the letters start turning red. He says, “Can a blind man guide a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit?” Now why did Jesus take this sudden turn and direction in His sermon, the Sermon on the Plain? Why would He go from stressing the importance of loving one's enemies and being merciful and not judging and giving generously to now sharing this parable about the dangers of falling into a pit? Let's remember who was following Him, let's remember who was hot on His tail. In fact, go back with me to Luke 5. In verse 12 there is the healing of the leper, and you get to Luke 5:17 and there is the healing of the paralytic. Recall that is the scene where the gentleman was lowered down through the roof by his friends. Who was there as that episode unfolded, following Jesus like a hawk? Look at verse 21, “The scribes and the Pharisees began to reason saying, who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” Then when Jesus called Levi the tax collector to follow Him and recall Levi left everything behind to follow Him but not before throwing a big party for Jesus, or at least in Jesus's honor, who was there looking over the fence, watching the whole party unfold like a nosy neighbor, like Wilson from “Home Improvement,” if you're old enough for that TV show? Luke 5:30, who was there watching? It says, “And the Pharisees and their scribes began grumbling at His disciples saying, “Why do you eat and drink with the tax collectors and sinners?” When at the beginning of Luke 6 Jesus's disciples were going through the grainfields on the Sabbath and picking and eating the heads of grain, who was there to wag their finger in disapproval? Look at Luke 6:2, “But some of the Pharisees said, ‘Why do you do what is not lawful on the Sabbath?’” Now when later in Luke 6 Jesus was approached on the Sabbath by the man with the withered hand, who was there trying to corner Him? Look at verse 7 of chapter 6, “And the scribes and the Pharisees were watching Him closely to see if He healed on the Sabbath so that they might find reason to accuse Him.” When He healed that man on the Sabbath, how do the scribes and the Pharisees react? Look at verse 11, “But they themselves were filled with rage and were discussing together what they might do to Jesus.”

Now note, Luke goes straight from that statement in his narrative about the Pharisees being filled with rage and discussing what they might do next to Jesus. Jesus now appointing the twelve and coming down the mountain with the twelve and delivering His Sermon on the Plain. Now do you think there is any way that when Jesus went up the mountain to pray and then down the mountain to preach that the Pharisees had suddenly just lost sight of Him? Or suddenly just lost interest in Him? No way, of course not. The Pharisees absolutely still had their sight set on Him, they were still very much locked in on Him; meaning as Jesus was preaching the Sermon on the Plain to this mixed crowd, you would have had some Pharisees sprinkled in with their phylacteries and their tassels on display for all to see to remind everybody who the boss was in town. These are the very Pharisees who back in verse 11 Luke was saying were “filled with rage and discussing together what they might do to Jesus.” So, as Jesus is addressing this crowd outside of Capernaum on the plain, when He says here in verse 39, “Can a blind man guide a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit,” He was directly taking head on the elephant in the room. He was saying what He needed to say here which is; the spiritual blindness that He was calling out in Israel during this time was, at least humanly speaking, caused by, rooted in the teaching of the Pharisees. It was the Pharisees who were acting as blind guides during this time. It was the Pharisees who had their sights set on Him, but He had His sights set on them.

In fact, if you would, turn back with me to Matthew's Gospel, Matthew 15 specifically, and we'll see this connection play out between spiritual blindness and the Pharisees during the earthly ministry of Jesus. Matthew 15:1, we'll just take in the whole thing. It says, “Then some Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, ‘Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.’” So the Pharisees as always are very fixated on their traditions. Now look at verse 3, “And He answered and said to them, ‘Why do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?’” Now starting in verse 4 Jesus gives an example of their traditions whereby they had violated the Word of God. Verse 4, “For God said,” this is still Jesus speaking, “Honor your father and mother and he who speaks evil of father or mother is to be put to death. But you say, ‘Whoever says to his father or mother whatever you might benefit from me is given to God, he need not honor his father.’” So, the Law of Moses said honor your father and mother, and one of the ways you were to honor your father and mother, practically speaking, was to provide for them in old age. But by this time the Pharisees had adopted a tradition by which you could say a few magic words, recite a magic incantation and then you could avoid the duty of honoring your father and your mother specifically by helping them out at their advanced stage of life. Look at how Jesus assesses their tradition, look at how He assesses the Pharisees. Still in verse 6, it says, “And by this you invalidated the Word of God for the sake of your tradition.” He goes on, verse 7 and says, “You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you. This people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me. But in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commands of men.” Then Matthew goes on to say, “After Jesus called the crowd to Him, He said to them, Hear and understand. It is not what enters into the mouth that defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man.” Now I love verse 12, “Then the disciples came and said to Him, ‘Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this statement?” Like, yeah you call them a hypocrite, that's going to offend most people when you say that directly to their face. Verse 13, “But He answered and said, ‘Every plant which My heavenly Father did not plant shall be uprooted.’” Now look at verse 14, “Let them alone, they are blind guides of the blind and if a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit.”

Now that language sounds familiar, does it not? That's right in parallel with our passage. You can turn back to Luke 6:39 where again here Jesus says in the Sermon on the Plain, “Can a blind man guide a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit?” I had us turn to Matthew 15 to highlight the fact that when Jesus here was delivering His Sermon on the Plain in this separate event as He is laying out these sure signs of self-deception, He was warning those in the crowd about blindly following certain blind guides. The blind guides He was referring to were the Pharisees. You know He would go on, Jesus would, to use various other provocative expressions to describe or to call out these Jewish legalists of His day. He called them white-washed tombs, He called them serpents, He called them a brood of vipers. But a word He used far more than any of those descriptions was blind. The Pharisees were spiritually blind false teachers, they were leading those who followed them straight off a cliff, into a pit, namely hell. To amplify this point, reading on here, Jesus says next in verse 40, “A student is not above his teacher, but everyone after he has been fully trained will be like his teacher.” Now it is really easy for anyone of us to airlift or cherry pick any Bible verse out of its context to make it fit the circumstances we find ourselves in in the moment. I am certain that this verse has been used by many grateful graduates as they express their gratitude to their teacher or their professor for the influence, they have had upon them. I imagine this verse has even been quoted in certain cards of appreciation that members of churches write to pastors or to Sunday School teachers. But I want us to know the context here and pay attention to the context here. Jesus here is not addressing or describing faithful teachers, He is warning against false teachers, errant teachers, wayward teachers, blind guides. In context what Jesus is saying here in verse 40 when He says here on the plain that “a student is not above his teacher and that everyone after he has been fully trained will be like his teacher.” He is saying that if you follow the unfaithful, if you blindly follow the blind, if you are trained, fully trained, to be like one of them, like the way of the false teacher; you are going to go into the pit just like he will. You aren't above your teacher, meaning you aren't exempt or immune from falling into the pit just like he will. Rather, having followed such a teacher, having become just like your teacher you are going to end up going down the same path as your teacher as you both fall into the pit. So, Jesus's words put together here in verses 39-40 are really packaged together as words of warning. He is saying be careful who you follow, be careful that you are not deceived by or duped into following the false teachings of the Pharisees. That's His context.

But now broadening this out from the Sermon on the Plain of Jesus's day to our context, what He says here marries perfectly and lines up perfectly with the teachings of several different New Testament authors who would likewise later call out false teachers and warn against following false teachers. For instance, there is Paul in his second letter to the Corinthians who calls the false teachers there in II Corinthians 11:13, “deceitful workmen.” Paul had no problem calling out those in Galatia who were false teachers, “preaching a different gospel.” He called them accursed, anathematized them. Or John when he called out false teachers in his context in the letter of I John, in I John 4:1 he refers to them as “false prophets,” bringing in old Deuteronomy-type language to call out the false prophet. Peter in II Peter 2 likens false teachers to “unreasoning animals, stains, blemishes, springs without water, mists driven by a storm for whom the black darkness has been kept.” We can't forget Jude who in his short little one-chapter letter in verses 12-13 referred to the false teachers as “clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea casting up their own shame like foam; wandering stars for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever.” Right in line with Jesus's words here in the Sermon on the Plain each of those subsequent New Testament authors, whether Paul or John or Peter or Jude, they were each giving a warning, a similar warning—don't be led by blind men, don't be led by false teachers lest you fall into the pit with them. Those who fall into that pit, those who are deceived by false teachers ultimately will be proven to be outside the camp, outside the family of God. That's a sure sign of deception, self-deception #1, the Sign of Blind Following.

Here is our next one, sure sign of deception #2, this is the Sign of Being Fake. Look at verses 41-42, still in Luke 6. I'll assume many of you are familiar with this language where Jesus says this. “And why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 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 log 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 out the speck that is in your brother's eye.” You know Jesus was not only convicting in His preaching, but He was also creative. On more than one occasion He was almost comically exaggerated in His imagery when He would make a spiritual point. We think of the rich young ruler interaction in Luke 18 where He says, “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” We think of His interactions again with the Pharisees in Matthew 23:34 where after calling them again blind guides, He says, “They strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.” What was He doing with those fanciful word pictures, with that hyperbole? Well, He was grabbing the attention of the ears of those who were hearing the sound of His voice to make sure they were actually listening to Him, to make sure that the spiritual point He was attempting to land was actually landing. It is no different in our passage here in verses 41-42 where Jesus here is bringing in this imagery of specks and logs to make a spiritual point. And what is the spiritual point that He is trying to land? What is the individual He is trying to flag and highlight? Well, it's the self-righteous. He is flagging, He is identifying with this language self-righteous and hypocrisy. You can put them together—self-righteous hypocrisy. Self-righteous hypocrisy is a sure sign of self-deception.

Let's put ourselves on the plain for just a moment. Let's put ourselves in sandals, as it were, of those who were hearing this sermon as it was preached real time. Let's picture ourselves looking into the whites of the eyeballs of the Savior as He delivers this message about this peril of not only following blind guides but this extra visual here about having a self-righteous heart. This visual is striking. As Jesus is describing this what He is charging His listeners to do, His audience to do is to picture. . . I’m going to throw it out this way. Picture two teenage brothers, advanced years, late teenage brothers who are working in their family carpentry shop, either indoor or outdoor, kind of adjacent to the family home, somewhere outside of Capernaum. And these two young men are working away, and they are sawing and they are hammering and they are planing and they are joining. But they are working on wood, wood stuff. Suddenly there is this gust of wind that blasts through the window of this workshop. And as this wind gust blasts through, it causes this little speck of dust to kick up off the ground and before this one man's eyelid can properly react and contract and close, that speck enters his eye and lands right on his eyeball. A total annoyance, a total irritation, we've all been there at some point. I was there this morning with a contact lens, thinking perfect timing to make this point. But you can picture this young man with a speck in his eyeball, closing up his hand in a fist as he starts to rub on that thing to get that speck out of his eye. It's bothersome. Well, as all of that is happening, his brother, the other young man is actually outside the workshop, outside the carpentry workshop and he is working on this massive project. He is working on this massive, load bearing roof beam that somebody has contracted him to work on. Well, that guy has an accident of his own as that giant beam, which at that point has been held up by two or three sawhorses, it gets caught up in that same wind gust, the same wind gust that caused the speck to land in the one brother's eye. Now this giant, massive, load bearing roof beam is levitating off those sawhorses, it spins a few times in the air, and it lands directly in that man's eye. Now how the physics of this works, I haven't the faintest idea. How a plank, how a roof beam, how a log can end up in a man's eye and not impale him or kill him, I don't know. The physics of how he wouldn't tilt over and fall over with that beam protruding from his eye, no clue. I'm a pastor, not a physicist. But that's not the point, I mean that's not really the idea of what Jesus is trying to communicate here. He's not trying to communicate how this would work, He's trying to make the bigger point, the spiritual point.

Well back to this scenario. This young man now with the roof beam protruding from his eye, you would assume he would have something, like at the top of his list of things to do would be to remove that roof beam from his eye or at least to flag somebody for some help in getting that roof beam removed from his eye. But that's not what this guy does. Instead he walks up to the other brother, the one who had now the speck of dust land in his eye, and instead of saying hey brother, can you remove this roof beam from my eye, I'm really in pain here, he squints and looks into his brother's eye and sees a speck of dust, a fleck, a little particle, a little splinter. And he says to his brother, Brother you have a speck in your eye. Now, that's the picture that Jesus is painting in this scene as He is addressing this crowd in Capernaum as He asks, “Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?” Now surely as I even heard just now, there would be a few giggles sort of rippling through the crowd as people were processing what it was, He was teaching, because this would really require one to stretch the imagination and picture and visualize what you are trying to visualize with this account. A load bearing roof beam sticking out of a guy's eye? Really? And that guy with the load bearing roof beam is worried about a speck in the other guy's eye? Really? They would be giggling and laughing the way that we laugh. Well, the fact that those in this crowd would have a reaction like that only highlights the brilliance of the point and only highlights the brilliance of Jesus's preaching. See He didn't share this story about specks and crossbeams and sawdust to prevent future OSHA violations. No, He said what He said here to highlight the sin of self-righteousness and how a self-righteous heart is a sure sign as any that a person is self-deceived. They have a wrong perception of self and of others.

In fact, let's do a little flyover of some key Bible passages which highlight the sin of self-righteousness, a sin which is especially egregious, especially revealing because the sin of self-righteousness, what it does is it highlights one's declaration of independence from the God one claims to worship. Turn with me, if you would, over to Isaiah 65, we'll look just at a few verses here. Isaiah 65, this is God, Yahweh, who at this point is really at the end of His rope with Israel. He is about to send them off into exile, not only because of their idolatry, that's what we often think about when we think of Israel going into exile, but also their self-righteousness. Look at Isaiah 65, pick it up in verse 1. God here speaking, He says, “I permitted Myself to be sought by those who did not ask for Me, I permitted Myself to be found by those who did not seek Me. I said, ‘Here am I, here am I to a nation which did not call on My name.’ I have spread out My hands all day long to a rebellious people who walk in the way, which is not good, following their own thoughts, a people who continually provoke Me to My face.” You can feel and sense God's righteous anger toward Israel bubbling up to the surface here. Middle of verse 3 now, God describes some of Israel's idolatrous practices. They are “offering sacrifices in gardens and burning incense on bricks, who sit among graves and spend the night in secret places, who eat swine's flesh and the broth of offensive meat is in their pots.” Then verse 5, and it says, “who say keep to yourself, do not come near me for I am holier than you.” What is that describing? Self-righteousness. That's describing self-righteousness. Though they were clearly acting wickedly, the people of Israel at this time had this artificially elevated view of self. They thought they had arrived, they thought they had a certain glow about them because they were Israel. To use a word, I hear more in my home these days, they thought they had aura. Three young people will laugh at that one. But what does God say of them? Look at the end of verse 5, He says, “These are smoke in My nostrils, a fire that burns all the day.” That's a Hebraic way of saying they are not only an annoyance to Me, but I am angry at them. They have angered Me.

Another Old Testament verse you can jot down to highlight the sin of self-righteousness is Proverbs 26:12 which says, “Do you see a man wise in his own eyes?” In other words, do you see a self-righteous man? Then it says, “There is more hope for a fool than for him.” Or then you get to the New Testament, and you see additional statements about and commands against self-righteousness. I Corinthians 10:12, “Therefore let him who thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall.” The one who fails to do so is self-righteous. II Corinthians 10:12, Paul there is referring to the false teachers who had entered Corinth by that time and he says, “When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are without understanding.” The one who uses themselves, in other words, as the measuring stick of that which is true is what? Self-righteous. Or Revelation 3 where Jesus gives the seven letters to the seven churches through the Apostle John. In the seventh of those seven letters, to the church at Laodicea He says this. Revelation 3:17, “Because you say, I am rich and have become wealthy and have need of nothing and do not know that you are wretched and pitiable and poor and blind and naked.” What was the lukewarm Laodicean church, what was their attitude, what was the attitude they were displaying when they were saying they were rich and have become wealthy and have need of nothing? Self-righteousness.

Bringing all this around back to our passage here in the Sermon on the Plain, when Jesus asked in Luke 6:41, “Why do you look at the speck that is in your own brother's eye but do not notice the log that is in your own eye,” what He was really doing was condemning all forms of self-righteousness. As He did so, He kept building on His illustration as He offered a solution to self-righteousness. The solution to self-righteousness is a simple one, it's to repent. It's to repent and develop instead in its place a humble sense of self-awareness. Look at verse 42, “How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother let me take out the speck that is in your own eye’, when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye?” So as Jesus set this up there is this young man with that load bearing plank sticking out of his eye, and he's not only focusing on the speck in his brother's eye (that's as far as we've gotten so far in this account, his focusing on it), but he is also saying something about it. He's vocalizing it. So consumed is he with the speck in his brother's eye that he feels like he just has to say something about it. You know the equivalent in our day would be telling your kids, your grandkids that they are spending too much time on their phone when your screen time report each week shows that you spend double the time that they do. The equivalent in our day would be something like telling your wife that she watches too much Netflix when you are spending far more time managing your five fantasy football teams. The equivalent in our day would be something like shushing families who might bring a child into the service when your cellphone is ringing in, going off during the service is five times louder and distracting than their little whimpers. You get the point.

The man in this scenario that Jesus was describing was not only internally full of angst about the speck that is in the brother's eye, but it’s also now spilling over externally. He can't restrain himself, he feels like he has to say something. As he does so he earns a rebuke from Jesus. Look at the end of verse 42 where our Lord says, “You hypocrite. First take the log out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother's eye.” You hypocrite, that is strong, pointed language from Jesus. The word for hypocrite, I'm sure many of you have heard this preached before, comes from the ancient Greek realm of playacting. Of course, in ancient Greek playacting you would see somebody on stage that would be wearing a mask. They were performing, they were playing a part. The hypocrite is presenting as though he is one thing, like an actor would on the stage, but behind the curtain he is someone totally different, someone opposite. And the Pharisees we know were notorious for their hypocrisy, and Jesus consistently called them out for it.

In fact, if you would turn over with me to Matthew again, Matthew 23 where we see an example of Jesus calling out Pharisaic hypocrisy. Matthew 23, we'll start in verse 1. It says, “And Jesus spoke to the crowds and His disciples saying, The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses; therefore, all that they tell you, do and keep, but do not do according to their deeds for they say things and do not do them. And they tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men's shoulders but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger. But they do all their deeds to be noticed by men, for they broaden their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments, and they love the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues.” Note the thrust of what Jesus is saying here. The Pharisees insisted that others do what they themselves refuse to do. They were zealous pretenders; they were religious play actors. Drop down to verse 13, He says, “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people, for you do not enter in yourselves nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites because you devour widows' houses and for a pretense you make long prayers. Therefore, you will receive greater condemnation. Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte and when he becomes one you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.” The Pharisees gave off this vibe of virtue, this sanctimonious scent, but they were hypocrites, they were mask wearing play actors, they were hell bound phonies.

The sad thing is, Pharisaic hypocrisy runs rampant not only in the world in our day, but sadly you can find it in the church. There can be the leader of the Home Bible Study or the Adult Sunday School class who has authority by virtue of his position. But after he finishes his lesson on Tuesday night, let's say, or completes writing his lesson on Thursday night, toggles over to another screen and consumes another episode or another visual of soul destroying pornography. Or on the women's side let's say there is the older woman who claims to have a love for the younger women in the church and she claims to have a heart for letting the younger women in the church watch their hearts and love their homes but she shows it in a really odd way because she takes what she learns from the young women that confide in her and then she shares it and spreads it all around with other women in the church. Now the gangrene of gossip is consuming the church and destroying the unity of the church. In both examples the individuals mentioned are wearing masks, they are being fake, hypocrites. And that vice, that sin of hypocrisy is alive and well not only in the world, but again sadly in the church.

Here in Luke 6 Jesus offers His solution for dealing with it—log removal, plank removal. Look at the end of verse 42, Luke 6:42, He says, “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye,” in other words have a sense, a humble sense of self-awareness, be aware of what's going on not only in your eye but most importantly in your heart, “and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother's eye.” Then you will have grounds upon which to say something to them. Now don't lose sight of this, removing a speck or removing a plank is not actually the heart of what He is preaching here and teaching here. This is not like Ben Franklin-type wisdom that Jesus is dispensing from Poor Richard's Almanac about dealing more favorably or charitably with your brother. At the heart of what He is doing here as He is preaching these words on the plain is forcing those who hear these words, forcing those who hear this portion of His sermon to do some reflection, to do some soul searching, to do some thinking about things like who am I. Am I a humble hearted, right minded genuine follower of Jesus or am I a self-righteous hypocrite? Am I deceived? That's really the point that He is driving home in this section.

I need to move on. We've considered the Sign of Blind Following, we've looked at the Sign of Being Fake, those are the first two signs of self-deception. Last is the third one, the Sign of Bad Fruit. Look at verses 43-45, He says, “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 own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns nor do they pick grapes from a bramble 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 the abundance of his heart.” As Jesus looked out at that crowd on the plain made up of true disciples, made up of the Twelve, but also made up of phonies and made up of Pharisees, as they are out there clinging to His every word; Jesus drove home the point of this section of the sermon about self-deception and how to detect it with the words we just read in verses 43-45. Those are words very simply which are telling us that what comes out of us proves what is inside of us. It is a simple truth, it is a clear truth, it is a convicting truth, so I say it again. What comes out of us proves what is within us. That's the essence of these three verses. The fruit that we produce testifies to the type of root that is under the soil. The words that we use, the thoughts that we entertain actually reveal what is going on in the heart. While it is true that ultimately God is the One who knows what is going on in the heart and God is the One who ultimately judges mankind's fate and status. While it's true that only God knows who will go to heaven and who will go to hell and who are truly of Him. There is also this reality that God has given us His Word in which He testifies over and over again on the importance of and the reality that believers bear fruit. Believers bear fruit. As we abide in Christ, as we grow in Christ likeness, as we grow in godliness on account of the faith we say we have in Christ, we will bear fruit. John 15:5, “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit.” The scripture, even this morning, Galatians 5, testifies to the fruit of the Spirit. Colossians 1:9-10 speaks of “walking in a manner worthy of the Lord to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work.” In other words, there is no such thing as a fruitless Christian. Why? Because genuine followers of Jesus Christ will bear genuine fruit. Not only that though, but Jesus also Himself taught that our fruit bearing will ultimately demonstrate a witness to others who are watching that we are in fact His disciples, His followers. In Matthew 7:16 He said, “You will know them by their fruits.” So, fruit bearing is a given for the follower of Christ.

Back to our text here in verse 43 He goes on to say, “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 own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns nor do they pick grapes from a bramble bush.” In other words, if you call yourself a person who is of the truth, a truth teller, the one who follows the way, the truth and the life but you are a perpetual liar, well then you can't say you are a good tree. If you call yourself a peacemaker but you harbor perpetually anger in your heart or you are constantly in conflict with others, how can you say you are bearing good fruit? If you are not continually bearing good fruit, how can you be confident that you are a good tree? Your fruit will find you out. Your fruit will reveal to everyone eventually what kind of tree you are and what kind of heart you have.

Verse 45 draws that out. It says, “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 the abundance of his heart.” The one who is in Christ, abiding in Christ, living for Christ, the one who, Proverbs 4:23, has a heart that he guards “with all diligence for from it flow the springs of life,” his heart is good. Now it's not because of his inherent goodness, it's because of God's good grace in regenerating him and giving him the ability to do good. But the one with the evil heart, the wicked heart, the unregenerate heart, the self-deceived heart, he is capable, this text says, of only bringing forth what is evil, “for his mouth speaks from the abundance of his heart.” It reveals the heart, his tongue, as James says, tattles on the heart.

So, the question again as we wind down here, as you hear not my words but ultimately Jesus's words in this Sermon on the Plain, it really comes down to this. Who you follow, what you are focused on, whether yourself or the Lord and others, what fruit you produce, those are going to tell you far more so than your completion of catechism class when you were 11 or 12 years old, far more so than some emotional experience you had at youth camp 25 years ago, those things will tell you who you really are, who you really live for, what kind of tree you are.