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Beginners Care Package

Good Works vs. Evil Works #2

Fred R. Coulter

In going through this study on good works-evil works, or evil good works, or good evil works…because you see, what man is, man is a varying degree of the mixture of the knowledge of good and evil. And that’s what man is, all the way from the gross extremes to being devious. Now we’ll cover a little bit about human nature here in just a minute. But first of all, in order to kind of classify these different things that we go through, what I’ve come up with is this: for a work – any work, good or evil – I have "Origin, Motive, Appearance, Effect." So you could take those four categories…and you might want to add another one or two to it as you go along, ok.

Origin – who did this come from? Motive – what is the purpose behind the work? Appearance – what does it appear like? And we could put two categories there, "To People," "To God." And number four is the effect – what is the effect? Now just for example, let’s go to Hebrews 11, and let’s look…and I think when we are studying the Bible we’re going to find that this will help us understand so much in the Bible and help us understand our own circumstances and different things as we go along.

But here, Hebrews 11 it says concerning Moses, and verse 24, it’s talking here about Moses and why he did what he did. "By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter;…" Now that appeared to be, just as far as the appearance of the court, in Pharaoh’s court, that appeared to be what? A stupid thing, a bad work. After all, who would want to reject being the son of Pharaoh? The motive though was good, because God was inspiring Moses’ motive. It was based on a good motive. The origin was good because it came from God. The effect was good because he was used to bring the children of Israel out of Egypt.

So he chose not to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, "…Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God,…" (vs. 25). Now you can categorize that too. The appearance is pretty bad: leave the court of Egypt to go live in Sinai desert. Now, you gotta be kidding. I mean, you think about it. If you had a nice home that was all air conditioned (I’ll just use a little modern parlance here), and you had people to wait on you, you had all the money you wanted, all the food you wanted, anything you wanted to do. And you get up out of that and you walk out to the Mojave Desert and you find an adobe hovel out there, and you go live out there and say, "Hey, this is better." It doesn’t make sense from a human perspective.

"…Than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season;…" Now, to "enjoy the pleasures," the appearance is good. It appears good to have something that’s pleasurable. The effect can be either good or bad, just depending on how it is viewed, but the final effect is death: "The wages of sin is death." So though the appearance is good, the effect is evil – ends in death. Alright, the motive, if he chose to stay there, the motive would have been because of covetousness. And the origin would not have been of God, but would have been of Satan. So he didn’t do that. "…Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt:…" (vs. 25-26). Now that’s the whole perspective. Remember, the end result of anything that is truly good has got to come back to God. And it’s got to be in the realm of the spiritual benefits which last for eternity. See, Job had a lot of good works. He did a lot of good things. And if you read through there, I would just have to say he was, as the Bible said, perfect. He was perfect. And I think if you read all the things that he did to help people, to counsel people, to give, to do all those – hey, he outdid everyone of his – a hundred times over. But see, God said that was not good enough for eternal life. Eternal life cannot be done, to be earned by a good work. God has to give it. He requires good works.

Now don’t anyone misunderstand. If you go listen to the sermons and you hear me say, "There is nothing you can do which you can do to cause God to give you eternal life," don’t think I’m saying, "Oh well, we can merrily go off and do anything we want to." No, no. That isn’t what I’m saying at all. God requires all the commandments to be kept. God requires that we do all the things that is required, and then go above and beyond and love God, and love the brethren, and love our enemies, and those are the things. God looks to the heart. You’ll see all the way through here God looks to the heart. That’s why there are different appearances, there are different motivations for different things as they come around.

So, "…Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing Him Who is invisible" (vs. 26-27). Now we know that Moses is going to have a tremendous reward in the kingdom of God. But he really had a miserable, miserable, miserable life for eighty years of his life. He lived to be a hundred and twenty – forty years in Egypt, forty years in Sinai with Jethro, and he married the eldest of the seven daughters, and out there shepherding sheep for forty years; and then another forty years leading the children of Israel around the wilderness of Sinai, you know. And he had to be out there another thirty-eight and a half years because the children of Israel didn’t want to go in when God said to go in.

So he had eighty years of misery. And then he got frustrated right at the last, you know, just before they were ready to go into the Promised Land. He got frustrated; instead of commanding the rock to bring forth water he beat the rock, and God said, "Now you’re not going into the Promised Land, Moses. Now, I’ll let you climb this mountain and you can look at it, but you aren’t going in." He had to count the riches of Christ greater than anything else. Now when we get through with all of this, this will help us to understand more about human nature and more about the things that we do. But you know what it’s going to help us do, brethren, it’s going to help us get along with each other a whole lot better. I mean, we have no problems getting along with each other. Thank God. I’m happy for that. Feel great for that. After some experiences we’ve had recently, all I can say is, "It’s good to be home." And all of those of you who were there, you know.

Now I want to give you two examples of good works – evil works. The first one is really terrible hypocrisy. And both of these are side by side. I’ll read the headline of the first one. It says, "Parents Who Went On TV to Plead For Baby Indicted In Her Slaying." They were indicted for the slaying of their baby. The other one is, "Utah Convict Sues Prison for Allowing His Escape." One is very sad, the other one is kind of hilarious. We’ll read the sad one first. "A couple who pleaded tearfully on television…" People look at that and it – you know, they’re sympathetic. "Oh, the tears. Oh, how they loved their…Oh, how wonderful." Ok, a good work. Yes, on the surface, a good work. But we will see that that was a mask, or a guise, or a ruse to divert from the sin that they committed. It’s called a…yeah – an ideological mask. All politicians use that all the time. I don’t know how many of you saw – what was it, on the Fourth of July they had "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." How many of you saw that? But it showed a little bit of the political hypocrisy that goes on. Right here is the worst classical example I’ve ever heard of, or even known of recently.

"A couple who pleaded tearfully on television for the life of their missing four month old daughter were indicted Friday on charges that the father sexually abused the infant girl before the mother beat her to death. The six count indictment returned by the Providence County grand jury also charged George G. and Donna J. Richard with lying to police investigating the November slaying of their only child, Jeri-Ann. Mrs. Richard, 33, was charged with first degree murder. Her 34 year old husband was charged on sexual assault of a child under 13. Both were also charged with filing false police statements, two counts of conspiring to obstruct justice, and obstructing justice. Arraignment is scheduled for July 24 in Superior Court. The murder and sexual assault charges are capital offenses carrying a maximum sentence of life in prison." That’s too good for these people.

"The Richards…" here’s what they did, "…reported that their blue-eyed daughter was kidnapped November 11, telling the police she was snatched from her crib by an intruder who apparently entered their apartment through a window while they slept nearby. Four days later, hours after the tearful couple had made television appearances to plead for their baby’s safe return, Jeri-Ann’s beaten and raped body…" Now a four-month old…four-month old. I mean, four-month old! "…Beaten and raped body was discovered in an alley a block from the family’s apartment. An autopsy showed the infant had been a victim of chronic sexual abuse. A later FBI analysis of the crime scene determined that the body was placed in the alley in a manner to indicate that there was a close, personal relationship between the victim and the perpetrator. The police reported the body was carefully positioned with a folded diaper under its bettered head, its arms crossed on its chest, and tree branches covering it."

So to cover up what they did, they get on TV, they lie, and they say, "Oh please return our baby." Now there is a very good example of an apparent good work on the surface, what it looks like. So what we’re trying to do, the appearance of everything that you see is not necessarily the reality of what’s occurring. And some people are very good liars. You could not tell when they’re lying or when they’re telling the truth. And you would think, "Oh, yes, I’m going to look for that…" Just picture yourself now as someone who viewed that. And maybe you’re sitting there clutching your four month old baby. And the parents just tearfully cry, "We were sleeping in the bedroom and someone just came and stole our daughter away from us. Oh, whoever it is, whoever you are, please bring it! Bring it back!" And they knew very well that they had done the things that they did and killed the baby and left it out there. An ideological mask.

Alright. Here’s the other one. This is a little more humorous. "Utah Convict Sues Prison for Allowing His Escape: Salt Lake City – A killer who claimed the Utah State Prison allowed him to escape with two other convicts is suing the prison for trauma suffered while free. Walter J. Wood contends his constitutional rights were violated when he inadvertently wandered into an escape-in-progress situation. Wood, fellow murderer Wesley A. Tuttle, and kidnapper Darrel E. Brady strolled from the prison in civilian clothes." Oh, the clothes just happened to fall on them, huh? And that was August 21, 1984. "Tuttle and Brady were captured within hours, but Wood eluded authorities for six months. Wood complained in the lawsuit he filed this week that his reluctant escape…" so reluctant he stayed away for six months. I wonder who on earth his attorney is. This has gotta…this is so bad, you know, you can’t believe it.

"…Put him in several life-threatening situations…" Poor little baby. "…’Because of extreme fear of being shot to death, I was forced to swim several irrigation canals…’" Poor kid. You know, kids do that all the time. I imagine they were all of twenty feet wide at the most. Isn’t that about what most of these huge ones are, twenty feet wide? I know that area up around Salt Lake City, and I don’t think they could be more than ten feet wide, up around there. "‘…Attempted to swim a raging Jordan River…’" Now, I know the Jordan River up there is not raging. I mean, even in a terrible, terrible, terrible rainstorm it’s not raging. "…And exposed himself to innumerable bites by many insects." (Laughter) Oh boy. "‘At one point I heard a volume of gunshot blasts, and this completed my anxiety,’ wrote Wood, acting as his own attorney." Oh, well, no wonder. He’s acting as his own attorney. Can you believe that?

"The lawsuit seeks $2 million in damages…" Yes. I’m going to spend the rest of my life in prison and spend my two million. No. Gotta be kidding. "…And just punishment for all prison personnel involved in allowing inmates to escape." This went…you know, we’re going to use the good court to take this…here’s a perfect example of taking something evil, alright? Escaping from jail. He’s a convicted felon anyway, a killer. He killed someone, and now the poor little dear has his nerves all just torn apart. How is he going to survive the rest of his life, you know? Terrible. Now maybe you understand what I’m talking about, an evil good work. This is an evil good work. It is using the good court, the good laws for an evil purpose. This other one here is a good work on the surface to cover up evil. So that is in both cases an evil good work.

Now in order to understand about good works-evil works, and so forth, we need to understand about human nature. So let’s go to the Bible and do just a few things on review about human nature, and where it puts us with God. Because you see, God does not deal with each person exactly the same. And we’ll see the reason why. God is interested in the heart. Let’s go to Jeremiah17:9. This is one you should all have memorized. You all know, it tells about human nature and it tells about the way that human nature normally is. Now there are degrees of severity of goodness and evil that – or evilness and goodness that people have in their own personality. But, you know, just to give you an example, today we have so many people that are going around looking to cause trouble.

Now recently here at Great America in Santa Clara they would not allow a girl in who had her hair cut and all pegged up in these spikes, with half of her face black and half of it green, and looking like a weirdo, they wouldn’t let her in. So now there’s a lawsuit. But they gave the example of what happened down in Magic Mountain in Los Angles when they had the all-night graduation party for seniors in high school. There were twelve people stabbed. Because there were gangs of kids out there looking for trouble. Now you see, once a person gets into evil and continues in it, they must – in order to justify what they are doing - become more, and more, and more, and more, and more evil. And that’s they way Satan leads a person into it.

The ultimate is here, Jeremiah 17:9, "The heart is deceitful above all things,…" And the easiest thing in the world to do is lie to yourself. And the easiest way that you justify something that you are doing which you know is not right, you justify it by accusing someone else of doing something worse. And we’ll see a couple examples of that here in the New Testament. So, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" Alright, that’s the extreme. There are people who sell themselves to evil. There are people who just give themselves over to it. And we can think of many kings that are listed in 1 and 2 Kings. We can think of Ahab, we can think of Jeroboam, we can think of Manasseh. And Ahab and Manasseh both repented after they had done all of the evil things that they did. Some of the others never repented of any of the things that they did. So there are degrees to which human beings will be involved in evil.

Now let’s see the least degree of an evil heart – John 1:47. Now we know that children, God calls them innocent children. But the evil in children can be stirred up at a very early age by exposing them to a lot of evil. That’s why you can find young kids in the streets of the cities who are hardened criminals, say, at age ten and twelve, because they have been brought in to that situation. Now you can say in some cases they were forced into it. But you know, in almost every case a person has to agree with it to go along with it. Otherwise they come up with a silly sounding thing like this convict, suing the prison for "allowing" his escape.

John 1:47, "Jesus saw Nathanael coming to Him, and saith of him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!" Now if you look it up in your Interlinear you will find that this is the same word that is used for "deceit." There is no deceit. So a person can, just of their own choice, choose to be honest, choose to be ethical. And of course when they do, whose laws are they following in the first place? They’re following God’s laws. So that good, though it’s in a person who has the law of sin and death in them, and though there’s a mixture of good and evil in every person, has more good about their character and more good about their personality than they do evil. And we’re going to see some other examples here about evil people, or sinners, or whatever. And we’re going to see just exactly how that fits into the whole overall perspective.

Now let’s go to Matthew 10:40. Now here we have by choice – a person decides to do something. "He that receiveth you receiveth Me, and he that receiveth Me receiveth Him that sent Me." Obviously, then, God the Father. "He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward; and he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward." Now God is going to take care of all of those things. See, God is going to ultimately judge the hearts of everyone. We know that – Romans 14. Now here in Matthew 10:42, "And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward." Now there are varying degrees of things that God is looking to. But notice, in every case it has to do with what? A pure motive. Or, we could say, a right heart.

Now this is why, even in dealing with our children, if they do something that is just out of a motive to have fun, and there’s no evil intent to it, though evil may result out of it – you know, they get out and they snuck some firecrackers, or something like this, and they get out and they blow some out in the garage, and lo and behold, the garage catches afire and it burns down the garage. There was no evil intent in that. They just – one thing led to another, and, "He-he-he, let’s have some fun," and lo and behold, the garage is gone. But if they, on the other hand, said, "Ok, we’re going to take care of this. We’re going to spray gasoline all over here, and then throw a match in there and run." Alright, that is an evil intent. And God is interested in the heart and in the intent. And we’ll see this all the way through as we go along.

So if a person is going to help someone and do good, and to really go good. Not thinking, "Aha. I will do good and then be thought well of by other people." You see the difference, if you do good to really do good? That’s fine. God will honor that. It may or may not count for salvation. That depends on the rest of your life. Obviously here He’s talking about those then who are called to salvation in the way of receiving a reward. Because there are many good things out here in the world that are going on now – people doing good things for one another. There may be someone, there may be a lot of people right now helping out the sick, helping out the widows, helping out the poor, and that’s fine. Whether that counts for salvation or not, God is the one Who’s going to have to judge that. Whether God has called them, what their heart is, all of these things involved.

Now let’s go to Matthew 7, and let’s see then on the other hand something that looks really good that people think, as you view it, is good. Matthew 7:21. So Jesus is saying virtually the same thing that we’re saying right here, right now. "Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth [is doing] the will of My Father which is in heaven." Now that’s right after the section where it says in verse 15, "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing,…" So here is a work. The origin is evil; the appearance is good, because they’re coming in sheep’s clothing; the result is evil, because they will lead you from God instead of to God. "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves." Now, we need to catch the inward part. What is your heart? "Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them" (Matthew 7:15-20).

But you see, you can’t just accept something that is on the surface that looks good. I mean, some of the nicest, most friendly people you’d want to meet are the real connivers. How do you think con men do the work they do? They have a multitude of trickeries that they use to con people out of money. Or con people out of property. It looks good. So…and you can’t always go by on what you think the record is. Therefore, you have to really just ask God for discernment and understanding. Because something that looks good and sounds good on the surface may not be good at all.

Now here’s the opposite example in verse 21. "Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven;…" Now isn’t it true that unless you acknowledge that Jesus is Lord you’re not going into the kingdom of heaven? That is true. You have to acknowledge that He is Lord. To the glory of the Father, correct? Alright, here are people who are saying, "Lord, Lord." And Jesus said they’re not going to enter into the kingdom of heaven, "…but he that doeth [is doing] the will of My Father which is in heaven." So in other words, even if you acknowledge that Christ is Lord, it isn’t going to do you any good unless you’re doing the will of the Father. Then He gives an example. "Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name?..." (vs. 21-22). Now on the surface that looks good. Sounds good. "I bring to you these prophecies in the name of Jesus Christ!" And maybe some of them come to pass. Let’s read on.

"…And in Thy name have cast out devils [demons]?..." Stand up there and say, "In the name of Jesus Christ, I command the demons to come out of this person now!" Whisk – they’re gone. They are gone. "…And in Thy name done many wonderful works?" So here’s the appearance – wonderful works. Casting out demons, prophesying in the name of Christ. I mean, you can’t have it any better, can you? I mean, for the appearance, it can’t be any better than that. Verse 23, "And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you:…" That’s going to be a strange twist of events, isn’t it? See, because Christ is looking to the heart, not looking to the outward appearance, not looking to the things that have been done. But to the person’s heart. "…I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity." Or as the Greek is, anomos, which means, "against law."

Now there are a lot of people who preach in Jesus’ name who say, "You don’t have to keep the commandments." Are there a lot of people who cast out demons who say, "It’s all by grace"? And it’s true – it is all by grace, you see. But what is the motive behind it? It’s kind of like this prisoner here. Once saved, always saved? I talked to a man who deals with me in my business connections, and he found out through someone else that I was a preacher. And this fellow’s a good religious person, graduated from Brigham Young University, and is a good, righteous Mormon. So he was asking what we believed in. And I said, "Well, we believe in the Bible." And so I had to go through and explain a few things, and then I got down to really what God is looking to as your heart and your standing before God. That’s the most important thing. That is the very most important thing.

Let’s go on. Let’s look at some other examples here. Now let’s go to Luke 11, and let’s see what Jesus said to His disciples. Now when we get done with this you’re going to understand why Jesus said, "When you do your righteousness [which I covered last week], don’t let your right hand know what your left hand is doing." In other words, do it from the heart, spontaneously, and don’t plan for any result that’s going to come back to you. That’s what it means. Ok, Luke 11…this is right after – now notice this, we’ll just summarize beginning right here, the first part of the chapter. The disciples came and they said, verse 1, "…Teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples." So He taught them. And then He gave them a couple parables about being persistent in prayer.

Now I mentioned something last time about how that people use vain repetition in prayers and have great long lists that they just go over, and over, and over, and over; and without a clock and without a list they can’t pray, and a lot of that can get into vain repetition. But here, it’s talking about that you be earnest, and that you keep importuning God until you get the answer. But so many other things just can be so much rote. So Jesus gave this promise here in verse 9, "And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you;…" And God will give and provide. I think we’re learning to walk more and more in faith as we’re going along; walk more and more in the grace of God as we go along. And each of us trusting that God is going to lead and help the other in the way that God sees fit, then we don’t have to worry about interrupting anybody’s life to tell them how to live. I mean, if someone is truly sincere, truly seeking God, truly wanting what God wants them to have, then you don’t have to be "buttinsky’s" and tell everybody "Do this," or "Do that," or "Do the other thing." You teach them what God’s word says and if God’s Spirit is in them, and if Christ is in them, they’re going to what? They’re going to want to do it. You can’t force it into them by fear. It just can’t be done. We’ve seen that, we’ve experienced that.

Ask and it shall be given, "…Seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth [now that’s a promise]; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." Now notice the next three verses. Because this is very important in relationship to understanding human nature. And that means we also have to understand ourselves. "If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? [No] or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?" (vs. 9-12). Now this tells us, for all of those who are conscious about health, that bread, and that fish, and that eggs are good to eat. Now notice verse 13. Notice what Jesus said to His own disciples. Now, you had to have a certain good motive of heart to follow Christ, wouldn’t you? I mean, He said some pretty tough things. You’d have to have a certain good motive, wouldn’t you?

Alright, verse 13, "If ye then, being evil,…" Now that’s a pretty tough saying, isn’t it? Telling His own disciples they’re evil. "If ye then, being evil…" And that is what? Evil by nature. And any human being, given the choices of evil, will end up in the same deprivation as any other human being. You may not have chosen that so far. Or a person may have decided to reject that kind of behavior, and so their degree of evil is not that intent. But Jesus said, "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?" That helps us understand why there are ideological masks, why people like to cloak themselves in the things that look and sound right. This is why people hire agents, you know. They hire agents, and what do the agents do? They dress everything nice. They have a spokesman.

Now Ronald Reagan could not get along without a spokesman. It’s interesting, the guy’s name is Speaks. Speaks is the spokesman for Reagan. Because Ronald Reagan would get up there and say things that are not good for his image. "And we can’t have that, so we have to have everything all filtered out and planned out and stated ahead of time, because you aren’t going to show yourself off as good as we would like to project you." And I imagine there are times that he just grits his teeth over it, but he goes along with it because he knows politically that is true. But you see, no one’s going to fool God. The only "agent" you have for you to God is Christ. And He is the best agent because He is going to deal with you in truth and He is going to deal with God the Father for you in truth, so there won’t be any ideological masks there.

Now let’s go back to Matthew 12, and we will see just a reiteration of something that we read a little bit earlier, but with just a little bit different slant on it. Matthew 12:33, because there are certain things that we can do. We do have choices. And that might be the next logical sermon to give. I know I have two…I owe Ed two sermons, one on choices, and the other is covetousness. So would it be ok if I went through and brought those two the next two times, choices and covetousness? Ok – I’m not saying choose covetousness, now. Don’t anybody on the tape misinterpret what I’m saying.

Matthew 12:33, "Either make the tree good, and his fruit good;…" There comes a point when you need to have things done right. How do you make a tree good? That’s a parable referring to human beings. Because the tree has what? The tree has roots, and if the roots aren’t any good, and if the roots are not having good nourishment then the tree and the fruit is no good. Where should our roots be? Our roots should be grounded in Christ. Then it will be a good tree. Then it will bring forth good fruit. Otherwise, it won’t. See, then it will be just like these two accounts I read of here. What good are either one of them?

"Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit. O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things?..." Now we’ll see a little bit more about the Pharisees, and Christ has an awful lot to say about the Pharisees. "…For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man…" So a person can be called good. Here, remember Jesus said, "Call no one good; there’s none good except the Father." But He’s talking about a person, then, who chooses good and is good by the fact that they choose what is good and what is right, not that they are inherently good of their own. "A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things" (Matt. 12:33-35). And that certainly is true. We saw two examples of it right here today.

Let’s go to Luke 10. Let’s see an example of good, then. This is the account of the good Samaritan. And of course, the Jews had nothing to do with the Samaritans, right? Now we’re going to see several examples of good and evil, and evil and good, and apparent righteousness, and righteousness before God, which is true righteousness. Let’s go to verse 25 so we can get the story flow. "And, behold, a certain lawyer…" And oh boy, they’re some people are just picky. And we had that Bible study a while back, and they’re just real – you know, arguing with God. And I said at the beginning of the Bible study there are those people that take scriptures and argue with God. And guess what? Someone came back and started arguing with God. It’s just amazing. Sometimes you can’t believe it.

"And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted Him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou?" You know, one of these times I’m going to get the point. I think I’m almost at the point now, to when I’m provoked I’m going to ask questions instead of a frontal assault. I’m just about – I think I got that almost in my head now. Jesus always asked a question. Here’s a frontal assault.

And "He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou? And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself." Now those are the classic good things that a human being should do, right? Right. And it’s found where? In the Law – in the Law, folks. In the Law, ok? "And He said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live." But notice the lawyer: "But he, willing to justify himself,…" (Luke 10:25-29). And that’s where people cling on to their evil. They justify themselves…Let me just turn the tape over here on this side. We’re just about at the end. I don’t want to run out on this one.

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