Taken and modified from multiple sources
Continued From Yesterday
First Corinthians 15:33 says,
“Bad company corrupts good morals.”
Jude 23 says,
“Look, where you’re going over there to snatch those brands from the burning, when you’re going over there to rescue those people from the corruption in your evangelistic enterprise, when you’re going over there to pull the people out of the apostasy they’re in, be very careful that you don’t get your own garment stained.”
We live a very fragile existence in this wretched world.
· I have to watch my life.
· I have to beat my body to bring it into submission.
· I have to guard my eyes.
· I have to guard my ears.
· I have to keep my feet from going certain places.
· I have to keep my distance from certain people.
· I have to live a circumspect life in this world so that I do not put myself in a position to be devastated because even in my preaching to others,
I have the potential to be so badly corrupted that I would be “adokimos”, or disqualified from ministry.
One of the things that appeal to me about heaven isn’t transparent gold streets. I can’t get too turned on about that. It’s nice, I’m glad it will be there. I’m sure I’ll enjoy it when I arrive.
Neither is it the pearl gates and precious stones in the foundation. I’ll tell you what appeals to me about heaven, seriously, it’s the absence of sin. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of it. When Jesus Christ came into the world, He said, “Which of you convicts Me of sin?” He said, “Satan has nothing in Me.” There was nothing in Him of corruption. He didn’t have to protect His holiness by taking a monastic vow, going into a cave and contemplating His navel for the rest of His life, castrating Him like some ill-conceived monk. It’s no such necessity for Him.
Quite the contrary. I spend most of my life trying to be isolated from sinners, don’t you? I really do. Bad company corrupts good morals.
· I don’t mind preaching at them.
· I don’t mind giving them the gospel, but I don’t want to be where they are.
· I don’t want to go where they go.
· I don’t want to go to their parties because, sad to say it, Satan does have something in me.
Look at the contrast.
Turn to Luke 5:27,
“After that, He went out and noticed a tax gatherer named Levi.”
This is Matthew and he was a small-time tax gatherer. He was a Mokus, not a Gibbai. A Gibbai was a big-time tax guy who owned a regional tax franchise from Rome and hired these little Mokus guys to do the dirty work. They sat at the crossroads and they taxed the wheels on the cart, they taxed the beast of burden that pulled the cart, they taxed the letters you were carrying to give to someone else, they taxed the goods that you bought. And every time you crossed the intersection, they took money from you and extorted all they could, not only to give what the prescribed rate was to Rome, but to make the rest of their own fortune, of course, extortion was great. They were the more hated of the tax collectors than the big guys because nobody saw the big guys. You began to despise that guy sitting at the crossroads.
Well here’s one of them named Levi. And, of course, in order to collect taxes, he had to have a group of thugs and scum balls and riff-raff around him who strong armed the people to get them to pay up. And if they didn’t pay up, then they had to be treated like the Mafia treats people, you know, you have the guys go around, beat them up a little bit and get what they want to get. This was the scum of all scum in the society, not only because of the low life extortion that they engaged in, but because they had become the basically the agents of a pagan invading occupying Roman government which was despised and hated by the Jews. And so they were all unsynagogued, they were booted out of the synagogue, they couldn’t worship there. They had literally traded their birthright for a mess of pottage.
And so, Jesus comes to Levi, the last person on the planet you would ever choose to be an apostle of the Messiah, the Promised Coming One. He said to him, “Follow Me, you’re My man.” Matthew jumped up from his tax table and it was like taking a hand out of water, believe me, there was no gap because somebody was in line to take over in his place...whoever had the strongest right arm in the gang that surrounded him sat down and said, “I’m in charge, guys.” So he couldn’t go back, he left everything behind. He rose up, began to follow Him.
Levi gave a big party at his house and there was a great crowd of tax gatherers. That must have been some event. This is the meeting of the Mafia-types. You know, the kind of people that associate with the Mafia. And it says this, I love this, “And others.” Others of the riff raff. And they were reclining at the table. You know, they didn’t do the fast-food thing. They did the slow food thing, you actually sort of got prone on your arm and you just dropped the grapes one at a time and you talked and you conversed and this went on and on.
One can only imagine what these kind of folks were talking about. It wouldn’t have been the most edifying group. The conversation would have been a little racy. Certainly the Pharisees, with all their scrupulous perspective, verse 30, and the scribes began grumbling at His disciples saying,
“Why do You eat and drink with the tax gatherers and sinners?”
And there you have the world that describes “the others,” all the rest of the social scum.
What are You doing in there? And Jesus answered and said to them,
“It’s not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick.”
Here is where we see another demonstration of His holiness…You see, the amazing thing about Him is He can go into the most contagious ward on the planet and catch nothing...catch nothing.
“I haven’t called the righteous but sinners to repentance.”
This is frankly one of the great illustrations of the holiness of Jesus. He could be in the company of the most wretched people in the society, sinners probably and surely of “others”, no doubt prostitutes and the like. And it says this was an extended event. Not only this event but there must have been many others like it because in Matthew 11:19 it says,
“Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.”
So, you know, when these people got together it was about gluttony, it was about drunkenness, it was about extortion, and it was about iniquity. What else would they talk about?
And the Pharisees, who knew their own wretchedness, who knew their own corruption, who knew their own hearts, kept their distance. It’s hard enough being a hypocrite without hanging around those kind of people.
To Be Continued…
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