The Forgiven Woman

To know for sure that you're saved is a growing process with most Christians as they exercise three things. First of all, a greater trust in the promises of God.

That's your bedrock of assurance. The second thing is by the inward evidences of grace or the marks or fruits of grace in your life. And then the third is a direct testimony of the Holy Spirit that he speaks directly to your soul through the word, I am thy salvation or bring some other promise to play into your life. In such a way that you can't deny that he is assuring you that you belong to Christ and Christ belongs to you. You take those three things, the promises of God, evidences of grace, testimony of the Holy Spirit, and then put over them all God's faithful track record over the years. And God's people can have full infallible assurance of faith. Assurance of faith by Joel Beeke.

Visit Ligonier.org slash teaching series to learn more. Jesus was at a Pharisee's house for dinner, but an uninvited guest interrupted the meal. There's no way in the world that that Pharisee would invite a notorious sinful lady to his house, because we remember that the Pharisees embraced the idea of salvation by segregation, by keeping themselves from notorious sinners, because to come into any kind of contact with them would be to pollute them in their own holiness. That woman came and wept at Jesus' feet, drying her tears with her hair.

It was an outrage, an embarrassment to the Pharisees, but Jesus saw it for what it was, a tangible expression of gratitude and praise. Welcome to the Sunday edition of Renewing Your Mind. I'm Lee Webb, and today we continue Dr. R.C.

Sproul's sermon series from the Gospel of Luke. Let's pray. Again, O Lord our God, how glad we are to be in Your house this morning. How happy we are to have this opportunity to bring before You our sacrifices of praise. And we ask now that You would send Your Spirit, that He may descend upon us as we hear Your Word, that the Spirit would cause us to delight in it. For we ask it in Jesus' name.

Amen. And last Sunday morning we heard Jesus speak of the hypocrisy of those who criticized John the Baptist for one thing and Jesus for just the opposite. And it seemed that no matter what a prophet of God would do, those among the Pharisees were inclined to reject them and to condemn them. And that episode is followed now by a strange invitation, an invitation that comes from one of the Pharisees whose name we learn here in this text was Simon. This is not Simon the leper, Simon the tanner, Simon Magus.

This is not Simon Peter. We're not sure what Simon it is, only that he is indeed a Pharisee. And it was the Pharisees and their party, as we've learned already, who were most hostile towards Jesus. So we have to ask the question, why in the world would a member of this hostile party of the Pharisees invite Jesus to his house for dinner? And it's not just Jesus that is invited.

It's obviously a banquet feast that includes many others who were invited as well. But to include Jesus in the Pharisee's A-list is a strange thing indeed. And if I may have the license to speculate this morning, I have to wonder what moved this Pharisee to include Jesus in the group. My guess, and it's only a guess since the Bible doesn't tell us, is that he wanted to probe Jesus, who had the reputation of being a prophet. And the Pharisee is interested in that and thinking, well, let's see if he really is a prophet.

I obviously don't think so, but I'd like to see him up close and personal and see what I can discover about him. Maybe that, or maybe also simply to try to find some way to trap him into condemning himself. But in any case, the man asked Jesus to the party, and our Lord acquiesced. He said, sure, I'll come to your house for dinner. And so he went to the Pharisee's house and sat down to eat.

So obviously that meant he reclined on a couch because that's the way they would eat in the banquets of that day, on couches where the person would lean on their left elbow and keep their right hand free to eat the food that was presented to them. But we're told that, behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, it doesn't say she's a prostitute. History and tradition assumes that she was one because she was given this designation of being a sinner. Now there are many other sins obviously than that one, yet at the same time that's the designation, the euphemism for prostitute that was frequently used in antiquity.

Again, we don't know for sure. But whatever her sin was, it was one that was considered egregious for which she was notorious. She was not your rank-and-file, run-of-the-mill, commonplace sinner. She was obviously a serious sinner, a possibly professional sinner. In any case, we know she wasn't invited. There's no way in the world that that Pharisee would invite a notorious sinful lady to his house because we remember that the Pharisees embraced the idea of salvation by segregation, that is, by keeping themselves at a safe distance from notorious sinners because to come into any kind of contact with them would be to pollute them in their own holiness.

This is one of the common complaints they made about Jesus, that He was a winebibber, that He was a glutton, and that He associated with tax collectors and other kinds of awful sinners. So we can only suspect here that this woman heard about the party, but what interested her about the news of the party was not that there was a party in town, but that Jesus was going to be there. I don't know how she ever got in the house. Well, I assume she was well-dressed, and she was carrying an alabaster container filled with precious ointment, perfume, and maybe the gatekeeper saw this attractive woman coming bearing an attractive gift and didn't ask any questions and said, I'm not going to turn this lady away. Obviously, the master of the house has invited her and will be pleased with the gifts that she brings.

Again, that's a guess. The Bible doesn't tell us how she got in the house, but it does say that she came and she stood at His feet behind Him weeping. This was a festive occasion. People were there to have a good time.

The basic mood of the evening was one of joy. But this woman comes in, and when she comes in, she starts to cry, and she's not simply whimpering. She's sobbing, and her eyes are pouring out so many tears that these tears fall down and saturate the feet of Jesus.

And again, it doesn't tell us why. Perhaps she was embarrassed, but she leaned over, seeing that her tears were soaking the feet of Jesus, and her intent when she came here was not to dishonor Him in any way. And so she leans herself over and takes the strands of her hair and tenderly wipes away her tears from our Lord's feet. Do you picture it? Do you see it?

Can you imagine the shock that ripples through the house? The rest of the guests, the Pharisees, they're watching this spectacle and fall before them. They're seeing this notorious woman come in in tears and dripping her tears all over the teacher's feet and then bending over and drying the tears with her own hair.

But she's not finished. She kissed His feet. She didn't come in and kiss Him on the cheek or on the forehead.

She humiliated herself to kiss His feet. How can you not think of Psalm 2? Well, the question is, why do the kings of the earth conspire against the Lord and against His anointed, saying, let us cast their bounds from off us and let us break their chains, this declaration of independence. And we read in Psalm 2 that He who sits in the heavens shall laugh, and He will hold the rulers of this world in derision. They mock Him, just as the leaders of our nation mock Him every day. And God looks at that.

Who are you kidding? And then we're told at the end of that psalm, kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way. Oh, dearly beloved, how this land needs people today who will kiss the Son instead of despise Him. Well, this woman kisses Jesus' feet and then anointed His feet with this fragrant oil, expensive oil. Now, when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he spoke to himself. He didn't speak to Jesus. He didn't speak to the woman.

He didn't speak to His friends. This was a soliloquy in his own mind. He's speaking silently to his own conscience, saying, ah, now we know. If this man were a prophet, he would know who and what manner of woman this is who's touching him.

So obviously, I know the answer to my original question. This guy can't possibly be a prophet, because if he was a prophet, he would know the wickedness of this woman, and he certainly wouldn't allow her to touch him. But Jesus knew what He's saying to Himself. And Jesus said to him, Simon, I have something to say to you. Yes? Well, go ahead.

Say it. And what Jesus had to say to this Pharisee was a parable, none more simple in the teachings of Jesus. He said there was a certain creditor who had two debtors. One owned five hundred denarii and the other fifty.

Now, a denarius was the unit of pay that was the average day's pay for a common worker in the country. So, the debtor who owed fifty denarii owed fifty days' worth of wages, not counting the Sabbath day. The other man owed five hundred denarii, which would be obviously about two years' worth of his income.

That's a lot of indebtedness for a common person in the land in Israel to be carrying. Jesus went on to say, and when they had nothing with which to repay, the creditor forgave the debt. He freely forgave the debt. There weren't any strings attached to this mercy. He simply canceled the debt. No payment, nothing that they could do to earn it, nothing they could do to merit it. But freely, the man who was owed all this money said, you don't have to pay.

So, now comes the punchline. Jesus says to Simon the Pharisee, tell me something, therefore, which of them will love him more? I love the answer that Simon the Pharisee gives. Listen to what he says, I suppose the one whom he forgave more. You suppose the one who forgave more?

This is just some kind of supposition on your part, you moron. Isn't it as obvious as it could be that the one who had been forgiven ten times more than the other one obviously was ten times more thankful, ten times more loving. But as hard as it was to admit, Simon at least allowed it as a supposition that one of them would love more than the other. And so Jesus said to him, you've rightly judged.

One of the few times this Pharisee made a judgment that was right. Then he turned to the woman. He's looking at the woman, but he's still speaking to Simon.

And he says to Simon, do you see this woman? When I came into your house, you didn't even give me a water basin to wash my feet. And customarily, there was not only a basin for foot washing, but there was a towel to dry them. Simon, you didn't even give me any water to wash my feet, which is a common courtesy. No water, no towel.

This woman supplied the water and the towel. She washed my feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. When I came, Simon, did you kiss me? Don't we greet one another with a holy kiss?

Isn't that the custom in the Mideast, to kiss our friends, even the men on the cheek? You didn't kiss me. She kissed me on the feet. In fact, she's not ceased to kiss my feet since I came in. Simon, you didn't anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with fragrant oil.

Therefore, this indicates a conclusion, a rational conclusion that's coming. Therefore, I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven. For she loved much, but to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.

Now, I want to say something here. Everybody in that place, including Jesus, came to Simon the Pharisee's house for a party, but this woman came to go to church. She came because Jesus was there, and she came to worship Him. She came to adore Him. She came to praise Him. She came to thank Him. She came to honor Him. She came to glorify Him.

And she came to serve Him. And why are we here this morning? Are we here with tears flowing out of our shame and out of our gratitude? Are we here to give extravagant praise and thanksgiving to Jesus? This was not a token offering of praise and thanksgiving. This was an extravagant act of worship coming from a woman who had experience, extravagant grace, for the forgiveness of her sins.

And finally, Jesus was finished talking to Simon about the woman, and obviously the woman heard everything that Jesus said to Simon, but now He turns His attention to her, and He said to her, Your sins are forgiven. There are two kinds of people in the world, people whose sins have been forgiven and those whose sins have not been forgiven. There are two kinds of people in this world, those who repent of their sins and those who remain steadfast in their impenitence. There are two kinds of people in this world, those who heap lavish praise and adoration upon Jesus and those who refuse to submit to Him.

It's very simple, two categories. I'm not endowed with omniscience. I can't read people's thoughts and minds like Jesus could, but again the odds would indicate that there are not just one or two but many, possibly hundreds, of people in this room right now whose sins are not forgiven because they've never repented of them, who have never given authentic worship to Jesus, who have never wept tears of gratitude because their debt has been erased by the free mercy of God. I don't know which group you're in, those who weep tears of joy for Jesus and those whose hearts are sealed against Him.

I don't know how many of you are like the woman, and how many of you are like Simon, but certainly the Lord knows, and you know where your heart is. Can you ever hear anything in your whole life? You could have somebody come at the door from Reader's Digest and say, congratulations, you've won a million dollars.

You could have your boss come in and say, congratulations, you've been promoted to vice president of the company, or you've had a tremendous raise in your salary. What is that compared to hearing the Lord Jesus Christ say to you, your sins are forgiven? I know on September the 13th, 1957, in my heart I heard the Lord Jesus say that to me. And that was the defining moment of my life because there is no greater gift that the Lord God can give any of us than to cancel our debt, to erase the ledger, and to forgive us for every sin that we've ever committed. And the more we understand that, the greater the love we have for Him, because, beloved, He who is forgiven much loves much. So, I say to you this morning what Jesus said to her, if indeed you have faith that faith has saved you, then you can go in peace. I hope that is true of you, that you have placed your faith solely in the finished work of Christ for your salvation. I'm glad you've joined us today for another sermon by Dr. R.C.

Sproul. This is from his series in the Gospel of Luke. We return to it each Sunday here on Renewing Your Mind. And to help you in your own study, let me recommend our resource offer for today.

When you contact us and give a donation of any amount, we'll provide you with a digital download of R.C. 's nearly 600-page commentary on Luke. In it, he traces the record of Jesus' life as told by Luke. You'll learn that this gospel is for believers and skeptics alike, written so that you may have certainty about the Son of Man who came to seek and seek the lost. Our offices are closed on this Lord's Day, but you can give your gift and make your request for this resource at renewingyourmind.org. Last year, Lickit Here Ministries had the privilege of reaching more than 56 million people with trusted Bible teaching, and were being presented with new opportunities to expand this outreach to serve more people in more places. I had the privilege of spending many hours in the studio with Dr. Sproul, and I know that he would be telling us that this is no time to pause or slow down. We're grateful for your support as we help people around the world find encouragement and strength through the truth of God's Word. Next Sunday, Dr. Sproul will turn to one of the best-known stories in the Bible, The Parable of the Sower. I hope you'll make plans to join us for that next week, here on Renewing Your Mind. you