Luke 5:27-32; Levi's Feast

And we're going to begin our reading today in chapter

five and verse twenty seven and read down through verse

thirty two. But verse thirty two is not the end,

because we remain in Levi's house in continuing there verse

thirty three versus actually thirty three through thirty nine to

the end of the chapter, we're in Levi's house enjoying

the feast, and then we have all these questions. Well,

we're going to deal with the first of the questions today.

So Jesus is going to answer a question that the

Pharisees asked. We're going to answer that today. So this

week and next we're in Levi's house as we treat

this passage in two parts. Have you ever played a

game a target game, you know where you have to

get close to a bull's eye, like maybe darts or

jarts that's a fun one that we don't play anymore.

Or a corn hole that's a kind of a target game.

You want to get it on the board and in

the hole. You have to hit the target in a

certain way to gain the points. One that was popular

a few years ago was hatchet throwing. Do you remember that?

Do you remember axe throwing? Little hand axes. We always

called that when I was a kid, of hatchet, not

an axe. But there were a couple of years ago

they were it was really popular, and there actually places

kind of popped up all over the and you could

go in and they had booths, you know, where you

and your buddies could go in and throw hatchets at

a wooden target and it was a bull's eye, and

the closer you got, the more points you got. If

you hit the bull's eye, then you know that was

the thing you wanted, and if it's stuck in the

wood then you'd get whatever points corresponded to the place

where it hit. Well, my nephew, I don't know how

many years ago it was. Now, it was around the

time that was popular. He set up a target in

his backyard up against an outbuilding that he has, and

all the family was gathered there and he said, come on,

let's go outside, and well, I don't know what you

call the game. He said, we'll throw axes. Okay, I'm

a guy. I'm into throwing axes, so I was. I

was okay with that, right. So we went out there

in the back and I gave it my best, but

found that most of my throws would just simply bounce

off the wood. Somehow, you had to time the rotation

of the axe with the distance and give it just

enough umph when you threw it, and enough wrist action

the thing would spin and then that head would hit

just where he wanted to hit. Was very difficult. I

didn't know it would be that hard. I just thought

he throw an actually throw an axe, But apparently you

have to. There's a certain way to throw them. And

I found that most of my throws and were not effective.

And of course that was discovered, much to the chagrin

of my partner that day. They were like, Uncle Dave,

can't you do any better than that? Of course they

didn't actually say that. They have more respect for me

than that, but the look on their face set all

of that and more. Uh so, you know they I

didn't have the distance ride or the spin rider was

too slow or too fast, and I released at the

wrong time, I didn't use enough wrist or whatever. A

myriad of reasons caused my weapon to bounce off the

target and into the dirt. I was constantly cleaning my

axe head, which my scout master would have been very

grumpy if he'd known that I had gotten my axe

head in the dirt. Never do that, because addil doolla

edge quicker than anything. Well, today we're going to talk

about affection or something effective. My throes were not effective,

but something else in the passage today is effective. We're

going to talk about that here. Won't we go ahead

and read beginning there in twenty seven, and we'll read

down through thirty two. And after these things, he went

forth and saw a publican named Levi standing at the

receipt of custom, sitting sorry, sitting at the receipt of custom.

And he said, unto him, follow me. And he left.

All rose up and followed him. And Levi made him

a great feast in his own house. And there was

a great company of publicans and of others that sat

down with him. But their scribes and fa parrases murmured

against his disciples, saying, why do you eat and drink

with publicans and sinners? And Jesus answering, said, unto them,

they that are whole need not a physician, but they

that are sick. I came not to call the righteous,

but sinners to repentance. Let's about for prayer. Father, We

ask you that you would give us today light, because

in your light we see light. Father, give us light

here in this passage. We thank you for our great

physician that is here. May he walk among us right

now and heal the hearts and the minds of all

who hear me today. Give me that healing as well.

Give me unction to preach today, Father, for a prayer

in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, we're going to do this

first piece, part one, at Levi's house in three parts.

My sermon would be in three parts. First we're going

to be at the custom house, second will be at

Levi's house, and will be at the sick house. So

three houses today. First the customs house. Now, what Matthew

does for uh or Matthew what Luke does for us

sets up the setting for us. Jesus went forth. Jesus

is still following and fulfilling the ministry of the Messiahs

outlined in Isaiah sixty one one two. That passage there

in Luke chapter four stands so large over the entire

book of Luke, the entire gospel. Jesus is executing the

ministry of Messiah. Our Lord is always seeking, He is

always bringing home the lost sheep and here he goes forth.

He's not staying in the same place. And it says

that he saw a publican named Levi sitting at the

receipt of custom. Now here's this publican, Levi. Publicans were

part of the daily life of the people of Israel

in this time, in this first century. We know about them.

Both John the Baptist and Jesus addressed the publicans and

the sinners. We'll see them again in Luke's Gospel. However,

in Luke's Gospel we have three specific republicans of note.

We have this man here, Levi here in five twenty seven.

Then we have the man in the parable of the Pharisee,

and the publican which is in chapter eighteen. And then

we have the story of Zachias the publican in chapter nineteen.

So three publicans of note. But we'll see publicans as

a group coming to the ministry of Jesus as they

did the ministry of John the Baptist. Jesus's words were

attractive words, and people were coming to hear him, especially

people who needed to hear the word of God. And

this publican named Levi is there, and you notice that

it says he's sitting at the RISCs seat of custom.

So Jesus going forth has found himself in a customs

house somewhere in Galilee. We don't know exactly where, but

somewhere in Gallee. So custom or duty or tax was

required on everything in that day, just as it is today,

although I think maybe today we have perfected the art

of taxation, because every single thing is taxed. Some scholars

have suggested that this custom house where Levi was was

on or near the lake, and that fishermen were paying

a tax on how many fish they caught. And I

heard somewhere, I read somewhere that the custom on fishing

in that day was two fish for every ten, so

they would have to pay two fish a twenty percent

tax on what they caught in the lake. And that

twenty percent tax of two fish out of ten would

go to Rome and would probably feed you know, the

soldiers and the you know, politicians, and whatever they did

with the fish. So there was a large tax on this,

which means there were probably other publicans there conducting their business.

That's why I say we're at a customs house because

or Matthew Levi, Matthew and the other Gospels Levi here.

He is sitting at the custom so it's probably a table,

and he's got other you know, agents there doing their thing,

and the fishermen are coming in and they're paying their

I was going to say fair share, but it's not

very fair. They're paying their their share of the tax.

And he's doing this work. Now, does Levi know that

Jesus is there? Probably not, Maybe he doesn't even recognize him.

Who knows. Maybe by this time he does recognize him,

because Jesus has been you know, his fame has spread

so far and so wide that as soon as he

walks in, everybody knows him. But we're not told about

the everybody. We're told about the one. He came and

he saw Levi, and Levi was doing what Levi has

been doing since Levi was able to do it. He's

conducting his work as a publican. These publicans were Jewish

men who worked for the Roman authorities and were considered

sellouts and traitors to the Jewish people. Now, how would

you like to have that hung over your head. He's

just trying to make a living and everybody saw them

as sellouts. And then it says that Jesus said unto

him follow me. Here we have the effectual call. And

I gave you that little story about me and the hatchets,

just to illustrate the fact that not everything that we

do has an effect or is effectual. Here we have

Jesus calling one man out of the custom house, and

it has its effect. Notice that Jesus directed his words

to this one individual. Doctor Gil called this an instance

of powerful, special, and distinguishing grace that he calls this

one man. LEVI. I think sometimes we look over the

doctrine of irresistible grace too often, because we really we

say a lot about election, we say a lot about

the perseverance of the saints, we say a lot about

the limited atonement or that, and very rarely do we

mention this idea of irresistible grace. We can pass over

this wonderful work of God so quickly. But you will

hear it called irresistible grace. You'll also hear it called

effectual grace or effectual calling. And you'll hear it sometimes

called unrefutable or no unfrustratable grace. The Puritans loved that one.

They love to call it unfrustratable grace, because nothing can

frustrate it. It is the act of the spirit of

God calling a man to himself and giving him grace

to believe. I want you to hear doctor Gil on

this point. Now, pay attention. This is a paragraph I'm

going to read to you, but listen closely to what

he says about this idea of unfrustratable grace. Quote. God

does not act unsuitably to the rational powers and faculties

he has given. When He clothes his word with omnipotence,

makes it the power of God unto salvation, and attends

it with unfrustratable operation upon the understanding will and affections.

Since no coactive force or violence is offered to them,

that is, to the understanding will and affections, the understanding

is wonderfully enlightened, the will is sweetly drawn, and the

affections delightfully engaged and moved without any injury. Yea with

an advantage to these natural faculties. I love that. I

specially love the second part of that explanation, that when

God moves with unfrustratable operation upon the will, that there

is an understanding, are understanding is wonderfully enlightened, The will

is sweetly drawn and the affections delightfully engaged. Isn't that

your experience when you were born again? Your will was

sweetly drawn and your infections, your affections delightfully engaged. Didn't

you just hold on to Jesus with both hands, you know,

and said, Lord, Yes, it's unfrustratable when the grace of

God does its work in the heart of a man.

And the effect, well, we see the effect right here

in verse twenty eight. He left all, rose up and

followed him. Here's the effect of the calling. Just like

Peter Andrew, James and John. It says there in chapter

four or no, chapter five, when they had brought their

ships to land, they forsook all and followed him. The

same thing happens here with Levi. He he left all,

rose up and followed him. Notice that it says he

left all first. Do you know why? It says that

because in his heart he left it all. And when

that happened in his heart, nothing could keep him from

following Jesus. Then he rose up and followed him. He

made a decision right there that day when Jesus said,

follow me, Suddenly his will is sweetened, his delight in

Jesus suddenly is found. He's born again in that moment,

and in his heart he says, forget the custom forget

all the money, forget everything. And he rose up, thus

signifying that he was leaving all of it, and follows, Jesus, Wow,

all that money. Think of it, these publicans, And probably

one reason why everybody thought that they were traders, it's

because they were rich. They were rich. They had abused

and gained the system to the point where they were

rich men. All that money, station, power, political influence, all

the things that money can buy, the stability. Wouldn't you

want to be the fly on the wall? When he

went home and told missus Levi that he'd quit his job,

all the stability, all of it, all that the world

offers in his hand. And what does he do? He

walks away? Why? Because he considered Jesus a greater reward

than all the money in the world. He considered the

grace that he had received on that day more precious

than all all the gold in Palestine. It was more

to him. So what happened to Levi? I'm sure that

as his friends that were seated there in the custom

house asked that question, what happened to leave it. Where'd

he go? What made such a heart change? It wasn't

something that Levi did not at all, But rather it

was the irresistible, unfrustratable grace of God, the effectual calling

acting on his heart, which gave him a new birth.

And now we go to Levi's house and we see

something about that good calling, that new birth that happened

to leave it, because it says the next thing there

in verse twenty nine, and Levi made a great feast,

made him a great feast in his own house. Oh,

this is the good work that follows salvation. When we

are born again, the natural impulse is to do something

for Christ. We just want to do it all that

He's done for us, calling me out of my darkness

and night, calling me, translating me out of the kingdom

of darkness into the kingdom of his dear son. You

mean that I now can walk with him? What can

I do? Of course, we can do nothing to pay him,

to repay that. There is no repayment for him. But

I certainly can do something to celebrate him. And that's

exactly what Levi does. He's going to make him a feast. Now, Levi,

as I said, He was, no doubt a wealthy man.

And so if you want to talk about a spread,

he could lay on a spread made him a great

feast in his own house. I say this is natural,

because this is the normal order of things for the believer.

Good works don't don't precede salvation. They are the fruit

of salvation, as Paul said in Ephesians chapter two, for

we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works.

Let's not get the cart before the horse. A man

must be born again before his works can be good.

And God has ordained that we should walk in good works.

Paul concludes, they're in Ephesians two ten. Not only does

Levi want to celebrate celebrate Christ, but he also wants

others to meet his savior. And so what does he do?

A great company of publicans and others sat down with them.

These are the people that Levi I knew the others.

If you look at the Gospel of Matthew and the

Gospel of Mark, you'll see that they mentioned sinners, publicans

and sinners only. Luke has publicans and others. And so

when Luke writes others that include it was a whole

host of folk that were outside of the polite society

of Israel, because publicans were definitely excluded from the polite society.

So they had their own subculture and they invited all

of those folks too, So we had publicans and everybody

else that wasn't invited anywhere else. Levi just says, come on, boys,

come to my house. I want you to meet Jesus.

I got a big feast. Come on, we're gonna celebrate Jesus.

And they're probably like, okay, yeah, this nature is true

grace to wish for and to desire the salvation of

souls of others. Levi was already engaged in fishing for men.

Isn't that fun? When Peter and the others gave up

all that they had, Jesus said to Peter, don't worry.

From now on, you're gonna be fishing for men. And

who's the first one we see fishing for men? Well,

it's not Peter, James, John, and Andrew. It's Levi the publican.

He throws a feast and invites everybody to come, and Jesus,

of course is there. Now we need to be careful

right here. Let me just pause for a moment because

the world mocks at this and scoffs at it. They

twist this into some sort of a perversion of the

work of Christ, and they say Jesus approved of the

lifestyle of these sinners by his close association with them.

Jesus was just hanging out with the boys. M No,

be careful of that, and they will label anyone who

opposes the sinning lifestyle as a pharisee. If you don't

approve of what I do, then you're a pharisee. Jesus did. Look,

he hung up with all the publicans and the sinners. Careful,

be very careful people who make that claim. Ladies and

gentlemen are walking on dangerous territory. As my granddaughters would say,

the floor's lava and they're walking on lava. And then

you'll notice what the scribes do here verse thirty. The

scribes and the pharisees murmured against his disciples, saying, why

do you eat and drink with publicans and sinners? Now

you notice that they don't address Jesus. They have so

much contempt for Jesus, or they're so scared of him

that they will not speak to him about it. They

go to his disciples. Isn't that the way it usually goes.

You ask some second or third party something when you

could go to the sores, but you're scared to go

to the sours. So yeah, somebody else, And Luke does

not withhold who it was that came to Levi's as

we know their condition, these Republicans, these are sinners. That

subculture was there, but it wasn't there to hang out

with Jesus. It was there to meet him because something

had happened in Levi's heart, and Levi wanted that something

to happen in their heart too. The Phariseeson describes this

was a problem for them because to associate with the

sinner was to invite uncleanness. So they wanted to know

why Jesus willingly sat down with them and ate with them,

ate food with them. Yeah. Dead religion has nothing for

the sinner. It either excludes them or it syncretizes the

sinful lifestyle. With the dead religion, it does one of

two things, and we're seeing that happen today in spades.

It either excludes the sinner completely, or it syncretizes the

sin and makes it normal and brings it into the

the group. I won't even call it a church. We'll

just bring it into the group that's dead religion. And

that's what these guys had. Now we go to the

sick house. They've asked the question why do you eat

with publicans and sinners? And Jesus answered and said into them,

they that are whole need not a physician, but they

that are sick. I came not to call the righteous,

but sinners to repentance. Okay, so we have some classifications here,

don't we. Let's see who we're talking about. When he

mentions the whole, he's talking about the Pharisee. Now that

Greek word whole could also be maybe in your translation,

it's you have strength or strong. There the strong, They

that are strong don't need a physician, so that means healthy,

strong in body. Right, These are the Pharisees. They think

they're strong, they think they're righteous, They think they are

the righteous. These are the ones who, like Adam, hid

behind the tree in the garden and behind his skirt

made of fig leaves. But these hide behind their religious

robes and their perfumed deeds. They think their whole. Those

that are whole need not a physician. Okay, who's the

physician in this case, Jesus. Jesus said, I came notice

there in verse thirty two. I came, and he said,

I came to call the righteous to or know to.

I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. So

Jesus said, I came to call to repentance three things

that the physician is doing. Here. He's still calling ladies

and gentlemen even today, sinners to repentance. He is not

rejoicing in their sin. Does a doctor look at your

cancer and say, oh good, this is the way it

should be for you. No, the doctor looks at your

cancer and says, this is a perversion of your body.

Let's fix it. So Jesus he is the one who

can effectually, irresistibly, unfrustratably call men, women, boys and girls

to himself and give them a new birth. Only Jesus,

he is the only physician. You can't go anywhere else.

Nobody else has a cure. Only Jesus. He came to

call to repentance those three things. This is the physician.

And then we have the sick. They that are holding me,

not a physician, but they that are sick. Who are

the sick? The publicans and the sinners. Luke called them,

of course others, but we know who they are. These

are the ones who know they are sick. They come

to Jesus not to be affirmed in their sins or

their sicknesses, but to be delivered from them. Levi invited

these people to his home because he hoped they too

might be called and delivered from their desperate need, which

is something that only Jesus can do. You see, the

thing is the Pharisees didn't know they were sick. They

thought they were whole. The Publicans knew because everybody told them,

and they probably knew it within themselves as well. So

does this answer the question of the Pharisees. Their question

was why do you eat and drink Republicans and sinners?

The answer is yes. This does answer that question. This

answers the question because the sin sick need a doctor.

Jesus turned Levi's head else into a clinic for sinners.

How about that he was calling them to himself in repentance.

This doesn't mean the Pharisees didn't need a physician. It

doesn't mean that they are whole. It doesn't mean that

they are righteous. They're not. They think they are, but

they're not. They put pride before everything. They didn't need

a physician, but pride kept them from acknowledging their need.

Ladies and gentlemen, the clinic is open all day, seven

days a week. One day the spirit of God will

break your heart and you'll see your condition and cry

out to the Lord for a cure, and he'll be

right there, because the doctor is always on the job.

So how do we apply this well? Number One, let

us rejoice in our calling. As Peter said in tecom

Peter Chapter one, according to his divine power, hath given

unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness

through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to

his glory and virtue. His calling, Ladies and gentlemen, has

done this, given us all things that apply to life

and to godliness through the knowledge of Jesus, the one

who has called us to himself to glory and virtue.

We have a lot to praise God for. We have

a lot to thank you for. Dear Christian friend, you

have a lot to thank him for. And Jesus is

still calling today. Let's invite the publicans and the centers

of our day to an encounter with Christ. The person

said to me a while back that they wanted to

be baptized. And I told them that they needed to

come to church, and said under preaching, because they didn't

understand what baptism meant. I could tell it and they

didn' and you know, they thought they were making a

good choice. And I said, well, I just want you

come to church and just send unto preaching for a

while and we'll talk more. Yeah. I think that we

should invite them to come to church. We should invite

them to Mindy's Bible study ladies. We should invite them

to the men's Saturday breakfast. Men. We should invite them

to Sunday School. We should invite them to worship service.

Why because faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the

word of God. And they will never hear the voice

of Jesus, say, LEVI follow me. They will never receive

that effectual call. I mean, the Lord can use us

in that way. Perhaps it's time for you to call

on the Great Physician. We have that one hymn in

our hymn book that is so good. The Great Physician

now is near the sympathizing Jesus. He speaks the drooping

heart to cheer. Oh, hear the voice of Jesus. Father,

thank you for calling us to yourself. Now call more,

call those Lord under the sound of my voice. Today,

call them to come to Christ, Oh Father, And we

thank you that you hear their cal you'll hear their prayer,

and you'll receive them. We thank you, Father for irresistible, unfrustratable,

effectual grace that works on the understanding, It works on

the will and delights the very soul of man. And

we praise you for that today. And we pray in

Jesus' name.