Luke 11:45-54

Luke 11:45-54

1. We learn how great is the sin of professing to teach others what we do not practice ourselves.
2. We learn how much more easy it is to admire dead saints than living ones.
3. We learn how surely a reckoning day for persecution will come upon the persecutors.
4. We learn how great is the wickedness of keeping back others from religious knowledge.

"One thing at all events is very certain. No lessons produce such effects on men as those which the teacher illustrates by his own daily life."

"When a man can see no beauty in living saints, but much in dead ones, his soul is in a very rotten state."

"The great white throne and the books of God shall put all things in their right places. The tangled maze of God's providence shall be unraveled. All shall be proved to a wondering world to have been "well done."

"Whatever we are ourselves in religion, let us dread discouraging others, if they have the least serious concern about their souls."

Questions:

1. Jesus charges the pharisees with telling others to do things they themselves do not do. Ryle encourages us that perfection is not possible, but that the goal should be that our teaching and practice are closer than further apart. Are their any areas in our lives in which there is no match between the two? What are other areas in which it could be closer?

2. Ryle’s test is insightful, and maybe has a different but helpful application to us today. Where it is easier to admire dead saints instead of living ones because they don’t know our lives and can rebuke us if necessary, isn’t that the same with loving online preachers instead of our own pastors? If we find it easier to listen to online preaching, the question we should ask ourselves is: why?

3. How often do we think of our daily actions in light of the great judgment day? What does recollection of this day do in our hearts? Why?

4. Jesus warns against keeping the key of knowledge from others. Instead of just asking if we have ever discouraged someone, maybe we should also ask, how many do we encourage in the things of God?