"Climbing The Tree of Life" with Doug Batchelor (Amazing Facts)

but nobody would listen back then well so good to see each of you and Karen and I are very thankful to be here with you for our homecoming camp meeting where we're gonna talk about living above the crowd there's mrs. bachelor we just flew in from Sacramento and we're so thankful now it's one airplane from Sacramento to st. Louis and so who knows we may come more often but good to see each of you it's always good to be back here at 3abn it's such a miracle the way the Lord has blessed this vision and you know we have a downlink there in Sacramento plays 3abn we hear stories all the time about people coming to the Lord and it's just a wonderful blessing you know I'm very thankful to be able to be with you tonight and just to open the Word of God in keeping with the theme living above the crowd you know the Bible says that Strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to life and few there be that find it brought us away and the crowd is on that road that leads to destruction and those has told the children of Israel being mindful not to follow a multitude to do evil and so you know being a Christian Jesus said in this wicked generation it requires faith and you've got to keep your eyes fixed upon Jesus now in our message tonight we're going to be talking about climbing the tree of life and I'm always fascinated with amazing facts and you know the tallest tree in the biggest tree in the widest tree and and I've spent a lot of time in the woods working with trees sometimes I cut one down that count the Rings but one tree that's amazing to me it's called the Tree of Life it's the simple coconut tree we just returned from Asia we're in three different countries preaching the gospel doing missionary training and evangelism and we flew over some of those beautiful islands near the equator and you can look from the window and you see the green the emerald specks in the blue and you know that there's trees there they used to tell the pilots during World War two if you get shot down and if you are in your little life raft they these primitive life rafts or your life vests you can get to one of those Islands where there's coconut trees is a good chance you can survive until someone finds you hopefully the right side would find you and because the coconut it's amazing we did an amazing fact on coconuts they make of course get food you got water you can get milk you got tools make cloth you can start a fire with a coconut tree and make soap I'm going to make baskets building material it's just absolutely amazing if you go through the South Pacific and visit some of those islands to see what they can do with that one tree and so they kind of call it a tree of life you know the Bible begins talking about two trees you got the Tree of Life and you got a tree that was the forbidden tree the knowledge of good and evil and because man eat from the wrong tree we were evicted from the garden and the whole Bible is telling us how to get back to the garden and you get to Revelation that says there back in the Garden of Eden eating from the tree of life again well I'm gonna take you to a story about a man that climbed a tree of life it's only found one place in the Gospels and it's it's really just the story of Zacchaeus people hear that and they think oh pastor that guy already did Sabbath school or Sunday School depending on your background and I know this story and I know the song about the wee little man but I think sometimes we forget that these stories that we sort of relegate to the children are absolutely erupting with profound feel meaning and I'd like for you to look at this story tonight with fresh eyes Jesus entered Luke chapter 19 verse 1 Jesus entered and he passed through Jericho all rights got a stop already this was the last journey of Jesus to Jerusalem before the crucifixion when it says he passed through Jericho you realize he's at the lowest point on the planet the city of Jericho is in the Jordan Valley not far from where the Jordan River runs into the Dead Sea and that's 1,300 feet below sea level and Jesus you could say he's reached one of the lowest points and the city of Jericho one of the ancient cities of the world was actually a cursed City you remember when they marched around the city and and that walls fell and Joshua pronounced a curse on the city so it curses anyone who rebuilds Jericho he will lay the foundation in his firstborn and he will set up the gates in his youngest and later during the time of King Ahab someone had the audacity to rebuild Jericho in spite of the curse and his firstborn died when they laid the foundation and his youngest died when they set up the gates it was a cursed City you see Jericho because of its location is at the intersection of three continents yet Asia Africa Europe and you know there's a forbidden desert that's to the east and so the only way the caravan traffic went was through the Jordan Valley and so it you know went all the way back to the time of Rahab that city was known for its some bad behavior and so as soon as we say Jericho you know the story of the man who fell among thieves he's going from Jerusalem the City of God to Jericho and he falls on his way to Jericho and so Jericho didn't have the best reputation but Jesus knew that they needed the gospel there too so on his way to die he goes to the lowest city and the Bible tells us now behold there was a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector and he was rich tell you story this guy owned a fitness gym and wanting to be a good example he was pretty built a matter of fact he was over built he just you know he had the arms that were reached out wide and very strong exercising all the time and one of the ways he would promote the gym is he had this little challenge that he'd issue he'd say for $50 I'll give you a chance to win $1,000 I am gonna squeeze all of the juice out of a lemon and if you can get one drop of juice out of the lemon after I squeeze all of it out I'll give you $1,000 and so he got some takers every now and all these big the loggers and muscle men would come in and mechanics and said and the owner would he'd take that lemon he'd squeeze it and he'd rub it and he'd get all of it out and then he'd hand the messy pulp to someone else said you get another drop out you get $1,000 they never could and eventually this one guy comes in and he's 5 feet tall he's skinny as a rail he's got these big horn rimmed glasses on he says I can do it and everyone's laughing he comes over he plops down his $50 for a chance to get another drop out of this lemon and he was right up there and he presses and three drops came out and everybody is dumbfounded that he was able to do that they said how do you do that how do you get so strong we do you the lumberjack and you milk go to it how do you get the strength to do that said no I work for the IRS so Zacchaeus wasn't greatly loved he was a tax collector except tax collectors back in Bible times were loved even less than they are today not you know there's legitimate people that we had one of our head elders for years was a tax collector and a good man on this job you know we the Bible says there's a reason in a place for taxes but in Bible times the publicans tax collectors their names were synonymous with the most wicked and sinful people in Israel in fact if if you wanted to just put someone down and insult them you know you might call them a dog you might call them a Samaritan and then you'd call them a publican and that was just like Louisville don't say that hey publican was as low as you could go now what they did is they basically would buy a contract from the Romans so that they get extract taxes from their own people and the way they did the taxes if it's kind of rough I mean you brought a wagon into town and you had your goats and stuff they saying I'm gonna charge you so much for the goat so much for the horns on the goat and they kind of made up the rules as they went along and they'd collect what the Romans required and everything on top of that they kept and they're lying in their pockets by extorting their own people and giving the money to their enemies so you can see why the Republicans were not much appreciated and Zacchaeus was not only a publican he was the cheap publican in the most lucrative city to be a publican and it was basically what you would call organized crime he was like the dawn of Jericho it was the underworld and the people that the publicans typically hung out with well you know they gave Jesus a hard time because he went to a feast at Matthew's house and it said why does your master hang out with publicans and sinners publicans and harlots that all went together in one phrase and so Jesus goes this town I was the kiyose he was probably born a good Jewish boy and something made him take a wrong turn his parents probably had the best of intentions for him his name Zacchaeus means pure innocent good and he went bad and maybe it was cuz he was short you know I didn't ruin the story you knew that part already didn't you I know I hope I didn't spoil it for you but if they say some people when they're short they get something called short man syndrome they say that you know we have people like Hitler Napoleon Alexander the Great they were all like you know just uh five feet or above and and they try to prove themselves so they overcompensate by working and they're driven because they want to be somebody and maybe when Zacchaeus was a boy everyone else bullied him and teased him and so he became angry and he just decided the only thing that's gonna give me power is money and he did everything he could and he learned how to manipulate and pull strings and until he was not just rich he was a very rich well let me tell you a man's life does not consist in the abundance of things he possesses matter of fact Solomon says the more you possess the harder it is to sleep that's a loose paraphrase and you probably heard my testimony my dad had millions of dollars and at one time he owned two airlines and in our garage Lamborghini Ferrari Jaguar not all rolls-royce not all at the same time but I mean yeah yacht in the backyard and so there was a lot of money there and I'll tell you there was a lot of misery he drank himself to sleep every night and you know I don't want to sound disrespectful but I could see right away money does not bring happiness a lot of people have found that out the hard way they basically sell their souls Jesus and what profit to you if you gain the whole world and you lose your soul and you know it's true the more you have the more worried you are about what you have and time you ought to be out sharing the gospel you got to stay home to Greece and to monitor to guard all your stuff and the devil basically he makes slaves out of many in the church because they can't avoid to leave their stuff to do the work of God because someone's got to stay home take care of their stuff it's not the Bible that old folk song freedom is another word for nothing left to lose and in some ways I know I was freer as a Christian when everything I own fit in my backpack and I just walk in with the Lord and you become more you know you go from hippie dippie and pretty soon you have all this stuff you don't have as much freedom the kiyose had arrived he was I don't know if he was famous he was infamous and he was wealthy and he was unhappy he was empty and he was isolated you know if you're Republican you couldn't go to the temple if you did everybody's sneered you were never invited to the house of anyone respectable but he had heard about this teacher from Nazareth and he heard that he even invited one of his inner circle from among the publicans so that was a scandal Jesus walked up and asked Matthew follow me and he walked away from his cash register and he followed Jesus and then Matthew invited him over to his house and Jesus was eating with publicans and harlots and so the kiyose was thinking maybe there's hope for me maybe I'm not totally forever lost and then then he heard that Jesus told a parable two men went up to the temple to pray one a Pharisee now y'all know Pharisee they were the opposite of a publican police outwardly they were you know very scrupulous about carrying out all of the religious laws and very fastidious about their washing and their tie pain and and they were religious zealots praying long prayers in public so everyone could see how holy they were making big donations in public and blowing the trumpet and they were all about being religious and being holy and staying pure outwardly but Jesus said they were like whitewashed Sep liquors many of them he said two men went up to the temple to pray one was a Pharisee and other was a publican the Pharisee he went up front and he stood and he prayed with himself and said lord I thank you I'm not like other men I paid tithes of all that I have and I fast twice a week and those are good things by the way and I'm glad I'm not like this publican back there but the publican would not so much as lift up his head his eyes to heaven but he bowed his head and he smote on his breast and he said lord have mercy on me a sinner and then Jesus stunned the crowd when he said the publican went down to his house justified and not the Pharisee and Zacchaeus is thinking maybe there's hope for me and so it says that Jesus was on his way through Jericho something else probably piqued his interest if you read in Luke the previous chapter on his way into Jericho jesus heals a blind man of several Gospels say he healed bartemaeus and then another gospel says there's actually two of them there it's the same story you know some of the stories it talks about - and sometimes it tells one of them who may have been the vocal one but this miracle of someone who had never seen before and their eyes are open and so the crowd of Christ is at its absolute peak he is being thronged and mobbed on every side because he's just performed this incredible miracle on his way into Jericho and Zacchaeus is thinking I'd like to see a man like that maybe maybe there's hope for me now I can't I can't overstate the importance of the next verse and he sought to see who Jesus was seek and you will find the Bible tells us that you'll search for me and you'll find me when you search me with all of your heart Jeremiah 29:13 he was seeking for jesus and jesus knew that you know if someone were to say what is the first step in salvation I often asked our missionary trainees in our Africa program explain to me how you get saved what do you do what are the steps and people say repent that is definitely one of the steps but I don't believe it's a first step because how can you repent unless you know there's something to repent of I believe the first step in being saved is you must see the Lord because it's the goodness of God that leads us to repentance and when we see his goodness it's like John the Baptist began by saying behold the lamb of God John the Apostle says behold what manner of love the father has bestowed on us that we should be called sons of God we're invited to behold Isaiah chapter 6 it says in the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord after he sees God high and lifted up on his throne and the glory of the Lord and the angels around God the holiness of God he then sees himself by contrast and he says woe is me I am undone there was a thief on the cross next to Jesus he'll be in heaven you know why he saw the Lord lifted up Jesus said unless you see me lift it up Elijah said to Elisha if you see me when I'm taken up Christ said as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness why he put that serpent on a pole and he held it up where people could see it when they saw that serpent lifted up represented a defeated serpent by faith and they got the victory over the venom of the serpent what brought about Paul's conversion he's on his way to Damascus and Jesus appeared to me said I saw the Lord and when he saw the goodness of God and he heard the voice of God he then saw himself and he repented and said what shall I do and this is the way it is with everybody you really need to get a picture of who Jesus is and this is what the key is wanted he wanted to see the Lord notice what it says here and see she sought to see the Lord who Jesus was it's not just what he sees it's who he sees he wanted to know who is this man this is life eternal that they might know the John 17 my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge it's not knowledge about prophetic dates it's the knowledge of the Lord Jesus will say to the Lost I don't know you so how do we get to know the Lord conversion and godly living comes from regularly looking to the Lord the Bible says in Hebrews 12 we fix our eyes upon him and that's how we're able to lay aside the sin and to run that race so kiyose he wanted to see Jesus he doesn't just make an ordinary effort he and it kind of doesn't look around because he wouldn't have seen anything horizontal yes actually look up the thing how am I gonna see him Bible tells us that he had a handicap it says he couldn't see the Lord because what everyone said short but it doesn't say short verses as a crowd it wasn't that he was too short the crowd was too tall no really if there was no crowd what do you've seen the Lord yeah so y'all look at it the wrong way you come to a traffic signal you call it a stoplight but isn't it also a go light yeah we always think of it you know I just if you haven't heard this before it's really funny I don't care if it's a thousand times I meet people who've watched the TV program for years and then they see me in person for the first time and they don't mean but they just blurt out and say you're short it it happened again last week it happens all the time it really does I don't know what it is it's the position of the cameras in Sacramento where it looks up and it gives you a bigger than I don't tell them to do it but for whatever reason it's not special effects I look bigger on TV or something and then they meet me they're so disappointed and they say are you short and I said no I'm not I'm concentrated but I tell you I just I like going through Asia because I was just in Asia I'm not short in Asia I want you to know so he wanted to see Jesus but he could not because of the crowd for he was short of stature by the way we are all too short we are all falling short of the glory of God and unless we take some action and think ahead we never will have that life-saving view that we need the Bible says that he decided he had to do something to compensate so how do you get taller platform shoes that won't help much you know Jesus said which of you by taking thought can add a cubit unto your stature not too many you know keep it's 18 inches I remember hearing this story once you may have heard me share this before I heard it on Paul Harvey and I always repeat it as well as I remember it I never saw it again I never found it in print but I remember him telling this during one of his the rest of the story stories and there is this gentleman in Southern California that for whatever reason his dream was to be a member of the Los Angeles Police Department and I think he was Filipino and so he was a little shorter than normal and they have a height requirement in Los Angeles Police Department you got to be certain height and so I don't know what it was you know you had to be 5/8 or something I say that cuz I'm five nine but so whatever it was he was one inch too short so he asked to enroll in the police academy and they looked him up and down they said well you know technically you can go to the police academy but you're never gonna get hired by LA because they got this height requirement and they're very strict about it he says no problem he said III think I'm not done growing yet while he was like 21 but he was optimistic and he said it's one-inch I can figure something out I can grow an inch I went out enroll and so he persuaded he enrolled in the Academy and he did very well he excelled in all of his classes and everything they told him several times along the way they said you realize they're not gonna hire you if you're not tall enough I mean just for practical reasons you can understand that if you're just you know real short and you're trying to arrest you know the six foot nine drug dealer it just makes it more difficult so they got a minimum and so he says no problem so he started doing all these things to try to grow one inch and he had a bar in his bedroom and he'd hang from his feet and he'd hang from his hands he'd hang from his feet until the blood rush from his head he didn't know why it's flip around but he'd do that and he found out that he was actually taller in the morning do you know you're a little taller in the morning when you first get up and you are at the end of the day because of the compression on your vertebrae through the day you just shrank depending on your height up to a quarter of an inch so if you want to look taller get measured early in the morning when you first get up and then he even got these bungee straps he would try to sleep at night we had a metal frame bed and he'd put these bungee straps on he'd put him under his arms on his legs and he'd try and pull himself during the night then he had he had a friend at the clinic at the academy he'd run in and he'd get measured so he'd put it in his chart he'd say well you know I'm really impressed you added a quarter-inch he said but they're not gonna they're not gonna let you in unless you are at the right height said no problem and he was doing everything he could to try to grow one inch and he just wasn't getting there so he told his mother there's an operation says the operation they break your legs and they put these braces on the outside of your legs is it true and they slowly pull the bone apart and the bone begins to grow in and starts to fill in the great gap and it's very expensive and I understand it's painful but some people are they've got the money and they're desperate enough to get that extra height and you know you might get an inch or two I don't know how much the limit is but he said I want to do it and told his mother we've got to do this this is my dream I've thought of it all my life he grew up watching the Li chips or whatever it was and he wanted to be a la police department and she thought we don't have the money this is crazy so one morning she told him she says I've got an idea I have the solution for how you need to grow oh he was so excited and she said I've got the solution she did after breakfast I want you to look out the window and I'll show it to you and so he ate a good breakfast and then he she told him she said I want you to look out of the kitchen door look up the street and you're gonna see a solution he opened the kitchen door expectantly he looked out the door and why he wasn't looking she took a cast-iron frying pan and she walloped him over the head right on top of his head he fell to the ground and yelled and rubbed his ends why did you do that she said quick go to the doctor get measured it raised up an inch about above about three-quarters of an inch on his head and the doctor at the clinic saw what he was going through to try to get that one inch and they said look he's gonna kill himself we better hire him and he finally got the job but if someone would go through all of that and you can only grow that much which of you by taking thought can add a cubit unto your stature there's nothing really we could do but Zacchaeus he actually had a solution and he sought to see Jesus who he was but he could not because of the crowd for he was a short stature but then he remembered that there in Jericho on the main road where Jesus was going he could see where Jesus was he heard the crowd was coming he saw them all pressing him and he saw where he was going he thought he's gonna pass down the Main Street and there's this tree on Main Street now I was not the tallest kid in school as you probably gathered and I went to an all-boys school in Miami called curly it was a Catholic school and I one day was out on the field that it was during recess and everyone's out playing and there was a bully in the school and somebody went and threw a rock or something I don't even know what they threw they were behind me and they threw it at the bully and it hit him and he looked at me this is true and I thought what oh no not me and I turned around they were gone whoever had done it and he started coming over to me like this that's how he's gonna kill me he's a big guy so I ran and I'm very fast and I ran around the back of the school and I jumped up into the branches of a tree and I climbed up in this tree and I remember seeing him with his entourage coming around there looking all over for me but I hid myself in the tree and he didn't find me he found me later in typing class another story but I got kicked out of typing class because we got into a fight we knocked over several typewriters but anyway I at least temporarily hid from him in the tree and I thought Zacchaeus you know he knew where that tree was didn't he he thought ahead he said I don't remember that's where I used to have to hide from all the boys and so he made a plan to be where he knew Jesus was going you know if you put yourself in a place where you think Jesus is gonna be there's a good chance you're gonna see him the Bible says where two or three gathered together in his name he is there and that means every Sabbath you be where Jesus said he's gonna be when there's a prayer meeting do all you can to be where Jesus is gonna be surround yourself with the Lord now this to me is I think one of the most important things I say whenever I travel I always repeat it because it's just so basic but it's so neglected you you won't be a successful Christian if you don't love the Lord because you can't obey Him unless you love him he says if you love me keep my Commandments you're not gonna love him if you don't know him you're not gonna know him unless you communicate with him you communicate with him by his speaking to you and you're speaking to him in prayer he speaks to you through the word through sermons spiritual information the area where I think Christians are really failing is in feeding their souls and having an ongoing daily relationship with the Lord through a personal devotional life and you need to be plain downright legalistic and rich about it I mean you need to say I have an appointment with God I might be tired it might be inconvenient I may not feel like it but I am gonna read his word and I am gonna pray no matter what it's not that you work your way to heaven by doing that but you have to deliberately carve out that time or the relationships gonna suffer you need to feed your soul Zacchaeus knew where Jesus was gone and he put himself in a place where they would have a rendezvous and we need to make those same plans or the Lord so the Bible says he he ran he made a superhuman effort and he took a risk that people might make fun of him he ran ahead and he climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him but he was gonna pass that way now the sycamore trees in Bible time it's not the typical American Sycamore that you see it was actually a primitive form of a fig tree they had the fancy more cultivated figs and then they had the cheaper figs they called them Sycamore and it was a it's a fig tree and this is very interesting because Jesus actually cursed one of those fig trees later on it's also interesting because what Adam and Eve used to cover their nakedness his fig leaves so he goes ahead and he finds this you know it's got a wide base and it's probably got some blow branches and if you know if he's a wealthy Mafia Don he's probably not an athlete and it must have been a spectacle to see this this short man maybe even a little rotund huffing up the street he ran he was in a hurry you know one of the things that amazed me when David went to fight Goliath the Bible says the giant went out to meet David and David ran that always thought just absolutely shocked me that they would run to fight a giant when you come to the Lord you need to make haste so he ran ahead got ahead of the crowd he had to get away from the crowd and he climbed now he couldn't see Jesus because the crowd got in the way what kind of crowd was around Jesus that day no is it safe to say it was a religious crowd yeah fossils were there they were sort of the you know the inner Secret Service that were surrounding Jesus and then there were you had disciples that were with him and then it even tells us there were certain women that followed him that ministered to him of their substance and so there may have been some women and they may have helped in a special way but he had this entourage of his inner circle and disciples and then there were his enemies in spies and then there were just the curiosity people in the locals and you know then you can just the masses of people but they're all interested in this religious teacher you can say it's a religious crowd he could not see Jesus because the religious crowd was in the way how often does that happen today what do you think the biggest obstacle is that prevents the world from seeing the goodness of God you know typically in the secular media they love to criticize Christianity and the reason they criticize Christianity is because they pointed Christians they usually don't have something against the teachings of Jesus per se but they ridicule those who claim to be followers of Jesus the greatest enemy of the Christian Church is professed Christians that they they say one thing and they do another this is what Jesus went right to the heart of when he began preaching his religious hypocrisy he started out saying you fast to be seen of men and you give to be seen of men and you pray to be seen of men and you tried to look real but your hearts aren't changed and you wonder how many if you were to just do percentages what percentage of those who take the name of Christ really know Jesus out there I think it's the vast minority so if you're gonna be a witness for Christ and if you're gonna see Christ you got to get above the crowd bartimaeus wanted to be healed by Jesus he heard the crowd was coming up the street to Jericho he said who is it it's the healer it's the teacher it's the rabbi from Galilee and when he heard that he started saying son of David have mercy on me son of David have mercy on me and the crowd told him to be quiet what did he do crowd louder you got to be louder than the crowd and he cried out and you know what Jesus heard him the first time but he let him keep crying God hears every prayer you pray but you got to keep praying and he said bring him to me so what do you want that I should do to you said Lord that I might receive my sight said be it unto you according to your faith and he follows Jesus so woman she has a personal problem I think I'm talking about that later this week wants to talk to Jesus but the crowds in the way has to get by the crown Jesus is in a house he's teaching they bring a paralyzed man can't get to Christ why crowd is in the way what kind of crowd religious crowd have you ever met people they stopped going to church because someone in the church hurt their feelings yeah we all that's a serious problem and I never did understand it because they say oh you know I like like the Lord and I want to follow the Lord but I'm not going to church anymore because of what they did to me and you know they're all hypocrites and and so I'm just gonna be lost and then when they're in the city of god and that lake of fire is creeping up around my ankles i'm going to point to them and say see this is your fault that's why i'm here as though you're gonna get some relief from that why would you want to get even with a church by being lost if you tried to teach the hypocrites something in the church then be genuine but so many people get discouraged and Jesus said if anyone makes even one of these little ones stumble it'd be better for them that they weren't born or that a millstone were hung about their neck and they were cast into the depths of the sea we've got to be very careful that we're not doing anything to wound people that are young in the faith or coming to church so he said I'm not gonna let the crowd keep me away now what did the crowd think of Zacchaeus not very highly you probably normally have bodyguards because here he's taking all that tax money taking all the money from everybody but he wanted to see Jesus so he climbed a tree for he was gonna pass that way and then Zacchaeus is up there and you know he's probably huffing and puffing he gets into the tree and he finds an overhanging limb and he's somewhat hidden by the leaves but he sees the entourage coming up the street and Jesus stops and says a word to someone every now and then and and he's pressing on and everyone's looking and there's commotion or and a lot of noise and some rejoicing and finally they're passing up the narrow streets and they come right underneath where Zacchaeus is and says Jesus stops but he stops the whole crowd has to stop because he's the you know guest of honor y'all kind of run into each other and he thinks oh great I'm gonna get to not only see him I'm gonna get to him hear him say something but Jesus slowly lifts his head and he looks directly at the kiyose and he preaches a very short sermon but it converted Zacchaeus you know if the sermon was Zacchaeus first of all he knew his name so Zacchaeus just about falls out of the tree in fact he may have fella out of the tree and I'll explain later Zakia's make haste and come down when he says that he's saying come to me for today I must stay at your house I think that his heart stopped and he thought God knows that I'm looking for him this answers all the questions and the prayers in my heart is he knows me he loves me and Zacchaeus is so overwhelmed with the fact that God would not only know him but that Jesus would want to be with him probably coming down out of the tree I don't know if he felt right from the branch or fell on his way down but a little later it says rising so in order for him to rise from the ground he has to be on the ground does that make sense so I think he came out as doing everybody snickering you know here's his this publican that's Calvin Klein robes and he's fallen out of the tree and everybody thinks oh what's going on here he made haste and he came down and about as fast as you can and he received him joyfully how do we receive the Lord joyfully the Gospels good news and the incredible thing to me is he receives him joyfully and look at what happens it says when the people sought they're all complaining saying he's gone to be the guest with him who is a sinner what did they think they were this is the religious crowd was there anyone in that crowd that wasn't a sinner but we think some people are worse sinners and we are all sin will separate us from God the kiyose does not let the church discourage him they're talking their murmuring nothing new he says Jesus wants to be at my house by the way you know Jesus wants to be in your house your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit Jesus wants to abide in your house the Bible says he stands and he knocks at the door and if anyone opens the door he will come in and sup with him he wants to abide with you Bible says unless we abide in him and he in us we can't bear fruit and have eternal life Zacchaeus is so overwhelmed with gratitude that Jesus wants to be his friend that he would receive him it says he stood and he said Lord look half of my goods I give to the poor and if I've taken anything from anyone by false accusation I restore him fourfold now why does he say that in particular because you know it tells us that in the in the Hebrew law if you took something from somebody illegally if you extorted money and you robbed somebody that you would have to pay back fourfold when you did that and so he was willing to give up everything Exodus 22 verse 1 if a man steals an ox or a sheep and slaughters it and sells it you'll restore five oxen for an ox and four sheep for a sheep and it says in 2nd Samuel 12 6 he will restore fourfold that's what David said when he heard the parable of Nathan so Zacchaeus knew the Bible he knew what the law was he knew what he had done he said half of my goods I give to the poor and he why did he keep the other half because he says if I've taken anything from anyone by false accusation well there was gonna be a very long line in Jericho he had to be very rich to be able to do that now this is a fascinating thing because if you go back one chapter there is a rich young ruler who is a good church-going young man and Jesus loves him and he says if you would have eternal life go sell what you have give it to the poor you'll have treasure in heaven he couldn't do it he went away rich in sad and Jesus said how hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of heaven and the disciples can't believe that Jesus is saying this because they've been hearing this prosperity gospel the Pharisee says they ah've God blesses you then okay to rob widows and didn't Jesus say you the one who robbed widows houses and for a pretense you make long prayers God's blessed us and so here Jesus the disciples are saying who then can be saved the Bible answers that question in the next chapter with Zacchaeus so here you've got the biggest sinner in town he accepts Jesus Jesus does not ask him to sell anything he does not ask him to give anything to the poor but he is sold thankful like Naaman after his healing from leprosy he has to go right back to give something he's overwhelming with gratitude and he's willing to unload everything he has because he's realized I had everything and it didn't make me happy and so one of the signs that salvation had come to his house as he is sorry for his sins he repents of his sins and he wants to make everything right he publicly confesses if I've taken anything a little bit availed confession but he's confessing they all knew if I've taken anything from any man by false accusation I will restore him fourfold and Jesus said one of these days salvation will come to this house is the last verse it's so important it summarizes the mission of Christ today salvation has come to this house because he is not he will be at the moment that he received Jesus joyfully jesus said salvation has come to his house he is a son of Abraham he didn't say I'm putting you on probation that means as soon as a person surrenders and accepts Jesus they receive adoption he was being told you our child Avery Abraham and I'm going to abide in your house and his whole heart was utterly transformed so the message is climbing the tree of life all of us are too short how do we add a cubit unto our stature jesus said if any man would follow me let him deny himself take up his cross where do you take your cross to your crucifixion you want to get taller you got a climb a tree but when you take up your cross you are climbing a tree of life and as the kiyose was not exactly what you would think of when you're looking for fruit in a fig tree but that was really the kind of fruit Jesus was looking for he cursed the fig tree that was fruitless but jesus said I have come to seek and to save the Lost what qualifies you to be saved you need to know you're lost Zacchaeus knew he was lost and he was so happy that Jesus would receive him and forgive him he thought what profit is that if I gain the whole world and lose myself he was willing to give everything away that he might have that great gift of eternal life you've probably heard before the incredible story of the testimony of John Newton the one who wrote Amazing Grace and he was a he actually was a slave trader raised a Christian mother prayed from all the time but he totally rebelled and he just became a scoundrel he was matter of fact he was such a bad sailor the bad sailors didn't even like him he was so bad that once when a ship was shipwrecked they said if we have to turn to cannibalism the first one we're gonna eat is him but he went through a dramatic conversion of course pastor to Church wrote a number of songs including Amazing Grace and when he got older he started losing his memory and it got pretty bad he'd stand up to preach and he'd lose his way in the sermon and and finally he got to the point where he'd stand there and he'd say you know I don't remember very much anymore but I remember two things Jesus is a great Savior and I am a great sinner and Jesus came to seek and to save the lost if you come to him and you say Lord I surrender and I'll take up my cross you climbed that tree of life he promises that he can declare to you that you are today forgiven you are a child of Abraham and he wants everyone here to have that experience is that your desire friends can I pray with you as we close father in heaven we're so thankful for the promise in your word that you have come to seek and to save the Lost that your arm is not shortened that you cannot save that there is no sinner that you cannot reach if we're willing to repent and to come to you lord I pray that we'll all make that decision - to see to seek after you as the key is did to want to see you to want to know you and Lord you promised that if we draw near to you you will draw near to us that's what we're doing here this week please bless us with your presence I pray that everyone here everyone watching might make that decision to take up their cross to climb that tree that they might see Jesus and experience the joy of salvation we thank you and pray in his name [Music] you

Channel: Doug Batchelor

Views: 37,358

Rating: 4.92068 out of 5

Keywords: ellen g white, amazing facts, sunday school, sabbath school, best sermon ever

Id: CD7PuTNsYM0

Length: 50min 38sec (3038 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 21 2019