Consider the conduct of the Pharisees, whose weak point had been touched by our Lord's teaching; they adopted the fool's course of mocking at that which they could not deny to be true, but whose truth they did not like to follow into its consequences, namely, into the practical result of a godly, self-denying life. Concerning this mode of dealing with rebuke, I have two remarks to make.
I. In the first place, I remark that however foolish a mode it may seem, and however much people may feel ashamed of it, when they see what it really is, yet it is very common and, in the usual sense of the word, very natural. It is natural to turn into ridicule any exhortation or rebuke which has been felt to touch ourselves, and because it is natural, therefore it is also common. In the Book of Proverbs a fearful light is thrown upon the subject of mockery when wisdom is represented as eventually adopting the same course herself, mocking those who had once mocked her, laughing at their trouble, showing in such an awful manner the folly of such conduct by a terrific kind of retaliation.
II. The second remark which I have to make is that this method of derision is not only foolish and empty, but is also positively mischievous. The Pharisees in the text, for example, were morally injured by their conduct towards the Lord; they were less fit than they were before to receive impressions for good; their covetousness was fixed more firmly, and all their other evil habits also. For this is the special characteristic of deriding what is good, that the whole moral sense suffers, the edge of the conscience is blunted; the man is less open to conviction than before, not only with regard to the particular subject which called forth his derision, but with regard to every subject. Indeed the surest method which Satan can adopt, to ruin in the end a Christian's character, is to tempt him in the beginning to deride the persons from whom he hears solemn instruction and warning, or the books in which he reads the same.
Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons,5th series, p. 233.
References: Luke 16:14. J. P. Gledstone, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxii., p. 181.Luke 16:15. C. G. Finney, Sermons on Gospel Themes,p. 347.