Monthly Archives: March 2014

The hypocrisy of the church, Luke 13: 10-21

One thing that I have grown to love and appreciate about Luke’s gospel, is that he doesn’t ever seem to just add random biographical selections from the life of Christ.  But Luke strategically weaves together historical events into a theological commentary that endeavors to teach us important doctrines in a systematic way.  And so the key to understanding Luke is to find this thread that ties these incidents and passages together.

I heard Alistair Begg refer to this idea as finding the melody line in a music score.  And perhaps that is a good analogy.  We need to always remember to keep in mind the underlying melody line as we consider the individual notes in order to understand the intended message of the Holy Spirit.

Today’s passage is no exception.  At first glance, it may seem that this is just another miracle of Jesus and a couple of little parables which have no relation either to each other or to the surrounding content.  But I would like to encourage you to look closer today to discover what I think is an important message to the church.

But before we go into the story here we should understand the correlation between the modern 21st century church and the synagogue that Jesus visited in this passage on the Sabbath day.  I’m afraid that the significance of the synagogue is lost on most modern Christians.  The synagogue was a place of assembly.  It was something that had evolved in Judaism as a result of the Babylonian exile when the Jews were displaced from their homeland and the first destruction of the temple.  The Jews living in Babylon did not have a temple, they had none of their religious and national edifices in the land in which they were exiled, and so the synagogue was a means of bringing the Jewish people together in an assembly where they could worship God.  And they did this through prayer and in reading and being taught the word of God, or the Torah.

But I think it’s important to understand that the synagogue was never an organization that was designed by God.  This was the Jew’s attempt to bring their community together for social, religious, educational and political purposes and to preserve their traditions.  Furthermore, the leaders of the synagogue were not necessarily of the Levitical priesthood as it was in the temple.  But where the leadership really got their authority can be traced all the way back to the book of Numbers 11 when Moses established 70 men to be judges over Israel during the exodus.  These 70 officials that he established became the foundation for what would be called eventually the Sanhedrin.  They were the religious rulers  or judges of Israel.  They were made up of two opposing political/religious groups known as the Pharisees and the Sadducees.  And in the evolutionary process that Judaism went through after the Babylonian exile up until the time of Christ, these religious leaders developed teachings called the Mishna which was a collection of rabbinical instructions which interpreted the scriptures and particularly the law.  So by the time of Christ’s and the Apostle’s ministry, the synagogue, the Sanhedrin and the Mishna had basically taken the place of authority in Judaism.  The priesthood had become corrupt due to the fact that the High Priest was a politically appointed office that was purchased by bribing the Roman government.  This was the status of Judaism in the time of Christ.  It had strayed far away from the original intent of God and plan of God given at Mount Sinai.  It had a lot of shared characteristics with God’s plan, but it had been subverted and changed to the point of outright apostasy. It’s leadership was not appointed by God but appointed by man.  They had their own self interests at heart.  God’s primary way of speaking to the people had always been through prophets who were called by God.  And the prophets, whether Moses or Jeremiah or Hosea, had always been vilified and rejected by not only the national leadership but most of the people as well.

Now I cannot help but point out the parallels between the synagogue and the Judaism of Jesus day and the modern church and Christianity today.  The church was supposed to be the new covenant’s answer to the failures of Judaism.  We were supposed to be the stewards of the new covenant, just as  Judaism was the steward of the old covenant.  But just like our counterparts in the synagogue, the modern church I’m afraid has deviated far from the original plan of God.  That doesn’t mean that God doesn’t have a few people in His church that haven’t bowed their knee to Baal so to speak, but for the most part I’m afraid that the organization known as the church is like rotten fruit, that is swollen in it’s corruption and is ready to burst.  We have added so much disinformation to the scriptures that we have basically emasculated the gospel. We have added so many traditions to the church that it has almost completely obscured the gospel message.  We have leadership and teachers today in the church which God neither ordained nor did He call them to be His ministers.  We see corruption of both a political nature and in every other way, especially morally, in it’s clergy.  And we have produced a false gospel that rivals that of the Mishna which teaches a gospel of self fulfillment and false righteousness and robs people of their chance of salvation.

This is the same type of corruption that Jesus faced in His day, and we find history repeating itself in the 21st century.  Jesus has been preaching against this hypocrisy ever since chapter 12 vs. 1.  Jesus is preaching against the hypocrisy of the synagogue, the hypocrisy of Judaism, and particularly the hypocrisy of the Pharisees.  He says in His opening sentence of His message in ch.12; “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.”  In other words, beware of the corruption of the Pharisees, the leaders and teachers of the synagogue.  We can say the same thing today, “Beware of the corruption of the leaders of the church.”  I believe this is Christ’s message today for the church as we know it.  Beware of the hypocrisy that is in the church.

The apostle Paul says the same thing to the church in 1 Cor. 5:6, “Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”

The problem in Jesus day was that they had taken the law of God which was given by God to produce repentance, and they had twisted it to produce self righteousness by works.   So God made Jesus the scapegoat to take on Himself the penalty of the law that we might be given the gift of righteousness in the new covenant.  But the problem with the church today is that we have taken the grace  which was supposed to produce repentance, and we have twisted it to produce self righteousness without works. Eph. 2:10, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”

In spite of the fact that grace has paid the penalty of the law, we still have hypocrisy paramount in the church.  Instead of grace producing godliness, we have grace producing licentiousness; lawlessness.  We have hypocrisy today running rampant in the church under the name of freedom, but there is no sense of repentance, there is no conviction over sin, there is no abhorrence of evil, and there is very little godly works as the result of grace.  What was supposed to be the result of this magnificent gift of grace has been turned once again into an opportunity to indulge the lusts of the flesh.  And we have done just like our forefathers the Jews have done, we have had every privilege,  and yet have not born fruit in keeping with repentance.

Jesus had just given a parable concerning this situation in vs. 6-9, in which He says the owner of the vineyard came year after year to see if the fig tree had born any fruit and yet it had not.  And so the caretaker was going to fertilize and dig around the tree, perhaps prune the tree for one more year to see if it brought forth fruit.  But if at that time it still had not brought forth fruit, it would be cut down.

And God did cut down the fig tree that was Israel in 70 AD.  The temple was destroyed again.  The synagogues were shut down or destroyed.  The rulers and religious leaders were put to death.  Tens of thousands of Jews were massacred and the remnant scattered to the four corners of the world.  And then God took this magnificent gospel, this great gift to mankind, and He gave it to every tribe and every nation of the world that it might go and bear fruit.  But 2000 years later I have to ask, if Christ should return today, would He find fruit in the church?  Would God be pleased with the stewardship that we have given to the gospel purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ?  Would God be pleased with the stewardship of His Word, the Bible?  Would God find the church employed in the business of the kingdom of God or would He find a church that has deviated from the gospel of salvation to teaching a gospel of self gratification and self righteousness devoid of fruit?

My opinion is that there is scant difference between the hypocrisy of the synagogue and the hypocrisy of the church.  Notice our text again and let’s see what it says in this regard.  I think Jesus deliberately picks a fight in this synagogue.  I know that is at odds with some people’s theology, but I think that Jesus knows that He has less than a year left to His ministry, and they aren’t getting the message.  And so He takes the gloves off so to speak from this point on.  He is deliberately confrontational.  But the fact is that He doesn’t have to work very hard at it.  The gospel is by itself confrontational.  All you have to do is speak the truth of the gospel and people will take offense.  But Jesus isn’t dodging the issues to avoid confrontation, He is actually spurring it on.  He has already said in chapter 12 vs. 49, “I have come to cast fire upon the earth; and how I wish it were already kindled!”

So Jesus comes into the synagogue and begins to teach on the Sabbath.  This is sort of like walking into enemy territory.  He knows that this is hostile territory.  But He also knows that this is an opportunity to present the gospel. And by the way, this may have been the last time that He came into a synagogue.  But He came because this would have been where the Jews would congregate on the Sabbath.  There is thought to have been almost 500 synagogues in Jerusalem. Jerusalem’s population swelled to as many as 600,000 people during festivals according to some estimates.  So each synagogue might have served a thousand people or so. Jesus and the apostles after Him saw these assemblies as an opportunity to reach the Jews with the gospel.

Now the details of the story are important, but remember that the healing of this woman is not the central objective of Luke recounting this story.  The purpose is to reveal the hypocrisy of Judaism.  But nevertheless, let’s look at the particulars.  Notice that Jesus summons the woman to Him.  Jesus sees this woman bent double and supernaturally recognizes that she is suffering from a demonic spirit.  And so He calls her over to Himself and says in vs. 12, ““Woman, you are freed from your sickness.” And He laid His hands on her; and immediately she was made erect again and began glorifying God.

Now my purpose today is not to teach a message about healing.  But as a point of interest, please note that the woman did not have to have any faith to be healed.  She didn’t even ask to be healed.  Jesus initiated the whole thing.  Listen, the point that needs to be clear is that this woman was seriously deformed.  She was bent over double for 18 years.  And Jesus healed her instantly. Blind and mute people were healed instantly. Paralyzed people were healed instantly.  Dead people were raised instantly.  It is criminal the way these fake healers like Oral Roberts or Pat Robertson or Benny Hinn get away with this charlatan hocus pocus in these healing services where no one who has any real visible signs of illness are ever healed, and the poor disfigured, deformed people are turned away and led to believe that they did not have enough faith.  If you want to know what that feels like to be one of the seriously handicapped people in wheelchairs that get ushered out the side door after their services, then see me afterwards and I will give you a link to Joni Eareckson Tada’s testimony of her experience with faith healers after becoming paralyzed from her neck down. I don’t deny the possibility that Jesus still may heal someone today, but I want to assure you that Jesus never healed like those guys purport to heal.

But the main point that Luke wants to make in this account is the response of the synagogue official.  He says the synagogue official was indignant.  Indignant is the typical response of a hypocrite.  Here is a woman that comes into the synagogue, probably had been coming there for years bent over double, in pain and suffering, and in a moment she is made well and glorifying God.  But the indignant, self righteous official says, “There are six days in which work should be done; so come during them and get healed, and not on the Sabbath day.”

Jesus responds to that ridiculous statement by calling the guy a hypocrite.  Look at vs. 15, “But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites, does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the stall and lead him away to water him? And this woman, a daughter of Abraham as she is, whom Satan has bound for eighteen long years, should she not have been released from this bond on the Sabbath day?”

See, even their own Mishna had provided for the relief of suffering animals on the Sabbath day, and the law of God provided for relief of suffering on the Sabbath, so Jesus says, why shouldn’t this woman be released from suffering on the Sabbath?

Jesus said in Mark 2:27, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.”  The Sabbath is a picture of God’s provision of rest. Hebrews 4:9 says, “So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.”

So here is the hypocrisy of this synagogue official.  The Sabbath is a picture of the rest we can find in the salvation of God, and yet he is denying the rest that Christ provided for this woman by healing her from this oppression by Satan. This woman then is a picture of the sovereign work of the Lord in salvation, a picture of the enslaved, oppressed sinner under the burden and bondage of Satan, helpless and hopeless, robbed of dignity, bent over under the burden of sin. And she is met by the Lord and He out of His compassion delivers her, straightens her up and brings glory to God. This is the picture of the work of God in salvation.

But it is the hypocrisy of the synagogue official that I think is the main point of this story.  He is indignant.  He is self righteous.  He is trusting in his form of religion.  But he shows no true compassion because he has never been repentant. He has never seen himself revealed in the light of the law as depraved, utterly sinful and in need of salvation.  He saw himself in the light of the law that he manipulated and believed that he was good enough.  And not only is he still in bondage, dead in his sins, but he wants to keep his people dead in bondage as well.  He doesn’t want them healed.

I think that a majority of the church today is still in the bondage of sin.  Because what is lacking most in the church today is preaching on the utter depravity of man; man’s utter sinfulness, hopelessly lost condition.  That we are totally without merit.  And concurrently what is missing is teaching of God’s absolute holiness.  Absolute pure righteousness.  And what the message of the gospel must be first and foremost is that sinful man is an abomination to God’s holiness.  The church today doesn’t speak of sin and doesn’t teach what holiness means, but just wants to tell people that they can have a relationship with God.  But God cannot have any sort of relationship to man because He is holy and we are so sinful.  We do not have a real understanding of our total depravity and God’s total holiness and how far apart those two realities are.  That’s why the primary message of the gospel has to be that of repentance.  Repentance, absolute remorse over your sinful condition, recognition of your absolute bankruptcy before God, and your need for forgiveness. Repentance is the prerequisite for forgiveness.  And the fruit of repentance is a desire to turn away, to forsake our sin and follow after righteousness.  To hunger and thirst after righteousness.

Immediately following this healing of the woman, Jesus gives two short parables that illustrate the hypocrisy of the synagogue and the danger of false teaching.  But I’m afraid that the true significance of these two parables has been lost in much modern teaching. I’ve often read and heard these two parables interpreted as if they stood alone and that leads to a wrong interpretation.  But the first word of vs. 18 should tie these parables to the preceding passage.  It is  “oun” in the original Greek, and it should be translated, “then, therefore, accordingly, consequently, these things being so.”  So vs. 18 should read “So therefore He was saying, “What is the kingdom of God like, and to what shall I compare it? It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and threw into his own garden; and it grew and became a tree, and THE BIRDS OF THE AIR NESTED IN ITS BRANCHES.”

Now if you’ve been here faithfully in the past then you know that I have said that the kingdom of God on earth is the church.  It is the visible manifestation of the invisible kingdom of God on earth, that is God reigning in the hearts and minds of His people.  The church is the body of Christ, and He is the head.  So Jesus is saying that the church is like a mustard seed which a man planted in his garden and it grew and became a tree and the birds of the air nested in it’s branches.  Now at first we may think that’s just an inscrutable riddle, but on the other hand think that it doesn’t sound too bad.  We all remember Jesus saying that we need to have faith like a mustard seed.  So the first reaction is that this is something good Jesus is saying about the church or the kingdom of God.

But actually Jesus is saying the exact opposite.  Remember, this comes in context with His rebuke of the synagogue official’s hypocrisy.  First of all, it’s important to understand that mustard seeds produce bushes, not trees.  What Jesus is describing is an abnormal growth of the seed to become a tree that birds nested in it’s branches.  And there is an important element to understanding birds in Jesus parables.  If you remember in the parable of the soils in Matthew 13, Jesus said the birds that ate the seed were the devil and his angels.  And so the picture Jesus is presenting here is that the church grows abnormally large, and the devil and his angels find nesting places in the branches of the church.

Folks, this is such a clear picture of the Christian church today.  The church today has become a monstrosity that incorporates every strange foul doctrine that the demons of hell can devise. 1Tim. 4:1, “But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron.”  Listen, as I keep saying, don’t for a moment think that the devil is not in the church.  Don’t think that just because some wacky experience happened in church that it must be of God.  And don’t forget that the devil knows more scripture than you do.  He has had thousands of years to perfect his schemes and deceit.

Paul told the church in Acts 20 to be on guard, because he said, “I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.”  Listen, the greatest enemy the church has today is not the forces of evil outside the church, but within the church itself.  And it’s always been that way.  This is what Jesus is preaching against. Remember the fig tree.  It is a flourishing tree that should bear fruit, but instead it is just become a roosting place for birds, for doctrines of demons, for false teachers.  And Jesus said if it doesn’t bear fruit then He will cut it down.

And so Jesus gives one more illustration of the corruption that is in the church.  Vs. 20, “And again He said, “To what shall I compare the kingdom of God?  It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three pecks of flour until it was all leavened.”  Now once again, this parable is often interpreted incorrectly, as some sort of prophecy of the growth of the future church.  But if you remember the context of this message, that it started with Jesus saying “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy,” then that should give you a clue as to how you are to interpret it.

Leaven is always presented in the Bible as a picture of sin.  And so this parable is warning that the church is able to be corrupted by sin.  The mention of three measures of meal was the standard grain offering that was given to God.  So the correlation is clear.  This is unconfessed sin in the church that is a corrupting influence. Essentially, Jesus is giving a picture of corrupt worship. Hiding sin within corrupted an offering to God.  And I’m afraid that once again this is a picture of the current condition of the church.  The call of the church today is to come as you are to worship God.  That as long as you offer to God the praise of your lips and maybe raise your hands or something then that is all that God requires of us.  And there is no mention whatsoever in the church today by and large about the need for repentance, for confession, for turning away from sin.  And I’m afraid that the church is as guilty as the self righteous Jews of the synagogue who refused to repent at the preaching of Jesus.  We’re guilty of coming with unconfessed sin to the worship of God in the church.

This is why today’s Christian church is more carnal than that found in Corinth.  You can be living with your boyfriend in immorality and be perfectly content in church today.  You can divorce your husband at will and be perfectly content in church.  You can smoke pot on the weekends and get drunk on Friday nights and be perfectly happy at a church.  Because we have no concept of the abhorrence that God has for sin, and furthermore, we have no abhorrence of it ourselves, and rather than just tolerate sin, we embrace it, even celebrate it in the church.

But I put the blame squarely on the shoulders of the leaders of the church. That is why Jesus most scathing criticism is not of the prostitute or the person enslaved to sin, but of the synagogue officials, of the Pharisees and rabbis that were teaching a false doctrine that permitted sin to flourish without remedy.  And that is my primary concern today.  As a shepherd I am tasked with protecting the sheep from the ravaging wolves that rise up among ourselves, from within our own ranks.  My job is to expose it for what it is; hypocrisy, the doctrines of demons, designed by the architect of all false religions, Satan himself.  We need to cleanse ourselves from the old leaven. 1 Cor. 5:6, “Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”

In Revelation 2 and 3, Jesus gives one last message to seven churches.  And all but two of those churches had moved away from the truth and towards apostasy.  And Jesus gives a similar message to all of them.  I believe that the church today is in the last days, and the message Jesus gave to the last church was that of Laodicea, to which Jesus said, “‘I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot.  So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.  Because you say, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,” and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked,  I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent.  Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.”

The need for repentance, Luke 13: 1-9

A few years after I left college, I was working in the hotel business and on one occasion I had a long weekend break from work.  An old college buddy of mine named Ivan happened to call and we made plans to go to Charleston, SC for the weekend.   At the time, I had fallen away in my walk with God and was, to use an old fashioned term, in a backslidden condition.  Ivan wasn’t living for God either.  But both of us had been raised by Christian parents and attended Christian schools, and so we both were more or less aware that we were in rebellion against God.

On the way home after a weekend of partying, Ivan began to talk about how depressed he was.  And as we talked, he admitted that he did not know whether or not  that he was saved.  Being backslidden myself, I found the conversation uncomfortable.  But I remember that I vaguely tried to reassure him as we drove the long drive back home in the dark. We were both young men in the prime of our lives. Ivan was beginning a new career in a couple of weeks as an airline pilot.  And I had recently gained a promotion in the hospitality management field.  We thought we had the future ahead of us, and a lifetime to make the most of every opportunity.

After we got home that night, we parted ways, making plans to reconnect in a few weeks and take another road trip.  But  I never got to speak to Ivan again.  On his maiden training flight with the cargo airline he started working for, his plane crashed with him and three other crew members aboard.  They think that something caused the plane to blow up in mid air.  Their bodies were scattered over a four block area.

When I got the phone call, I was very disturbed as I remembered the last conversation I had with Ivan.  I don’t know if he ever made peace with God.  Knowing Ivan, I doubt that he did.  As for me, it should have been a wakeup call.  However, I’m sad to say that it wasn’t. I continued to live in rebellion against God.  Yet I wondered why he was taken and I wasn’t.  After all, we were both more or less in the same boat.  And yet, God chose to let Ivan die while I continued to live in rebellion against God.  It was another 3 or 4 years before I finally got right with God.  However, even to this day I find myself wondering why Ivan was taken, while I was given another chance.

As Jesus is finishing up a long sermon to a large mixed crowd of disciples and curious onlookers, He found Himself confronted with a similar scenario.  Jesus had been preaching on the judgment to come and how that day can come upon you at a time when you are not expecting it.  And someone in the crowd, after listening to His message about judgment, asked Him about a current event that everyone in the crowd must have been familiar with.  They asked Him about a group of Galileans who had been killed by the Romans while offering sacrifices in the temple.  And there had been such a slaughter that their blood was mingled with the blood of the sacrifices.  It must have been a horrific event, and one that was particularly hard for Jews to come to grips with because it would have happened in the temple.  These Galileans were probably insurrectionists that had been found in the temple and massacred by the Roman soldiers as the temple sacrifices were going on.  So they obviously were connecting a calamity of this magnitude with the judgment of God.

That’s an assumption that perhaps we have all made from time to time as we have processed some great catastrophe that we have heard about on the news.  It’s the sort of questions that were frequently raised after the calamity in this country following  9-11.  The question they asked Jesus was similar to questions that I’m sure we all have asked ourselves at times like that; “Were these people worse sinners than everyone else? Did the judgment of God fall upon them because they were such evil people?”

And Jesus answered this question by saying, ““I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”  Then Jesus followed up that remark with another recent headline that would have been familiar to them all.  There had been another group of Jews, eighteen persons in all, that had been crushed to death when a tower in Siloam had fallen on them.  And Jesus asks a rhetorical question, “Or do you suppose that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them were worse culprits than all the men who live in Jerusalem?”  His answer is exactly the same as before; “I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

Now to properly understand this, we need to realize that the Jews had a theology that basically said they were the chosen people of God, the fortunate people.  They were the people of God’s blessing.  And so to their minds, the only way misfortune could happen to them was if the people involved were particularly evil people who were being punished by God.  Because they believed that the normal situation was that the Jews were favored by God.  Bad things could happen to pagans and deservedly so, but not to Jews.

By the way, that same theology is very common in modern evangelicalism isn’t it? Especially in American evangelicalism there is a predominate teaching and mindset that says that Christians are somehow exempt from all the troubles and trials of the world.  That if we claim to be Christians and just have some form of faith, we can be assured that we can avoid the calamities that befall the rest of the world.  Such false doctrine has given rise to the Joel Olsteens and the Kenneth Hagins of the modern church which teach a health, wealth and happiness philosophy that has been called the prosperity doctrine. Such false teaching has  given rise to the faith healers like Benny Hinn and Oral Roberts and others that teach that sickness and calamity are never ever going to happen to believers if they have enough faith.

Unfortunately, Jesus Christ did not teach these doctrines. In fact, this very passage teaches that calamity comes on us all.   Jesus makes it very clear that the calamity that fell upon these two groups of people did not happen because they were greater sinners than others.  But what Jesus is teaching is that sin is the underlying reason for all death and calamity.  It is the nature of a fallen world. Romans 8:22 says that“the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. In other words, as a result of sin, the world is under a curse.  Nature is under the curse.  And man is under the curse.  All of creation suffers under the effects of sin and is waiting for the day of  redemption.

The correct perspective of understanding such tragedies is that sin has caused death to come upon the world, and all of mankind is doomed to death.  That is what Jesus means when He says unless you repent you will all likewise perish.  There is a fate worse than death, and that is eternal death and destruction at the judgment of God.  Physical death is just the gateway to judgment and the judgment is  eternal death.  Hebrews chapter 9 says that it is appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgment.  But for the grace of God, we all are destined to die an eternal death.  What time we have on this earth is but a temporary reprieve, an opportunity to respond to the gospel in repentance and be saved from the destruction that we all deserve and are destined to receive.

Just because you or I have escaped some calamity up till now is no indication of a favored position with God.  It simply means that you have been given more time to repent, to turn to God for forgiveness. Romans 2:4 says, “Do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?”  But for the grace of God we all should suffer some calamity.  But God has given us time to repent, and whatever time we have in this world is due to the kindness of God that should cause us to repent.

But I’m afraid that most of us respond to the kindness of God much the same way as I did when I found out that my friend Ivan had died in a plane crash.  I thought it was a tragedy, but at the same time I thought that somehow I was exempt from such suffering, even though I was in the same sinful condition.  Most people go through life presuming upon the grace of God when they are able to continue in sin without calamity, and then blaming God when calamity strikes.

Now I think it’s obvious that Jesus is using these two events to reinforce the need for repentance. The idea of perishing is not talking about just physical death which comes upon us all, but Jesus is speaking of eternally perishing without God and finding yourself at the judgment being cast into eternal hell.  So repentance is the means of escaping that calamity that is due to befall everyone.  That calamity is greater than any disaster that might happen to us on earth, to be ushered into the presence of God and found wanting.  And what Jesus is making clear here is that the only way to escape that calamity is by repentance.

I’m afraid that in the salvation message today the need for repentance has been obscured by offering people a dumbed down version of the gospel that minimizes the need for repentance, and instead emphasizes the benefits of blessing.  It’s a false doctrine similar to what the Jews of Jesus day were believing in.  Today there is a great appeal to the world to come as you are, to have a relationship with Jesus and that He will solve all your problems and you will have an enriched, fuller, more successful life as a result.

Consequently, I’m afraid that a lot of people claim Christianity that in actuality haven’t ever been saved.  Because Jesus makes it clear that repentances is the means of salvation.  There must be a complete realization of our sinful condition before God and the judgment that we completely deserve.  Repentance then is the recognition of our sinful condition, of being cut off from God and deserving of God’s judgment, and then calling out to God for forgiveness and in a desire to give my life to God if He will give me life.  It’s an exchange of my life for His life.  My sin for His righteousness.  My will for His will.  It’s an act of grace, whereby I am completely undeserving, but God in His mercy has provided a way of escape through the substitution of Jesus Christ.

That’s the process of salvation.  I’m afraid though that isn’t what a lot of people who claim Christianity have done.  They have added a certain measure of Christianity to their lives in hopes of enriching their lives here on earth, or in hopes that God will enable them to escape some bad habit, or undesirable consequence of their sin, but there has never been repentance; to hunger and thirst after righteousness.  To become sick of your sin, and to understand that repentance is a desire to turn away from sin and live for God.

That sort of repentance will produce something else in a person’s life which is lacking in modern Christianity.  That sort of repentance will produce forsaking the world and living for God, to become conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.  This part of salvation is what is called sanctification.  Hebrews 12:14 tells us that without this sanctification, no one will see the Lord.  Sanctification is the process of working out your salvation with fear and trembling, as we grow and mature in Christ and ultimately bring forth fruit.  True repentance produces three things in the life of the saved; saved from sin’s penalty, being saved from sin’s power, and one day saved from sin’s presence.  That is the three stages of Christianity, salvation, sanctification and one day glorification when sin is done away with forever.

The problem with modern Christianity is that we have a lot of people claiming salvation, but lacking sanctification.  And I’m here to warn you today that sanctification is the fruit of repentance; it’s the fruit of salvation.  I’m here to warn you that a life lived without a desire after the things of God, a life lived without being conformed to the image of God, a life lived without any visible signs of spiritual fruit needs to be examined in light of what God’s word really says.

Jesus said in Matt. 7:16, “You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits.”

Now looking back again at our text, Jesus teaches this very important principle by using a parable about a fig tree that was planted in a vineyard. Luke 13:6, “And He began telling this parable: “A man had a fig tree which had been planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and did not find any.  And he said to the vineyard-keeper, ‘Behold, for three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree without finding any. Cut it down! Why does it even use up the ground?  And he answered and said to him, ‘Let it alone, sir, for this year too, until I dig around it and put in fertilizer;  and if it bears fruit next year, fine; but if not, cut it down.’”

Now the illustration of the fig tree obviously refers to the nation of Israel in this parable.  And for three years Jesus  had been teaching and preaching the gospel of repentance.  John the Baptist had preached it prior to Christ.  And so Jesus is saying that because they were rejecting His message and not bearing fruit in keeping with repentance, God was ready to cut down the  tree.  John the Baptist had said that the axe was already laid  at the root of the tree.  And Jesus would be with them just a little while longer and then He would be taken away.  The time for the Jews to repent and start bearing fruit was now.

But history shows that they did not.  And within the lifetime of many of those who heard the message that day, in AD 70 the Romans would come and destroy the temple.  The massacre of the Galileans who blood mingled with the sacrifices in the temple would pale in comparison to the calamity that would come upon them then as thousands upon thousands  would be slaughtered while taking refuge in the temple.  And the temple itself would be burned and not one stone left upon another. God’s judgment would fall upon the Jews because they rejected His Son.  They had received all the care and benefits of being in God’s vineyard and yet they had not brought forth fruit.

Though this parable speaks primarily to the nation of Israel, it also has individual applications as well.  I know in my own life, I mentioned earlier that I eventually returned to the Lord.  And yet I did not return with my whole heart.  Perhaps I thought I was ok at the time.  I eventually married my wife, had children and became more involved in my church.  I thought I was doing more than most Christians.  I taught Sunday School.  I participated in various church functions and regularly attended services.  I tithed. I read my Bible every morning.  When I compared myself to most other people in the church I thought I was doing better than most of them.  And yet I held on to certain things.  My priorities took precedence over God’s priorities.  I was still in charge of my life and I wasn’t really producing much fruit.

The funny thing is, I was an ardent believer in the prosperity doctrine.  I thought I was a living example of God’s blessing.  I had built a beautiful home.  I had a great career.  I had a beautiful family.  I drove nice cars.  And I thought that I could offer myself to the unbeliever as an example of someone who was blessed by God.  That my example would be an inducement for others to come to Christ, that they might be successful like I was.

But God had other ideas.  He began to prune away the branches that were not fruitful.  He began to dig around my roots so to speak, and work in fertilizer that I might bring forth more fruit.  It took about three years, but by the time God was done with me I was broken physically and spiritually, bankrupt and ready to get serious about the things of God.

You all are familiar with my testimony, so I won’t belabor it.  But I will tell you that I learned that we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.  That means we are to exercise our faith, live it out in our daily lives.   Christ didn’t suffer the indignities of human existence and rejection and the sufferings of the cross so that I might use Him as a talisman to ensure that I can enjoy all that life can offer and still get a free get out of hell card.  Christ suffered so that He might purchase salvation for us by the price of His blood, that we might be made righteous, and having been made righteous we might be transformed to live no longer for this world, but to live for Him.

I encourage you today to examine your life.  I believe that I was saved when I was a little kid.  And though there were times when you might have looked into my life and seen a period of spiritual stagnation, or even backslidden-ness, yet as I look over the timeline of my life I can see the hand of God working in me and bringing me into a closer walk with God.  I can see a progression of growth and fruitfulness.  Maybe not as much as I would like to see, but a steady progression in my life as God worked in me, and disciplined me, pruned and fertilized in order to bring about more growth and greater fruit for Him.

And so I would ask you to examine yourself.  Some of you I know have fallen from time to time.  That’s ok.  Get back up, repent and ask God to help you not to fall again.  Confess your need for the Lord to help you walk in the Spirit and not according to the flesh.  God says if you sin 70 x 7 times, and repent, He will forgive you.  But when you say that you have no sin, you are deceiving yourself and the truth is not in you.  The sin that God hates is the sin of hypocrisy; the sin that says it isn’t sin.  The sinner that won’t repent.  That thinks that they are ok in their complacency, in their apathy.

Listen, the Bible says that if you are a true child of God then God will discipline those He loves.  But if you aren’t a true child but an illegitimate child, then there will be no discipline in your life and as a result there will be no fruit.  But there will be one day a certain terrifying certainty of judgment upon all that have not repented of their evil deeds.  I hope that you are a true son or daughter of God today.  If you examine yourself and find that something is lacking, then call upon God in repentance and faith today that you might be saved and that you might bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

The signs of the times, Luke 12:54-59

As most of you know, I was traveling last week to a pastor’s conference in California and while I was on the trip I came into contact  with a lot of people as a matter of course.  And from time to time as I traveled to various places and waited in line at airports or car rentals or wherever, people would out of a sense of friendliness would speak hello and say something about the weather.  And I found myself reflecting that perhaps the most common topic of conversation today is that of the weather.  It is a rather innocuous way of making small talk with someone that you may not know very well, or because you want to fill an awkward silence between someone you are next to and have nothing else in common to talk about. I think the reason we like talking about the weather is that it is a safe conversational topic.  We all know that proper social etiquette requires that we don’t speak of anything too serious in polite conversation.  We have been warned that we should avoid talking of politics or religion, for instance.

And that is understandable to a certain degree.  Sometimes there may be a place for banal conversation.  But I don’t quite understand people’s fascination with the weather.  Especially in a place like Los Angles.  I saw a monitor in the airport showing the weather forecast for the next five days in LA and it said 71 degrees every day for the next week.  But yet they still want to talk about it.  The weather seems to predominate the news nowadays.  They have an entire network on television that is all about the weather.  And even on our local television stations news programs more time is spent on the weather than almost all other considerations.  There could be wars going on all over the world, and every kind of scandal going on in Washington DC, and yet all of that can be eclipsed by whether or not they think  it may rain the next day.

It really should be disconcerting that people’s lives are filled with trivial things like talking about the weather, or entertainment or sports and yet we studiously avoid talking about what is really important.  There is nothing wrong with those things in and of themselves if they are kept in perspective.  But I’m afraid our fascination with these trivial subjects have taken precedence over focusing on what is really important.

Perhaps that is why Jesus uses an illustration of discerning the weather as a metaphor in His sermon about the judgment of God.  At first glance, it seems like suddenly Jesus throws a couple of unrelated illustrations in at the close of His message that don’t really seem to have much relevance to what He has been preaching so far.

If you look back in this chapter at the beginning of Christ’s sermon, we see Him using one illustration after another to build a case before the crowd that there is coming for every man a day of reckoning with God.  A day when the thoughts of man will be revealed.  When what was whispered in the back room will be shouted on the housetops.  There will be a day of judgment as He illustrated with His parable of the rich fool who laid up so much treasure here on earth that he needed to build more barns to hold it all, and yet  failed to plan for his death and the subsequent judgment of his soul.

The theme of Jesus sermon up to this point has been to present one scenario after another to show that man needs to be concerned first about the kingdom of heaven and emphasizing the fact that what a man has done in response to His knowledge of God will be required of him at the judgment.  Jesus goes on to allude to this coming judgment as a judgment of fire,  which will burn up those things that can be burned up, leaving only what is eternal.  He says that this judgment will divide between those that have accepted Him and those that rejected Him.

And then suddenly in the midst of this message Jesus starts talking about the weather.  In an agrarian community, the weather would have been a familiar topic.   And so Jesus says in vs. 54, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘A shower is coming,’ and so it turns out.  And when you see a south wind blowing, you say, ‘It will be a hot day,’ and it turns out that way.”

Now that was sort of common knowledge.  You didn’t have to be a trained meteorologist to be able to know that in that country, as well as in ours, weather typically moves from west to east.  And even though they didn’t have the radar maps and computer models that we have today, still they would have taken note of the fact that when clouds appeared on the western horizon they usually brought rain and storms as they moved east.  And again, you didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to notice that when the wind blew out of the south the air got warmer, and when the wind blows out of the north the weather gets colder.  This would have been pretty elementary stuff for most people in that day who could not depend upon flipping on the TV at night to hear the weather forecast.

So what’s the point that Jesus is making?  Well, look at vs. 56, Jesus continues; “You hypocrites! You know how to analyze the appearance of the earth and the sky, but why do you not analyze this present time?”  In other words, you can deduce the upcoming weather from analyzing the characteristics of the sky and the wind, but you can’t discern the signs of the times, which are just as obvious.

And I think it’s interesting that Jesus calls them hypocrites.  At first, we might wonder what is hypocritical about lacking discernment.  After all, earlier in the chapter we saw hypocrites being defined as someone who hides their sin, while pretending to be righteous.  So why call these people hypocrites?  Well, the answer is that Jesus is saying that they are choosing to believe a lie so that they can continue living in sin.  This form of hypocrisy denies the truth and believes a lie.  Jesus is saying that they have had ample evidence that He was the promised Messiah and yet they had chosen to disregard it. They chose to believe a lie because they loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. John 3:19 “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.”

Look at Rom 1:18 for a moment which says, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.”

What that passage is saying is that God’s wrath is coming upon all men because they have rejected truth and loved sin.  Listen, Paul isn’t just talking hypothetically about a few reprobates out there that have turned away from the truth and indulged themselves in gross sin.  But he is talking about the nature of all mankind.  As he said in Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”  This is the curse of the fall, that all men by nature reject the truth of God because they love their sin.  It’s the characteristic of all of us, that at one time we rejected salvation. We liked being our own master and lord, to be the captain of our destiny, so to speak.  And it comes naturally to all of us.

But ever since the beginning, Paul says, God made it clear to men that their was a God by virtue of the creation, of the stars, the heavens, the earth and it’s produce and all the wonders of creation, all of that order, all of that precision, all of that creativity, all of the wonder of creation illustrated that there was a God.  And furthermore, Paul says, creation alone was enough to reveal to men the invisible attributes of God, His eternal power and divine nature.  And yet Paul goes on to say that men rejected that revealed truth about God and substituted instead something out of their own imagination.  They exchanged the truth of God for a lie because their deeds were evil.  That is the hypocrisy.  That truth was available and yet they said it wasn’t and so therefore they claimed immunity and the freedom to do as they wanted.

Jesus says that is why they were hypocrites.  They had not only the benefit of all men by the wonders of creation, but they had the additional benefit of witnessing the life and words and miracles of Jesus Christ and yet they still rejected Him.  In spite of all that He was, in spite of His teaching of which they said, “Never a man spoke like this man spoke,”  in spite of His miracles which numbered in the hundreds and were indisputable proof of His deity, yet they called for more signs as the reason that they still did not believe.  But it wasn’t for a lack of signs.  Many people had believed and had less signs than they did, but Jesus said it was because they wanted to continue in their form of religion without the fruit of it.  They wanted to claim citizenship in the kingdom of heaven, but they were not willing to renounce the kingdom of darkness.

And so they are by their rejection of Jesus bringing upon themselves the judgment that they rightly deserve.  Jesus speaks of this coming judgment again by means of another illustration starting  in vs.57, “And why do you not even on your own initiative judge what is right? For while you are going with your opponent to appear before the magistrate, on your way there make an effort to settle with him, so that he may not drag you before the judge, and the judge turn you over to the officer, and the officer throw you into prison.  I say to you, you will not get out of there until you have paid the very last cent.”

What Jesus is illustrating here is someone who has done wrong against someone in his community, and so they send the magistrate to arrest him and bring him before a judge who will announce his sentence and his punishment.  And Jesus says, why wouldn’t you try to settle with the one who you defrauded before you go to court?  Why wouldn’t you try to make things right with him on your own?  You know you sinned against the man.  You know you’re going to have to make retribution for that sin.  So why not do what is right and reconcile with him on your own.  Why wait for the court to come after you?  You’re just going to make it worse on yourself.

The parallel here should have been clear from the context of His message.  The parallel is this.  We  have all sinned against God.  We have defrauded Him who made us for His glory by denying Him and serving ourselves.  We had the truth revealed in creation, we had the truth revealed in Jesus Christ, and yet we rejected the truth because we loved our sin.  Jesus says, you have time right now to go to your Heavenly Father and ask for forgiveness.  You have time now to reconcile with God.  But there is a day coming, and coming soon, when your reprieve will be up.  And when that day comes, it will be too late then to try to work out a deal.  God will judge you by what you have done in response to His Truth.  When that day comes, every man will give an account for himself before God.  Every man, every woman, every teenager will stand before God and give an account for what he or she did with God’s truth.  And on that day, God will test every man’s work by fire, and what is of earthly wood, hay and stubble will be burned up.  But that which is eternal will endure. Those that are found wanting will be cast into the Lake of Fire and their punishment will be eternal torment.

How are we then to apply this message?  What should our response be?  I know what my response is.  On that day, when I stand before God I don’t want to be ashamed.  I don’t want to be found lacking, having determined my own version of what I think life is all about.  Having lived a life according to what the world said was important and finding myself wanting in the day of judgment.  The Bible says that there is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is the way of death.  I don’t want that to be my judgment.  I don’t want to be ashamed when I stand before God.

The good news is that Romans 1:16 tells me how that is possible.  It says “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.”  That’s the good news, that is what the word gospel means.  That there is salvation available to every one that believes in Jesus Christ.  That means that if we believe in Jesus Christ, and accept by faith the righteousness of Christ which is offered to us, we will be saved from that wrath which is to come.  The wrath we so rightly deserved.

Because the gospel tells us in 2 Cor. 5:21, that “God made Jesus, who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”  This righteousness which we receive by faith is the only way we might stand before God unashamed.  And this gospel of Jesus Christ is powerful in that it is able to accomplish that transaction for everyone who confesses their sinfulness and their need for a Savior.

God has provided reconciliation through Jesus Christ. God wants you to settle out of court and the way you settle is to make peace with Him through His Son, through faith in Christ, whom God made sin for us that we might be made the righteous of God in Him. God punished Him, the just for the unjust, that we might be brought to God. Grace is available. Forgiveness is available. Freedom from sin is available. Freedom from punishment, the hope of eternal life, escape from judgment. You can settle with God out of court. If you don’t, you’ll get to court and you will pay in full down to the last cent.

I would close by asking you this simple question.  Have you personally accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior?  Have you called out in faith and repentance to God and asked Jesus to take your life and make it clean?  Sometimes I think that some people come to an intellectual acknowledgement of the gospel, they more or less see the truth in it, and they more or less see the value in it, but they have yet to call upon God and ask Him to come into their life and change it.  To forgive them from sin and give them the righteousness that has been procured by Jesus Christ.   I hope you will honestly examine yourself and see if you have actually called on God to save you.

Today, this is your chance.  2 Corinthians 6 says  that “Today is the acceptable time of salvation.”  And Isaiah 55 says, “Seek the Lord while He may be found. Call on Him while He is near.”  Don’t wait until it’s too late.  The Jews had no idea when Jesus warned them that the judgment would come upon the nation of Israel within their lifetimes.  In just 30 years the Romans would destroy the temple and kill thousands upon thousands of Jews, scattering them into the far corners of the world, displaced from their homeland and everything that they held dear.

God’s judgment is coming on the entire world.  The signs of the times point to His imminent return.  It could be any day.  I hope you will call upon Him today and make peace with God.  I hope you will know the peace that comes from forgiveness and reconciliation with God.

While I was away this last week, for some reason I found myself thinking a lot about my own mortality.  And while that may sound depressing, it really wasn’t.  It actually was a time of confirmation, that I was doing what God wanted me to do.  And as I think about my mortality, I know that I want to use the time that I have left in the service of the King.  I decided I would rather die for something, than to live for nothing. And what nobler cause to give my life for than in service to Jesus Christ.

One thing that might have contributed to this sense of mortality was some conversations that the key note speakers had during a question and answer period during one of the sessions.  These were some of the highest profile religious leaders and thinkers of the conservative evangelical movement.  And what came out of those talks was that they were seriously concerned about the future of the church in America as we know it.  There are precedents in the courts already established that if applied to our situation, and there is mounting pressure from our enemies for them to do so, that can effectively shut down  churches all across America.  They may never shut down the preaching of the  gospel completely, but what we have taken for granted in terms of the church in America may be  but a memory in just a few short years.  And as Christians we may find ourselves in the midst of a persecution that rivals that which happened to the Jews in AD 70.

Folks, we need to make the most of the time, because the days are evil.  We need to discern the signs of the times and make the most of the opportunities that we have today to do the work of the kingdom. Romans 13:11 says, “Do this, knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed. The night is almost gone, and the day is near. Therefore let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.  Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy.  But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.”

Not peace but rather division, Luke 12: 49-53

The other day I was engaged in a conversation with a young man who is not a part of this church, but who nevertheless endeavored to explain to me what, in his opinion should be the defining characteristics of Christianity and the church. This young man proceeded to tell me that the message of Jesus Christ was one of love and inclusiveness.  That Jesus came to bring peace and togetherness.  That love and acceptance should be the hallmarks of the church and that judgment and exclusiveness are never Christian virtues.

And afterwards as I was thinking about what he had said in relation to the message I was preparing today, I couldn’t help but be struck by the fact that so often the presumptions of man concerning the truth of Christianity are at odds with the reality of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  I wanted to ask this young man, exactly which God are you talking about? Are you talking about the God of the Bible, the God that condemned all of the human race to eternal death because two people ate an apple?  Are you talking about the God who destroyed by drowning all life on the earth in the flood?  Are you talking about the God who killed all the first born children of Egypt?  Are you talking about the same God?  Are you talking about the God who opened up the ground and swallowed up the children of Israel that rebelled against Moses?  Are you talking about the same God that ordered the Israelites to wipe out men, women and children from the land they entered?  Is that the God you are talking about?  Are you talking about the God who struck dead the man who lifted up his hand to keep the arc of the covenant from tipping over?  Are you talking about the same God who struck Ananias and Sapphira dead in the middle of the church when they came to give their offering?  Are you talking about the God that one day will come back in judgment and cast everyone that didn’t follow His Son into everlasting fire?  Are you talking about the God of the Bible or is this god you speak so fondly of just a figment of your imagination?  Jesus said they that worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth.  And I’m afraid this young man had no real idea of the truth about the God of the Bible.

Unfortunately, this presumption is found not only with unbelievers and their expectations of Christianity, but also  within the church.  In the church we often find that many times when the truth of the gospel is really proclaimed without apology in it’s fullness, people are offended, and in some cases they actually recoil from the message.

We find such a situation here today in the sermon that Jesus Christ is preaching.  He is speaking primarily to His disciples, but even though they are followers of Jesus they must find that what He says to them is shocking.  He says in vs. 51, “Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division.”  Now this would have been a shocking statement.  In fact, Jesus has said several shocking things in this message already.  Things that were contrary to the popular consensus of what the Messiah would bring about.  The common teaching of the priests and rabbis of the Messianic period was that the Messiah would bring peace on earth.  In fact, Isaiah 9 says explicitly that He would be the Prince of Peace.  And so for Jesus to say that He did not come to grant peace but division would be a shocking statement that seems at odds with their expectations.

This message is really going to set the stage for the rest of Jesus ministry.  In this last year of His ministry He is going to provoke even more antagonism towards His preaching by those that reject Him.  He calls  the religious leaders hypocrites.  He calls rich people fools.  He tells people that they need to sell their possessions and give them to charity.   He says that unfaithful stewards will be cut in pieces and assigned a place with the unbelievers.  No matter how you slice that, it’s a harsh message.  And now as we continue in this sermon, Jesus turns up the heat even more.  He says He came to cast fire to the earth.  And He says He didn’t come to bring peace, but division, even to the division of family members.

I would suggest that just as the disciples and the crowd must have been shocked by this statement,  most 21st century Christians would also recoil from the idea that Christ came to bring division and not peace.  It is an assertion that is at odds with what most of us think Christianity is supposed to be about.

The mantra of the culturally relevant church tells us that we shouldn’t be negative.  That everyone is entitled to an opinion and we shouldn’t speak ill of what others believe. Far too many modern churches operate on the principle of declare and share.  They espouse the idea that a passage of scripture can be interpreted or applied in a variety of ways according to individual preference.  But actually we are told in Titus 1:9 that pastors are to be “holding fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching, so that he will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict.”  We must hold fast to the truth and refute that which is not truth.  Truth is by nature exclusive.  Truth is by nature divisive.  Not everything can be true or else nothing is true.  2+2=4.  And if we start saying that sometimes it can be five, or three, then we do so to the eventual destruction of all reason.  And when we start being ambiguous in the gospel in regards to the truth, then we do so to the eventual destruction of our faith.  God has given us a plumb line, a blueprint of His plan of redemption, and we must accept all of it, or discard all of it.  It is not open to discussion, there is no private interpretation.

We live in a social environment today that disdains dogmatism. The only thing we are allowed to be dogmatic about is that you cannot be dogmatic about anything.  Cultural relevance has trumped absolute authority.  The world thinks we are arrogant and bigoted to speak of Jesus as the only way, the only truth and the only way to life and that no one comes to the Father but through Him.

But the fact is that true Christians believe that God has spoken to us authoritatively and absolutely in His Word.  We believe that it is the plumb line of truth.  Everything must be measured in terms of what the Bible says.  And we must accept what the Bible says about God, whether we like it or not or whether or not it fits into societal norms.

You know, I can’t really blame the young man that I spoke to the other day for his misunderstanding of the gospel.  Instead I blame the modern day church for it’s inaccurate rendition of the gospel.  The gospel today has been reduced to an appeal to man’s self interest.  We offer a gospel that is just another version of a self help manual that is designed to produce health, wealth and happiness.  Listen carefully, happiness is not the primary goal of the gospel.  That may be the goal of the American citizen, as stated in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  That sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?  And it actually mentions God.  But let me tell you something, it may sound wonderful that Americans are guaranteed happiness, but that is not Christianity – that is American idealism.  It is not the gospel of Jesus Christ and happiness is not a measure of our faith.

I want to be happy just as much as the next man.  I enjoy certain activities that make me happy.  But I better not ascribe my expectations  of happiness upon the gospel.  Look at your Bibles and tell me how often you find it recorded that Jesus laughed.  I’m not suggesting that He never laughed, but I am telling you that the Bible does not record happiness as a predominate characteristic of His nature.  Hebrews 12 says about Jesus that “who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame.”  It was the joy set before Him that He endured His sufferings. It was something in the future.  It wasn’t joyful to go to the cross.  It wasn’t joyful to be crushed for our iniquities.  It wasn’t joyful to be slandered and reviled and spit upon and rejected by men.  But for the joy set before Him He suffered for our sakes.

The problem with the modern day version of the gospel is that too often we try to appeal to man’s self interest as an inducement to salvation.  We have reworked the gospel proclamation to the point of asking people if they would you like to be successful.  We ask them if they would like to be happy, to be healthy, to be fulfilled? And the average American who wants his inalienable rights says, “Yes, I would. That sounds great.”  And so then we disguise the gospel to appeal to that desire.  We tell Him that all that is possible by knowing Jesus Christ.

But for many people living today in 21st century America that doesn’t work.  We ask them, “would you like to be successful?”  And their answer is  “Yes, I am quite  successful.  Did you see my house, did you see the car I drive and the job that I have?  I am quite successful already.  Thank you very much.” So we try, “Well, would you like to be happy?”   And they answer, “Yes, I am very happy. I have everything I want.  I am satisfied with my life. I have all that I desire.”  How about healthy?  Would you like to be healthy?  Maybe you need healing?  And the average person says, “No, I’m fine thank you.  I never felt better.”  And so we have nothing to offer these people.  But the truth of the matter is that we never really had these things to offer them in the first place.

Jesus says to those that would be His followers; “did you think I came to bring peace?  Did you think I came to build a community of followers on the basis of the lowest common denominator, that you can opt in at whatever point you choose, and with any vague idea of religion that you want to embrace and we will wrap it all up under the guise of Christian fellowship?”  Is this what Jesus came to bring about?  Is this what Jesus suffered and died on a cross for?

No, Jesus said.  “If you come to me then I will turn your life upside down, and even your family upside down. If you come to Me you must come 100%.  If you come after Me you better be prepared to carry a cross.  I came to kindle a fire and bring about a baptism and to bring a division that will separate.  If you’re going to follow Me you better be willing to leave everything.  You better be willing to forsake your possessions.  You better be willing to even be separated from your friends and family for My sake. You better be willing to lay down your life as you know it.”

Frankly, the gospel of Jesus Christ is not what most people are willing to accept.  If people fall away from the faith it is because they are not willing to accept the truth of the gospel.  They are looking for something that doesn’t require any sacrifice, something not so dogmatic, something less confrontational.  And you can be sure that the Devil has another version of religion on every other street corner that is designed to be appealing to our sensibilities, but it isn’t the truth of the gospel.  In fact, it is designed to bring about destruction rather than life. Proverbs 16:25 says, “There is a way that seems right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.”

Just in case some may think I am dramatizing this all a bit too much, I would ask you to look at another shocking message of Christ in John 6:54 where Jesus says,  “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink.”  And the disciples said, “This is a difficult statement; who can listen to it?” “As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore.”  Jesus watched them go away and then turned around to the 12 and said, “Do you want to go away too?” Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life.”  And that really is the key, isn’t it?  The word of God is the words of eternal life. It is the plumb line of truth by which we gain heaven.  And we are given the responsibility to learn what God has to say about Himself, and what He requires to gain eternal life. What we think should be the character of God doesn’t matter.  What we think is fair doesn’t matter.  What we think is right doesn’t matter.  It is only by obedience to what God’s word says that we will find life.

Just prior to vs. 49 Jesus is talking about coming in judgment.  He says He will come to judge the wicked and the righteous.  He comes it says in vs. 48 to judge our deeds, and to judge our stewardship of what we have been given.  I said last week and I must say it again; as Christians we have been given so much.  We have been given grace.  We have been given forgiveness.  We have been given salvation.  We have been given the Holy Spirit to live in us.  And we have been given the Word of God.  And I must ask you again, what have you done with what you have been given?  I can assure you that we will be held even more accountable than the Israelites were.  The prophets of old longed to see what we have seen.  They longed to have the completion of scripture that we have today. The Jews were given only the law and were held accountable for what they produced.  And God judged the Jewish nation severely for their lack of stewardship.  But we have been given grace which is greater than the law, and should produce a greater produce than the law ever could.

Hebrews 12 says that we have come “to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel. See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking. For if those did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape who turn away from Him who warns from heaven. Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire.”

Now I think that consuming fire is what Jesus is talking about in vs. 49; when He says, “I have come to cast fire upon the earth; and how I wish it were already kindled!”  There are two primary ways that fire is talked about in the Bible.  One is as a refining fire, and the other is as a destroying fire. The same fire destroys what is combustible and refines what is non combustible.

I think Jesus is talking about casting both kinds of fire upon the earth.  John the Baptist said in Matt. 3:11, “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”  Some like to teach that the Holy Spirit is a form of fire.  But John makes it clear that fire is the fire of destruction, burning up the wicked.

But there is also another fire spoken of in regards to the coming of the Messiah in Malachi 3:2; “But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the LORD offerings in righteousness.”

So we see that Jesus is speaking metaphorically of Himself in vs.49 as kindling a fire that will judge men’s works, refining them as silver and purifying them of their impurities so that they may present offerings of righteousness to the Lord.  A refiner’s fire burns out the impurities to produce a higher grade of silver. It relates back to vs. 48, “From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.” That is the work of the refiner, to produce a more pure silver, a greater produce of righteousness.

Peter also speaks of that refiner’s fire as something which comes upon us for testing to make us stronger and purer. 1Pet. 4:12, “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation.” This refiner’s fire then comes as a form of testing, to purify you and prove you, that you might become stronger in your faith.

Not only does Christ say He comes to cast fire, but He says in vs. 51, “But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished!”  What is this baptism that Jesus speaks of?  We saw earlier that He already had been baptized by John so what is He talking about?  I think it’s clear that He is talking about a baptism of fire.  Baptism means to be immersed.  And He is talking about an immersion in the sufferings that He was appointed for.  This is why He came, to undergo a baptism of fire for our benefit, to take our punishment for sin upon Himself.

I think that this is proved by 1Peter 4:12 which we just looked at.  Peter said we should not be surprised at the fiery ordeal we are going through which is for our testing, as though something strange was happening to us.  It’s not strange because it happened to Jesus first.  And Jesus said a servant is not greater than His master.  He said we must take up our cross and follow Him.  And so Peter says our sufferings are to be understood to the degree that you share the sufferings of your Master.  Our fiery ordeal is likened to the sufferings of Christ.  He died in the flesh, so we die to the flesh.  He mortified sin, we mortify sin.  He became poor, so we are poor.  He suffered rejection of men, so we suffer rejection of men.  He was obedient unto death, so we are obedient unto death.  And as we suffer with Him, Peter says in the same manner we will rejoice in the glory of His revelation with exultation.

Just one quick note about what Jesus said about being distressed.  It speaks of stress, of an oppression, of a constraint upon Him.  And what it means is that Jesus was resolute.  He was pressing on towards the goal of the cross.  It was distressful, it was an affliction that He was tormented by as He suffered in the flesh.  We cannot even imagine the horrors of the Holy God taking upon Himself the sins of the world.  It was a great burden on Him as God was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief, bruising Him for our iniquities, and scourging Him with stripes that we might be healed. And yet it says He was anxious to get on with it.  He wanted it to be consummated.  His goal was the cross and the grave and even the gates of Hell itself.  And I think that is what baptism is really getting at; burial.  The grave.  That is what baptism represents when you are lowered in the water, you signify that you are dying with Christ to your old way of life, and then rising from the water in newness of life.  So baptism speaks of the grave and all that it represented to Him.

Alistair Begg said that “this is not Jesus Christ on a deck chair, this is Christ hanging on a cross with His eyes wide open and groaning, and bleeding and suffering.”  That reminds me of an advertisement I heard about a Christian cruise ship where you go on vacation and have talks about God and listen to praise bands and so forth.  It sounds lovely, but I doubt it’s in my price range.  But even so, I’m not sure I would go if I had the money.  Because I don’t believe that Christ has suffered and died to call us to service on the Love Boat, with an all you can eat buffet and Zumba classes on the Lido Deck, but Christ has called us to serve on a battleship.  And the sooner we wake up to that reality the better.

The church, my friends, is not a country club.  It’s not a social hall.  We can find fellowship in all of those places, but that is not church.  Fellowship is found in the church in the truth of God’s word.  It is found in sound doctrine and in our commitment to obey it.  And in doing so, we will be called dogmatic, judgmental, confrontational, exclusionary.  But we must be faithful to God first and foremost.

Jesus says that such a doctrine will sometimes mean suffering the loss of family and friends. Vs.51, “Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division; for from now on five members in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

As I alluded to earlier, at first this seems a contradictory statement of Christ.  After all, the Messiah was prophesied to be the Prince of Peace.  But what Jesus is talking about here is not world peace, or even peace with God, but He is talking about the peace that brings people together.  That is what peace means in it’s most basic form.  It means reaching an accord,  an agreement that causes both sides to get along.  But Jesus says that isn’t what He came to do.  He did not come to find the lowest common denominator to bring about peace or even fellowship.  But rather Jesus came to delineate truth as coming down from heaven from the Father.  Establishing a plumb line of truth and righteousness that would actually cause division rather than unity. And He goes on to say that that plumb line of truth may result in a division even to the point of family.

Jesus isn’t asking us to do something that He wasn’t willing to do.  You remember when Jesus mother and brothers were reported to be outside waiting for Him when He was teaching in someone’s house?  And He said, “My mother and my brothers are those that do my will.”  Jesus said on another occasion in Matt. 10:35, “For I came to SET A MAN AGAINST HIS FATHER, AND A DAUGHTER AGAINST HER MOTHER, AND A DAUGHTER-IN-LAW AGAINST HER MOTHER-IN-LAW; and A MAN’S ENEMIES WILL BE THE MEMBERS OF HIS HOUSEHOLD. He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.”

Listen, I know this is a tough message.  Some of you have suffered the loss of family for the sake of following Jesus Christ.  It would be easy to compromise and say that God’s word isn’t that important.  The world tells us that it isn’t cool to get too serious about your Christianity.  The worldly church tells us that the way is wide, that it is all inclusive, that nothing is worth getting all that worked up over.  That fellowship is better than discipleship.  That we just need to find the lowest common denominator and then everybody will get along.  After all, isn’t Christianity supposed to be about love?  Doesn’t love mean we are  supposed to accept everything and everybody just the way they are?

That may be the modern version of Christianity, but I’m afraid it’s not the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus has made it clear so far in this message that gospel of Jesus Christ is exclusive.  It is exclusive because it will divide between truth and error.  Between man’s view and God’s view.  Yes, it is a difficult message.  And a lot of people fall away because it is difficult.  Jesus said to Peter, “blessed is He who does not stumble over Me.”

I’m not here to tell you today that following Jesus completely and fully is going to be easy.   There is a cost to following Christ.  There is a cross for us to carry.  And sometimes that results in separation from our loved ones who won’t accept the gospel.  But there is also a reward for those that are found faithful.

Peter said in Luke 18:28 “Behold, we have left our own homes and followed You.”And He said to them, “Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God who will not receive many times as much at this time and in the age to come, eternal life.”

There is joy that is set before us as we endure the refiner’s fire here on earth.  There is glory that will be revealed at the coming of Christ for His bride.  There will be exultation when we will one day be welcomed into the presence of God and He says, “Welcome home, My good and faithful servant.  Enter into the joy of your Master.”  I hope you are looking forward to that day.  And I hope and pray that you will not fall away because of the difficulty of following the example of Jesus Christ.

 

The judgment of the faithful and the unfaithful, Luke 12:35-48

As we come to this passage of scripture today, we must remember that we are entering into the middle portion of an ongoing sermon of Jesus Christ.  Therefore, we must keep in mind the context of this sermon, what has been said so far.  For Christ is building a message, precept upon precept.  And in order to correctly understand what we are looking at today, we must remember what Christ has already been preaching, and consider it in that context.

So what has Christ said so far in His message?  Well, He started out criticizing the Pharisees who He said were hypocrites.  The sin of hypocrisy, you will remember, is thinking that you are hiding your sin while outwardly putting on a religious front.  And the Pharisees were very good at that.  But Jesus says, that which is hidden in the heart, God actually sees.  And one day, God will reveal the hearts of men at the judgment.  He said that we should fear God who has the power to not only take away life, but is able to cast the soul of man into hell.

And this is really the theme of the message up to this point, to show that there is coming a day of reckoning for every man and woman on earth.  He illustrated it with the parable of the rich man, who stored up treasures on earth and thought he was going to be able to live luxuriously for the rest of his life and enjoy himself.  But God called him a fool, and said that that night his soul would be required of him.

But to his disciples, Jesus reiterates that they should not concern themselves with the things of this world such as clothing and food and shelter.  But rather they should be concerned with the things of the kingdom of God.  He teaches them the principle that if they seek first the kingdom of God, then all the earthly things will be added unto them.

So this has been the emphasis of Jesus message up to now, to contrast the life of the citizen of the kingdom who is working for the kingdom and investing in the kingdom with the life of the unconverted person, who is living a self indulgent life for his own interests.  Jesus is speaking primarily to his disciples in saying that God has chosen gladly to give them the kingdom, and so in return they should work for the kingdom, put the kingdom of God first in their lives, and lay up treasure in the kingdom of heaven.

So Jesus continues with this theme in this next section.  He teaches that there will be a day of reckoning for all men and women, and that those that are of the kingdom of God will be rewarded according to their works for the kingdom, but those that are not of the kingdom of God will be judged accordingly.  But Jesus introduces a new concept here in this passage.  He is not just talking about a person dying and going to receive his reward, but He also introduces the principle that He Himself will one day come back and be the judge of all things.  In vs. 40, Jesus says, “You too, be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour that you do not expect.”

So this section introduces the essential doctrine of the second coming of Jesus Christ.  He alluded to it in chapter 9 starting in vs. 25, “For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself?  For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.”  In chapter 10 and 11, Jesus referred to a day of judgment, but now He is adding more specific information.  He is revealing that He Himself is coming back to bring judgment to the earth.  He makes that clear in the next passage which we will look at next week; in vs.49 He says He came to cast fire upon the earth.  And in vs. 51, He says, “Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division.” Matthew records Him saying at another time virtually the same thing but in a more direct method, “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matt. 10:34)  He is coming again to divide the sheep from the goats, the righteous from the unrighteous.  To bring reward to the righteous and judgment upon the unrighteous.

Jesus illustrates what I have been saying to you for some time now.  That there is a progressive nature to the gospel, especially in regards to revelation.  There is a principle that as you believe and obey, God will give you more.  And that is borne out by this passage.  But with that revelation comes responsibility.  That is why the principle of faith is always connected to the principle of obedience.

Listen, the gospel is simple enough that a child can accept it and be saved.  That is why Jesus said that one must enter the kingdom as a little child.  A childlike faith is characterized by trusting and obeying. So Jesus invited  children to be brought to Him.  But though the gospel is simple, yet it is also a mystery.  And as a mystery it is understood in a progressive nature as we grow up in Christ and maturity is tied directly to obedience and perseverance.  In other words, there is no such thing as being converted and yet remaining unchanged any more than it is possible for a child to remain a child and never grow up.

Today the church in America is in crisis because the gospel has been dumbed down to the point of some sort of relationship without any sort of responsibility.  But this passage is one of many that illustrate that concept is at odds with the full counsel of God’s word.  I don’t know if any of you are familiar with the working of a plumb line.  In it’s simplest form it is a weight that is tied to a string.  And the string is let down from a height to determine a straight line to reveal if something is true, or straight.

I believe God’s word is the plumb line of truth.  I believe that truth is absolute. God has given us the word of God that we might know the truth and that the truth would set us free.  But we have a responsibility to rightly divide the word of truth as it says in  2Tim. 2:15; “Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”  Why would someone be ashamed?  Because on the day of judgment they will find out that they did not correctly divide the word of truth.  Their lack of scholarship resulted in a flawed doctrine which will make them ashamed at His coming.

And so I am afraid that there are a number of doctrinal issues in which the church today is being deceived.  We looked at that last Wednesday evening in regards to the spiritual warfare that we are engaged in. We were reminded that Satan is the father of lies and a great deceiver, and that his strategy has always been to subvert the truth.   That’s why Eph. 6 tells us that the first piece of armor that we are to put on is the belt of truth.  All the other armor hinges upon the truth.  Our doctrine of grace hinges upon the truth.  Our doctrine concerning the nature of God hinges upon the truth.  Our doctrine of faith hinges upon the truth. All of these things are rendered ineffective if truth is lacking.  Our very salvation is dependent upon the truth.

 

But truth in the Bible is revealed by being obedient to the Spirit of truth. John 16:13 says, “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.”   And Paul makes it clear that obedience to the truth results in righteousness; Rom. 6:16, “Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?”

In other words, there is a plumb line of truth coming down from heaven which is found in the word of God. 2 Peter 1:20 says that truth is not dependent upon personal interpretation but upon divine revelation.  And we must be responsible, faithful workmen in regards to accurately handling the word of God that we might discern the truth and be obedient to it.  I am concerned that the scheme of Satan has always been to twist and subvert the word of God.  Sometimes that is done by the pendulum swinging too far in one direction or the other.  You can err by using some scriptures and to establish a doctrine but at the expense of ignoring other scriptures. And the end result will be a false doctrine.  Just enough error to cause you to go astray.  But a careful examination of the full gospel of Jesus Christ will put things in the correct balance.

Let me give you some examples;  the scriptures teach that God is love, but God is also just.  It teaches that God is merciful, but God is also the faithful and righteous judge.  The gospel offers salvation, but there is also damnation.  There is a heaven, but there is also a hell.  And in practically every doctrine of the faith, you will find this sort of balance.  There is the doctrine of election and predestination, and there is also a doctrine of free will, that whosoever will may come.  They both have to be taken together, and rightly dividing the truth is comparing scripture to scripture and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit bringing all of it together as the truth.

I say all of this because there is a degree of either laziness, or apathy or selfish motivation that has permeated what passes for church doctrine today.  And so many are teaching only a piece of the gospel.  Let me tell you something folks; the gospel starts in Genesis chapter one and continues to Revelation 22.  Churches today are teaching grace without growth, love without responsibility, salvation without sanctification.  And it really gets worse and worse by the decade.  There is very little talk of heaven in most churches today because they want to believe that the best that God has for us is available right here and now.  There is practically nothing taught about judgment today.  Hell is a non-topic.  But in the 18th and 19th centuries of the Great Awakening, most sermons were about either heaven or hell.  Jonathan Edwards best known  message was “Sinners in the hands of an angry God.”  He read his message aloud and half way  through people were sobbing and weeping and prostrating themselves on the floor in repentance and getting right with God.  Today if a pastor read that message from the pulpits of most evangelical churches he would be run out of the church in a heartbeat on the grounds that he was a legalist and uncompassionate.

Today the typical message on a Sunday morning in most churches is often on topics  like “Seven steps to financial freedom.”  A pastor I know personally very well recently kicked off a new series of messages on Sunday mornings at his church on the Daniel Plan.  The Daniel Plan, for those of you that haven’t heard of it, is a diet plan book written by Rick Warren.  And for a certain price you can buy a sermon series from him, complete with diet books and helpful guidelines for healthy living which are suitable for small group meetings.  And if you really want to do it up right, you can incorporate special workouts at the church as well. It’s a big hit.  It’s exactly what the self absorbed modern Christian wants to hear. I think a better title for the book might have been, “How to have your cake and eat it too.” Churches today are doing away with midweek Bible studies and adding exercise classes but 1Tim. 4:8 says that “bodily exercise is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.”

Folks, there is something seriously wrong with the church today in America when this sort of stuff passes for preaching the word of God.  What should be clear from the teaching of Jesus in this passage is that the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of this world are diametrically opposed.  That friendship with the world is enmity with God.  That you are either laying up treasures on earth or you are storing up treasure in heaven.  Jesus preached unapologetically that message.  And He called anyone who focused on this world either a hypocrite or a fool.  There was no middle ground with Jesus.  You were either working for the kingdom of God or you are working for the kingdom of yourself.  Jesus said, where your treasure is, there is your heart also.

So Jesus adds now another dimension to this sermon.  In vs. 35 He says, “Be dressed in readiness, and keep your lamps lit.”  The KJV puts it more literally; “let your loins be girded…”  It comes from Exodus 12, when God told Moses in the instructions concerning the Passover, that they were to eat it standing up with their staff in their hand and their loins girded.  They were to tie their robes up under their belt in order to be able to move fast.  In other words, they were ready to march.  They were ready to go out of the land of Egypt on a moment’s notice.  And that is what Jesus is saying here.  If you are a citizen of the kingdom of heaven, then you are to have that attitude of readiness.  You are ready to leave this world.  You are looking forward to the next world.  This world is not your home.

But since we are looking at Ephesians 6 this week on Wednesday, I can’t help but remind you of the first piece of our spiritual armor that is described in Eph. 6:14,  “Stand firm therefore, HAVING GIRDED YOUR LOINS WITH TRUTH.”  Truth is tied to that idea of readiness, isn’t it?  If you have the plumb line of truth as your foundation, then you will be ready when Jesus comes.

And then He says “keep your lamps lit.”  Now what does that mean?  Well, for one it is a reference to  Psalm 119:105, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”  But it also can refer to a parable Jesus gave in Matt. 25 about the ten virgins.  In the story, Jesus tells of ten virgins who were waiting for the bridegroom.  And five of them were foolish and five were wise.  The foolish ones did not bring enough oil and so their lamps went out.  But the wise virgins had brought extra oil, so when the bridegroom came late, the foolish virgins were without lamps and were left out of the wedding feast.  Whereas the wise virgins refilled their lamps and so had light in their lamps and they were ready when the bride groom came.

Well, what does that all mean?  The most obvious meaning is that we are to be waiting and ready for the appearing of the bridegroom who is Jesus Christ.  But there is another implication in the oil for the lamps.  Without oil, the lamps go out.  Oil is a picture of the Holy Spirit.  So what this is signifying is that there is a need for being constantly filled with the Holy Spirit.  In Ephesians 5 we looked at that principle in vs.18 which says, “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit.”  It is talking about a constant supply from  the Holy Spirit that comes as a result of being obedient to the Holy Spirit.

The opposite of being filled with the Holy Spirit is to be drunk with wine; out of control, of dissipation which is self indulgence.  But Gal 5:22 tells us what being filled with the Spirit produces:  “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.” Paul is saying that walking by the Spirit is putting to death the deeds of the flesh, it’s passions and it’s desires and having self control.  That’s a Spirit filled life.

And so Jesus is saying that we are to be ready for His return.  That means girding our loins with truth, and keeping our lamps lit by walking in obedience to the Spirit.  Jesus continues in vs. 36; “Be like men who are waiting for their master when he returns from the wedding feast, so that they may immediately open the door to him when he comes and knocks.”   To understand the metaphor Jesus is using here you have to understand the Jewish wedding ceremony of that time period. There were three stages to a Jewish wedding in that day. The first was engagement – a formal agreement made by the fathers. The second was betrothal – the ceremony where mutual promises are made. The third was marriage – approximately one year later when the bridegroom came at an unexpected time for his bride.

So Jesus is referring here to the bridegroom’s friends that were part of the wedding party.  They would have been preparing the house for him to return with his bride.  Jesus is saying that blessed are those men that are waiting and ready for the bridegroom.  These are the faithful men who have been preparing for his arrival.  Now look at what He says He will do when He finds them ready.

Vs. 37, ““Blessed are those slaves whom the master will find on the alert when he comes; truly I say to you, that he will gird himself to serve, and have them recline at the table, and will come up and wait on them.” Here is the principle; those that have been faithful in serving Christ, will one day be invited to His marriage supper in which He will serve them. In Revelation 19 there is a prophecy concerning the marriage supper of the Lamb.  It is a metaphor of the time of celebration and consummation between the Lamb of God and His bride, the church.  But it is also a prophecy concerning the judgment that comes upon the earth.  Following the invitation of the marriage supper of the Lamb in Revelation 19:9,  John writes in vs. 11, “And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems; and He has a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself. He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God.” “From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty.”  So those that are ready are invited to the marriage supper, but those that are not are judged by the Word of God.

So even though Jesus has just commended the faithful slaves who were ready when He came, now in an almost contradictory fashion Jesus adds this warning in vs. 39, “But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have allowed his house to be broken into. You too, be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour that you do not expect.”  Allow me to emphasize what Jesus said.   Jesus is coming again at a time you do not expect.  I think far too much attention is given today to trying to figure out all the signs and prophecies concerning the future, and not enough emphasis given concerning our present responsibility to be about the business of the kingdom of God. Jesus doesn’t elaborate on all the details that we like to focus on.  He doesn’t mention a rapture, for instance.  He just says He is coming back and we need to be ready.

Let’s restate vs.39 like this.  If you knew that Jesus was coming back tomorrow at midnight, what would you do during those last 36 hours?  Jesus is basically saying that you need to live like it’s your last hours on earth.  Because it just might be.

This teaching is sort of unnerving for most of us Christians, isn’t it?  We like to think that we don’t have anything to worry about because we are good to go.  To quote Crocodile Dundee, “Me and God be mates.”  We want to believe that we have nothing to worry about because somewhere in our past we walked an isle, or said a sinner’s prayer or had some sort of spiritual experience.  And so we can sympathize with Peter’s question in vs. 41, “Lord, are You addressing this parable to us, or to everyone else as well?”  “Hey Lord, you’re not talking about us are you? Certainly not us.  Right?” Peter wants to know if they are off the hook or not.

Well we can have all kinds of theological debates and try to wriggle out of the following passage in a number of different ways.  But since Jesus didn’t let Peter off the hook, I won’t let you off the hook either.  However, I would challenge you to just consider the plain truth of what Jesus is saying.  If you asked Peter’s question of Jesus that day and this is what He answered you, what would you think?  Let’s just take Jesus’ entire answer at face value for a moment.

Vs. 42-48  is Jesus answer to Peter’s question. “And the Lord said, ‘Who then is the faithful and sensible steward, whom his master will put in charge of his servants, to give them their rations at the proper time? Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes. Truly I say to you that he will put him in charge of all his possessions. But if that slave says in his heart, ‘My master will be a long time in coming,’ and begins to beat the slaves, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk; the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will cut him in pieces, and assign him a place with the unbelievers.  And that slave who knew his master’s will and did not get ready or act in accord with his will, will receive many lashes, but the one who did not know it, and committed deeds worthy of a flogging, will receive but few. From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.”

Well, I don’t imagine that that answer let Peter and the disciples off the hook.  Here is the gist of what Jesus is saying.  If you are a faithful and sensible steward who is found doing what he was commanded to do, then you will be rewarded with good things.  But if you are a foolish steward who is sinful and does what is pleasing to himself then you will receive punishment.

We can slice and dice that statement any number of ways in an effort to get ourselves off the hook so to speak.  But I can suggest how Peter might have answered that himself a few years later because he did so in 1Pet. 4:17, “For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?”  Here is what Jesus’ statement means at the very minimum.  It means that you can’t separate faith and obedience. It means that if you are filled with the Spirit then you will do the works of the Spirit.  It means according to James 2:26 that faith without works is dead.  It means according to Matt. 7:20 that you will know them by their fruits.  Not by their professions, but by their works. Matt. 7:21, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.”  Listen, God isn’t interested in a kingdom of people who only give lip service and then go live like they want.  That was the picture of Gideon’s army.  Those that laid down and lapped the water like a dog could go home.  God didn’t want them in his army.  He would rather have a few that were ready and willing than thousands of self indulgent soldiers in name only.

There is one final aspect to this statement that I want to examine quickly in closing.  It is a warning to me and to you, of this I can assure you unequivocally. Jesus said, “And that slave who knew his master’s will and did not get ready or act in accord with his will, will receive many lashes, but the one who did not know it, and committed deeds worthy of a flogging, will receive but few. From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.”

Have you been given much?  Has Christ not given His precious blood for your salvation?  There can be no greater gift than the gift of our salvation.  There can be no greater gift than the gift of God’s word.  There can be no greater gift than the gift of the Holy Spirit.  And the word of God was given that we might know His will.  The Holy Spirit was given that we might understand His word and have the power to do God’s will. But Jesus says if we know His will and did not get ready or act in accordance to His will, we will receive many lashes.

You know, I have to bear that burden as a preacher. James 3:1 says, “Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment.”  But all of us have to bear that burden to some extent.  Because to some extent we are all teachers.  If not by our words, then by our actions.  Your life is a testimony to what you believe.  You are teaching others by what you do or don’t do.

Listen, don’t get mad at me.  I have to tell you what Jesus says or I will receive greater judgment for my dereliction of duty.  As Jesus said in vs. 48, “From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.”  I would just close with this question, “how are you doing with what God has given you?”  Modern Christians love to claim the gifts, but what is that grace producing?  Are you using your life to further the kingdom?  Or are you using it on your own pleasures and passions?  Are you a faithful and sensible steward that is about the kingdom of God?  Jesus says you are going to be held accountable for what you have been given.  From His simplest commands to His noblest aspirations for us, as we have been entrusted with much we shall be asked of much.  Jesus says one day there will be a judgment and you will be judged by your fruits.  I hope you are ready and unashamed when that day comes.  That you will be found faithful.  That Jesus might say as in Matt. 25:23, “‘Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’”