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The living water; John 4:1-42

I cannot read the story of the Samaritan woman at the well without thinking of a similar story my dad used to tell. He grew up in a very isolated rural area of North Carolina during the depression years. His family were what were known as sharecroppers, which is the poorest sort of farming. Others own the land, and basically you get to live on it and farm it, but the owners gets the lion’s share of the profits.

So as a young man, dad would often hire himself out to other farmers in the area to work the fields for extra money. And he tells the story that one day he was working in a farmer’s field, and it was hot and he became very thirsty. He had seen a ramshackle house a little bit down the road that looked pretty sketchy, but eventually he was so thirsty he decided to walk over there to see if he could get a drink of water. Now in those days there wasn’t any town water or even electricity in rural areas of North Carolina. So he went up to the front porch and knocked and an old woman came to the door. Dad said that this woman was a sight. She epitomized all that you might imagine a country bumpkin would look like. She was filthy. She smelled. She had no teeth. And to make it worse, she was chewing snuff which had run down the corners of her mouth and stained all over the front of her blouse.

Dad tried not to act too put off by her looks though, and took his hat off and politely asked her if he could please get a drink of water. She said “yes, of course, follow me!” and led him around the back of the house where there was a well. Dad let down the bucket into the well, and then cranked the handle to draw it back up, and then the woman handed him this old stained up gourd that had been made into a dipper for him to dip into the bucket to drink out of. Now normally, in the fields the men would all share the same dipper and not think too much about it. But Dad said this woman was so rough looking, and the snuff staining her mouth and chin was so disgusting, he couldn’t imagine drinking out of that dipper thinking that he was going to be putting his mouth where her mouth had been. But there was nothing else to use. Then he had a bright idea. The gourd had a long curved handle that was hollow and at the very end there was a hole which was made when the dried out the gourd. So Dad figured that he would fill up the gourd with water, but rather than drinking out of the cut out part on the fat end, he would drink from the end of the handle, the end with the little hole. That way he wouldn’t have to put his mouth on the part that the woman would have used. So he scoops up some water, and then held it up and drank backwards out of the gourd by putting his mouth over the little hole at the end of the handle and sucking on it like a straw.

And when he did that, the old woman began to practically convulse in a fit of laughter. Dad thought it must have been because he looked silly drinking that way, but he didn’t really care how he looked, he just didn’t want his mouth to touch where hers had been. But he said she was laughing so hard, and then she clapped him on the shoulder and said, “My lord boy! I ain’t ever seen anybody else drink water out of gourd the same way I do!”

There is a word in the Greek text in vs.9 that basically is saying the same thing. It’s a word that conveys the idea that the Jews so despised the Samaritans that they would not even touch the same utensils, or drink from the same cup. This attitude illustrated the hatred of Jews for Samaritans. But as we look at this story today, we see Jesus deliberately, purposefully, arranging not only to meet this woman that would have been hated by the Jews, but also to drink water from her cup.

In Jesus’ day, there was obviously no running water. Things we might consider a hardship were typical things you had to deal with during the course of the day. Typically, the women of the village or town were the ones who were responsible for drawing water. You remember Rebecca drawing water for the camels when Abraham’s servant went to the well. But they would usually do so in the evening when it was cooler, or perhaps first thing in the morning.

This woman in Samaria is going to the well in the middle of the day. Around the sixth hour would be the Jewish way of saying around noon. So this wasn’t a typical time for her to be drawing water. And Jesus has arrived at this well, which is identified as Jacob’s well, and is sitting there by the well. There were probably step that led down to the well.

The text says Jesus was sitting there because He was weary from his journey. Jesus and His disciples had been walking all morning having left Judea probably very early while it was still cool. Most commentators believe that He had walked at least 20 miles that morning. That’s quite a walk. And it’s not a flat plain he walked either, but hilly terrain and rocky paths. That’s the equivalent of walking from my house in Millville to the Cape May/Lewes Ferry. I don’t think I could even ride a bike that far, much less hike that distance in five or six hours.

So Jesus was tired, he was worn out. So much so that he sent the disciples ahead of Him into the village to buy food while he waited at the well. Now I want to suggest that this is not happenstance. I think that this is a case of divine appointment. The normal way to go from Jerusalem to Galilee for most Jews would have been to go the coast route or across the Jordan and then go around Samaria. Orthodox Jews would have avoided going through Samaria. They hated the Samaritans so much that they would go miles out of there way to avoid even walking through Samaria.

And part of the reason they hated them seems almost justified from a certain perspective. The Samaritans were considered half breeds – half Jew, half pagans – that had come about when the 10 northern tribes were taken into captivity by the Assyrians about 700 years before. The educated, wealthy people were taken into captivity, but the Assyrians left some of the poorest Jews in the land to care for the land so that it did not revert to wilderness and to care for the cattle and so forth. But over time, these poor Jews left there intermarried with the pagan people that moved in to that area, and they adopted many pagan customs along with worshipping pagan gods while maintaining a certain worship of the God of the Jews.

When the Jews came back into the land during the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, these people tried to hinder the returning Jews from rebuilding the temple. The Jews ended up shunning them, and so the Samaritans went off in a huff and built their own temple in opposition. So though the Samaritans claimed to be Jews, they had desecrated their heritage by intermarrying with pagans. They claimed to worship the One True God, but yet they also worshipped foreign gods. They claimed the Jewish scriptures, but they only recognized the first five books of the Old Testament, called the Pentateuch. So it would seem that the Jews were almost justified in their hatred of the Samaritans.

Yet Jesus has traveled by foot 20 miles across hot dry wilderness to get to this village in Samaria in time to meet this woman, who is coming out to draw water from a well outside of town, at a time when it was unlikely that she would meet anyone, which was obviously her intention. The obvious question, is why? Why would Jesus leave an area where all were coming out to Him, where He was having bigger crowds than John the Baptist, so much so that the Pharisees were taking note of Him as a new threat… why leave that success and head off to a place where no one even knew who He was?

Well, I think the answer is hinted at in the previous chapter when Jesus tells Nicodemus that God so loved the world, that He sent His Son into the world, so that the world might be saved through Him. Jesus Himself would say later, “The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”(Luke 19:10) This woman was from the lost tribes of Israel. She was truly lost. Her people were worshipping God in ignorance. And they needed to know the truth so that they might escape the judgment which is upon the whole world.

Furthermore, I think Jesus comes to visit this woman as a counterpoint to the coming of Nicodemus at night which we studied in chapter 3. Nicodemus was a religious leader, he was the religious teacher of the Jews. He was moral, an upright citizen. He represented everything the Samaritan woman was not. If as I said before, Nicodemus was the representative man, the best that man had to offer, then this woman was the representative sinner, even the worst of sinners. A woman who was considered extremely immoral. She had been married 5 times, and was now living with a man who wasn’t her husband. She was lost. And the good thing was, she knew she was lost. Nicodemus thought he was a good man, and consequently Jesus had to show him that he wasn’t ever going to be good enough to be able to enter into the kingdom of heaven. But this woman knew she was a sinner, and though she tried to hide it, what she needed was for Christ to tell her about the grace of God. Jesus came to save sinners. He traveled 6 hours through the wilderness by foot to take the gospel to one woman who knew she was a sinner and was looking for redemption.

See, what we think of as good moral people, pillars in the community will usually come to church, they will seek for religion. Unfortunately, they tend to come to church though in order to bolster their sense of self righteousness and entitlement, as we saw with Nicodemus. But people who are trapped in sin and are suffering the consequences of their sin rarely think of the church as a refuge. Maybe they feel too guilty to come to church. And yet these are the very people that we are called to go seek out to tell the good news. People that are sick, the outcasts, the downtrodden, the world weary. They are ideal candidates for the gospel. As Jesus said in Mark 2:17, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

So Jesus travels 20 miles by foot to meet this woman. And He is tired. That shows us His humanity. He was fully man. But it also shows His omniscience. He knows the woman is going to be there at noon. He sends the disciples away so that He can talk to her privately so as not to unnecessarily embarrass her. He knows her past, which she tries to hide. His omniscience shows His divinity. He is fully God, and yet fully man. This is the mystery of Christ, born of a virgin, and yet fathered by the Holy Spirit. Fully God and fully man. He is the Messiah, or the Christ.

And let me stress something on this point; He was fully human, fully God, that He might be our substitute, that He might be our Savior, but also, so that He might be our example. That we might do as He did. This text is one of the greatest passages in the Bible that illustrates how we are to go about being evangelists of the gospel. How we are to witness to the lost. There are many important principles to be learned from this passage, but not the least of them is how we are to evangelize the lost.

Notice then that Christ’s mission was calculated. He was purposeful, He was strategic. He planned it, executed it, timed it perfectly so that He might set up this divine appointment with this woman. And note secondly that He was confrontational without being condemning. When I say confrontational, it sounds menacing, doesn’t it? But it doesn’t have to be. It can simply be engaging. In Jesus’ case, it was confrontational because it was unexpected. It wasn’t considered appropriate for a Jew to speak to a Samaritan. It was even more inappropriate for a man, a rabbi, to speak to a woman. Yet Jesus says, “Give me a drink.”

If Jesus is omniscient, which I believe this text and many others clearly demonstrates that He was, then He certainly knew that she was an immoral woman. She came to the well in this location, at this time, presumably to escape scrutiny and scorn from the other women of the village who would usually all come at the same time to draw water and talk of the business of the day. But Christ comes to a sinner, and yet as chapter 3 vs. 17 says, He did not come to judge her, but to offer her salvation. He shows her compassion.

Now notice though that Christ does not condone her sin. The gospel message has two pillars on which it depends; repentance and faith. Jesus confronts her about her sin, and then tells her that He is the Messiah. To receive the gift of salvation requires that both principles are enacted on our part. We have to acknowledge our sin, confess our sin, and He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. At the same time, we have to believe that Jesus is the Savior from sin which He accomplished by being the righteous substitute who paid the penalty for our sins.

Now to accomplish all of that, notice how Jesus skillfully weaves the conversation around, starting from a normal everyday occurrence such as a drink of water, and using it to teach a spiritual principle. He asks for a drink, and she responds with a sarcastic response; “why are you asking me for a drink, knowing I am a Samaritan?”

But Jesus knows better than let Himself get sucked into a debate with this woman over race, over the cultural divide between Jews and Samaritans. Instead, He turns the tables on her. And says, “If you knew the gift of God, and who says to you, “Give Me a drink” you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

Rather than focusing on her insufficiencies of heritage or race or culture or even morality, Jesus changes the conversation from one where she is automatically defensive, and instead He is the benefactor, rather than the beneficiary. He doesn’t need her water, but He has something that she needs.

Notice the difference between His approach with Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman. With Nicodemus who thought he was righteous, who was rich, who seemed to have everything including morality, Jesus told him what he lacked. He had nothing. He had to be born all over again. Nothing he had was good enough. But with this woman, who had no standing in the community, who was culturally an outsider, and was a known immoral person, Jesus offers her the gift of God. Grace that covers all her sin. Eternal life which will spring up in her like living water.

Though some principles in the gospel can not be deviated from, such as faith and repentance, we need to seek the discernment from God to know how to approach different people in different circumstances and from different environments. God will give you the wisdom if you ask for it. But notice that there isn’t a one size fits all approach to Christ’s evangelism. He has divine discernment which we don’t have. But we do have the wisdom that God gives to those that ask for it, so that we might do His will. Recognizing those that are ready to receive the truth and those that are arrogant and think they know all the answers is possible through the discernment of the Holy Spirit as we witness in obedience to Him.

So first Jesus sidesteps her natural tendency for defensiveness, her attempt at being argumentative by turning the tables from her giving Him something, to Him giving her something. But she still wants to argue. Some people are like that. No matter what you say, they want to argue. The Bible says we are to be wise as a serpent, and harmless as a dove. The devil is a serpent, isn’t he? So we are to be wise to his schemes, and yet harmless as a dove. As much as it depends on you, Paul said, be at peace with all men. You aren’t going to win disciples to Christ by being argumentative, or by debating someone. And neither are we going to win souls by insinuating that they need to become moral to be saved. We become moral by being saved. First there must be a change of heart, and then out of the heart comes a new morality.

I’ve found when I deal with people who are hostile to me, who are defensive about their actions, that instead of focusing on the negatives or the repercussions of their decisions, if I focus on how much God has done for them and what God wants to do for them, how much God loves them, then many times that will have a softening effect on their heart and we can break through their defenses. For instance, if you are dealing with a person who is caught up in drug use, rather than focusing on the consequences of using drugs, focus on their spiritual vacuum that is making them desire drugs. Focus on what Christ has done to give us a new life, a more fulfilling life.

That’s what Jesus is doing with this woman. He knows her life is unfulfilling. How many times she must have had her heart broken. How hopeless she must have been to have seen five marriages crumble and now even given up on marriage and living in open adultery. So Christ offers her new life; the gift of living water if she will just ask for it. But instead she is still defensive. She is not ready to trust Him yet. She hasn’t gotten over this whole race thing, this whole us versus them mentality between the Jews and Samaritans. So she says, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water? You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?”

Basically, she appeals to her sense of national self righteousness. The Samaritans claimed Abraham as their father just as the Jews. So she says Jacob, who was also called Israel, is her father as well and he gave them the well. Again there is little jab on her part as she says “You aren’t greater than Jacob, are you?” Well, of course He was. He was the seed of Jacob from whom the whole world would be blessed. He was the promised seed of Adam who would crush the serpent’s head. He was no less than the promised Messiah, the Son of David, the Son of God.

And yet Jesus doesn’t argue with her. He doesn’t defend His honor. He simply goes back to the metaphor of the water and the gift that God has of eternal life. And in a very understated way He says that the water that Jacob gave has only the power to slake thirst temporarily, but the water that He gives will be a well springing up to eternal life. Vs.13, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”

He is saying I am greater than Jacob, and yet He doesn’t say it outright. He is not saying I am greater as an arrogant, boastful claim, but He says as His water is greater water, and so by extension He is greater than Jacob. He is making the point that the tangible blessings of being a child of Abraham might be evidenced by their land, by this well of Jacob, but the blessings of being a child of God far exceed temporal blessings. They are spiritual blessings that spring up in him supplying an endless supply of blessings throughout eternity.

Well, finally she starts to show a crack in her armor at this point. She is obviously tired and weary and ready to have this blessing that Jesus is talking about. But like a lot of people, they are interested only in the physical and not the spiritual. She says, “Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.”

Now what do you do with that? On the one hand, she is saying I want this water that you are offering. You offered it, then give it to me. But on the other hand, she reveals her motivation; she wants physical relief. She wants the spiritual water but only for a physical benefit.

Well, it’s interesting to see Jesus’ response. At first glance, it would almost seem like there must be something missing between vs.15 and 16. Jesus says in response, “Go, call your husband and come here.” What’s that about? Does she need her husband to get the water? What relation has the husband to do with her desire for the gift of water?

What I believe Jesus is doing is He is accepting her request for water, even though it is founded on physical desires, but He is going to treat it spiritually. So even though she asks with imperfect intentions, Jesus is going to treat it spiritually and apply spiritual principles in order to bring her to salvation. And to do that, He says, “ok, if you want the living water, go bring here your husband.” Jesus already knows that she doesn’t have a husband. So He is saying this in order to get her to confront her sin.

Her response is still defensive. She’s not argumentative now, but she is still defensive. Jesus is touching a nerve but she doesn’t want to address it yet. So she says, “I have no husband.” And then Jesus reveals His divinity. Vs. 17, Jesus said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.” Now that’s pretty specific revelation. That’s not general information and He had no way of knowing that kind of personal information. And so it must have floored her which is evident from her response. She said “Sir, I perceive you are a prophet.” Now she knows someone greater than Jacob is here.

But before I get into her response, notice that Jesus says to her “you are speaking the truth.” He actually says that twice. You have said correctly, and you have said truly. Twice Jesus emphasizes that she has spoken the truth, even though she doesn’t speak the whole truth. The whole point of what Jesus is doing here is to get her to recognize and accept the truth. And before she can do that, she must first start telling the truth to God. That’s what repentance is. That’s where it starts; with telling God the truth. You can lie to men, you can lie to yourself, and you can lie to God. Even though God knows the truth, yet men still lie to Him. Repentance starts with telling the truth about yourself. And then accepting the truth about God.

It’s amazing how people can lie to God, and yet we do it all the time. We somehow don’t think that God sees. David said in Psalm 66:18, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” He says again in Psalm 51:6 “Behold, You desire truth in the innermost being, And in the hidden part You will make me know wisdom.” The gospel is the truth, and we need to tell people the truth, and help them to tell God the truth, so that the truth would set them free. When someone finally comes to the point of recognizing the truth and confessing to God the truth that they are a sinner in need of salvation, then as Jesus said in John 8:32, “you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

Well, we are not going to finish this study today. We are going to have to continue it next week. But what I want to impress on you today is that Jesus is our model for personal evangelism, that we might walk in His footsteps. By His example we should be better equipped to fulfill the great commission in our neighborhoods, with our relatives, even with strangers who may be defensive or argumentative, as was this Samaritan woman.

But I hope to leave you with a committment to be like Christ in your personal evangelism. We obviously are not going to possess divine discernment as Christ had, we are not omniscient like Christ is. We are not great teachers as Christ was. But we do have the Spirit of Christ living in us. And we do have the power of the Spirit to help us and give us wisdom if we will ask for it.

However, I don’t think you nor I need to be omniscient to think of someone today that we know needs to hear the gospel. They are not saved. You could probably write down on a note card at least 5 people in this community that you are certain do not know the Lord as their Savior. I pray that you will write down those names, and then make a plan to go see those people, to talk to them specifically about their need for salvation, about the gift of God which He has for those that will ask for it. I challenge you to start to do this with at least one person on that list this week. Come up with a plan, be purposeful about it, strategic. Get rid of all possible distractions. Then confront them with the gospel. Expect them to get defensive. Expect them to be argumentative. But be wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove; in other words, don’t argue with them. Stay focused on the gift of living water which satisfies every thirsty soul, which God has prepared for those that will receive Jesus as their Savior.

I would ask you to deliberately decide this week to be compassionate. There is no greater show of compassion than to present the gospel to someone. There is no greater love than to lay down your life, lay aside what you are so busy doing, what you would rather be doing, lay that down, lay down your pride, and go take the gospel to those that are perishing. This is not just the job of a pastor. This is your job. This is what you were saved for. This is what God has tasked you with while you are on this earth.

The gospel is pretty simple. As I said, there are only two steps you need to remember; repentance and faith. Pray for discernment and wisdom and then pray for the opportunity. And then go in faith and present the gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit. I believe that God has someone for you to talk to this week. I hope that you will do it. Let’s pray.

The reaction to Christ’s death, Luke 23:44-49

One of the more popular news stories that we always see at the end of the holiday season is something along the lines of people who passed away during the last year. It’s a way of remembering people that have died, perhaps prematurely, or perhaps tragically. And I can think of a few this year; Robin Williams, Joan Rivers, and Jay Adams come to mind. But unfortunately, as time goes on, the memory of many of those who have passed away will grow dimmer for most of us, if not altogether forgotten with the passage of time.

There are some people though that when they died they left an indelible mark on society and in some cases upon history. There are pop icons such as Elvis, or Michael Jackson, or John Lennon that continue to be mourned in some circles. But only time will tell how much their deaths really affected history. However, I can think of at least a couple of people whose deaths did impact history in a significant way. Abraham Lincoln’s death was certainly a momentous event, as well as the death of John F. Kennedy.

However, no celebrity, or personality, or historical figure has ever had their death affect the world to the extent of the death of Jesus Christ. He was only 33 years of age. He lived most of His life in a small region called Galilee in Israel, which at that time was under Roman occupation. And yet His death literally turned the world upside down. The most widely used calendar era in the world (abbreviated as “AD”, or after death), was established in medieval times from an estimate of the birth year of Jesus. More literature, more poetry, more songs have been written about Jesus of Nazareth than any other person that ever lived. Two thousand years later and counting, His life has impacted untold millions of lives in ways that cannot be calculated. And two thousand years later, the world is still reacting to the death of Christ. No death of any person who ever lived has ever had anything close to the impact that Christ’s death has had on the world.

And so as we look at this next section of scripture I want to point out three divine reactions to the death of Christ, and three human reactions, as illustrative of the impact that Christ’s death has on the world. First let’s look at the divine reactions. The first divine reaction to the crucifixion of the Light of the World was that God caused total darkness to come upon the earth.

Jesus said in John 9:5, “While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world.” And yet the world rejected that Light, so God turned off the light of the sun in the middle of the day. Vs. 44 says that it was the 6th hour of the day. That would be high noon, 12 o’clock. Luke says that total darkness fell over the earth until the 9th hour, so that would be three hours of total darkness.

Interestingly, a Roman historian named Phlegon wrote that “In the fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad, there was an extraordinary eclipse of the sun: at the sixth hour, the day turned into dark night, so that the stars in heaven were seen; and there was an earthquake.” His dating of this eclipse would put the death of Christ at 33AD. And yet since the Passover always coincides with a full moon in the spring, there is no way for a normal eclipse of the sun to occur at that time. However, it is interesting that a pagan historian wrote of a full eclipse of the sun occurring at exactly the same time as indicated in the gospels. Matthew’s gospel also gives an account of an earthquake happening at that time as well.

Now some of you may remember that Jesus said when they arrested Him the night before that this hour had been given to the power of darkness. And so we see that spiritual reality culminating in a physical darkness which fell on the earth for three hours. But there was also a historical symbolism to the darkness. Remember that this is the Passover. And the Passover was a Jewish festival that celebrated the night in Egypt when God passed over the houses marked with blood on the doorposts and visited death upon the first born of all the people in Egypt.

And if you will recall, the final plague that God visited upon the Egyptians before the death of the first born was total darkness over the land. In the historical event in Egypt the darkness lasted 3 days. At the cross, the darkness lasted 3 hours. But the correlation is obvious. The judgment of God was about to be poured out on sin, just as the judgment of God was poured out on the Egyptians in the death of their first born sons. However now, it is not that the wrath of God is poured out on sinners, but the wrath of God is poured out on His Son, killing the Son of God so that men’s sins might be forgiven. Rather than God pouring out His wrath on men and killing them as they deserved for rejecting His Son, God pours out His wrath on Jesus Christ, punishing Him for the sins we committed.

Isaiah 53 says it this way, “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.”

I would take this opportunity to point out something else. In last week’s message I pointed to all the references in this passage to Jesus as the King. That kingship is a thread that is woven through Luke’s account of the crucifixion that point to Christ’s divinity. But there is another thread woven into Luke’s account as well, and that is the sinlessness of Jesus. His righteousness is also a testament to His divinity, and Luke illustrates that in several comments. Pilate states repeatedly that he found no guilt in Jesus. The thief on the cross says that “we indeed are suffering justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And then in the centurion’s comments we read, “he began praising God, saying, ‘Certainly this man was innocent.’” Three witnesses to His innocence.

That innocence of Christ needs to be emphasized, because unless He was the spotless, sinless, Son of God, He could never be the Lamb of God which takes away the sins of the world. 2 Cor. 5:21 says, “[God] made [Jesus] who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” So God illustrates the pouring out of His wrath on sin by this total blackout for three hours.

The second divine reaction to the death of Christ was to tear the veil of the temple in two. If you will recall, the common area of the temple was separated from the Holy of Holies by a curtain. Only once a year was the high priest allowed to enter it in order to make atonement for the sins of the people. Hebrews 9:6 tells us that the high priests could only enter there by the blood of a sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. And so God was illustrating by tearing this wall of separation in two from top to bottom, that a new way has been made to be reconciled to God through a better High Priest, and through a better, final sacrifice.

Heb. 9:11-15 “But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? For this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that, since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.”

So God tore the Holy of Holies veil from top to bottom, signifying that Christ’s death had torn down the wall of separation between Jews and Gentiles, and between God and man, that Jesus had instituted a new way to be reconciled to God for all men, that all who believe in Him might be saved. According to Ephesians 2:15, “by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity.”

Now lest you think that God tearing the veil into was a minor thing to mark such a momentous occasion, you should realize that this signified the total destruction of the system of Judaism as practiced at that time. Sacrifices and offerings have been discontinued ever since. Just 35 years later the temple was completely destroyed, set on fire and not one stone left standing upon another. The whole legalistic system of Judaism was overturned and has never recovered in 2000 years. By tearing the veil in two God made that announcement that afternoon, disrupting the priests who were trying to fulfill their Passover obligations, by slaughtering thousands of lambs that could never take away sins. But Jesus by one sacrifice took away the sins of millions of people who would come after Him.

The third divine event that happened that afternoon on the cross was what might be called the final breath. I don’t know how many of you have witnessed the final moments of death of someone. But if you have, you might have noticed how a person often seems to slip away; the breathing becomes more shallow, the organs and functions of the body began to shut down, and soon the breaths begin to become spaced further and further apart until the last breath is not repeated any more. Their life ebbs away from consciousness to unconsciousness to finally gone.

That is not the way Jesus died. Death on a cross was expected to be a long drawn out affair. It was designed to be tortuous, painful even to breathe. And as the hours go on, the body grows so weak that it cannot push itself up enough to speak, or even to gasp for air. It becomes a sort of suffocation. Many years ago as a lifeguard, I was once trained that suffocation whether in the water or on land usually was indicated by a person being unable to speak or cry out. And so the guards and everyone familiar with the process would have expected after a few hours the victim would be hardly able to breathe, much less able to speak, and their body would shut down to the point where eventually they would expire.

But what we see depicted here is not Jesus succumbing to death by strangulation or suffocation or even his faculties shutting down, but He voluntarily gives up His Spirit, and God takes His life from Him. Don’t forget, the soldiers and the priests might have been the human agents that carried out the crucifixion, but it was the plan and purpose of God to give His life as a sacrifice for sin. In John 10:17-18 Jesus said, “For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.”

Jesus wasn’t put to death, He rendered Himself to death. He submitted Himself to the purpose and will of God by offering Himself as a sacrifice for sin. Look at vs. 46, “And Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said, “Father, INTO YOUR HANDS I COMMIT MY SPIRIT.” Having said this, He breathed His last.” I believe God took Jesus in that moment, just as Abraham had depicted in the offering of Isaac on the altar, raising up the knife to slay his only son, and being saved by a ram placed there by God in the thicket. Now in this hour, Jesus who had the power to save His own life, who no nails could possibly hold on a cross if He did not allow it, submitted His Spirit to God the Father, to do His will, and the hand of God came down at that instant and pierced His only begotten Son in His heart and killed Him, so that He might demonstrate His love for us, even while we were yet sinners.

So in that context, consider the final cry of Jesus on the cross. Vs. 46, He called out with a loud voice, going out not with a whimper, but with a cry of victory. John 19:30 tells us more of what He said. He cried out “It is finished!” which is one word in the Greek; tetelestai- which literally means paid in full. This wasn’t the cry of a defeated victim of a failed Messiah, this is the cry of a winner, victorious because He had lived a sinless life, submitted in all things to the Father, in obedience even unto death, and by that death paid in full the debt of sin we owed. And having said that, He breathed His last breath. He relinquished His life to death.

Now those are the three divine responses to the death of Christ presented here. Let’s look briefly at three human responses which are also depicted in this passage. And perhaps it would be appropriate to consider them as representative responses of all men to the death of Christ. The first response is that of the centurion. Luke tells us in vs. 47 that “when the centurion saw what had happened, he began praising God, saying, “Certainly this man was innocent.” Now that is not all that he said, as we will soon see. This centurion would have been the officer in charge of the crucifixion squad that had taken Jesus from Pilate’s court, through the city streets, laid hold of Simon of Cyrene to carry the cross, and then nailed Jesus to the cross. These soldiers would have been the very ones who gambled over the division of His clothing while He suffered on the cross. They would have been the very ones that Jesus prayed for as they were pounding nails through His hands and feet, saying, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

And I will suggest that Jesus’ prayers are always answered as evidenced by the centurion’s remark. Jesus prayed that they would be forgiven, and the only way for forgiveness of sins is to recognize that Jesus Christ is the righteous Son of God and confess Him as Lord. And I think that is what is seen here. It’s interesting that this man, if he was saved, and I think he was, was a Gentile. The temple veil had just been rent in two, signifying that the way to God was made possible for all men, not just Jews. And now here is this Gentile, announcing that Jesus was an innocent man, even a righteous man. But as I said, there was more that was said by this man and the other soldiers. Matt. 27:54 tells us “Now the centurion, and those who were with him keeping guard over Jesus, when they saw the earthquake and the things that were happening, became very frightened and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!”

I think this man and possibly the other soldiers who crucified Jesus were saved in response to the prayer of Jesus for them. And the evidence for that claim is that they said He was the Son of God. If you remember when Jesus asked the disciples some time earlier, whom do men say that I am? Simon Peter answered Him and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of God.” And remember Jesus said unto Him in Matt. 16:17, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.”

I believe these pagan soldiers, cruel, heartless men that nailed the hands and feet of Jesus to the cross were convicted by God through the events of this day that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God. And believing in that fact, they received life in His name. They heard His words, they heard His prayers, they saw the darkness from God and the earthquake that accompanied it, and they saw the way He gave up His life of His own volition, and they believed that He was the Son of God, the Christ, the Messiah.

I believe these cruel soldiers are set first as an example of God’s desire for all that are exposed to the testimony of the cross. God is not willing for any to perish. Jesus said, If I am lifted up, I will draw all men to me. If these men could be saved – Gentiles, cruel soldiers, pagans – then anyone can be saved. In those hours by the cross of Jesus they were transformed by the power of God to believe and be saved. This is what Christ died for. This is God’s purpose for everyone who is impacted by the cross. Even 2000 years later the salvation of Christ is still effective, still available for you and everyone that hears the gospel so that they may be saved.

But there is a second group of people also there that day that witnessed the cross. They saw what the soldiers saw. They are described in vs. 48, which says, “And all the crowds who came together for this spectacle, when they observed what had happened, began to return, beating their breasts.” Beating the breast was a common ritual associated with grieving. I cannot help but think of the people represented by the crowds, without thinking of the millions of people who have some sort of intellectual comprehension of the historicity of the cross, perhaps even sense the tragedy of the death of an innocent man, and yet they fall short of salvation offered through the cross. It is possible to be impacted by the cross in some way but not accept the gift of salvation offered through the cross. The people in this crowd went away beating their breasts. They were mourning the death of a good man, even an innocent man. But they failed to understand that this Son of God died on the cross in their place, so that they might be saved.

There is a difference between the reaction of the centurion and the crowds. The centurion saw the death of Christ and said, surely this was the Son of God. And then very significantly in vs. 47 it says he began glorifying God. He began praising God. Why? Because God revealed to Him that Jesus was dying for him. I don’t know how. But I know that a pagan would not normally praise God that the Son of God was just killed unless God showed him that it was for his benefit. Because Jesus died, he was made righteous through faith in Christ. That is the reason to praise God about the death of Christ. But this crowd, they see that Jesus has died and they lament perhaps the cruelty of Rome, they lament that a good man in whom they had once hoped for social reform was now dead. They go away sad. But they aren’t changed by His death. They don’t praise God for it. They see nothing to rejoice in. They go back home sad. They go back to their lives without any hope.

I’m afraid that there are a lot of people today that believe that Jesus lived, believe that He died on the cross, that may participate in certain rituals commemorating His death, and yet they remain unsaved. They have no hope of their salvation. They continue to work at their religion, continue to confess their sins to priests, to try to appeal to dead saints for help, yet ultimately they die without a real hope, a real assurance of their salvation because they never understood the finished work that Jesus did on the cross for them and appropriated that salvation for themselves. They have seen this spectacle of the gospel, and yet left the greatest gift of all unopened under the Christmas tree, the robe of righteousness that Jesus bought for them with His own blood. They left it there, and never put it on by faith in what Jesus had done for them.

And that leaves us with the final group of people depicted there at the cross in this passage. And that is the women and acquaintances of Jesus who stood off at a distance.   First, I would point out that they were standing at a distance. You know what’s sad about these people? I think that they are believers. I think they are Christians. But I think they are put off by the cross. They are put off by the suffering that is there. And so they stand as far away as they can and still be able to see what is going on.

I think a lot of modern day disciples are like these folks. They stand as far away as possible and still be able to say that they are there. They want the least amount of Christianity possible and still be saved. They don’t want to come all the way to the cross. They appreciate what Christ did for them there, but they want nothing of the cross for themselves. I feel confident though that as those true believers continued in their discipleship after the resurrection they become familiar with the fellowship of the sufferings of Christ. Because I think that is the path to maturity that all believers must trod if they are going to follow Christ. Jesus said in Luke 9:23, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.”

So their association with the sufferings of Christ would come in time. But on this day, they wanted to stand as far away as possible. I wonder how many of us might have our discipleship characterized like that? We want to do as little as possible and still be in. We trust in the grace of God but then presume upon that grace to do little or nothing in service to the God who saved us. Our lives are never characterized by any sacrifice of our own. We are more than content to let Jesus do all the suffering alone, while attempting to reap the benefits of both heaven and the world.

There is one small clue in Luke’s description that portends what God will do with these people, these acquaintances that stand far away from the suffering of the cross. Luke says that they were “seeing these things.” They were eyewitnesses of His suffering. Peter would say many years later in his epistle, in 2 Pet. 1:16, “For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty.”

I think God used the eyewitness of these hesitant disciples to ultimately turn the world upside down. They were hesitant then, fearful even, but when they witnessed not only the death of Christ but His resurrection, then they received confidence in their own immortality. They surrendered their grip on the present world and in that new found confidence in the next they went out in the power of the Holy Spirit as witnesses to their communities, their cities, their countries and to the ends of the earth proclaiming the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And I think that is what God intends for all of us hesitant disciples who are fearful of associating with the cross of Christ. I think God wants to impact first of all your life with the vision of the cross, so that by your consecrated life you can impact others with the message of the cross. But to do that I think that you have to surrender your life to the cross, taking up your cross daily and following Jesus. How do you do that, you ask? Romans 12:1-2 “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

That is what it means to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. To join in the fellowship of His suffering. That we might use our bodies for the sake of the gospel, just as Jesus did, submitting Himself to the will of God, even through His death. That we might be holy, even as He is holy. That we might live righteously, so that others might not stumble over us, but rather see the light of Christ in us.

This world is in darkness, held in the power of darkness. But through the power of the cross we can live our lives in such as way as to fulfill the command of Jesus found in Matt. 5:16; “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

What is your response today to the death of Christ? Are you saved by the power of the cross as the centurion? Can you praise God for the death of Christ as a substitute for your sins? That is God’s purpose for all men, that they would be saved by the death of Christ.

Or is your response to Christ’s death like the second group? Have you turned away from the sacrifice made there? Have you seen this spectacle of the gospel and turned back to the way of the world. Have you no hope in life after death? What a tragedy that would be, to see all of this great love of God for you manifested on the cross and yet walk away without the salvation purchased there by Christ’s death.

Or are you one of His followers, but standing as far away as possible from the suffering of the cross? Are you trying to hold onto the best of both worlds, neither in or out, perhaps a secret disciple, or a fearful disciple? I hope that the impact of Christ’s death on the cross will compel you to love God with all your heart and soul and strength, forsaking the world and present your body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service of worship. Let us pray.

The effective, fervent prayer of Christ, Luke 22:39-46

Many years ago I built a house in Harford County, MD on eight wooded acres. And as part of that process I cleared a large portion of the land. There were a couple of acres of meadow at the bottom of the hill that I piled up two great big mounds of fallen trees and brush and so forth. Eventually it became time to burn these big huge piles of brush and logs. The first one I made a little fire off to the side and fed it gradually with the debris from the large pile. It took a really long time to do it that way.   So when I got ready to do the next pile I decided to just torch the whole pile at once.

Being out in the country, I didn’t have any running water or any way to deal with the fire, except for a blanket and an empty five gallon bucket. But there was a very small stream that started on our property about 50 yards away that barely had enough water in it to get your feet wet. But anyhow, I didn’t feel like messing around with this pile so I struck a match and threw it on this pile of debris. This pile, by the way was huge. It was about 15 feet high by about 20 feet in diameter in the middle of a small meadow.

Well, I’ve started a number of campfires and bonfires in my day, but I have never seen a fire start like that one did. It quickly caught and within seconds it became a roaring blaze. The fire spread so fast and grew so big I began to panic. I began to pray out loud- very loudly, very fervently. Still praying, I picked up the blanket and ran for the stream. Throwing it in the water I tried my best to soak it in the little bit of water that was in the stream. And when I looked back at the burning pile, it was now this huge blaze shooting maybe 25 feet up in the air. It sounded like a forest fire, and I could easily imagine it jumping across the meadow to the ring of trees surrounding the clearing. So I began to pray even more in earnest and ran towards the fire. By now it was so hot I couldn’t get close to it, so I swung the blanket and threw it towards the flame hoping it would land on the part that was burning the fiercest. Thank God He directed the blanket and it did sort of land in a good spot to help smother a part of the flames. But then the blanket burned up. And so I ran back to the stream with my bucket. But the stream was so shallow that I could only get about half of the bucket filled up.

So anyhow, I continued to run back and forth, and I continued to cry out to God for help as much as I could considering how winded I had become. And there was a minute or two when I seriously thought it was over. I almost ran back to my truck and started blowing the horn. I was going to drive over to the next couple of houses that were in the woods and blow my horn all the way, hopefully to get them to evacuate their homes. I was sure that the whole woods and our homes were going to go up in flames. Somehow though, God kept the fire from reaching the trees around the meadow. But for the next couple of years, those trees never grew leaves on that side facing the clearing. The heat had just killed the branches facing the meadow all the way around the clearing.

James 5:16 says that the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. And I have never read that verse of scripture without thinking of that day when I almost started a forest fire. I know it was only God that kept it from getting out of control. My prayer wasn’t exactly according to any sort of protocol. I wasn’t a shining example of a righteous man. But I will say that I was very fervent, and I will say that my prayer was effective, in spite of my spiritual limitations.  However, I don’t think that my fervency was the determining factor, but that God was merciful and He was effective.

Today however, we are going to look at the effective, fervent prayer of the ultimate righteous man, Jesus Christ. And I hope that we will see in this prayer some characteristics that we can include in our prayer life that we too might be more effective. Last Wednesday night, by the way for those of you that weren’t there, we looked at the intercessory prayer of Abraham as our example. And I believe that was very instructive as it laid a foundation for intercessory prayer. We saw in that study that prayer should be reverent, we should be eager to do it, it should be humble, it is an invitation to God to examine us, it is communion with God, it is fellowship with God, dialogue with the Lord, prayer reiterates the promises of God, it believes in the power of God, is in accordance with the nature of God, and trusts in the justice of God, the goodness of God.

Now in this record of Christ’s prayer we are not going to see all those principles reiterated. Luke gives us an abbreviated record of this event. But certain aspects of Christ’s prayer are highlighted here, which I think are certainly indicative of an effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man. Those attributes are exactly what the writer of Hebrews was talking about in Heb. 5:7 “In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety.”

So let’s look at the text and notice first the place of prayer. In vs. 39 we are told that Jesus and His disciples left the upper room after the Passover meal and went out on the Mount of Olives. The other gospel writers are even more specific; they say that they went to a garden on the Mount of Olives called Gethsemane. It was the place of an oil press, used in the production of olive oil. They say that today there are eight olive trees in the place they believe to be the Garden of Gethsemane which were there in the time of Christ.

But I hope the significance of that name is not lost on us. Christ went to the oil press on the Mount of Olives, because according to Isaiah 53: 10, “But the LORD was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief; if He would render Himself as a guilt offering…” God chose to put Jesus in a place of crushing, that He might become the oil that would heal the world of sin.

And so too God often places us in a place of great stress, a place of crushing pressure, that we might turn to God for strength to be able to endure it. James tells us that it is part of the process of sanctification, that we might be made complete. James 1:2-4 “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” Prayer working through the stress of our trials produces the oil of endurance that enables God to complete His work in us.

One other note about the place of Jesus prayer and that is found in vs. 41, “And He withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and began to pray.” Listen, there is a time for corporate prayer. There is a time for leading in prayer. Christ’s magnificent prayer in the upper room found in the book of John is a great example of public prayer. But I believe our most effective prayer is often found in times of private prayer. Many times we are told that Jesus withdrew to a mountain alone to pray all night. Jesus was a man of private prayer. And on this night, when the intensity of Satan’s attack and the crushing wrath of God on sin would be poured out on Him, Jesus wanted to get alone before God His Father. Folks you don’t have to have a specific location to pray, we can pray to God at anytime, in any place. But we do need to get alone with God on a regular basis and really get down to business with Him by ourselves, all night long if necessary. If Jesus needed to do it, then how much more should we?

So God puts Jesus in the place of crushing in the Garden of Gethsemane that He might be poured out for sinners. Then we see the paradox of prayer in vs. 40, “When He arrived at the place, He said to them, ‘Pray that you may not enter into temptation.’” We’re going to focus on the Lord’s prayer here this morning, but in contrast we see the disciples failed efforts at prayer. We know from vs. 46 that Jesus comes back to them and says, “Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not enter into temptation.”

Actually, the other gospel writers add that Jesus came back another time as well and woke them up again. But Christ wasn’t desiring that they would pray for Him. He was concerned about them, telling them that they needed to pray for themselves that they would not enter into temptation. Jesus had already told Peter in the upper room that Satan had asked permission to sift them like wheat. They had been forewarned that there was going to be a special time of temptation. And now He is saying that they needed to pray to not enter into temptation. But instead they are sleeping.

Listen, the lack of prayer is a great cause of failure in the Christian life. We fall in private before we ever fall in public. In my own experience I have learned that when I am tempted to sin, I can overcome that temptation just by praying for God to deliver me. But when I neglect prayer, I find my flesh is not strong enough to resist temptation. Peter had been warned, but he was tired. It was late. He didn’t see the spiritual battle that was coming, the temptations that were going to come. He thought that he was able to withstand the sifting that Satan had desired to put him through. He was confident that he would never fall away. And yet when he was supposed to be praying, he was sleeping. And when he awoke he acted in the strength of his flesh and struck the servant’s ear with his sword. Then he denied Jesus three times at the fireside of the soldiers as Jesus was being tried.

Listen, we have been warned. The Bible makes it clear that we will endure trials, temptations and tribulations. Peter said in 1Pet. 5:8 that the devil goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. In Acts 14:22 it says, “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.” And also in 2Tim. 3:12, “Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” We should learn from Jesus’ instructions to the disciples that we need to “watch and pray that we may not enter into temptation.” “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

I heard someone paraphrase that verse the other day which reads, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is looking forward to the weekend.” It’s amazing how low on our priorities church is today. One of the reasons we come together in church is to pray, to acknowledge our need for strength and implore God’s help. And to pray for one another, and strengthen one another. We neglect church to our peril.

So that is the paradox; a neglect of prayer on the part of the disciples contrasted with the fervency of Christ in prayer. Now let’s look at the posture of fervent prayer. Vs. 41 says, “And [Jesus] withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and began to pray…” Actually, a more complete picture is given by Matthew and Mark. They say He prostrated Himself. He fell on His face. If you combine the three accounts, Jesus left the disciples at the gate, He brought Peter, James and John a little further inside, and then continued on by Himself a stone’s throw away and knelt down to pray, then as the intensity increases in His anguish, He falls face down, prostrate on the ground in prayer.

You know, the Bible doesn’t dictate to us the posture of prayer. It was the custom in those days to pray standing up. We have the freedom to pray in whatever position we may find ourselves in. But the principle that Jesus taught concerning prayer is found in Matt. 6:5-6 “When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.” The principle is to get alone with God and unveil your heart before Him. Because God sees the heart.

The posture in prayer presented here in Christ’s example is that of humility. He knelt down, then He fell down. That is the posture of humility. We saw Abraham do the same thing when he ran up to the Lord, bowing himself down to the ground. True prayer comes in humility, not in arrogance or pride, or with a sense of entitlement. Jesus was entitled, if anyone was. But yet Phil. 2:5-8 says, “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

Notice twice there in those verses the humanity of Christ is emphasized. “Being made in appearance as a man, being made in the likeness of men.” That’s very important in correctly understanding this passage in Luke. Because here we see Christ in His humanity. Christ is fully God and fully human. He had to be both in order to be a fitting substitute for sinners. In order for Heb. 4:15 to be true which says, “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.” He had to be made like us, to be tempted like us, so that He might intercede for us.

This dual nature of Christ is hard for us to understand. But in this hour especially, Christ is fully human, so that “God could make Him who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” (2Cor. 5:21) So the posture of prayer is that of humility.

Next, we see the petition of prayer. Vs. 42, “And He withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and began to pray, saying, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” It’s so important that we see that Jesus is not even in this hour of great anguish asking for anything that is not the Father’s will. What He was going through was so terrible, so grievous, so stressful that it says that He was sweating profusely, and the sweat was like drops of blood. He asks if there is another way then He would like this cup to pass from Him. Now what is He talking about? Is He asking to avoid the cross? I don’t think so.

Jesus is not going through some momentary lapse of spiritual resolve here. Far from it. Jesus had said just a week before at the triumphal entry into Jerusalem that He had come for this purpose and He would not shrink from it. John 12:27 “Now My soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour.” Jesus’ goal was the cross from the very inception of God’s plan for salvation. I believe with His last ounce of strength He would have resolutely crawled to the cross. It is inconceivable that Christ shrank from the cross. It was the goal line, and nothing would deter Him from it.

So what then? I believe He shrank from the horror of sin. He had never known sin. He was holy, righteous, spotless. He is so holy and righteous that the prospect and the reality of having the sin of the world placed upon Him was a horror that we can not imagine. 2 Cor. 5:21 says that He became sin for us. That realization is incomprehensible to us, and violently reprehensible to Christ. 1 Pet. 2:24, “and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.” Peter echoes the themes of Isaiah 53 which adds in vs. 4 that “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

And Christ had never known separation from God. He and the Father were One. He had always been with the Father. But sin would cause a separation from God the Father which would cause Jesus to cry out on the cross, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” Jesus knew the horror of being separated from God. The horror that we are destined to endure were it not that Jesus suffered it there for us.

What Jesus was asking for was that if there was any way He could atone for sins without the horror of iniquity being laid on Him, then He would that it would pass. It was an honorable request. It was the request of a holy, righteous God incarnate who abhorred sin. Listen, the root of our confessions to God, the root of our petitions before God must include an abhorrence of sin. We must understand that our sin is an affront a holy God. I’m afraid that Christians today have no concept of how repulsive their sin is to God. That is why there is this attitude out there that God just loves everyone, and doesn’t care about sin. Love is all that God is. No, my friend. God is HOLY. God is just. God hates sin. God cannot abide sin, He must separate from sin. And as such we should remember the words of David who said, “If I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me.”

Thank the Lord Jesus said “But not My will, but Your will be done.” That is the key to effective prayer. Rom. 8:27 says, “He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” Jesus gave us an example of prayer in what we call the Lord’s prayer. He says,“thy kingdom come, thy will be done…” For our prayers to be effective we must ask in accordance with the will of God.

I’m afraid so many Christians today use prayer as an excuse for disobedience. They say I’ll pray about it, when they should say I’ll do it. Prayer is not a substitute for obedience to what God has clearly presented in His word. Listen, we are poor judges of what is good for us. If I had gotten everything I prayed for at various times in my life I would be in all kinds of trouble. One thing for sure is that I would not be standing here today. We need to pray that God’s will would be done and then trust that His will is good. 1John 5:14 “This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.”

Then in vs. 43 we see the proliferation of prayer. “Now an angel from heaven appeared to Him, strengthening Him.” I confess I do not understand this fully. Why did Jesus need an angel? What could an angel do that He could not do? I can only rely on what the Bible says about angels in Heb. 1:14 “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?” Somehow, in Christ’s humanity, in His anguish and separation from God, He could be refreshed by an angel so that He might endure this trial. I think Jesus had reached His physical limits in His striving against sin.

Even though it was God’s plan that He would crush Him, He also strengthened Him that He might endure the weight of the sin of the world. 1Cor. 10:13 says, “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.” This was a supernatural burden that required supernatural assistance and restoration so that there might be a proliferation of prayer. The angel strengthened Him that He might be able to pray even more. And that is what happens when we pray and reach the limit of our endurance. Rom. 8:26-27 “In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

Listen, no matter how terrible the load is that you might bear, if you bring it to the Lord He will help you carry it. Jesus said in Matt. 11:28-29 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS.”

Finally, let’s look at vs. 44, for the perseverance of prayer. “And being in agony He was praying very fervently; and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground.” See, the angel came to strengthen Him that He might continue in prayer. Listen the prayer wasn’t the thing that was crushing Him so much that blood mingled with His sweat, but sin was crushing Him. Prayer was strengthening Him. Prayer was triumphing over sin. Remember what Heb. 5:7 says; “In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety.” Prayer fortified His righteousness which produced triumph over sin.

There are only two weapons at our disposal in the armory of God according to Ephesians 6. The Word of God which is the sword of the Lord, and prayer. And this is what it has to say about prayer as an offensive weapon against the forces of darkness. Eph. 6:18 “With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit (in agreement with the Spirit), and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.”

Listen, I hear people say about a lost loved one, or someone they know that isn’t saved, “well, I can’t make them become a Christian. I can’t force it on them. They are going to have to make up their own minds.” And with that attitude we throw up our hands in surrender and resume our regularly scheduled program on the television.   But folks, we do have a weapon that can prevail against the spiritual forces of evil in high places. We have been given the weapon of prayer. I don’t know how it works. I don’t know how to fly a F-16 either, but I do know it is a powerful weapon. However, God has given me and you the power of a nuclear bomb; the Word of God and prayer. And so I’m going to pray at all times in the Spirit (that means according to the will of God) an be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.

Like Jesus, I’m going to agonize in prayer for my loved ones. I’m going to pray all night if necessary that they be delivered from evil. Let me ask you something, ladies and gentlemen. When was the last time you prayed all night long for someone? When was the last time you agonized so much in your soul that you broke out in a sweat? Thank God that Christ did not shirk from laboring that night in the garden. He triumphed over evil for our sakes, so that we might be delivered from sin.

I believe the Bible teaches that we can change things through prayer. The Lord said to Sarah when she laughed, “Is anything too difficult for the Lord?” And the answer of Luke 1:37 is that nothing will be impossible with God. I could add another “P” to my list and mention the partnership of prayer. Jesus asked the disciples to pray with Him. God wants to partner with us in the business of the kingdom and one of the ways we do that is through prayer. And when we pray, the Holy Spirit prays, and Christ our great High Priest prays. We have a partnership in prayer with God. What a shame it would be to neglect so great a privilege.

Folks, Jesus is our Savior, but He is also our example. He is our pattern that we should follow in His footsteps. So we pray as He prayed. We join in the fellowship of His sufferings. As Heb. 12:3-4 says, “For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin.”

Listen, we need to wake up as a church and pray that we might not enter into temptation. We need to pray for our weakness in the fight against sin, that God would strengthen us and restore a right spirit within us. And then we need to pray for our loved ones and the lost that the eyes of their heart would be opened and that the truth of God would shine in their hearts. Jesus rose up from His prayer in triumph that night. He faced His trials with confidence that God would not abandon His soul, but that He would raise Him from the dead. Jesus had confidence born out of prayer. And so can we. Heb. 4:16 “Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

The end of the age, Luke 21:8-28

It seems to be a characteristic of the human condition that people are more interested in knowing the future than knowing the past. People might line up at a carnival in front of a fortune teller’s tent, but not many would line up for a show about ancient history. Yet there is an old adage which should be very familiar to all of us; “those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

Actually, I learned while researching that quote that the original statement was made by a philosopher named George Santayana, and it goes like this: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” I didn’t remember that, but I think the sentiment is the same. Those that don’t learn from the past, or can’t remember the past are doomed to repeat it.

Today we are looking at a passage of scripture which we call predictive prophecy which has two parts to it, a part that is past, that is, it’s been fulfilled, and that which is yet future. We should be able to learn from past prophecies that have been fulfilled. Predictive prophecy though means that means something that is predicted to happen in the future. Not all prophecy is predictive. Not all prophets tell the future, or prophesy about future events. Being a prophet of God means first of all that one speaks forth the truth of God. In that sense I might be considered a prophet, or to have the gift of prophecy or engage in the act of prophecy. But predictive prophecy is another facet of prophecy that isn’t necessarily given to all prophets. I don’t have the gift of predictive prophecy, and I don’t think it is a gift that is given today. I believe it was given to Christ and to His apostles as sign gifts.

By the way, there is an interesting injunction given in the Bible in regards to those that prophesy in a predictive manner. There is no room given for error. If one errs in their predictive prophecy, if the event that they speak of does not come to pass, the Bible says that such a one is not actually a prophet of God at all, and should be stoned to death. Now that is an OT injunction, and unfortunately in those cases we are no longer under the law. I think it would clear the air significantly if we were able to practice stoning false prophets according to that standard today. Because there are a great deal of false prophets masquerading in the church, pretending to be able to tell future events, and they are offering a false doctrine that leads people astray. And yet their prophecies are consistently wrong, and naive people continue to follow them.

In this passage we are looking at today, known as the Olivet Discourse, Jesus is speaking predictive prophecy. And as such, it is one of the most amazing prophesies that has ever been recorded. Because we have the great advantage today of seeing a large portion of this prophecy as having been fulfilled. That fulfillment should serve to bolster our faith. And it should also serve as a warning to those that are unwilling to learn from the past, that they are doomed to repeat it. Because I believe that there are two major parts to this prophecy, one that has been fulfilled, and one part that is yet to come. And if we don’t learn from the one which has past, then we are going to be condemned to repeat a similar judgment when the one comes in the future.

Now I will say at the outset that I go into this passage with some hesitancy. To use another famous quote, “fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” I don’t want to make foolish assumptions in exegeting this prophecy. Jesus said that angels long to look into the things which are to come, but of the day and hour only God knows. Paul referred to the end time as a mystery. Jesus said in Acts 1:7 “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father has put in his own power.” So I don’t want to presume to know too much. Many, many men a whole lot smarter than I am have spent years studying these texts in search of the correct interpretation of this passage. And yet there is still a great debate in theological circles regarding how to correctly interpret this prophecy.

My view, and I think a number of conservative theologian’s view, is that it is a two part prophecy as I indicated. One part has been fulfilled, and yet perhaps has overtones for events still to come. And one part is unfulfilled, and is still in the future. Unfortunately, even though many theologians may agree with that statement, that doesn’t solve every problem. There is still plenty of room for disagreement even within those parameters.

So I tread lightly in eschatological debates, and I tend to focus on what is clearly presented rather than focus on those things which are purposefully presented as vague or indeterminate. I believe that if God wanted us to know everything that was going to happen in sequential order then He would have easily done so. One thing I have learned from a verse by verse preaching of Matthew and Luke for over 5 years combined is that Jesus Himself was deliberately vague on many occasions. And Scripture, especially predictive prophecy, is often deliberately vague. It’s often written in allegorical, figurative language. I don’t know why. God has His reasons. So I will focus on what I can be clearly understood and trust Him with what I cannot understand.

Now all of this Discourse stems from the questions asked by the disciples after Jesus announced that the temple would one day be destroyed and not one stone left upon another. They asked in vs. 7, “Teacher, when therefore will these things happen? And what will be the sign when these things are about to take place?”

Now to help understand this passage, you need to look also at the parallel accounts found in Matthew and Mark’s gospels. Each of them includes or leaves out certain details of Jesus’ message that others include as they present their portraits of Christ. So to get the complete picture, you need to look at all three. Matthew adds an important element to their initial question in Matthew 24. He adds, “Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?”

That phrase “end of the age” is important. Unfortunately the KJV uses the phrase, “end of the world.” But the Greek word for world is cosmos, and the word for age or epoch is ion. So the correct translation is not world, but the end of the age. And that distinction helps us to get a better handle on how to understand what Jesus was talking about.

The key though comes in considering the context which prompted their question. What prompted their question was Jesus statement in vs. 6 that the temple would be destroyed. Their question follows that statement by saying, “when therefore will these things be? And what will be the sign when these things are about to take place? That’s the context for Jesus’ answer. So it’s a mistake to start interpreting these comments according to some eschatological format without keeping in mind the question that Jesus is responding to. He is responding what sign will be given when the temple is going to be destroyed. And then in addition, He will respond to the other question tacked on to that in Matthew’s version which is “and what will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age?” So there are two questions, and so Jesus gives two answers.

The first answer to the question regarding the destruction of the temple is found in verses 8-24. The answer to the second question regarding His coming and the end of the age is found in verses 25 -36. Now another key to help us understand this is found in vs. 24 which says concerning the Jews, “and they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled under foot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.”

So because of time constraints this morning I am going to give you the Cliff notes version of interpretation, which is that there are 3 ages presented in the Bible. There was the ancient age, the time before Noah up until the flood. That lasted approximately 2000 years. Then there was the age of the Jews starting with Abraham up to the time of Christ. That was approximately another 2000 years. And then as indicated in vs. 24, there is the age of the Gentiles, which has lasted about another 2000 years. I happen to believe that the end of the age of the Gentiles is very soon. Perhaps in our lifetime. Six thousand years have past, and three ages have been instituted and are now drawing to a close. And I believe the coming seventh millennium symbolizes the time when Christ will come back and rule the world, as a new heaven and new earth, for eternity. It is the eternal rest that was promised by the symbol of the Sabbath, the seventh day.

So the ancient age ended with destruction of all human flesh. It ended with the flood. Then after that God instituted a second age; the age of the Jews which started with a promise to a Abraham that he would have a son, and that from his seed would come a nation, and from that seed would come one from whom the whole world would be blessed. That second age, the age of the Jews would also come to an end, just as the first did. The ancient age was evil, they rejected God, they co-married with demons, they were exceedingly wicked, and so God brought judgment upon the whole earth save 8 persons.

And the second age of the Jews was evil as well. So Jesus predicts the judgment upon the age of the Jews. He prefaces it by saying that the temple, which was the center of Judaism, the center of Israel in the capital city of Israel, Jerusalem would be destroyed. And so up through vs. 24 Jesus is describing the judgment upon the temple, Jerusalem, and the Jews because they rejected the manifestation of the Son of God and put Him to death. History tells us that this judgment happened just as Jesus predicted just about 38 years after His death, in 70AD.

Then in vs. 25 through 36, Jesus predicts the future judgment upon the world, all the nations, which is categorized as the end of the age of the Gentiles. In this last judgment, Peter says that the world at that time will be judged by fire. 2Pet. 3:3-13 “Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, ‘Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.’ For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.”

Now that’s the overview. Let’s look then at some of the details of the judgment of each of the last two ages. As Jesus begins in vs. 8, He is addressing particularly the 12 disciples who are with Him on the Mount of Olives a couple of nights before His crucifixion. He primarily wants to prepare them for what is going to happen after He is crucified. And so He begins by saying, “Don’t be misled. Don’t be fooled by people running around claiming that I have returned. Or that the end of the world is at hand. Beware of false teachers who will come after My death and try to mislead you.”

And Jesus is rightly concerned because He knows that it is going to be a long time before He returns in power. He knows a lot of things are going to happen which are going to rock the faith of the church. He says in vs. 9 that there are going to be a lot of wars and disturbances, but not to be terrified by that, because the end does not follow immediately. It’s going to be a long time. Rome would go through tremendous political upheaval in the next 35 years or so. Emperors would be assassinated one after another sometimes within the space of just three months.

But remember, though this might sound like He is talking about events today, He is actually addressing their question regarding the destruction of the temple. He goes on to say that nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be great earthquakes and plages and famines and terrors and great signs from heaven. Again, that sounds like something out of Revelation that we would ascribe to modern day events. But vs. 12 makes it clear that He is still speaking to the disciples in regards to the destruction of the temple and the end of the Jewish age.

And historians tell us that many of those things did happen prior to the destruction of Jerusalem. For instance, there were comets that were seen in the sky such as Haley’s comet during the reign of Nero that caused great concern among the people of that day. There were famines. There were earthquakes and there were many uprisings and wars.

However, if you flip back over to Matthew’s version and look at vs. 8 you will see that Jesus adds, “But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs.” There is still a ways to go before the end of the Jewish age.

But in vs. 12 once again Jesus turns His attention back to His disciples. He wants to prepare them for what they are going to suffer for His name. You can almost put parenthesis around vs. 12 through 19. This is His message of assurance to His disciples in particular. It is not a blanket statement for all Christians. It is spoken specifically and was specifically fulfilled with the apostles and His immediate disciples. Vs.12 “But before all these things, (before the destruction of the temple) they will lay their hands on you and will persecute you, delivering you to the synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for My name’s sake. It will lead to an opportunity for your testimony. So make up your minds not to prepare beforehand to defend yourselves; for I will give you utterance and wisdom which none of your opponents will be able to resist or refute. But you will be betrayed even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death, and you will be hated by all because of My name. Yet not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls.”

Now a reading of the book of Acts will show you that the disciples did in fact suffer those things. We know that all of the apostles lost their lives as a martyr except for John. Many other disciples were executed as well, such as Stephen and James. But we need to understand that Jesus is using an expression that not a hair of their head will perish as a metaphor which is underscored by the next line, which is by your endurance you will gain or save your souls. In other words, though they may lose their life here on earth, they will never die, but they will be saved, secured in the presence of God. In a sense, they will not lose even a hair of their head, even though some would have their head cut off, because their soul was preserved complete through Christ. But you can put a parenthesis around all of that because He clarifies it in vs. 12 by saying that “before all these things”, these things being the destruction of the temple, you will be arrested and persecuted and some of you killed.

Now back to Jesus description of the judgment of Jerusalem. He says in vs.20 “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then recognize that her desolation is near. Then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains, and those who are in the midst of the city must leave, and those who are in the country must not enter the city; because these are days of vengeance, so that all things which are written will be fulfilled. Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days; for there will be great distress upon the land and wrath to this people; and they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled under foot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.”

What is really interesting in this prophecy is that Jesus warns His followers not to do what was the normal thing to do when a foreign army comes upon a city. They lived in or around walled cities which served as fortifications in times of war. The people that lived in the open or on the outskirts of town would flee to the city and they would close the gates against the invaders. And so the attacking army would besiege the town, many times for months until the town ran out of food and surrendered or overrun. The Romans developed a lot of specialized equipment for this type of warfare such as battering rams and catapults that would hurl huge boulders into the walls to try to break down the walls or gates. But Jesus warns His disciples to not seek shelter in the city. He warns them that when the city is about to be surrounded by armies, flee instead to the mountains and get out of the city, because the vengeance of God is coming upon Jerusalem. All God’s prophecies of judgment against rebellious Israel will be coming down on them. And so Jesus warns His people to flee the city.

History records that this is exactly what happened. But though a few Christian Jews escaped Jerusalem, most of the other Jews acted as was their custom. They ran to Jerusalem. And when the Romans under General Titus in 70AD finally broke through the walls and overran the city as Jesus had prophesied, 1.1 million Jews were massacred. Those that survived were scattered across the Middle East. They were taken captive. They were hunted from one nation to another. They lost their homeland. They lost their temple.

Josephus, the Jewish historian, wrote in detail concerning the siege of Jerusalem. He wrote of the hardships of the long siege and the famine within the city that led to cannibalism among some of it’s inhabitants. And he wrote of how the marauding Roman soldiers set fire to the temple, and the gold plates that covered the outer walls melted and the gold ran down into the crevices between the stones. So the soldiers pried the stones apart in order to get at the gold. As Jesus had prophesied, not one stone was left upon another. The Jewish temple was destroyed. The sacrifices ceased. The priesthood dissolved as the Israelites suffered for 2000 years in the dispersion. And as of 70 AD, the city of Jerusalem was trampled underfoot by the Gentiles for almost 2000 years.

The most amazing thing concerning this prophecy is that in our lifetime we have seen the Jews return to the land of Israel in 1948. Then after the 6 day war in 1967, the Jews retook half of the city of Jerusalem. Jesus said that the time of the Gentiles would begin with the trampling underfoot of Jerusalem. So it would stand to reason that the end of the age of the Gentiles comes with the Jews coming back into the city of Jerusalem. We could argue that the Jews do not have complete control of it yet, but the fact that they are there after being scattered around the world for 2000 years is a fulfillment of prophecy that is simply astonishing. I believe it indicates that the age of the Gentiles is about to come to a close.

And in that regard, let’s look quickly at the end of the age of the Gentiles. I believe that starts being described for us in vs. 25. But once again, we are well served by Matthew’s version which helps us to see that there is a transition in the prophecy. Jesus is giving us a telescopic view which goes from the end of the age of the Jews to the end of the age of the Gentiles, or nations. We see the mountain ranges of the prophecy, but it’s not clear due to the telescopic nature of the prophecy the intervening time between the events. Matt. 24:21 “For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will. Unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short. Then if anyone says to you, ‘Behold, here is the Christ,’ or ‘There He is,’ do not believe him. For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.”

Now here we see similar language as that which Jesus warned would be happening at the end of the age of the Jews. False prophets misleading people would arise. It happened after Jesus was crucified during the time of the apostles. And 2000 years later it will be characteristic of the end of the age of the Gentiles. You definitely get the sense that this time there is an escalation of what happened earlier. That is why I said we must learn from the past in order to keep from making the same mistakes in the future. Because now Jesus says the deception is going to be so complete that if possible even the very elect would be deceived by their signs and wonders.

By the way, there is a fast growing church denomination in the Charismatic movement today that has heralded the fact that they will be known by their signs and wonders. They use that exact language. It’s called the Vineyard and they are really growing on the west coast. I wonder if they have considered what Jesus said here concerning those that mislead by performing signs and wonders as being a characteristic of false prophets. I hope none of you will be misled by such things.

So back in our text in Luke Jesus says this coming judgment at the end of the age of the Gentiles will not only be characterized by false doctrines and deception, but in vs. 25, “There will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth dismay among nations, in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, men fainting from fear and the expectation of the things which are coming upon the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see THE SON OF MAN COMING IN A CLOUD with power and great glory.” Matthew adds to that in Matt. 24:29-31 “But immediately after the tribulation of those days THE SUN WILL BE DARKENED, AND THE MOON WILL NOT GIVE ITS LIGHT, AND THE STARS WILL FALL from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the SON OF MAN COMING ON THE CLOUDS OF THE SKY with power and great glory. And He will send forth His angels with A GREAT TRUMPET and THEY WILL GATHER TOGETHER His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.”

So the end of the age of the Gentiles will also be the end of the ages. A great tribulation will precede Jesus coming back suddenly in the clouds, with a loud trumpet. And the dead in Christ will be resurrected first from the grave and we that are alive will then be caught up to be with the Lord. We are living in the last days. Jesus is coming back soon. Every eye will see Him, and those that rejected Him will mourn.

But there are some here that I’m sure are thinking that it’s been 2000 years since Jesus lived, and things continue just as they always have. They see the fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy concerning the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem and it doesn’t faze them. They see the miracle of the Jews go back into Israel after 2000 years and it doesn’t faze them. They see the rise of false doctrines and the escalation of wickedness on the earth and it doesn’t faze them. They continue on with their lives eating and drinking and living like they want, just as the people did during the age of Noah, in the days before the flood. For those of you that think that way I will remind you of Peter’s words, written 2000 years ago in 2 Peter 3:8, “But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up. Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.”

Jesus said back in our text in Luke, “But when these things begin to take place, straighten up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” Folks, the end of the ages is at hand. The gospel of Christ has been preached to all the nations. God has been more than patient, not wanting any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. Today is the acceptable day of salvation. Christ is coming back. He is coming with judgment upon the wicked, upon the rebellious, upon the unbelievers. Those that have rejected His rule over their lives He will cast into outer darkness into the Lake of Fire. This earth and all it’s works will be destroyed by fire. But those that have suffered here, waiting in faith for the Lord’s return will be saved. They will be preserved forever. Not a hair of their head will be harmed as God will preserve their soul. So when you look around you Christian, and you are hated by everyone because of His name, and you are persecuted, and you are bent over under the burden of tribulations, listen to these words! Straighten up! Lift up your heads! Because your redemption is drawing near! Jesus is right at the door. He is coming soon.   Amen.

Deus Ex Machina, Luke 20:1-8

Preaching through Luke has been a journey which began almost two years ago, and many of you have made that journey with me. I hope that for those of you who have been able to attend regularly, that this study has provided you with insights into the gospel that you had never realized before. Perhaps some of you may have really come to understand for the first time the truth of the gospel, the specificity of the way of salvation, and the necessity of sanctification. My hope is that you have not just added some historical knowledge concerning the life of Christ on merely an intellectual level, but that the applications learned through studying Jesus’ teachings have radically changed your life – changing the way you actually live life. Changing the way you see the world. I hope it’s changed the purpose of your life from being self centered to being God centered.

And it is also my hope that through this study of Luke it has helped to flesh out the full personality of Christ for you. I’m afraid that so many people have a one dimensional perspective of Jesus Christ that isn’t really true to the Bible. But it’s important to know and worship Christ for who He is, not who we want Him to be.

Some of you know that I recently purchased an old Kawasaki motorcycle that I have been trying to restore. For some reason, there is a connection between surfing and motorcycles. They would seem to not really all that compatible, but they both appeal to the same kind of personality I guess. So anyhow, I ran across this company that started in Bali but now has stores around the world that restores café racer type motorcycles and sells surfboards and surf related stuff. For me it’s like the best of both worlds. But they had this weird name which is Deus Ex Machina. And so I wanted to know what that meant. Turns out it is an old Latin expression which means god in the machine. It was used to describe a device in Greek poetry by which the author of the poem or play brought about a successful ending to his plot by the introduction of a god let down by a machine, or something like a crane, which solved a problem of a plot that didn’t seem to have a logical ending. The god of the machine then is a contrivance of the author by which he is able to insert a god and artificially provide a solution to a dilemma.

Now I was reminded of that phrase as I was considering how we look at the nature of God. Is God merely a contrivance, a device of our own engineering, that we somehow manipulate in order to extract us from a difficult situation? Is the God of Christendom really that small as to be manipulated by the machinations of man? Can we just create God to be whatever we want Him to be, to solve our particular dilemma in just the way we want? Can God be defined by mere mortals? Is God really just the god of the machine, something manipulated for our benefit? How can we know the God of the Bible?

To answer those questions, to truly understand God, we must understand first of all that Jesus was fully man and fully God. Jesus said to Philip in John 14:9, that “if you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.”   That is an incredible statement. And that statement means that it is essential that we fully understand the true nature of Jesus Christ, His complete personality, because He reflects the nature and character of God exactly. Hebrews 1:3 says that “[Jesus] is the radiance of [God’s] glory and the exact representation of [God’s] nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.” So it’s important that we see Jesus for who He really is, and that we worship God for who He really is. Because Jesus said in John 4:24 that “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” It does us no good whatsoever to worship a God of our own design. We must worship God in truth. As He really is, all that He is, even if He does not conform to our expectations, even when He doesn’t solve our personal dilemma.

So as we enter chapter 20, I would just remind you of the different characteristics or attitudes or personality attributes of Jesus that we have seen presented here in just the last couple of chapters of Luke, because it has direct correlation to the passage we are looking at today. At the end of chapter 18 we saw the compassion of Jesus at the healing of a desperate blind beggar. We saw the joy of Jesus in the opening story of chapter 19 about Zaccheus. Joy at a lost sheep of Israel that was found, that was saved. We saw the judgment of Jesus in the parable about the evaluation of the 10 slaves and the ten minas. Uncompromising judgment that took away the mina from the worthless slave and gave it to another. We saw the justice and wrath of Jesus when He called for His enemies to be slain before Him in His presence.

Then we saw humbleness of Jesus in the story of Christ entering Jerusalem on a donkey. Then we saw the sorrow of Jesus as He saw the city laid out beneath Him and He wept over the city because He foresaw the terrible consequences of their rejection of Him as the Messiah. Then we saw the righteous anger of Jesus as He entered the temple and chased out the merchandisers who had made the temple into a den of thieves.

All of those attributes collectively should help us to recognize a more complete picture of who Jesus really is; and ultimately, what God is really like. And folks, that is so very important today in light of the common misconceptions about God and the gospel that is prevalent in the teaching of TV evangelists and many liberal churches. Jesus said God must be worshipped in Spirit and in truth. And so we must recognize God for who He is, who He says He is in His word, and then bow our knee to Him as Lord. Any effort on our part to limit God, to redefine God, or to characterize God as anything less than who He really is, is simply idolatry. You can say you are worshipping God and yet be worshipping an idol, a god devised by your contrivance, after your preferences, and after your prejudices. We must worship God in truth.

Let me be absolutely clear. God can not be defined only as love. That word has become the catchall of the modern church. The Bible does say that God is love.  But the Bible also says God is a God of wrath, God is Holy, God is Righteous. God is the ultimate Judge of the Earth.   But many modern church leaders want to say that God is only a God of love, and therefore love cancels out all the other characteristics of God’s nature. That is a dangerous thing. That false doctrine causes someone like Rob Bell, former pastor of Mars Hill Church and creator of the Nooma films, to write a book called “Love Wins”, which denies the doctrine of hell and consequently a host of other essential doctrines. According to his and many other modern theologian’s warped view of God, God cannot be a God of love and send anyone to hell. And so His view of God conveniently overrides the scriptures, and wipes out the Bibical doctrine of hell, because in His mind they are incompatible.

Such a contemporary lopsided view of God causes someone like Joel Olsteen to stammer and stutter and sidestep the question of whether or not Jesus is the only way to get to heaven. Because his distorted view of God as love does not allow for a God who would not accept someone who was sincerely seeking God through Buddha, or in Islam or through any other false religion out there. As long as you’re sincere, he believes there is a good chance that the God of love will not be able to say no and will accept you into heaven irregardless of one’s faith .

The whole question then comes down to who or what is your authority? Is our eternal destiny determined by our individual preferences or beliefs, or is there a God in heaven who has the right, the absolute authority, to establish the parameters of His kingdom, and to govern the affairs of His kingdom and His citizens?

The root of the problem is that man by his nature hates authority. Man by his nature is rebellious. It started with Adam and Eve in the Garden. Their sin was not that they ate a piece of fruit that was off limits. Their sin was a sin of rebellion. They believed that they were a better judge of what was right and wrong, of what was good or bad for them than God was. And so they acted in rebellion against God and did what they thought was good, when in fact it was evil. Consequently rebellion is the source of all evil. 1Samuel 15:23 says, “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry.”

The problem with the world today is that it is rebellious, it hates authority. The world hates any authority that tells them that what they want to do is sin. And unfortunately, it is not limited just to the world. The modern church as well hates authority. That is why there is an all out attack on the authority of God’s word from within the church. The modern church as an institution hates absolute authority. It rejects the authority of God’s word, and exchanges it for a doctrine of relativity.

The modern church today says that we have to accommodate the mores of the world. And so today society says that women should be able to be in a place of leadership in the church. Only a chauvinist would deny a woman the position of a minister of the church. Yet the Bible clearly says in 1Tim. 2:12 in regards to the church, “But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.” It says the same thing in 1 Cor. 14. Yet the modern church doesn’t want to be told that, so they exchange the truth of God for a lie.

The church today says that sin in no longer sin. It doesn’t matter if the Bible says that homosexuality is an abomination before God. Society says that it is acceptable. And so liberal church leaders say that God is love and therefore God accepts all forms of love. They reject the authority of God’s word and instead say that they are capable of deciding what is right and what is wrong. The church today winks at divorce. But the Bible says that the person that divorces and marries another is guilty of adultery. The Bible says that God hates divorce. But the church says it’s not a big deal if you don’t love them anymore. The Bible says that all fornication is sin. But the modern church says it’s ok if you love the person. They reject the authority of God’s word.

But Paul warns in Romans 1:18 that there is a greater dimension to God than simply that of love. It says, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.”

So at the heart of the gospel is the authority of the word of God. If you take that out, if you start to tamper with it, question it, subjugate it to man’s ideas of relevance and importance, then you take the heart right out of the gospel. You take the power to save out of the gospel. The truth can only set you free when it is actually the truth.

Now this problem with authority started with Adam and Eve like I said, and it has reached epidemic proportions today in the modern church, but it also was around in Jesus day. In fact, you could say that it was even worse in Jesus’ day, because that rebellion culminated in the crucifixion of God Himself in the person of Jesus Christ.

And as we look at our text today we see this question of authority being enunciated by the religious leaders of that day. In fact, it is a pretty serious delegation of religious leaders. No less than the high priests were part of the delegation as well as the elders of the Sanhedrin, which was the religious ruling class of Judaism. This was the highest levels of the Jewish religious orders coming to accost Jesus.

And what they ask Him is found in vs. 2, ““Tell us by what authority You are doing these things, or who is the one who gave You this authority?” Now the question that raises is what are “these things” that Christ was doing? And the answer is found in the end of the last chapter. Jesus had come into the temple and started cleaning house. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves and He drove out those who were buying and selling. It says in Mark that He wouldn’t allow them to carry their merchandise through the temple either.

I hope you get the full picture here. Jesus grabs up a bullwhip, and He goes into the temple courtyard and starts driving these vendors out of the temple. This is not a lovey dovey Jesus pictured here. He is exercising the divine wrath of God. These merchants had set up in the temple grounds with all kinds of animals for sale. And so you’ve got this effect of something like cattle pens in the temple where people could purchase an animal for sacrifice. And they operated in conjunction with the priests who were making outrageous profits from selling these “approved” animals.

Then on top of that are the money changers. The priests had the racket set up so that in order to pay your temple tax or even to buy a sacrificial animal, you had to pay in the currency of the temple. They wouldn’t accept Roman money. So they of course would charge you a hefty commission to change your currency into temple currency. It was yet another form of extortion.

So Jesus sees all this going on. In John’s gospel, there is a record of Him cleansing the temple in just this same way at an earlier time in His ministry. So after all that time, Jesus has come back and the temple vendors and priests are right back at it again, and so He does the same thing that He did before, He grabs a whip and weighs into the middle of the whole mess, cracking the bullwhip and kicking over tables and chairs and driving the men out of the temple. And He doesn’t even let them carry out their merchandise. He drives them out and leaves their stuff scattered all over the grounds.

And as He is doing all of that, He says, “It is written, ‘AND MY HOUSE SHALL BE A HOUSE OF PRAYER,’ but you have made it a ROBBERS’ DEN.”  He is quoting scripture to them. I love that. All these crooked priests and the vendors running for the exits and Jesus is chasing behind them cracking a bullwhip and quoting scripture. Furthermore, He is saying it is His house. It’s not their house, it’s His house.

Now the next morning, the temple is cleaned out, the money changers are gone, the animals are gone, and Jesus comes back in there and sits down in the middle of the temple and begins to preach. And people are hanging on to His every word. Why? Because He spoke with authority. The people said about Him that never a man spoke as He spoke.

But the religious leaders don’t recognize that authority. And so they come to Him in force and ask Him by what authority is He doing these things, who gave Him this authority? Basically they are saying, “Hey Jesus, who do you think you are? What right have you to come into the temple, our territory, and drive out the vendors? What authority do you have to make a claim on the temple that it is your house?

Here is the thing. As far as they were concerned, Jesus had no credentials. He wasn’t a priest. He wasn’t a graduate from some established rabbinical school. He wasn’t of the tribe of Levi. He wasn’t part of the Sanhedrin. He had none of the credentials that they thought that He should have.

You know, I experience a similar kind of problem sometimes. I don’t have a degree from some big established seminary.   I don’t have the backing of some denomination. I don’t wear the prescribed uniform of the typical religious leader. I don’t even have a church building. And so I sometimes get a little bit of that same criticism. What authority do you have? Who gave you the authority to preach about sin and hell and the judgment to come? Who do you think you are?

And my response is the same as John the Baptist when he was asked a similar question. I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, “repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” My answer is to quote the apostle Paul who said in 1Cor. 9:16 that I am constrained to preach the gospel out of compulsion. Woe is me if I do not preach the gospel. My authority is only that God has called me to preach the word of God without apology, to preach the word in season and out of season, to reprove, rebuke and exhort with all longsuffering and patience. I can say “Thus says the Lord” without hesitation because I speak from the word of God. I don’t add the machinations and scheming of man’s wisdom. I preach the word of God chapter by chapter, verse by verse. And I believe that the word of God is the absolute truth. The word of God is the breath of God that gives life. It is the absolute rule of life and practice and everyman will be judged by it according to how they responded to it. My job is not to build a church building, or draw a crowd, or entertain people, my job is to preach the full counsel of God’s word without compromise.

Well, Jesus uses a question to answer their question. Because He knows that they have framed their question in order to try to trap Him. To try to find a way to convict Him of blasphemy. They have been planning and plotting to kill Him for a while now and this last episode in the temple on their own turf has pushed them over the brink. They will in fact kill Him in just three days or so. But for now, Jesus turns the tables on them and asks them a question. Vs. 3 Jesus answered and said to them, “I will also ask you a question, and you tell Me: 4 “Was the baptism of John from heaven or from men?”

Now what is Jesus talking about when He says the baptism of John? Well, four times in scripture, Mark, Luke and twice in Acts, the baptism of John is called the baptism of repentance. That was the significance of John’s baptism. It wasn’t just a ritual. In fact, it had been a ritual conducted by the temple for non Jewish believers to go through so that they could worship the God of the Jews. It was a Gentile ritual. So when John preached a baptism of repentance, he was saying in essence that a Jew had to repent just like a Gentile in order to receive Christ. But the real significance of baptism was saying that you must confess and repent of your sins because the Messiah is coming. You must get ready for the coming of the Messiah. And the way to be accepted by Him into His kingdom is to repent of your sins. That is the message of the baptism. But the actual act of baptism is just a symbolic, outward sign that you are repenting of your sins. That you bury the old man, the old ways, the old flesh in the water of repentance. You die to that old man there in the water, and you rise up to a newness of life in Jesus Christ leaving behind the old man.

Now that baptism of repentance is the framework for the question Jesus asks of the priests. Was that message of John from God or of men? Well, the Bible very clearly teaches the doctrine of repentance. There are so many OT references to repentance that I cannot take the time to spell them all out here. But David the Psalmist speaks often of the need for repentance. It is a common theme in the OT. David repented of his sin with Bathsheba and God forgave him. He said in Ps. 51, “a broken and contrite heart O Lord you will not despise.” He said in Psalm 32:3, 5 “When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. … I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I did not hide; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD”; And You forgave the guilt of my sin.”

So the priests should have understood the doctrine of repentance. But they did not want to accept it. They weren’t about to humble themselves in repentance. They weren’t about to acknowledge that they had any sin. They had explained away their sin by creative Biblical interpretation. They had redefined the law so that they could say that they had no sin. In fact, they thought they were righteous.

Listen, the most dangerous thing you can do, whether you are a Christian or a not, is to say that your sin is not sin. That is the most dangerous thing you can do. To redefine sin so that it is not sin. To say that you don’t sin, or that there is no need to confess sin anymore is a dangerous thing. I spoke a little last week about the false doctrine called antinomianism which is sweeping through the modern church. It is a basically the doctrine that says that as a Christian you no longer sin. There is no more need to confess your sins anymore. That grace has absolved you from all responsibility to live righteously and holy before God. That is a very dangerous doctrine, folks. If there is no sin, then there is no need for the discipline of the Lord upon His children. And so once again a false doctrine counters the authority of the word of God, because Heb. 12 tells us that we should strive against sin, but when we sin the Lord reproves us. Vs. 6 FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES, AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES.” … 8 But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.” If God doesn’t discipline you for your sin, then you are not a son of God, you are illegitimate.

So rather than acknowledge that the baptism of John was from God, the priests confer together to try to find a way out of the question. They are afraid of the people, because the people thought that John was a prophet. So they are not going to speak against John, even though they obviously did not believe John. Because John presented Jesus as the Messiah, didn’t he? If they believed John, then they would have to believe Jesus. Because John made it clear that he was the forerunner for the Messiah, and Jesus was the Messiah. That’s another clue to a false prophet, by the way. They don’t want to say anything that will offend people. A false prophet wants to please people, to appeal to people, to flatter people for the sake of taking advantage of them. And that is what these priests were doing.

So they confer together and decide to say, “we don’t know.” That’s yet another clue to a false prophet. They refuse to be dogmatic. They consider the animosity of the culture, and the authority of God’s word that clearly states something as sin and consequently the need for repentance, and they say, “Well, we aren’t really sure that that is what the Bible is really saying. After all, in that culture things were different. But we live in a different culture and so we can’t say exactly what the truth is about certain things.” They undermine the authority of scripture by saying it can’t be known, or it can’t be trusted, or there are errors in the translations which leaves the door open to other possibilities. They don’t know the truth, or won’t say.

But here is the real dilemma of what these priests were facing. The real crux of the matter is that if they accepted the ministry of John as having the authority of God, then they would have to accept the ministry of Jesus as having the authority of God. They would have to accept that Jesus had every right to come into the temple because it was His house. Psalm 110 says that the Messiah was the great high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek . He surpassed all their authority. In fact, He was the one who gave them their authority. So He had every right to come into His house and clean out the robbers and cheats.

If they accepted the ministry of John, then they would have to accept that Jesus was the Messiah. They knew that Ps. 45 says the Messiah was to sit on the throne of David, the king who was to rule over the nations, whose kingdom would never end. And so they would have to bow before Jesus as their king and submit to His rule.

If they accepted the ministry of John, then they would have to accept that Jesus was that prophet like unto Moses, of whom Moses said in Duet. 18, “GOD WILL RAISE UP FOR YOU A PROPHET LIKE ME FROM YOUR BRETHREN.” They would have to accept that He not only spoke the word of God like Moses did, but He was the Word of God incarnate, the Word made flesh and dwelling among them. And yet they did not accept Him. They rejected Him.

So they would not say. They would not see the truth. They would not bow their knee. These were the ones of whom He said in chapter 19, “We do not want this man to reign over us.” They would not accept His authority. They would rebel and continue in their insubordination to the very God of the universe until one day God would destroy them in His presence along with all His enemies.   So Jesus responded to them in vs.8 by saying, “Nor will I tell you by what authority I do these things.” Jesus would leave them to their rebellion. He would not answer them anymore. From this time on, they were hardened in their rebellion and He would not answer them a word. He had exhausted His patience with them. It was as Romans 1:28 says, “And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not proper.”

Listen, I don’t know where you are at today spiritually. Some of you may be really irritated right now because I had the gall to call your pet sin, sin. Some of you may have your feathers ruffled and find yourself thinking, “who does this man think that He is? What kind of authority does he have? How can he know anything?” My only answer is to say that the only authority I have is the word of God. If God said it in His word, then I believe it and I will preach it. John chapter one describes Jesus as the Word of God made flesh. The Word of God is true and authoritative. But you can choose to accept it or not. You can reject it and leave here today and continue in your rebellion and think that the god of your imagination is going to accept you just the way you are. You can continue to worship Deus Ex Machina, the god of your machinations. And if that is the case, then you will have to face the consequences one day for trampling underfoot the Spirit of grace and the precious blood of Jesus Christ which was shed on behalf of sinners. If you refuse to repent of your sins, then the blood of Christ avails nothing for you, and you will face the wrath and judgment of God, whether or not you choose to believe in it.

Some of you here today may be in the same situation as the priests and the elders were. This may be the last time that God speaks to you. The last opportunity for you to repent. The summer season is coming to a close. You may never come to this service again. God may have given you His last warning before giving you over to a reprobate mind to do those things that aren’t proper. I hope that is not the case for anyone here today. I pray that today is the day of your salvation. Today is the day of repentance. Don’t presume upon the grace of God.

Or some of you today can do like David did, and acknowledge and confess your sin to God and ask Him to renew a right spirit within you. Today you can be right with God. But please understand something. Jesus is not just your Savior. He is also your Lord and King. To come to Christ you must do what those priests and elders of Judaism could not do; that is bow your knee to the will of Christ. Allow Christ to sit on the throne of your heart, and live for Him. Live no longer for your glory, but for His. If Jesus is the Son of God, then He has every right to rule and reign over your life. And if you are not willing to let Him rule, then you cannot be a citizen of the Kingdom of God. You must submit to the authority of His word. For those that come to Him in repentance, God has promised to give us the Spirit of Christ as our Helper, to empower us to live according to His word. To help us to be obedient to His word from the heart.

Are you willing to let Christ take His seat on the throne of your heart today? Is your body the temple of the Holy Spirit? Is Christ reigning and ruling in His temple? He has every right to the throne of our heart and our obedience. Let’s pray.

Blessed are the children, Luke 18: 15-17

There are two ways of looking at this incident which we are studying today.  There is the literal interpretation of how the kingdom of God relates to children which is expressed in vs. 16.  And there is the metaphorical application of how becoming like a child relates to entrance in the kingdom of God which is expressed in vs. 17.  Both are appropriate perspectives revealed through the text.  Jesus is obviously expressing both principles in this passage.  So we will look at them in that order; first how the kingdom of God relates to children, and secondly, how becoming like a child relates to entrance in the kingdom.

Now before we get into those two principles, vs. 16 sets it up for us.  Remember, this is a literal, actual event in the life of Christ, and so we must always approach a passage of scripture from the vantage point of it’s historical context first and foremost.

So first in the context of the chapter, let us consider why Luke positions this event in just this way.  As we remember the previous parable that Jesus gave in vs. 9-14, Jesus was teaching a parable of contrasts between the type of person that trusts in their own self righteousness, and that of the person typified by the tax collector that comes to God in humility, recognizing their unworthiness and their sinfulness.  The over arching principle taught in that parable is that humbleness is necessary to be accepted by God.  Jesus said that the tax collector went away justified whereas the self righteous Pharisee was not justified.  Justified means to be declared righteous.  And for God to accept a person into the kingdom of God, a man or woman must be righteous, even as God is righteous.

Now the Pharisee thought that his good deeds would be enough to make him justified before God.  But Jesus said that they were not.  The Bible says that all our own righteousness is as filthy rags before God, because we do our good deeds to be seen of men.  We do them with wrong motives.  Selfish motives.  But the tax collector was so ashamed of his sinfulness, of his unworthiness that he would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast and called upon God to be merciful to him, a sinner.  That attitude of humility was what precipitated his repentance.  And that is what God accepted.  David said in Psalm 51:17, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.”  Humility then is the prerequisite for the repentant heart that God will accept, that God will justifiy. The principle God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble is so important God repeats it three times in the Scriptures (Proverbs 3:34, James 4:6, 1 Peter 5:5).

So now to further illustrate this characteristic of humility that is so essential to salvation, Luke includes this incident where mothers and fathers are bringing their babies to Jesus to bless them.  Now first of all, please note that the Greek word translated as babies is “brephos”, which means a new born child, an infant.  Now that distinction is important.

What is happening here is typical of parents even today who wish to dedicate their new born babies to the Lord, to ask God’s blessing upon the child and to present the baby to the Lord.  We see that happening throughout Biblical history as well.  There was the time honored tradition of the father laying his hands upon his sons and blessing them such as in the case of Isaac and Jacob.  There is a prescription in the law that required bringing a new baby boy to the priest.  And there was the tradition of bringing a child to the synagogue to receive a blessing, to dedicate them to the Lord.

But the disciples see this as an unnecessary intrusion.  They think that it’s not going to be a good thing if people start lining up to see Jesus and present their babies to Him.  It was going to trouble Him unnecessarily and even hinder His work.  And so the disciples start turning them away.  And Jesus sees this and becomes indignant with  the disciples.  He says to them, ““Permit the children to come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”

Now as I said, we are going to look first at the literal, historical context of what Jesus said.  He is literally saying let the children come to Me, do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.  If we are going to take that at face value, which I think is clearly the primary interpretation of this statement, then that means that children, these babies belong to the kingdom of heaven.  God has a special place for babies, for children who have not yet reached the age of accountability.

Babies and young children who have not reached the age of accountability are not able to make moral, spiritually responsible choices.  Are they sinful?  Yes, there is an innate sinful nature that is born into every man.  David said in Psalm 51:5  “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.” Rom. 5:12, Paul makes it clear that the sin nature is inherited through Adam.  “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.” And Ephesians 2:3 makes it clear that we were born with the sin nature, which destined us for wrath, the judgment of God upon sinners.

So it’s important to realize that children, babies are born with a sinful nature that they have inherited from their parents, traceable all the way back to Adam.  But there is a time during which they have not reached the age of accountability, that they really don’t know the difference between right and wrong, when they are considered innocent before God.  They receive a special grace before God.

Now this principle is proven in this very teaching of Jesus.  He is saying in the previous parable that humility is the necessary ingredient of the man whom God will justify.  The man was not justified by what he did or did not do.  The man was justified by grace, given to Him by God who accepted the humility and repentance of his heart.  Now then if a man who was a self confessed sinner, who had willfully acted in rebellion against the law of God, had willfully committed sin against his neighbor, if this man was justified on the basis of his humility and repentance as an act of God’s grace, then how much more then would an innocent child, who did not know his right hand from his left, who does not know good from evil, and is the perfect picture of humility and total dependence upon grace, not be justified before God? That is how salvation is qualified by Paul in Eph. 2:8 “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.”  It is not something that you do, it is a gift of God.  And Jesus is making it clear here that babies are accepted in the kingdom of God by grace.  They haven’t done anything to deserve it, but God extends it to them on the basis of grace until the age of accountability.  Now the Bible doesn’t establish a set age at which a child is considered accountable.  I think it differs according to each child.  But we can be sure that there is an age where they are not considered accountable, and that is the very early years following birth.

This principle is illustrated for us in 2 Samuel 12.  There we find the familiar story of David and his sin with Bathsheba.  And as you recall, David sinned by taking Bathsheba who was another man’s wife and committing adultery with her and she became pregnant.  And to cover up his sin, David arranged to have Uriah her husband sent into battle and then abandoned there in order to have him killed.  This was a terrible sin which Nathan the prophet confronted David about.  And when David repented, God forgave him, but Nathan said, “”However, because of this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child that is born to you shall surely die.”  So when Nathan went back to his house the baby became ill.   And if you recall the story then you will remember that David fasted and prayed on his face for 7 days for the health of the baby.  But the baby died.  And his servants were afraid to tell David that the baby had died, because of the grief that he had shown while he was sick.  But when David saw them whispering among themselves he knew that the baby had died and made them confirm it.  After they told him, David  arose from the ground, washed, anointed himself, changed his clothes, came into the house of the Lord and worshiped.

He goes to his house, they set food before him and he ate. And his servants said to him, “What is this thing that you have done? While the child was alive, you fasted and wept, when the child died you rose and ate food?” And he said, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept for I said…Who knows, the Lord may be gracious to me that the child may live. Now he’s died, why should I fast, can I bring him back again?” And then this confident statement, “I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.”  David knew that one day he too would die and go to heaven, and that he would see this child who had gone on before him.  That was David’s confidence.  That was one of many Old Testament examples.  And now in the New Testament, Jesus Christ the Son of David confirms that hope.  That unto these babies is given the kingdom of heaven.  If they die before the age of accountability, God in His grace will accept them into the kingdom.

Now in Mark’s account in Mark 10:16, he adds that after this Jesus “took them in His arms and began blessing them, laying His hands on them.”  Jesus blesses them because they are considered part of the kingdom of God.  He is praying over them.  That’s what it means to bless someone.  To ask God’s blessing upon them.  It’s not saying some special incantation that imparts some mystical power upon a person.  We say the blessing upon our food, don’t we?  But just because we bless our Big Mac, it isn’t going to make it a prime rib.  We bless it, we thank God for it, we ask God to use it for His purposes, but we don’t change it’s nature.  It’s still a Big Mac.

These babies in our care we should bring to the Lord to dedicate, to consecrate, to bless, to use for His purposes, but there will still come a day when they will reach the age of accountability where they will be able to determine right from wrong, to make moral decisions, to deliberately rebel against God.  And at that time they need to confess their sins, repent of their sins, and in faith and humility surrender their hearts and wills to God to serve him as Lord of their lives.  There must be a day when they personally take responsibility for their response to the gospel and be saved.

But this principle certainly should be of great assurance for those of us that have small children.  There is a special dispensation of grace that God affords babies and small children if they should die prematurely.  We can trust, like David, that we will go to them and join them one day in heaven if we are saved ourselves.

But that should also serve as a reminder of the tremendous responsibility that we have as parents.  There is only a few short years where there is that innocent spirit in the life of our children where we have this tremendous opportunity to reach them.  They will reach a point where they will begin to make their own decisions, and go their own way.  That is why Proverbs 22:6 says that we should “Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he is old he will not depart from it.”

When our children are young that is the optimum time to instruct them in the way of the Lord.  That is the optimal time to bring your children to faith in Christ.  I just want to emphasize that the training and instruction of a child is the parent’s responsibility.  It’s augmented by the church, it may be supplemented by a Christian school, but it is primarily the parent’s responsibility to live out a godly example of faith to your children, and to teach your children the Word of God and ultimately lead them to Christ.  This is not a responsibility that you want to delegate to someone else.  God has given you a stewardship of your children.

Paul recognized that in the life of a young godly man named Timothy.  Timothy had been raised by his mother and grandmother.  And he says in 2Tim. 3:15 “that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” That’s the same word, “breathos”, from infancy his mother and grandmother taught him the word of God which was able to give him the wisdom that leads to salvation by faith.  How important it is to teach your children the Word of God from the time that they are babies.  That’s your first responsibility as parents.

The second responsibility is to model that kind of faith.  You know, it does no good to tell them that they need to surrender their hearts to God and then you live as though you are enslaved to your career.  Our kids are going to emulate what they see lived out in our lives, not necessarily what they hear.  I can’t help but be reminded of the song by Harry Chapin, “Cat’s in the Cradle.”  He starts by singing of his child being born.  “My child arrived just the other day, He came to the world in the usual way, But there were planes to catch, and bills to pay, He learned to walk while I was away. And he was talking before I knew it and as he grew He said, “I’m gonna be like you, Dad, You know I’m gonna be like you”  But then the child grows up, and the things the dad meant to do never really got done.  He was too busy.  And so at the conclusion of the song the young man is now grown and has a family of his own, and he too is too busy to do the things he should do.  And so the last verse says, “I’ve long since retired, my son’s moved away, I called him up just the other day. I said “I’d like to see you if you don’t mind”, He said ‘I’d love to Dad, if I could find the time. You see my new jobs a hassle, and the kids have the flu. But It’s sure nice talking to you, Dad, it’s been sure nice talking to you.’ And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me, He’d grown up just like me, My boy was just like me.”  We have a responsibility to raise our children, and our children are going to follow our example.

Thirdly, let me suggest that you love your children. What do I mean by that? Let them know your heart is for them. Be affectionate, tender, compassionate, sensitive, sacrificial, generous. Like Jesus did with the babies they brought to Him, take them in your lap.  Touch them.  I think the majority of psychological problems that children have today is that they don’t feel loved.  They feel abandoned, isolated.  They warm up their own dinners.  Let themselves into an empty house.  They isolate themselves behind headphones and behind laptops.  We need to do as Jesus did and touch our children.  Lavish love on them.  Sacrifice for them.  That may mean sacrificing that extra income that you could have got by working late or taking that extra job, or moving up the corporate ladder.  They don’t need an iphone so they can keep in touch with you.  They need to feel your touch.  Show them they matter.  Especially you Dads.  Take your little daughters on your lap and tell them how beautiful they are to you.  Kiss them everyday.  Real men kiss their daughters.  Ephesians 6:4 says Dad’s don’t provoke your children. Don’t exasperate them. Be utterly unselfish. Serve your children. Reward them when they do well. Make your home a joyful place. Do fun things with them. Love them.  Make them want to become the type of Christian that you model for them.  Model to them the sort of love God has for sinners. Sacrificial love.  Model that kind of love.

Now then the Lord moves from this principle of children’s acceptance into the kingdom to the metaphorical application.  He says in vs. 17, “Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it at all.” Notice He does not say one must enter as a child.  But like a child.  Child likeness. There is a quality that children have that is essential to salvation. These little babies provide an illustration of how a person is saved. You are saved by an act of  divine sovereign grace.  You are saved as a result of your humility, your total dependence upon God for His grace, and His provision.  Not because of any good works that you have done.  You have achieved nothing morally. You have achieved nothing spiritually. You have achieved nothing  that can merit your salvation. And like a child, humble, trusting, unpretentious, dependent, weak, lacking any achievement, you come to the Kingdom. Jesus says if you don’t come to God like an infant, you will not enter the kingdom.

Ultimately, becoming like an infant means we need to be born again. In John 3 there is the story of Nicodemus who was a ruler of the Pharisees, and he came to Jesus one night to ask Him about the kingdom of God.  And Jesus said to him,  “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”  Just as a man is born in the flesh, so a man must be born again in the spirit to enter the kingdom of heaven.  We must become a new creation. Rom 8:8 says that “those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”

Jesus continues in John 3 to Nicodemus; “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’”  So Jesus is saying that the way into the kingdom of God is by being born again.  It is by new birth.  Becoming a new creation.  Being born again in our spirit, by the Holy Spirit.
Now how does this new birth happen? It happens by humbling yourself like a little child.  Coming to God totally dependent upon His grace and mercy.  Surrendering your life into His care, to do His will.  It means coming like the tax collector in the previous parable, mourning over your sin, realizing that you are lost, that you are hopeless and helpless and in need of forgiveness.  The tax collector prayed a very simple, childlike prayer.  Any child could pray this prayer.  “God, be merciful to me, the sinner.”  That prayer of humility, of child like trust and faith, is the prayer that God justifies.  That is the prayer that God responds to.  It’s like the cry of an infant in the dark of the night.  And the mother hears the cry and  swoops the baby up in her arms and comforts him.  God is waiting to forgive, to comfort, to give life to those who recognize that they are lost and come to Him like a child, like an infant, helpless, dependent upon his love and grace.  Those that come like that God will justify, He will impart unto them the holiness and righteousness of Jesus Christ in exchange for their sins.  And then having been declared holy, God will give you the Holy Spirit to give new life to your spirit, to make you a new creation.  The Holy Spirit living in you gives life to your old body, so that you may do the works of Christ.

We are going to close out our service today by singing the old hymn “Rock of Ages.”  And I would just point out that third verse which I think exemplifies the type of child like faith which God accepts as we come to Him.   It says, “Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I cling; naked, come to thee for dress; helpless, look to thee for grace; foul, I to the fountain fly; wash me, Savior, or I die.” Jesus said, Permit the little children to come to Me.  Will you humble yourselves today as a child and come? Simply pray, “God, be merciful to me a sinner.”

 

Thy kingdom come; Luke 17: 20-37

The Bible says in Luke 8 that Jesus began to go about from one city and village to another, proclaiming and preaching the kingdom of God.  Jesus said about His ministry in Luke 4:43 that “I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also, for I was sent for this purpose.”  Now this has been the ongoing theme of Jesus’ message; “repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.”

Up until this point, Jesus has been preaching regarding the requirements to enter the kingdom, and the characteristics of those citizens of the kingdom.  His miracles were done to illustrate that the kingdom of God was being manifested on Earth.  The power to do these wonderful miracles should have been evidence that Jesus was in fact the King of the kingdom of God who had come to Earth to establish His kingdom.

But obviously, there was still a great deal of confusion about the kingdom on the part of the people that were following Him in the first century.  And I would suggest that there is a great deal of confusion even today among 21st century followers as well.  If I were to ask you to describe the kingdom of God, I’m sure that I would get several dozen different answers.  It’s one of those phrases that is very familiar, and yet perhaps has not been thought through to the point of really understanding it.

The Pharisees obviously had many questions regarding what Jesus was teaching about the kingdom.  And even the disciples had misunderstandings as to the nature of the kingdom.  So as we look at our text for today we see the Pharisees initially asking the question of when will the kingdom of God come.  And then as Jesus is answering that question He turns to the disciples and gives a more detailed explanation in response to what must have been their unasked questions.

Jesus begins to answer this question concerning the coming of the kingdom of God in vs. 20, saying, ““The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’ For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst.”  Here is what Jesus is saying;  the kingdom of God is an invisible kingdom.  It is a spiritual kingdom.  Jesus says it isn’t with signs that can be observed.  It is not physically apparent.  But He says the kingdom of God is in your midst.  It’s right in front of you and you can’t see it.  Jesus was no less than the King of the kingdom.  So He defines the kingdom.  And the citizens of the kingdom are those who recognize Jesus as Sovereign and that have submitted to be His servants.  It is a kingdom where Christ rules and reigns over our hearts and minds and wills.

I feel for this to really be understood I must try to show you the big picture of the plan of God.  Because the kingdom of God is eternal, it extends from Genesis to Revelation.  And there are different stages of it.  Different ways it is manifested at different times.  But perhaps it will help if I go back to the beginning and explain the best I can how the kingdom of God has come.  So to begin with we will consider the purpose of the kingdom.  Secondly, we’ll look at the institution of the kingdom, then the realization of the kingdom, the manifestation of the kingdom and finally the consummation of the kingdom and some characteristics of what is called the day of the Lord.

First the purpose of the kingdom. It really starts with Genesis, with the creation and the purpose of God.  It says in Genesis 2 that when God made man, He said it was not good for man to be alone.  And yet, right after that God gave Adam the job of naming all the animals of creation.  So Adam names each creature that God created, thousands upon thousands of them were ushered past him and he examined them and named them all.  And the scripture says that there was not found among all the animals a mate suitable or like unto him.  And so God put Adam to sleep and took from his side material from which He made woman.  She was like him, compatible to him, desirable to him, a helper suitable unto him whom he could love, and that would love him in return so that the scripture says that they would be as one flesh.  He could have fellowship, communion, love, companionship.  This was God’s design for man.

But actually, this was also a picture of the purpose that God chose to create man.  God looked around the universe, at all the creatures that He had made, the worlds that He had created, all the various forms of angelic creatures of which I believe the scripture indicates were millions upon millions, He looked at all that He had made and He found no one that was a suitable mate for Him.  No one that was like unto Him that could choose to love Him and respond to Him in the way that He desired for fellowship, for communion, for companionship.

And so God said in Gen. 1:26, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

Now when God made every other thing in the universe, He simply spoke it into existence.  He simply spoke and millions upon millions of stars instantly took form and began to burn, lighting up the heavens.  He spoke and millions of varieties of plants and fauna instantly appeared.  He simply spoke and the sea was instantly teeming with millions of fish of every conceivable shape and color and size.  Yet when God said let Us make man in Our image according to Our likeness, God didn’t simply speak us into existence.  This pinnacle act of creation was actually an act of love.  God got down on His hands and knees in the dirt of the earth and began to form with His hands the body of man.  He lovingly shaped us into His image, into an image that was like Him, compatible to Him with His own hands.  He caressed us and shaped us into a body that He would love.  And then when He had formed us in His image, it says He breathed the breath of life into that body and man became a living soul.  God bent down and placed His lips upon man’s lips, and kissed into man the breath of life.

The purpose should be quite clear, man was made for God, just as woman was made for man.  Mankind was made to be the bride of Christ. Eph. 2:10 says that we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus.  John chapter 1 says that Christ was in the beginning with God and all things are made by Him, and without Him nothing was made.  We were made to be the companion of Christ.  To become one with Christ.

Now time will not allow me to elucidate all the details of the fall.  It should be familiar to you all.  But suffice it to say that God created man to be His bride, to love Him and have fellowship and communion with Him, and to share in His glory, to share in His kingdom, even to rule and reign with Him.  But when given a choice between God and evil, mankind chose evil.  Satan and His angels seduced man to sin against God in an attempt to overthrow the rule of God.  Man revolted.  And so sin entered the world, and death through sin.

That leads to the second stage, the institution of the kingdom. Though sin had entered the world, separating man from God and causing death, God was still in control.  The creation was still under the Sovereignty of God. God still had a plan by which He would redeem from fallen humanity a people who would love Him.  And so God instituted that phase of the plan by calling Abraham to come out from the world and go to a place where He would eventually disclose Himself to the children of Abraham.  God chose a man, who gave birth to a tribe, who formed a nation, so that He might disclose Himself and reveal Himself to them, that He might love them and provide for them a way to escape the death which was a result of sin. It was to be a theocracy, a nation ruled by God. But once again, mankind rebelled against God’s rule.  Rather than submit to God as their sovereign, man chose another king, a mere man to rule over them.  And a succession of kings subverted the peoples love and submission to God towards themselves.  Throughout history though, God always kept a remnant.  A small minority of people on the earth that loved God, that served God, that recognized His sovereignty, that served His kingdom and looked for the day when the kingdom would be realized.

That brings us to the realization of the kingdom.  The long awaited day came when at just the right time, Jesus was fathered by the Holy Spirit, born of a woman in a non descript small town called Bethlehem.  God authored this next phase of the kingdom, when no less than the Creator humbled Himself to become a man like us, to take away the penalty of sin so that He might make it possible for all of mankind to be reconciled to God.  And God did this by sending Jesus to become our substitute, to live the righteous life that we could never live, and pay the penalty for sin that we could never pay.  2 Cor. 5:21 says, “God made [Jesus] who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”

Yet as it had been prophesied in Isaiah 53, the world did not recognize Him as their Savior. “He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him, nor appearance that we should be drawn to Him.”  But God loved mankind so much, that He poured out His wrath upon His only Son, the spotless lamb of God.  “Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried.  He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities.  The chastening for our well being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed.”    But as Isaiah prophesied, He came unto His own and His own did not receive Him.  Jesus wept over His nation, saying, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it!”

Jesus Christ was the realization of the plan of God to bring about reconciliation of those who would enter the kingdom.  John 1:17 says that “the law was given through Moses, grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.”  This was the way that God designed to bring about the righteousness that He required to be a citizen of the kingdom of God.  Only a righteous, holy God could atone for the sins of the world.  And God has ordained that by faith in what Jesus has done for us, by confessing our sins, and submitting to His Lordship over our lives, we might be saved.  We gain entrance into the kingdom of God.  When we survey all that God has done for us, when we realize all that Christ suffered for us, then they that have submitted to Him in faith and repentance should respond by loving the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength and with all our might.  This is what we were made for.  And that relationship that was planned from creation can now be realized as we live in the Spirit and not in the flesh as sons of God.

When Jesus died and rose again God brought about the next phase of the kingdom.  This phase came through the Holy Spirit and is known as the church age. The church is the manifestation of the kingdom.  God was no longer just revealing Himself through the nation of Israel, but to every nation and tribe on earth.  As the Apostles were indwelled by the power of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost,  men and women from every nation in the Middle East heard the gospel preached, and 3000 people were saved in one day, starting the first church.

The church is the manifestation of the kingdom of God because God sent the Spirit of Christ to live in us as we live in the world. Having been made holy by the transference of Christ’s righteousness, we now receive the Holy Spirit to dwell in our holy of holies as we become the temple of the Holy Spirit.  As Paul said in [1Co 6:19-20 NASB] 19 “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? 20 For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”

The church is now the manifestation of Christ to the world, by the power of the Holy Spirit who lives in those who have given their hearts to God.  That is why the scripture says we are to be holy even as God is holy.  We are ambassadors for the kingdom of God to the world, serving God through the power of Christ living in us.

Then finally, we come to the consummation of the kingdom.  This is what Jesus addresses in the remainder of the chapter.  He has alluded to the consummation, or the day of the Lord in various parables and teachings. In chapter 12, Jesus compares the consummation of the kingdom to a master who gives to his servants a stewardship.  That means that he gives them an assignment, a responsibility, something that they are supposed to do until He comes again.  And Jesus says that there are two types of servants in this kingdom.  Those that are faithful, and those that are unfaithful.  When the master comes back and finds the faithful and sensible steward who did his master’s will, he says that steward will be blessed and will be put in charge of all his possessions.  But those servants who lived according to their own desires and disregarded the commands of the master will be cut into pieces and assigned a place with the unbelievers.

Jesus makes it clear in multiple illustrations that at the consummation there will be both a day of judgment for the lost and a day when the king will return in glory for his bride.  Those that are found righteous will be swept up with the Lord and the rest who are unsaved left to face the wrath of God.  So now Jesus turns from the Pharisees and addresses the unspoken questions of the disciples.

In all the remaining verses He relates the coming of the kingdom as the day of the Lord.  He says first of all that the day of the Lord will be something longed for by the righteous.  In vs. 22, “And He said to the disciples, ‘The days will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. “They will say to you, ‘Look there! Look here!’ Do not go away, and do not run after them.’”  Jesus is saying that He will not return immediately.  There will be a time of longing, of looking for the coming of the Lord.  And of course, there will be many deceivers, many anti Christs, many false Christs who will attempt to deceive the world.  Jesus wanted His disciples to be aware, to be on their guard against false Messiahs.

Next He emphasizes that the day of the Lord will be public, it will not be something that is private or secret.  But Jesus says in vs. 24, “For just like the lightning, when it flashes out of one part of the sky, shines to the other part of the sky, so will the Son of Man be in His day.”  Lightning lights up the entire sky, doesn’t it?  It’s shocking, it’s electrifying.  It can be terrifying.  But one thing for sure, when you’re outside in the dark and lightning crashes, you see the entire sky light up from one end to the other.  There is booming thunder.  Jesus is giving a very vivid illustration of the way that He will come in power at the consummation of His kingdom.  When He came the first time, no one recognized Him.  But when He comes the second time, Rev. 1 says “BEHOLD, HE IS COMING WITH THE CLOUDS, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him.”

Thirdly, Jesus tells His disciples that the day of the Lord will not come until He suffers many things and His gospel is rejected.  This was a real issue for the disciples.  They couldn’t accept that the Messiah would have to suffer and die in order to usher in the kingdom.  Their understanding of the kingdom was in militaristic or political terms.  They expected a revolution, a socio/political solution that would usher in a time of peace and prosperity.  And unfortunately, that is the same expectation a lot of false teachers are espousing today.  They teach a social gospel, a prosperity gospel, and they want nothing to do with “take up your cross and follow Me.” But Jesus says suffering precedes glorification.

Then Jesus says the day of the Lord will be a day of sudden judgment.  He uses two Old Testament examples to illustrate that it will be business as usual right up until the day when He returns.  Vs. 26, “And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.”

Listen, not only does He imply the suddenness of the coming of the Lord, but He is emphasizing in a very dramatic way the judgment with which He comes.  In the days of Noah, mankind had managed to so defile itself and become so corrupted that the only solution that God had to correct it was to wipe every living thing off the face of the earth save those that were in the Ark.  One of the things that we are looking at in our study in Genesis this week is found in chapter 6, when it says the fallen angels took for themselves wives among the daughters of men. So you have a form of sorcery that spawned a demonic race.  Satan once again was trying to overthrow creation by producing an unredeemable offspring.   And that union produced a race of men that were exceedingly evil.  6:5 “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”

The interesting thing about the flood was that God gave the people of the earth 100 years to repent.  Peter says that Noah was a preacher of righteousness.  And Jude says concerning that preaching that the patience of God kept waiting for people to repent.  But in 100 years, no one was saved. They rejected the message. So the day came when God closed the door, and the heavens broken open and the fountains of the deep broke open.  And God wiped the face of the earth clean.

The other example Jesus gives is that of Lot.  Lot was living in the lap of luxury.  It was a well watered city, a flourishing civilization.  And yet the evil of that city grew so great that God sent His judgment against it.  The great defining sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was that of homosexuality.  It was so blatant, so open, so prevalent that the entire town turned out to try to take the two angels that came to warn Lot. And so God rained down fire and brimstone upon the city and destroyed every living thing.

I can’t help but see parallels between those two illustrations and the current situation in the world today.  You know in Revelation 9:21 it says concerning the people at the end of the age that oppose God that they will “not repent of their murders nor of their sorceries nor of their immorality nor of their thefts.”  Immorality is translated from the Greek word pornea, which means illicit sexual intercourse such as adultery, fornication, homosexuality, lesbianism, intercourse with animals etc.   Isn’t that the state of affairs today?  Society wants to redefine God’s laws to say that such things are not sin any more, because we don’t want to admit it’s sin.  But God says it is sin. Changing the law does not change the fact that it is an abomination to God.

And it’s interesting that the Greek word for sorceries used in Revelation is the word pharmakea, from which we get the word pharmacy.   The characteristic of the end times is that they  won’t repent of their drug use.  And once again we see society attempting to make what is a sin legal by legalizing marijuana.

Listen folks, I am confident that we are living in the days of Noah.  We are living in Sodom and Gomorah.  The patience of God has been waiting, the gospel has been preached and yet they will not repent.  And soon Jesus Christ the King is coming back in judgment.  The world wants to limit God to only love, and equate their immorality as on par with God’s love.  But they have failed to understand that God is  holy and righteous and must render justice against all unrighteousness. [Rev 19:11-16 NASB] 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. 12 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. 13 He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. 14 And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses. 15 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. 16 And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.”

Then in vs. 31 Jesus says that the day of the Lord will discriminate against those who love the world and the things of the world.  “In that day, he who is on the housetop, and his goods are in the house, let him not come down to take them away. And likewise the one who is in the field, let him not turn back. Remember Lot’s wife. Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.”

Can you imagine the futility and the foolishness of the people in the days of Noah running into their houses to try to save their possessions?  The judgment of the earth in the consummation of the kingdom is going to be absolute. [2Pe 3:7, 10 NASB] 7 But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. … 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.

In vs. 34 Jesus says that the day of the Lord will be a day of division. “I tell you, in that night there will be two in one bed: the one will be taken and the other will be left. Two women will be grinding together: the one will be taken and the other left. Two men will be in the field: the one will be taken and the other left.”  In other words, God knows those that are His.  He will take His people out of the judgment.  But it will be a division even to the point of separating two in bed, one will be taken and the other left.  No one gets into the kingdom on the basis of their wife or their husband or their family.  God will judge every man and woman according to their deeds.  God knows those who are His.

And finally, in vs. 37, the day of the Lord will come in response to the increase of corruption of the earth.  “The disciples answering said to Him, “Where, Lord?” And He said to them, “Where the body is, there also the vultures will be gathered.”  The disciples must have thought that this would be a judgment that would be limited geographically.  Perhaps they thought it would be on the rest of the world but Israel would be spared.  But it should have been pretty clear that the judgment of God will be universal, that is the picture of the lightning flashing from one end of the sky to the other.  So Jesus gives a rather obscure answer to their obscure question.  Where the body is the vultures will be gathered.  I believe this is a reference to the spiritually dead.  You can usually tell when something has died in the country by the fact that vultures are circling around up in the sky above it.  And I believe that is what Jesus is indicating here.  That when the stench of the decay of the spiritually dead rises up to heaven, then the vultures will come.  Judgment will come upon the whole world when sin reaches a certain final state of corruption.

Folks, I’m afraid that the corruption of the world has already paralleled the corruption found in the days of Noah.  We are living as in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah.  The patience of God has kept waiting for 2000 years, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.  But the fact is the same today as it was in the days of Noah, the days of Lot and even the days of Jesus and the Apostles.  They will not repent of their sins, but revel in their rebellion against the King of Kings.  And one day soon, without warning, Jesus Christ will suddenly return.

[Mat 24:29-31 NASB] 29 “But immediately after the tribulation of those days THE SUN WILL BE DARKENED, AND THE MOON WILL NOT GIVE ITS LIGHT, AND THE STARS WILL FALL from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 30 “And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the SON OF MAN COMING ON THE CLOUDS OF THE SKY with power and great glory. 31 “And He will send forth His angels with A GREAT TRUMPET and THEY WILL GATHER TOGETHER His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.

Listen, today is the day of salvation.  The way unto the kingdom of heaven has been revealed through Jesus Christ.  The penalty for our sins has been paid by Jesus Christ.  All that remains is for you to repent of your sins, and by faith commit to serve Him and follow Him with all of your being, to love Him with all your heart.  Jesus Christ is coming again, not only in judgment against the rebellious, but also to deliver, to take up His bride which has been redeemed by His blood and to present them faultless before the throne of God.  You have a choice today.  Who will you serve?  Who will you obey?  I pray that you will be found the faithful and sensible steward who on the day of the Master’s return was found doing his Master’s will, and who will receive the blessing of God and put in charge of all His possessions.

 

 

Four hallmarks of discipleship; Luke 17:1-10

As we continue in the gospel of Luke we look now at a continuation of a message that Jesus was giving to a mixed multitude that included three types of people in attendance.  There was the self righteous, haughty Pharisees who practiced their religion  to be seen of men but whose motives were known by God to be self serving and done for men’s approval.  But they were not counted righteous by God.  And there was a second group of people who were present which was largely made up of the curious.  They were there because it was something different, they were curious, they were perhaps hoping to see some miracle, but they were in a state of flux; they listened to the message of Jesus, but they had not become followers of Christ.  And then there is the third category, which were the disciples; not just the 12, but a group of men and women that were following Him as He went from place to place.  They were actively pursuing the gospel as Jesus presented the message of the kingdom of God.  And as I have said repeatedly as we have been studying Luke, Jesus does not boil His message down to a simple formula which by doing these 3 steps in this particular order you become a member of the kingdom.  But rather Jesus continues to add perspective and layers of truth to the message as He moves from place to place preaching.  And so there is a sense that if you want to be a disciple of Christ, you must follow Him and persevere in listening and obeying the truth as He parcels it out, if you truly want to be a disciple.

So I have titled today’s message the “four hallmarks of discipleship.”  This is not an exhaustive list.  This is what Jesus gave on that day, at that time.  It is another layer, another level of truth that He is disclosing.  He is adding more detail as He goes.  And so today we are looking at this portion of the message which is addressed to the disciples in attendance in particular.  He has been previously speaking a lot about faith and repentance as requirements to enter the kingdom.  Now today Jesus expands on those subjects by saying how faith and repentance will be employed in the kingdom.  It’s not all that needs to be said about discipleship or all that He will say about it.  But it is another step in their journey, their walk of sanctification, in their walk of discipleship.  And so these four hallmarks should also be true of us; if we call ourselves Christians, then that means that we are modern day disciples or followers of Christ.  We cannot in good conscience call ourselves Christians and not follow His teaching.  Jesus said if you love Me, you will keep My commandments.  So these four principles should provide a sort of check list for us as well, if we have truly decided to follow Christ.

Now the first principle that Jesus gives is that a true disciple will not put a stumbling block before others.  Vs. 1, “Jesus said to His disciples, “It is inevitable that stumbling blocks come, but woe to him through whom they come!  It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea, than that he would cause one of these little ones to stumble.”

Perhaps there is someone here today that doesn’t know what a millstone is.  I’m sure that you have all seen pictures or paintings of some of the old mills that used to be built in this country along side of streams or rivers.  Various types of grain mills would use the power of the rushing water to turn a great huge paddle wheel which  turned a large, heavy round grindstone.  Or it could be powered by windmills or even by oxen. But whatever the power source this extremely heavy millstone would be turned over grain to produce flour.  If you travel N. on 113 as you enter the town of Millsboro you can see a large example of a millstone at the town limits.

And what Jesus says is that people are inevitably going to fall into sin.  There are going to be temptations that cause people to stumble and sin.  Temptations are unavoidable while we are in this world.  But woe to that person who causes someone to stumble.  Who leads someone into sin, or teaches someone a false doctrine which leads them to sin, or who by their lifestyle encourages someone to sin.  Woe to that person.  A woe is a promise from God that He will bring divine retribution upon that person that causes someone to stumble.

So to emphasize how God views this terrible tragedy of causing someone to stumble, Jesus says it would be better to have a millstone hung around the offending person’s neck and thrown into the sea.  Well obviously having a millstone around your neck would plunge you to the ocean’s floor and hold you there until you were  drowned.  Jesus is dramatizing the nature of God’s wrath and retribution against those that put a stumbling block before others.  But the point is that we should be willing to lose our own life if necessary to keep from causing another to stumble.

Now this is a concept that is very hard for 21st century Christians in America to understand.  We have been so indoctrinated with the idea that we have been given certain rights as individuals.  We think that our rights are inalienable.  That they are God given rights.  And nobody better step on my rights, or they will be sorry.  We have all kinds of special interest groups out there today that are clamoring for their rights to be recognized.  They say their rights are being neglected.  And yet the message of Jesus Christ says that as disciples our rights are to be subjugated to the priorities of the kingdom of God.  Our individual bodies are not as important as the body of Christ.

Folks, I can tell you right now that if we really got hold of that principle, if we practiced that principle, then the divorce rate in the church would drop from 50% where it is today to about 5%.  We are too busy living as the unsaved are living; preoccupied with self fulfillment, with protecting our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, living for the moment, living for our pleasure as if there is no eternity.

This is the point of the parable of the rich man we looked at last week.  He lived for himself. He had a paraplegic beggar living on his doorstep but he was too busy tending to his own needs to be concerned about his neighbors.  He invested in the present.  He was rich in the world’s goods but poor in the kingdom of God.  And when he died he found himself destitute.  He found himself in hell.  That isn’t supposed to be the attitude of a Christian.  We are to be like Christ.  If we call ourselves disciples then we are to show the love of Christ who was willing to lay down His life for sinners.  That is what we are to be like.  Dying to self, serving the kingdom and it’s citizens.  It’s not about defending my rights, but about expanding the kingdom.  That is why Jesus reminds the Pharisees about the commandment regarding divorce in chapter 16:18.  They said they were in the kingdom of God, but they ignored the commandment against divorce in order to act out their lusts and as such they caused others to suffer, they caused people to fall into sin.  They caused their wives and those that married them to sin by adultery.  They caused people to stumble by their self interest.

Listen, a true disciple is characterized by humility; he will consider the needs of others before he champions his own freedom.  There are a lot of so called Christians out there that believe they can do whatever they want in the name of Christian liberty.  They like to have their alcohol when they feel like it and they don’t care if it causes someone who is weaker to fall.  They like to use profanity when they feel like it, and they don’t care if it causes a brother to fall.  I’m suggest something radical; some people would do the kingdom of God a better service if they didn’t tell others that they were a Christian.  They give Christians a bad name.  If you’re going to cuss out your employees on a regular basis, then please take the Christian bumper sticker off your truck.  If you’re going to lose your temper and act like the devil, then please do God a favor and take any reference to Christianity off the sign in front of your business.  I’m sorry if that makes some of you mad, but it needs to be said.  God doesn’t need your help.  God wants your obedience.  He wants us to act like Jesus Christ in all we do.  That’s what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.

And ladies, if you call yourself Christians, then you need to protect those weak men who might fall into sin because of the way you are dressed.  Yes, they need to practice self control.  Yes they need to stop thinking like sex perverts.  But you also have a responsibility to God to not be a stumbling block to men who find you sexually appealing.  You can still be fashionable and attractive and not be a stumbling block.  I have a suggestion, the next time you are looking in your closet for what to wear, ask God what he thinks of that outfit. And then decide whether or not you should wear it based on what He thinks, rather than based on your liberty.

Paul says in 1Cor. 10:23, “All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful, but not all things edify.”  Bottom line is, your rights, even your life is not as important as the protection of others who you might cause to stumble.  A true disciple will lay down his life, lay down his rights for the sake of his brothers or sisters in Christ or to lead someone to Christ.

The second hallmark of a true disciple is that they will forgive even as God forgives us.  Vs. 3, “Be on your guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him.  And if he sins against you seven times a day, and returns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.”

Now this principle has two parts to it.  The first is, if he stumbles, if he sins, then we are told to rebuke them.  This principle of rebuking is explicitly stated in 2 Timothy as a job description of pastors.  It says in  2Tim. 4:2, “preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.”   But all of us as Christians, as Christ followers have a responsibility to rebuke those that are in sin.  Ephesians 4:15 says we are to speak the truth in love.  We are required to be compassionate, but not weak.

But at the same time, notice that we are required to go to that person.  The tendency is when someone sins against you, or offends you, is to go to everyone else but that person.  We tell everyone else what a miserable cretin such and such is because of what they did.  But we fail to have the courage to go straight to the person and confront them, and them alone.  But that is what Jesus is requiring of us.  We confront them in compassion, desiring their repentance.  We desire to see them get things right.  But this also requires that we first examine ourselves.  It’s tough to go to your brother or your wife or your friend and confront them over their sin, if you are guilty of the same thing.  You first have to get the log out of your own eye before you can see clearly to get the splinter out of another’s.  So there is an element of self purification here.  In order to confront someone over their sin, you have to first deal with your own.

In Matt.18:15 Jesus lays this principle out in more detail.  He says, “If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother.  But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that BY THE MOUTH OF TWO OR THREE WITNESSES EVERY FACT MAY BE CONFIRMED.  If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”  This passage is one of the texts upon which we base church discipline.  It’s a difficult thing sometimes to do.  But we are commanded to do it.  We don’t have time to get into it in detail today, but notice that the first step is to confront him in private.  In private.  Don’t broadcast it.

Back in our text of Luke 17, Jesus says if that person repents you are to forgive.  In Matthew He says if he repents then you have won your brother.  That’s the goal.  And then Jesus adds that if he sins against you 7 times in a day and each time he repents, then you continue to forgive him.  The point isn’t to keep score and say, “ok, he’s got one more chance and then I’ll get him.”  Jesus tells Peter back in Matthew 18 again that you are to forgive him seventy times seven.  In other words, don’t keep score.  Forgive others even as you have been forgiven.

And by the way, since it’s father’s day let me say this; us fathers need to practice forgiveness towards our kids the way our heavenly Father practices forgiveness towards us.  As men we sometimes think that our job is to crack the whip, to apply discipline.  To lay down the law.   And maybe it is.  God does all that as well.  But thankfully for our sakes, God is a merciful, compassionate God.  The Bible says that the kindness of God leads us to repentance.  We think it’s the judgment of God that brings repentance.  But God prefers to be compassionate and merciful first and foremost.  Only when He has satisfied His compassion and mercy does He apply justice.  So I would just encourage you fathers to practice the compassion of God towards your children and strive for a balance with your family. James 2:13 “For judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.”

Thirdly, a true disciple will have faith unto obedience.  As the disciples consider the weight of what Jesus is saying, and how difficult it is to do what He is commanding, they rightly say unto Jesus in vs. 5, “Lord, increase our faith.”  They recognize the difficulty of doing it in their own strength.  But I’m afraid that these two verses and others like it have sprung up a false doctrine that is called the word of faith movement.  But this is not what the disciples are asking for nor what Jesus is offering.  They are recognizing that in their strength, in their flesh, they will have difficulty in doing the things that Jesus is asking of them.  And they are right in that.  So they ask Jesus to increase their faith.  Help them to have the faith to do what Jesus is asking them to do.

And that is exactly what faith is.  Faith is not a monkey wrench by which you can manipulate God to get Him to do what you want Him to do.  That attitude makes you Master and God your personal genie.  Faith is not a name it and claim it attitude whereby whatever you want to happen God will do if you just want it bad enough, or believe that He will do it hard enough.  Faith is not wishful thinking, or wishing really, really hard.  Faith, quite simply, is believing what God says to do, and then doing it.  I’m going to say that again.  Faith is believing what God says to do, and then doing it.  Faith is believing in the promises of God which He has written down and then being obedient to that word.  Faith is not listening to some voice in your head that you ascribe to God who told you to buy that dress at Macy’s even though you don’t have enough money to buy it .  That’s not God’s voice in your head.  God speaks through His word. Lam. 3:37, “Who is there who speaks and it comes to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it?”  You can’t speak things into existence unless God has first ordained it.

Vs. 6 is not a blank check to command anything we want to happen in the name of faith.  The Lord said, “If you had faith like a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and be planted in the sea’; and it would obey you.”  This statement is not meant to make it easier for Christians to do their yard work, but it is a picture, an illustration that if something seems impossible from a human standpoint, if you are obedient in faith to what God has told you to do He will make it possible. Mulberry trees were noted for their immense root system which is said to be able to stay alive for 600 years.  So this unrootable tree can be uprooted by faith and tossed in the sea.  Something that God has commanded, but which I find almost impossible to do in the flesh, Jesus says can be done by faith in God’s strength. Faith is obedience to what God has commanded, even when I don’t feel like it.  Faith is obedience to what God has commanded even when it  is going to be difficult.  Faith is obedience to what God has commanded even if it costs me my liberty, even if it costs me my life.  Remember that Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane cried out to God to deliver Him from the cup of suffering that He was going through.  But He qualified that by saying “Not my will but your will be done.” When someone has sinned against me, offended me, hurt me so bad I think I can never get over it, never forgive them, Jesus says in faith that root of bitterness can be uprooted, so that we might be like Christ and forgive those who sin against us.

Finally, the fourth hallmark of a  true disciple is that he will do his duty no matter how great the cost.  Vs. 7 “Which of you, having a slave plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come immediately and sit down to eat’? 8 “But will he not say to him, ‘Prepare something for me to eat, and properly clothe yourself and serve me while I eat and drink; and afterward you may eat and drink’? 9 “He does not thank the slave because he did the things which were commanded, does he? 10 “So you too, when you do all the things which are commanded you, say, ‘We are unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done.'”

Here is the gist of what Jesus is teaching.  He has already made it clear that you don’t do your deeds to be seen of men.  Now He’s teaching that you don’t do your deeds to manipulate God into doing something special for you.  This is the other side of the word of faith movement that I was speaking of a moment ago.  They teach that if you really have faith then you will send them some money, even if you don’t really have it.  They say that is seed faith.  Then God will honor the seed faith that you planted by sending them money and God will refund that to you 10 times over.  It’s a very convenient doctrine for the false teachers.  They get rich but you get swindled.

But I’m afraid this false doctrine has found it’s way into a lot of Christian thinking.  If we do this or that for God, then we think that somehow that obligates God to do something for us – usually our definition of blessing.  But Jesus says that God isn’t obligated to do something special for us because we have fulfilled our responsibility.

The blessing is that God has chosen to use you in spite of your flaws, in spite of your unworthiness, in spite of how many times you may have proven yourself unfaithful.  There is a reward for a faithful servant of God.  Eye has not seen and ear has not heard the marvelous things that God has prepared that for those that love Him.  But that reward is in heaven and will be awarded to us in eternity.  But all you need to do is look at the lives of the apostles and the early disciples and see what kind of earthly rewards they got for preaching the gospel and following Christ.  Jesus said no servant is greater than His master.  And consequently all the apostles save John suffered martyrdom.  They were imprisoned.  They lived as outcasts from society.  They were flogged.  They were publicly scorned and ridiculed.  They left jobs, families and everything for the sake of following Christ.

Listen, Jesus made it clear in chapter 14 at the beginning of this message that a disciple must first count the cost of following Him.  He said in Luke 14:27, “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.”  There is a cost in following Christ.  And there is great reward in following Christ.  But the suffering comes before the glory.  Romans 8:17 says that we are fellow heirs of Christ if we suffer with Him, then we shall also be glorified with Him.

Jesus is making it clear that if a true disciple is going to do the will of God, then he will be called upon to suffer, he must bear his cross, he must deny himself, he must serve God before he serves himself.  That is our duty as Christians.  To serve the Master as a faithful servant.

I read recently the story of Vice Admiral Lord Nelson who commanded the English Royal Navy in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.  This battle was considered one of England’s greatest victories, in which they defeated the French and Spanish navies.  Lord Nelson lost his life in that battle after being shot by a sniper.  But prior to that, he had lost an arm in another battle, and then after recovering from that lost the sight in an eye during another battle.  So the fact that he was even still in the fight at that point, still serving his country is remarkable and shows his courage and perseverance.  But as the battle of Trafalgar was about to be engaged, just before his death, he sent a message by signal flags out to all the ships.  The message was; “England expects that every man will do his duty.”  As the message circulated by flags throughout the Royal fleet, it is said that a cheer went up from each of the various ships.  And though the Royal Navy won the battle, Lord Nelson himself did his duty to England to the hilt, he paid the ultimate sacrifice.

Such patriotism and reverence for country and king seems quite heroic, that men are willing to suffer and even die for their country.  But as Christians, what higher calling have we been given?  Citizenship in the kingdom of heaven expects no less.  The Lord Jesus Christ sends out his message today to all that are within His kingdom.  He says, “The kingdom of God expects that every man will do his duty.”  I pray that God will increase your faith so that you might do His will, no matter what the cost.  Let us pray.