Luke 18:18-30

Luke 18:18-30  (Transcript of sermon for Sunday, February 2, 2020)

When I was in high school, I remember thinking one time that if this whole business about heaven and hell was true, as I believed, then there could be no more important question in the world than the question of how to gain one and avoid the other. Off and on, I’ve spent almost 50 years thinking about that question.

It is the question we find in Luke 18:18 when some ruler comes to Jesus and asks, What must I do to inherit eternal life? I know; that’s not a question many people in our culture care about, but like I said, if what Jesus and the Bible say about heaven and hell is true, there can be no more important question in all of life than to know how to gain one and avoid the other. Unfortunately, I think much of what I was taught about this was not true. So let’s read what Jesus says about the subject in verses 18-22:

¹⁸ A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” ¹⁹ “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. ²⁰ You know the commandments: ‘You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.’”

²¹ “All these I have kept since I was a boy,” he said. ²² When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

LET’S PRAY

            In the broader context of Luke, Jesus has been traveling on what would be his final trip to Jerusalem, when, according to Verse 18, A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” In Jesus’ time each synagogue had a man known as the “ruler of the synagogue” who coordinated the worship and events of the local synagogue. Since, as we will see, this “ruler” knows the Ten Commandments by heart, my guess is that he is the ruler of a local synagogue.

His identity, however, is not important. What is important is to understand that the question he asks is about how to gain eternal life—it is not about how to get rewards in heaven, as some Bible teachers have taught.

            In verse 19, Jesus answers, “Why do you call me good?” … “No one is good—except God alone. This is a key proof-text for cults which deny that Jesus is God. According cults like Jehovah’s Witnesses, for example, Jesus is saying, “Why do you call me good? There is only one who is perfectly good, and that is God, not me!”

            Frankly, if all we had was this one verse, we’d have to admit that they seem to have a point. It looks like that is exactly what Jesus is saying. But you should never just rip a verse out of its context. So we’re going to put this question on the back burner for now and come back to it after we’ve looked at the context.

            Jesus himself doesn’t seem to wait for an answer to his question. He just leaves the question hanging as food for thought, while he moves on. In verse 20 he says, You know the commandments: ‘You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.’”

            Jesus is just giving a sampling of the Ten Commandments—he doesn’t have to quote all of them because the ruler knows them by heart. In verse 21 the ruler says “All these I have kept since I was a boy.”

This is where many people get confused because this ruler asked how he can get eternal life and Jesus basically says, “keep the commandments.” That sounds like “works salvation” and Paul says over and over again that we are not saved by doing good works. In fact we’ve seen earlier in Luke 18 that Jesus himself is clear that we are not saved by works. So what’s going on here? Why does Jesus tell this synagogue ruler he has to keep the Ten Commandments in order to be saved? We’ll also come back to this question in just a minute.

            Verse 22 says, When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”  Why does Jesus tell this man he has to sell everything he has? Jesus did not make that demand of other people. For example, there was a time when Jesus cast demons out of a man and sent them into some pigs. The man then begged to follow Jesus. Jesus didn’t tell him to sell everything. In fact, Jesus told the man to go home, and tell all the good things God had done for him.

Similarly, Jesus apparently did not tell Mary, Martha and Lazarus to sell their home. And the Gospel of John tells us that when Jesus died, one of the disciples took Jesus’ mother home with him. That disciple still had his home! Apparently, not even Jesus’ disciples had been required to sell everything! In fact, even in the immediate context we find in Luke 19:1-9, Jesus commends Zacchaeus saying "Today Salvation has come to this house" even though Zacchaeus only gave restitution and half of what he owned to the poor. So why does Jesus tell this ruler he has to sell everything if he wants eternal life?

The answer is this: This man thinks he had kept every commandment since birth, so Jesus is testing him on the very first commandment: You shall have no other gods before me. Jesus wants to know, which is more important to this ruler, his possessions? Or God?

You may say, wait a minute, Jesus didn’t say, “Sell everything and follow God.” Jesus said, “Sell everything and follow me!” That’s because to follow Jesus IS to follow God! As Jesus told Philip in John 14:9, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.” So in other words, Jesus is putting himself in the place of God and saying that obedience to the first commandment means having no other gods before Jesus! Jesus is affirming his deity.

Now with that in mind, go back up to verses 18 and 19 to the first question I left unanswered, where the ruler calls Jesus a “good teacher” and Jesus asks, “Why do you call me good…?” “No one is good—except God alone.”  Like a good teacher, Jesus is asking the man a probing question to make him think. The implication is, “Are you coming to me as a good teacher who can give you an answer to your question? Or are you coming to me as the Good One—God—who can give you the eternal life you desire? Far from denying his deity, as cults like Jehovah’s Witnesses say, when we look at the whole context, we see that Jesus is actually affirming his deity!

            So how, according to Jesus, does one inherit eternal life? “Keep the commandments,” he says! That leads us to the second question I left unanswered: Isn’t this the kind of salvation by works which Paul so strongly condemns? The answer is No! We only think that because we don’t know the Law of Moses as well as Jesus did.

Keeping the commandments was never to be a matter of keeping rules and regulations by rote. It was always primarily supposed to be a matter of loving God as evidenced by obedience. Deuteronomy 6:4 and 5 says, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. This passage is called the Shema. It has been characterized as the very essence of what Judaism was supposed to be all about. Obedience was to flow out of that love or fear of God. In fact Deuteronomy 11:13 basically says that to obey the commandments IS to love the Lord and serve him with all your heart. Deuteronomy 11:22 says that obeying God’s commands IS about loving God and walking on obedience to him. Deuteronomy 6:2 and 19:9 say the same thing.

So when Jesus tells this ruler to keep the commandments, the idea is that you shall have no other gods before God, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength as evidenced by obedience that flows out of that love. It is an obedience that comes from the heart. In Romans 1:5 and 16:26 Paul calls it “obedience that comes from faith.” For Jesus, obeying the commandments boils down to having no other gods before God and loving God as evidenced by keeping his commandments. Like Jesus said in John 14:15, If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Unfortunately, verse 23 says that when the man …heard this, he became very sad, because he was very wealthy. The man who claimed to have kept all the commandments had not even kept the very first one—You shall have no other gods before me! He valued his possessions more than he valued Jesus.

            In verses 24 and 25, Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

            This was pretty radical because in those days great possessions were often looked upon as expressions of God’s favor. And by the way, the eye of a needle is a sewing needled. In the middle ages someone came up with the idea that “the eye of a needle” was a small gate which camels could only enter with great difficulty if they got down on all four knees and crawled. There is no historical or archaeological basis for that view.

Just as it is utterly impossible for a camel to go through the top of a sewing needle, it is impossible for rich man—or anyone else for that matter—to be saved on their own. What Jesus says about the rich in this verse it true of everyone. I suspect Jesus just focused on the rich because the ruler was rich, and because many people in those days may have thought that if the rich couldn’t be saved, what hope was there for anyone?

            In fact, that may be behind the question in verse 26 ²⁶ Those who heard this asked, “Who then can be saved?” ²⁷ Jesus replied, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”  Just like Paul, Jesus affirms that salvation is impossible apart from God’s grace.

So to put this story in a nutshell: A man comes to Jesus saying, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus’ response was to ask, “Why do you call me good? No one is Good but God.” In other words, the implication was, “Are you coming to me as a good teacher who can give you an answer, or are you coming to me as the Good One—God—who can give you the eternal life you seek? Jesus doesn’t wait for an answer but says, You know the commandments. The man says he’ has kept all of them since his youth. So Jesus tests him on the very first commandment by telling the man to sell everything and follow Jesus. The man went away sad because he failed the test. He valued his possessions more than he valued Jesus.

This “valuing” or loving Jesus even more than we love our possessions—or anything else, for that matter—is what John means when he talks about “believing in Jesus.” It is what Paul means when he talks about being saved by faith.

            For way too long, way too many people have been sold a false gospel. It is a gospel that says if you just believe Jesus is God who died on the cross for your sins and rose again, and if you trust him to save you—like you trust a chair to hold you up—you will have eternal life. Many, many people who have bought into this false gospel believe the right things about Jesus and firmly trust that Jesus will save them, but have no real love or devotion to Jesus, and little or no desire to obey Jesus, so it is not surprising that their lives never change.

According to one statistic, 73% of Americans claim to be Christians. How on earth could America be in such a corrupt, moral mess if 73% of Americans were really Christians? How can it be that so many of those who profess to be Christians live lives that are indistinguishable from all the unbelievers they work with? I think one reason is that so many have been sold this false gospel that says you can be believe or trust in Jesus but unrepentantly live any way you want.

In Galatians 5, Ephesians 5 and First Corinthians 6, however, Paul talks about those who unrepentantly wallow in sins like sexual immorality, witchcraft (or occult), hatred, discord, selfish ambition, dissensions, drunkenness and the like, and Paul says, “those who live like this will not inherit the Kingdom of God.”

But why not! Why can’t they inherit the Kingdom of God? I mean, if all you need in order to be saved is to believe that Jesus is God who died for your sins and rose again—and you are trusting him to save you, then what is to keep you from living a life of continual unrepentant wallowing in sin! Millions of people do—because there is no connection between what they believe in their head, and how they behave. 

I mean, there are millions of people who believe that Jesus is God who died for their sins and rose again, and who are trusting Jesus to save them—but who live as if the Bible did not even exist! Their lives are often indistinguishable from their unsaved neighbors. So how can Paul say that if you live like this you are not saved?

I once had a professor who said that it was just non-Christians who will perish for living this way. Christians can live lives characterized by unrepentant sin and be still be saved! As John Calvin would say, all Scripture cries out against such nonsense!

Way back in the 1500’s the great reformer, John Calvin, wrote that there were people even back in his time who had “no fear of God” and  “no sense of piety” (in other words, they didn’t love the Lord) and yet they thought they were saved just because they believed certain facts about Jesus. I have some disagreements with Calvinism, but I absolutely agree with Calvin when he wrote that saving faith “is more of the heart than of the brain.” Calvin says that saving faith is about a “devout disposition” in other words, a heart of loving devotion to Jesus above all else. (Institutes, III.2.8). 

Our passage this morning only talks about valuing Jesus more than we value our possessions —but elsewhere in the Gospels, Jesus makes it clear that we are to love him even more than we love our family or our own life. So what does it mean, practically speaking, to love or value Jesus above all else?

First, to value Jesus above all else does not mean you that you no longer like money or things. We all like money and things, right. But it does mean that you love Jesus more. Ask yourself, if you could somehow know for a fact that Jesus was calling you personally to sell all you have and go into some kind of full-time ministry—would you be willing to do it? Do you value Jesus more than you value your possessions? And if you say yes, does your checkbook reflect that?

Second, to value Jesus more than you value your family does not mean you no longer love your family. In fact, I would argue that many Christians who love Jesus more than they love their families—often love their families much more than non-Christians do! Putting Jesus first can give a solid foundation and depth to our love that non-Christians simply don’t have.

But to value Jesus more than we value our family, may in some cases cost our family. In many countries when someone decides to follow Jesus, they know in advance that their families will completely reject them and totally cut them off. And yet they turn to Jesus anyway. They value Jesus more than they value their families.

I once heard of a case in America in which a wife got saved and could no longer in good conscience continue the wild, partying lifestyle she and her husband had. He eventually divorced her. He said she was a good wife, but he wanted someone to go out and get drunk with! She placed obedience to Jesus even above the husband she loved—and it cost her marriage. She valued Jesus more than she valued her marriage.

Third, to value Jesus above all else does NOT mean that you become sinless. Hebrews talks about the sin that so easily besets us. First John says that if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves! In First Corinthians 7 Paul talks about his own frustrating struggle with sin. We all struggle with sin. That struggle will continue until Jesus comes back.

The key word here is struggle. A genuine Christian—one who loves or values Jesus above all else—sincerely wants to obey Jesus and it grieves us when we fail. Someone who is not saved—who does not value Jesus above all else—really doesn’t care much about obeying Jesus. Obedience to Jesus is really not on their radar screen. I mean, they may feel guilty when they do bad things, but their feelings of guilt are probably not because of sorrow over letting Jesus down.

Those who value Jesus above all else want to obey Jesus. They confess their sins when they fail and ask the Spirit’s help to do better. Such a heart of faith, through the power of the Holy Spirit, can’t help but begin to make a difference in a Christian’s life. In other words, they begin to bear fruit!

Those who value Jesus above all else do not want to live in open rebellion against Jesus anymore. And that is precisely why Paul can write that those who unrepentantly wallow in the sin he describes in Galatians, Ephesians and First Corinthians are not saved.

            Finally, valuing Jesus above all else, could cost your life. On October 1, 2015 a heavily armed man entered Umpqua Community College in Roseburg Oregon. He went into a classroom and shot the English teacher. According to witnesses, he asked two students if they were Christians. When they said yes, he shot them to death.

            I don’t know anything about these students, but I’m guessing they were really not much different you or me. One thing I do know is that they valued Jesus even more than they valued their own life. This has happened many times overseas when Christians choose to die at the hands of Islamic terrorists rather than deny Jesus.

            But isn’t that radical? Even crazy!? I mean, the idea that we should love and value Jesus even more than we value our own lives or families! Why on earth would anyone do that? The answer is that although we have continually rebelled against our creator in thoughts, words, actions and attitudes, he became flesh and lived among us—allowing himself to be mocked, spit upon, brutally beaten and tortured to death on a cross—and he did it for you, and me. He loved you more than he loved his own life. That’s why we should love him who first loved us.

            You know, we all want to live, and we all love our families. We all like money and things and we all struggle with sin. The question, however, is, deep down inside, at the core of our very being, what do we value most? Is it Jesus? Or is it something else? To value or love Jesus above all else is what John calls “believing in Jesus” and what Paul calls “faith.”

LET’S PRAY

Aaron Roger's Rejection of Christianity

In a recent interview, Green Bay Packers Quarterback Aaron Rogers explained his rejection of Christianity. He said, “Ultimately, it was that rules and regulations and binary systems don’t really resonate with me.” By “binary systems” he means, “it’s us and them, saved and unsaved, heaven and hell…”

My response is not a criticism of Aaron Rogers. He’s got some valid points. First, Christianity does involve rules. Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments”. Following commandments or rules can be certainly be burdensome, but I think Rogers may be missing something. Christianity is not about keeping rules in order to be saved. Genuine Christians willingly obey Christ out of love and gratitude for the grace God has given us.

If you were forced to carry a despised enemy down a long road, the task would undoubtedly be burdensome. But the task would not be so burdensome if you were carrying someone you loved. In the midst of the Vietnam War, a rock group called the Hollies released a song entitled, “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s my brother.” It is the song about one man carrying another—perhaps a wounded soldier. Although “the road is long with many a winding turn” the carrier says, “He ain’t heavy. He’s my brother. So on we go. His welfare is my concern. No burden is he to bear…” A little later the song says, “the load doesn’t weigh me down at all. He ain’t heavy. He’s my brother.”

That’s the way true Christians feel about obeying Jesus’ “rules.” When obedience to Jesus’ teachings come out of sincere love for Him, it is not burdensome (Matthew 11:28-30). His rules aren’t heavy. He’s our brother (Hebrews 2:11-12). Sadly, most people don’t seem to understand this.

Second, Aaron Rogers said Christianity is binary. He’s absolutely right!  Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me.” That’s binary. You’re either with Jesus or you’re not. Those who choose to reject him, face judgment. John 3:36 says, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.” That’s pretty “black and white.” That’s binary.

But there are many things in life that are “binary” that are true. To reject something just because it is binary is emotional, not rational. I’m sure Rogers would not reject his wife just because marriage is “binary.”

There is abundant solid historical and philosophical evidence to believe that Jesus really rose from the dead and really is who the Gospels claim him to be. If we ignore or reject that—if we ignore or reject Jesus just because He doesn’t “resonate” with us, we may be on the wrong side of a terrible, binary fate.

Aaron Rogers is really no different than the vast majority of Americans (except for the fact that he is one of the world’s greatest football players). He believes that people are basically good, and he finds it hard to believe that God would condemn so many “good” people.

The Bible teaches that we are not basically good. Even the best of people have continually, willfully, and sinfully rebelled against a Holy God in thoughts, words, deeds and attitudes. To be saved from the wrath of God at the final judgment, all of us must truly come to grips with the seriousness of our sin and turn to Christ in repentance and faith.

Sermon on Luke 17:20-37

When I was in my teens and twenties, eschatology—or the study of the end times—was extremely popular in the churches I attended. In fact, I wish I had a dollar for all the sermons I’ve heard about the millennium or the seven-year tribulation period, or the rapture or about being left behind.

And I was just as caught up in all of it as anyone else. I read many of the end-times books by the popular writers back then, like Tim LaHaye, Hal Lindsey, Dwight Pentecost, John Walvoord and others. One particularly interesting book was titled “I predict” by Salem Kirban, which reportedly sold a quarter of a million copies. The author made it clear that he was not a psychic or prophet. He said he was only making predictions based on his understanding of the Bible. Among many other things, he predicted that by 1977 cars would be banned from major cities and busses would run on nuclear power. By 1979 food rationing would begin in the U.S. and by 1981 the government would control all food outlets. There would be a head transplant in 1980. By 1982 special breathing masks would be commonly seen on the streets of American cities due to air pollution. Sometime before 1990 the Temple would be rebuilt in Israel.

Another interesting book was “88 reasons why the rapture will be in 1988.”

Hal Lindsey, Tim LaHaye, and Jack van Impe were not quite so sensationalist, but they made careers out of looking at current events and trying to show how they supposedly fulfilled Bible prophecies. For example, the 10 nation European Union was supposed to be the 10-nation world confederacy of Revelation 17. I don’t know if they talk about that much anymore, now that the European Union has 28 member countries.

            As a result, most churches today have little or no interest at all in end-times events. I wonder if another reason for the lack of interest is the endless and often bitter squabbling between sincere Christians over details about timelines of future events. Unfortunately, I think most churches today have overreacted, throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Just off the top of my head, I can think of at least 13 of the 27 books of the New Testament that mention Bible prophecy—

so if we’re going to preach through the Bible, we can’t avoid Bible prophecy just because of the abuse it has received in the past.

Prophecy is the topic of our passage this morning in Luke 17. Jesus will distinguish between the kingdom of God in its present form—and he will tell us what things will be like before that future kingdom arrives—and before he returns.  Let’s start by reading verses 20 and 21:    

 Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.”

LET’S PRAY

             Old Testament prophets had predicted that God would one day set up his kingdom on earth. It would be a kingdom of peace and righteousness—

and that is what most Jews in Jesus’ time longed for. For hundreds of years, they had been oppressed by foreign governments like Babylon, Persia, Greece, and then Rome—as well as from their own Jewish rulers—and they longed for the promised Messiah—a King of all kings—to liberate them from that oppression. In verse 20, the Pharisees wanted to know when Jesus thought this kingdom would come. I suspect all Jews wanted to know that.

Although the Kingdom would one day be visible—like lightening which flashes and lights up the sky, as Jesus says in verse 24; the initial manifestation of the kingdom in the Pharisees’ day was not something that could be observed, or that someone would be able to say, Hey, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is.’ Instead, Jesus said, the kingdom of God is in your midst.

Some translations say, “The kingdom of God is within you.” While that is grammatically possible, you have to remember that Jesus is talking to Pharisees. He certainly did not say the Kingdom of God was within the Pharisees—those whom he called whitewashed tombs and sons of hell in Matthew 24!

No, the NIV translates this correctly. When Jesus says the kingdom of God is in your midst what he’s saying is, “You want to see the kingdom of God? You’re looking at him!” Jesus is the king of that kingdom and all who swear allegiance to him in faith are part of that kingdom as well. But that aspect of the kingdom is not something that is outwardly visible with geographical boundaries or a castle or a throne room or soldiers.

I think Jesus answers the Pharisees this way because if they don’t turn their hearts over to Jesus in faithful allegiance to him, they will never see the visible aspect of the Kingdom of God which Jesus will establish when he comes back like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other.

Jesus, however, then explains this more visible aspect to his disciples. Starting in verse 22: Then he said to his disciples, “The time is coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it.

In this context, “to long to see one of the days of the Son of Man” means longing to see Jesus again. Jesus is saying that the time will come when he will no longer be with them physically on earth—and they will long to see him. But in the meantime, in verse 23, Jesus warns his disciples saying, People will tell you, ‘There he is!’ or ‘Here he is!’ And Jesus says, Do not go running off after them.

In Matthew’s version of this story Jesus warns his disciples not to believe the false Messiahs and false prophets who will come after him. Jesus’ prophecy came true. Just to give a couple of many examples, first, in the second century AD a man known as Simon bar Kokhba came claiming to be a messiah. He minted coins with his image on them, raised an army and even started a war with the Romans. The Romans eventually crushed him and his movement like bugs.

Much later, in the seventh century AD another false prophet came claiming to be God’s last and greatest prophet—claiming to be even greater than Jesus himself. Today he has roughly a billion followers. I’m talking, of course, about Muhammad.

Jesus warned not to go after these false prophets and false messiahs because when he does come back it will be dramatic and unmistakable, like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other as it says in verse 24.

In verse 25: Jesus warns his disciples that before this dramatic, visible manifestation of the kingdom, Jesus must first…suffer many things and be rejected by his generation. I’m sure the disciples didn’t understand this at all. A suffering and rejected messiah? That just didn’t make sense to them. They wouldn’t get it until after Jesus’ resurrection.

Jesus then tells his disciples what it will be like before he comes back again. Starting in Verse 26:

²⁶ “Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. ²⁷ People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.

²⁸ “It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. ²⁹ But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.

The days of Noah and the days of Lot have at least two things in common. First, they were particularly evil. Speaking of the time of Noah, Genesis 6:5 says, “The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.” The same was true of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Another characteristic is that in both times people were just going about their life: buying, selling, planting, building, and marrying—when sudden catastrophic destruction hit them!

Jesus says, in verse 30, “It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed. In other words, that’s how it will be when Jesus comes back—it will be an extraordinarily evil time and yet people will just be going about their business as if nothing unusual was happening.

If I had to guess, I would guess it would be a time when, for example, countries were seemingly always on the verge of war. Murder rates in cities like Chicago and Baltimore would be rampant. In fact, even mass murders in public places and sometimes even in churches would become more and more common. Drug trafficking and drug addiction would be out of control. Human trafficking and sexual slavery would be widespread. Pornography addiction would be so pervasive that even church people would be addicted. A baby who was wanted would be called a baby, but if she was unwanted, she would be called “tissue” and be killed—sometimes even after she had been born. And women would brag about it! People would expect taxpayers to pay for sex change operations; and doctors may even give children operations to change their gender. Women would even wear vagina hats and vagina costumes at political rallies to promote their sexual agendas. Meanwhile there would be parades in which many people walked around half-naked or in sado-masochistic outfits celebrating their “pride.” And all this would be promoted by the news media! And those who question the wisdom of all this would be condemned as bigots and increasingly persecuted.

And yet every day, people would all go about their daily lives as if it were all so normal—presumably just like it was in the days of Lot or the days of Noah. And then suddenly catastrophic destruction hits.

Some of you may be thinking, “Yeah, but there have been many times in history when people have become terribly corrupt and perverse—and yet the end didn’t come.” You’re absolutely right.  And we don’t know if the perversion of our culture is just before the end either. I think that is God’s intention. Jesus’ wants his people to be prepared no matter when he comes back.

In verse 31 Jesus says, On that day no one who is on the housetop, with possessions inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything. Most of you know that many of the houses in Judea and Galilee in those day had flat roofs. Since there was no air conditioning, people often sat on the roofs of their houses in the cool of the evening. The only way into the house was to go down an external ladder or stairway and then come into the house from the outside. Jesus says, there is no time to run back into the house.

The fascinating thing about this, is that this saying is used in Matthew 24, and Mark 13 referring to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. In Luke 17, however, Jesus uses that same saying, but with a little different twist. Luke 17 is not talking about the destruction of Jerusalem. Luke 17 is talking about when Jesus comes back. In Luke 17 when Jesus says, On that day no one who is on the housetop, with possessions inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything he is not talking literally, like he was with the fall of Jerusalem. We know that because when Jesus comes back like lightening and takes his people to be with him, that happens instantly, in the twinkling of an eye, Paul says.  There will be no time to even come off the roof, much less go back into the house to get your stuff. And where would you flee? When Jesus comes back there will be no place to flee to!

 No, in Luke 17, I think Jesus is using this saying metaphorically. It is like Jesus is saying, when you see your world become like the days of Lot or Noah, you better be ready to meet Jesus—there will be no time to get right with God when he comes back; and the fate of those who are left behind will be truly horrible.

            In verses, verses 32 and 33 Jesus himself tells us what his point is:  Remember Lot’s wife! Jesus’ says. Lot and his family were warned about the destruction of Sodom and yet Lot’s wife was apparently so tied to her life in Sodom she turned back—and was destroyed. Jesus continues, Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it. Jesus gives this saying several times in the Gospels. The idea is always that those who love their life or possessions more than they love Jesus will lose their life or soul—it’s the same word in Greek—they will lose it eternally.

            You say, wait a minute. We’re saved by faith! Can’t we have faith in Jesus and yet love our possessions more than we love him? The answer is no. Biblical saving faith is the idea of having a heart of loving devotion to Jesus above all else.

That doesn’t mean we’re perfect. It doesn’t keep us from stumbling into sin—just remember how Peter denied Jesus three times! But saving faith does mean we have a loving commitment to Jesus Christ that is ultimately greater than our attachment to this world.

            So why the urgency? In verses 34-35 Jesus says, I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left.”

            The idea is that you better be ready because Jesus is coming back at a time when you will not expect him—and when that happens, you will not have time to go back into the house to get your stuff or to get right with God. It will be too late.

Interestingly enough, Paul picks up on this teaching of Jesus about two people being together and one left behind, and teaches it in First Thessalonians 4. Paul says, According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.

            The Latin word for “caught up” in verse 17 is where we get our word “rapture” from. So when Jesus says in verse 34 and 35 that two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left, I am convinced that he is talking about the rapture.

There are some godly Bible teachers, however, who think the ones taken are taken in judgment—not in the rapture. But that doesn’t fit the context. In verses 26 and 27, those in the days of Noah who were left, were left behind for judgment—they were destroyed by the flood. In verses 28-29 those in the days of Lot who were left in Sodom and Gomorrah, were left behind for judgment—they were destroyed when fire and sulfur fell on the cities. So also in verses 34-35 the ones left behind are left behind for judgment—probably the judgment of Armageddon, and I think possibly even the judgment of the seven bowls in Revelation 16.

             In verse 37 the disciples want to know where all this judgment going to happen?” Jesus just says, “Where there is a dead body, there the vultures will gather.”  He’s probably saying this will happen wherever people are ripe for judgment—which will be everywhere.

            I saw a rather irreverent bumper sticker one time that said, “Jesus is coming—and boy is he ticked!” If you believe the Bible, there is some truth to that. According to the Bible, this mild and meek Jesus who came to serve and give his life a ransom for many, will return in a robe dipped in blood, followed by the armies of heaven and with a sharp sword to strike down the nations. Revelation 19 says, quote, “He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of Almighty God.”

            Luke 17 is about the return of Jesus Christ. Just as in the days of Noah or Lot, when every imagination of people’s hearts was evil—and yet they went about their normal daily lives until catastrophic judgment fell, Jesus says the time is coming when all of human race will face a similar fate. People will be going about their daily business while society as a whole becomes progressively more and more evil until catastrophic judgment suddenly falls.

            The point of Jesus’ end-times teaching was never about enabling us to come up with timelines and predictions of how we think things are going to play out in the future. It was about urging us to be ready. Quite honestly, we don’t know bad the suffering might be before the rapture comes. In some countries it is already about as terrible as it could get. The point of Jesus’ teaching was that he is coming back—like light lightening that flashes from one end of the sky to another—so we better be ready.

            But what does it mean to be ready? It means we get our priorities right. We make sure our ultimate allegiance is to Jesus Christ—our King of kings and Lord of lords, and that we are more dedicated and devoted to him than we are to this life or the things in it. It means we are striving to be found faithful when he comes back by daily trying to obey his teachings—not in order to be saved, but out of gratitude for the salvation he has given us by his grace through faith.

            It may be that there is someone here this morning who is not ready at all—someone whose life and identity is totally wrapped up in themselves, their careers or the things of this world. To be ready for Jesus means to give your ultimate devotion and allegiance over to Jesus Christ as the king and ruler of your life. The Bible calls that “faith” or “believing in Jesus.”

            If you want Jesus to be the ruler of your life, just tell him: “Jesus, I don’t want anything to come before you anymore. Forgive me of my sinful rebellion. You be my king. You take over my life. Help me to live my life in a manner that would be pleasing to you.” If you are serious about that, and have never been baptized, you will get baptized. Baptism is the initial public expression of one’s faith in Christ. As Billy Graham used to say, “Those Jesus called, he called publicly.”

Jesus is coming. Are you ready?

LET’S PRAY

Thanksgiving

On his way to Jerusalem, Jesus was traveling between Galilee and Samaria when he passed through a village with ten lepers. They begged Jesus to have pity on them, so Jesus sent them to the priests, and on their way they were healed. Out of the ten, only one took the time to go back to thank Jesus (Luke 17).

Most of us might be disgusted with the nine others who wouldn’t even say thanks, but we should first ask ourselves whether we are ever like that. If our doctor told us that we were going blind and there was no cure, we would be devastated. And yet how many of us take time to thank God for our eyesight? How about our hearing, our homes, our families, our friends, our jobs, our car, our health or any one of a thousand other things we take for granted?

Gratitude is a big deal with God. Giving thanks is mentioned about 50 times in the New Testament alone.  In fact, Paul says in Romans 1 that failure to give thanks is one of the reasons for God’s judgment on unbelievers. This Thanksgiving, take some time to reflect on all the blessings God has given you—especially things that you usually take for granted—and thank God for them!

Happy Thanksgiving!