Keep sharing good news without ads.
Pastor David Mitchell
All right, let's get started this afternoon. You must have a little long-winded preacher this morning because we're out a little late for lunch. I can't get his attention. Well, I believe we're in Luke chapter 12 this afternoon.
Brother Otis told me there's a couple other things about that oil and that flower that he's been thinking of. One is when you put the oil on the wafer, it puts a coat over it that keeps the air out of it or off of it.
It's kind of a protective covering to keep it from the world. And another thing is once you mix it with the flower, you can't ever take it out again. It becomes one with that flower. So it kind of teaches eternal security.
You can't lose the oil once it's mixed in. All right, well, Luke chapter 12, I believe you ended on verse 48 last time, so we'll pick it up with verse 49. Luke chapter 12, verse 49. I am come to send fire on the earth, and what will I if it be already kindled?
But I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straightened till it be accomplished? Suppose ye that I come to give peace on the earth, I tell you nay, but rather division. Let's stop there just for a moment.
I want to direct your attention to a parallel passage or a similar, not exactly parallel, but pretty much so. So in Matthew chapter 10, verse 32, I want to read part of that to you, and it is really I would consider to be a parallel passage.
But Matthew 10, 32 says, whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.
Now this part is similar to what we're studying in Luke. It says, think not that I am come to send peace on the earth. I come not to send peace, but a sword, for I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me, and he that taketh not his cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me.
He that findeth his life shall lose it, because in the Greek that doesn't say his, it says self. So you can read it this way. He that findeth self-life shall lose it. The selfish life is not real life at all.
And Jesus said, he that loses self-life for my sake shall find true life. He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me. Now, let's go back into the Luke passage.
Jesus is certainly not the same as much of the world understands him. Neither is the Father. So much of the world understands God in a different way than he reveals himself in the Word, obviously. But Jesus says, I am not come to bring peace, but rather a sword.
In our Luke passage, he says, I am come to send fire on the earth, and what will I if it be already kindled? It was already being kindled at the time when he was physically alive. John the Baptist kind of started the flames, started, if you imagine starting a campfire.
John the Baptist got the fire sparked and got some dry leaves going and some little twigs going. And Jesus comes along and builds it into a big fire, and it's just going to build and build until the second coming.
And at that time, it pictures a real fire upon the earth. But he says, it's already kindled, but I have a baptism to be baptized with, what was that referring to? The cross, his death on the cross. And how am I straight until it be accomplished?
In other words, have you ever been in your life where you're focused on a goal so much that it was hard to be content with where you were because you already wanted to be out here where the goal was, and it just takes time to get it to happen?
That happens with us in a lot of areas, but this is the way the Lord Jesus was. He had his face set, the Bible says, towards the cross. His face was set, and he was headed that way. Suppose you that I am come to give peace on the earth, I tell you nay, but rather division.
The other verse, he said, yea, rather a sword. For from henceforth there shall be five and one house divided, three against two and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son and the son against the father, the mother against the daughter and the daughter against the mother, and the mother-in-law against the daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
And he said also to the people, when you see a cloud rise out of the west straight way, you say there cometh a shower, and so it is. And when you see the south wind blow, you say there will be heat, and it cometh to pass.
You hypocrites, you can discern the face of the sky and the earth, but how is it you do not discern this time? That same statement could be said to us today. Because the first statement was made at the first advent, and this time that he was referring to was about to take place on the cross, and it was a time that changed the whole world.
There is a focal point in human history, the cross, and nothing that happened after it can ever be the same as life was before it. That's why we say we're dispensationalists. We believe that there's an Old Testament time and a New Testament time, and that the cross and what happened on that cross makes everything different, and it does.
And they did not even discern that, and they lived when it was happening. Now there's going to come a day when Jesus comes again, it's called the second coming, the second advent of Christ, and what the Bible teaches is in that day, it's going to be very much like the days of Noah, people will be eating and drinking and being given in marriage.
There will be a lot of commerce, a lot of good economy, I don't think you have to worry too much about the economy going bad like everybody says it's going to, because the Bible depicts it as a great economy, so that everybody's focus and attention is on things and prosperity, and everybody will be asleep to the fact that they don't even know what time that they're in.
And this is the way the Jew was in particular. Now this little passage where it talks about mother against father, I mean husband and mother against daughter, daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and all that stuff, picture that in a Jewish circumstance where you have here a certain number of Jews that came to know the Lord Jesus Christ, received him as their personal Lord and Savior, and instantly their Judaistic family counted them as if they were dead, they would not even consider them part of the family anymore because they hated Jesus Christ so much, and so he was a division in the family.
And in our life as Gentiles that can happen, it's just not as drastic as it is in the Jewish home. But all of you have probably had old friends that didn't count you as friends anymore after you got saved because they liked you the way you were, they don't like you so much the way you have become, so they don't hang around you much anymore.
And many of you have people in your own blood families that you're not as close to as the people in this church because they may not be saved, the people in your family, some of them not saved, so they can't see things eye to eye, and there's a division there philosophically between you and the way they think.
So you're not as close as you once were before you got saved. Jesus predicted all that. And then he comes into this part where he says you can look at the, you can feel the south wind coming, you predict the weather's going to warm up, but you're not able to know the time that's coming to pass.
That was for his day in the first coming. You know what he says about the second day that we live in, the end times? He says it's kind of like a fig tree, and he said you can't really know when the day is going to come, but you can know when summer is near, because it begins to bud, and you see signs of it.
And he lists quite a number of the signs in Matthew chapter 24 and other places, wars and rumors of wars, perplexity of nations, where the nations will be where they can't take care of all the needs of the people, and they'll be perplexed as to how to take care of the needs of the people, added earthquakes, famines, and strange diseases that you've never heard of before that begin to spread, you've never seen, never heard of them, all of a sudden they rise on the scene and kill thousands of people, many, many false prophets rising up and teaching that they're Christians, trying to teach like they're a Christian faith, but they're not teaching the word of God in truth, they're teaching some counterfeit, even doing counterfeit things that they say is one thing, but it's really a counterfeit.
All of this, well we see all of it, we're in the foothills already, and Jesus said you are not so, you are not blind to these things, if you're walking with him, if you're in the word, you can see the times better than the Jews saw it when he came the first time.
But still I think we would have the same challenge, we would not want our Lord to come to us and say that you know a shower is coming, or you see the south wind and you know that heat's coming, but you're a hypocrite because spiritually you don't even know how to know the times you're in, we wouldn't want that said about us, we need to be watchful, we need to be separating ourselves from the world system and the world thought process, the world's philosophies, we need to take every opportunity that the Lord brings to us in our lives, through the events that take place that cause us to step back and say wow, those things are not as important as I once thought they were.
Take advantage of those times and let God use them to get chafe out of our lives, to get us focused on what really matters and that is that first moment where with Jesus alone with no one with us, what's it going to be like?
The Bible says very clearly he will judge us for everything we've done in our bodies whether it be good or bad, not with regard to salvation, but with regard to reward. The book of Revelation says let no man take thy reward, be careful lest you lose the first things.
So it is important that we grow in our relationship and we grow more and more to focus on the things that are important. Store up treasures in heaven, not on the earth. You hypocrites, you can discern the face of the sky and the earth, but how is it that you do not discern this time?
Yea, and when even of yourselves judge, judge ye not what is right? Why is it that you can look at the sky and you can tell certain things, but you can't even judge correctly among yourselves? The difference between right and wrong.
Verse 58, when thou goest with thine adversary to the magistrate, or you're going to take someone and sue him, is what it's talking about, as thou art in the way, give diligence that thou mayest be delivered from him, lest he hail thee to the judge and the judge deliver thee to the officer and the officer cast thee into prison.
He says, I tell thee, thou shalt not depart thence till thou hast paid the very last might. Now Jesus is once again teaching in a roundabout way there that the focus should not be on the things of this earth, it should be on the kingdom of God.
If you get in your mind that someone has abused you and done you wrong and you're going to, or someone gets in their mind maybe that you've abused them and they're going to take you to court and sue you, the Bible, Jesus teaches there that since these things on this earth are not the most important thing, we don't want to get all bogged down in them and focus.
He said try to solve it, resolve it with them before you ever get to court. Try to settle it out of court. Even if you have to give something to the person that you know they don't deserve, you may have to give up a little and settle.
He said go ahead and do it and the point is not so much a teaching on suing or not suing or going to court or not going to court, it's a teaching on what's important in life. Can we salvage the time? Can we redeem our time in such a way that we don't have to get bogged down, spend a lot of time on things that are physical and things that have to do with things and we're off the mark on what we ought to be doing as far as taking part in His kingdom and fulfilling our purpose here and now and realizing the signs of the times that we can't just go on and live.
Our children cannot live the life we live. We took it slow and easy. We lived in the best times of this country. We took it slow and easy. We could just drink lemonade and just go along and have fun and take it slow and get to know God a little bit here, get to know Him a little bit there.
Our young people are not going to have that opportunity. They better know the Word of God now. They better get in it every day and stay in it now because you're living in a time when you could full well be persecuted to death because you simply believe in Jesus.
We didn't live in such a day, at least not in this country, but you may and you may live in a time where your United States government tells you you can't have any form of religion or at least you can't express it because that's what causes all the division.
So we're just stopping all that and you'd be persecuted if you mention the name of Jesus to your neighbor. So you've got to be stronger faster and you've got to discern the times much more quickly because the times are upon you.
They were not upon us, but they are now and we need to realize that all you've got to do is read the newspaper. Any time you can line the newspaper up with the scriptures and the prophetic passages, you know that you ought to be discerning some things and we are there.
Every day is an exciting day because every day is a fulfillment of the scriptures. You get discouraged because the great churches, the large churches in the country are teaching stuff that's not even true.
A lot of times they're putting in some leaven into their preaching, success preaching and experience preaching and not just getting in the word and studying about God himself. Focus more on man and our own success.
You get discouraged and all the big churches and the places where they just preach about God and the word are not real huge and not real popular and successful. You shouldn't be discouraged because the Bible says in the end times there must be a great apostasy before Jesus comes back, a great falling away.
The masses of the people will not be going down the right road when he comes. Were they going down the right road when he came the first time? Were the Jews who were studying the word, you know, they were okay but how many of them were studying the word?
Not hardly any of them. Most of them were being taught from targums, paraphrases. I've got a copy of one at home. You read Isaiah 53, it does not even mention the suffering servant, Jesus Christ in it.
Whereas your Bible does but they've given that up and were being taught by false prophets. So when Jesus came, the vast majority of them missed him, missed their own Messiah. The Bible says when he comes the second time there will be a parallel.
The great majority of those who call themselves the church will be on the wrong path, focused on the wrong things. And there will be a great apostasy in the church or a great falling away from the truth.
Jesus said when I come will there be faith on the earth. So you could even be encouraged by the dwindling of brothers and sisters who believe the Bible true. Don't be discouraged, be encouraged because he's coming sooner.
He's coming back for us soon. And that really is his whole message in this little passage is don't get caught up in the things of this world. Be focused on the signs of the time, be aware of them, don't be asleep, be watchful.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We ask you that you would remind us each day of this particular passage to help us to be watchful all the time, not to be frivolous, not to be too much into the things of the world so much that we miss the focus on your purpose and your times and what you're doing around us.
Lord, help our young people to grow to maturity quickly and to study the scriptures with diligence and to walk with you that they might be prepared for these end days and help all of us to be the light, the salt that we ought to be until Jesus Christ comes back for us.
We pray in his name. Amen. You're dismissed.