Book of Luke - Ch. 12, Vs. 31-48 (11/09/2003)

You see it got it. All right Okay, we're on the air now Luke chapter 12 verse 31 pick up where we left off last

Sunday afternoon All right It says but rather seek ye the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you

I like the Matthew 6 33 version of that. It says it adds one word

That this one doesn't have can you think what the word is? First that's right

Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you

What a great Summary verse of What it means to live the

Christian life and follow the Lord Always seeking first is God's kingdom rather than selfishness rather than others rather than things

Always seeking first the kingdom of God and God promises that all these things that we have cares about Such as clothing and shelter and so forth will be added if we seek his kingdom first verse 32 fear not little flock

Now this verse is not found in the Matthew account. So this is this is a good addition on the end of this verse

Fear not little flock for it is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom that verse is not in the

Matthew account But listen to what that says One of those little verses you could so easily just read over and keep going looking for the exciting stuff in the passage or whatever

But look what this says. He's it's in the context of The tendency we have by human nature to worry about things that we need

Clothing food shelter so forth protection Human nature to worry about those things and then he says seek the kingdom of God first and God will make these other things

He'll bring them into your life. But then he is if that were not enough comfort.

He adds this fear not little flock Now who's the little flock?

Those are the sheepies Jesus says my sheep Hear my voice.

He says I know my sheep and they know me and my sheep hear my voice and they follow me and he said

I Hold them in my hand And my father holds them in his hand and of them.

We shall lose nothing cetera, etc the sheep and So he says fear not little flock or it is your father's good pleasure

To give you the kingdom here They are worried about food and shelter and clothing and he says your your father is the

God who created everything the entire universe And it pleases him to give you his kingdom

Wow Those are the words, but can we imagine what it means? You know, can you imagine what it means he's giving you the kingdom

You know, we can't imagine it because if we could imagine it we wouldn't worry about the little things we worry about It's already done it's already yours your inheritance is already good

So therefore if you're not worried about those things and you know that God's given you the whole kingdom then verse 33 can make sense

Sell what you have Give alms provide yourselves bags Which wax not old a treasure in the heavens that faileth not where no thief approacheth

Neither moth corrupted For where your treasure is there will your heart be also?

Now that's one of these verses. It's interesting. We were talking about One of Jenny's college professors a while ago.

That's teaching the Bible And the topic in the class was

Making sure that when you study the scriptures, you don't read things into the verse.

You just let the verse say what it says That's generally true But you have to understand that you're always supposed to read into a verse

Things that other parts of the Bible say with regard to that topic Do you understand what

I'm saying? Let the Bible interpret the Bible you never just Academically read a passage and use only the words and only the grammar you always start with the words in the grammar

But you have to read into it everything the whole of the entire scriptures

So unless you know the scriptures and have studied them over and over you have a problem with misinterpretation many times

But verse 33 what I want to ask you is this When we get to verse 33 if all we did was we took an academic approach and we studied the words in it

Then I want you to tell me what it says if you disregard everything, you know about the Bible Sell what you have and give alms that means give to the beggars

Provide yourselves bags which wax not old a treasure in the heavens that faileth not

Where no thief approaches neither moth corrupted Tell me what you think that says if you don't know anything else about the

Bible Which is so so a literal

Rendition of this would mean literally that if you're going to obey Jesus you go and you sell your vehicle your house and all that you have

Because that's what the verse says. Now. This is the way cult leaders use Bible to To lead people astray is they use a literal quite accurate rendition of the grammar and Syntax and the words and they say see here's what it says

We have to do this and then they'll go do it if they say drink pink lemonade With me that has poison in it.

They'll do that too. Once they've been led down a path of false Suppositions then the conclusion seems so good and so true

But you you would only know how to interpret this if number one you knew the Lord number two

You had been following him in number three. You've been studying the scriptures with him for years Because this is not telling you to sell everything you have and give it to the poor what it is teaching

Is found at the end of the verse and it doesn't seem to be the main thing

Because it's found at the very end but it says For where your treasure is there will your heart be also?

So the teaching is what you treasure Is where you will go If you treasure things

Then your heart will be here on this planet You'll be all caught up in things If you treasure the heavenlies, then your heart will be in the heavenlies

That's the teaching so That's what God teaches us.

He tells us that we have the whole kingdom of God. So why should we be worried about things?

A man's life consisteth not of the things which he possesses the Bible teaches now verse 35 let your loins be girded about and your lights burning and Ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their

Lord when he will return from the wedding And if you understand a little bit about the Jewish wedding

Feasts and ceremonies this all makes a lot of a lot of good sense And it kind of describes it a little bit here the

When he will return from the wedding that when he cometh and knocketh they may open unto him immediately

Blessed are those servants you see that and the way the Jews do it the young man has to have the house ready before you

Can get married Pretty good plan. I would say he has to have the house built and ready in every way and then he goes back to the bride and They have the wedding ceremony and then they return together to the house

And if he has servants at that house, that's what it's picturing here That when he comes back with the bride knocks that they'll open immediately

Blessed are those servants whom the Lord When he cometh shall find watching

Barely I say unto you that he shall gird himself and Make them to sit down to meet and will come forth and serve them and If he come in the second watch or come in the third watch, so does the

Bible tell when Jesus is coming? Doesn't tell does it If he come in the second watch or the third watch and find them so blessed are those servants in other words

If he finds them ready and this know that if the Goodman of the house had known what hour the thief would come

He would have watched and not had suffered his house to be broken in be Therefore ready also for the

Son of Man cometh at an hour when you think not Now verse 41 is an interesting question

Peter said to him Lord speakest thou this parable unto us or even to all now What do you think he means by us?

That's one thought what else could he mean The Jews Do you mean this for the

Jews or to everybody Jews and Gentile? Well, he answers it with another parable

Let's see if we can find the answer to that question verse 42 and the Lord said Who then is that faithful and wise steward now?

He's answering the question. He's responding to the question Is this us or is this all and the

Lord said who then is that faithful and wise steward? Whom his Lord shall make ruler over his house to give them their portion and meet and do season

Blessed is that servant whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing of a truth

I say unto you that he will make him ruler over all that he hath but and if that servant say in his heart my

Lord delays his coming and Shall begin to beat the men servants and maidens and to eat and to drink and to be drunken the

Lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him and at that hour when he is not aware and will cut him and sunder and will appoint him as portion with the unbelievers and That servant which knew his

Lord's will and prepared not himself neither did according to his will shall be beaten with many stripes

But he that knew not and did commit these things worthy of stripes shall be beaten with few stripes now we have to ask the question who is he that knew better and was was

Dealt with so harshly that was cut asunder and sent out with the unbelievers and who is it that didn't know better The Jews knew better and who didn't know better the

Gentiles so he answered Peter's question didn't he the previous

Parable then was written to both Jew and Gentile not just the Jew They have to be a little careful when you study commentaries because there is a very strong group of people who are

Dispensationalists and I'm a dispensationalist I suppose although I don't know that I'd use their definition for it

But they tend to try to break Everything down to certain things are with regard to the

Jews and other things are with regard only to the Gentile church and Really, I don't find that to be so much the case

I find that to be sort of a theological box that was put together by a group and then

Really built tight and then they taught all their little disciples that and the

Bible College students They taught them all that so a bunch of people believe that but if you examine it carefully

I think you'll see that Jesus answered verse 41 when Peter asked the same question

Is this just the Jew and the Gentile or is this for all of us kind of mixed together? And Jesus answered it very clearly

There is not nearly so much distinction between what is Jewish and what is the church as one might think by reading some of the commentaries and Theological works if you just read the

Gospels if you would spend six months studying Matthew six months studying

Luke You would come away being less a dispensationalist than you currently are now

My definition of a dispensationalist is a person that believes things change because of the cross and if that's your definition

Then we are dispensationalist But if you use the theological definition

Then what they try to say is that certain portions of the Bible are strictly Jewish material

Now McGee says that J Brown McGee says that in some places and I know where he learned it learned it at Dallas Theological Seminary That's their philosophy.

It's not necessarily biblical If it were true, then there are a whole portion such as the

Beatitudes that have nothing to do with you today Do you believe that I don't? But McGee does believe that so keep that in mind when you read people that are strong dispensationalists

They'll try to remove things and say well, that's Jewish literature. That's not for the church That may not be true.

If you go back and you study just read the scriptures as they as they're written read

Matthew and Luke and especially with regard to what Jesus says about the second coming and all those issues and Very clearly it applies to both the

Jew and the Gentile together. They are not separated After the cross they were separated before the cross, but even

Paul himself said there's neither Jew nor Gentile in Christ, so Some of those things are not as clear -cut when you really go to the straight to the scriptures and I see here

Peterson to be asking the same thing. Is there one set of rules for the Jew and another set for the

Gentile? Jesus said no, this is written to both but it is interesting that verse 42 through 48 the servant there is talking about the

Jews who had the oracles of God and God left them with those oracles of God to be a light to the world and yet they abused it and They they did the opposite and God is displeased with them in fact

The Jews really did beat the servants when the gent when Jewish people became believers and Gentile people became believers during the days of the

Apostles the Jews would beat them and kill them just like Saul himself did before he became

Paul and Would try to beat them and so forth and that is the group that is

Referred to in verse 6 that the Lord of that servant will come in the day when that servants not looking

That's the Jew and will cut him and sunder and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers the servant that knew his

Lord's will is the Jew the one that knew not as the Gentile in verse 48 and Did commit things worthy of stripes.

He'll be beaten with few stripes for and to whomsoever much is given That's the Jew of him and it applies to us today, too if you know more scripture and you have 15 million commentaries on your shelf and Strong's concordance and all this stuff that people didn't have a hundred years ago.

Well, God holds us more responsible to know the scriptures Because we have all these things but in this passage is talking about the

Jew that had the oracles of God He that knew not

Did commit these are worthy of few stripes for unto whomsoever much is given of him shall be much required

And to whom men have committed much of him. They will ask the more

So we take that passage. It tells us that the previous passage in verse 35

Through verse 40 is written. Not just to the Jews as many commentators will tell you it's just written to the

Jews Because they'll tell you the church is not even going to be here During the tribulation, so it's only written to the

Jew, but if you read carefully Jesus says very clearly it's written for both So verses 35 through verse 40 are written to the

Jew and the Gentile And applies to both equally All right, that's as far as we have time to go this afternoon.

We'll pick up at verse 49 Next time we come together on Sunday afternoon, let's pray father.

We thank you for your word Help us to stay true to your word and to interpret it with scriptures

With the other scriptures more than we interpret it with commentaries or any other thing

But we do thank you father for our forefathers before us who studied your word godly men and women who wrote hymns and songs and Commentaries and theological books and all these tools that we can examine and help us to glean the truth from them and the good from them and Father, we thank you for all that.

You've given us in these last days all the study materials The way that you've given us such a wealth the computer and the ability to study the

Bible And even have Greek helps and Hebrew helps and things that people just have not had in other generations

So help us to spend an appropriate amount of time studying your word spending time thinking about your word and meditating upon it

And cause us to be more like the Lord Jesus Cause us to have to cause us to have a strong desire to share

The nuggets of truth as we find them with one another and we ask it in Jesus name.