Sermon for Sunday March 20, 2022 Repent or Perish

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Sermon for Sunday March 20, 2022 Repent or PerishLuke 13:1-9

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There was some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood
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Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, Do you think that these
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Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered in this way?
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No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.
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Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem?
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No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.
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And he told this parable, A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it, and he found none.
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And he said to the vinedresser, Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none.
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Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground? He answered, Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure.
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Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good, but if not, you can cut it down.
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Thus far as the reading of God's holy word, let's go to the Lord in prayer.
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Our Father, as we come before you this morning, we come recognizing, as we sang in that last psalm there, that you and you alone are worthy of all praise, of all honor, of all glory, of all power, for you created all things, the heaven and the earth, and all that is in them is that we learn in the psalms.
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Lord, we know that you sit on high and you look down low. We recognize,
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Lord, and gratefully appreciate and acknowledge your love and your mercy and your kindness to us.
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And God, we thank you and we praise you for this privilege and this honor that we have to be gathered together in your house, in your name, to hear your word.
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Help us, O Lord, as we look into this text, help us not to see anything other than you.
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Lord, that is my prayer. Show us Christ in the scriptures today, for it's in Jesus' name
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I pray, amen and amen. It is important for us as we enter into this 13th chapter to recognize and to be mindful of the fact that this is not a new thought that we're picking up on just because it's a different chapter, but it is part of the same discourse that Christ began in chapter 11, or I'm sorry, chapter 12.
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So last week, you'll remember, in closing, we read the exhortation of Christ there in chapter 12, verse 57 through 59.
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Jesus said, why do you not judge for yourselves what is right? As you go with your accuser before the magistrate, make an effort to settle with him on the way lest he drag you to the judge and the judge hands you over to the officer and the officer put you in prison.
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And Jesus said, I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.
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Jesus' exhortation there was to the unbelieving crowd, to the scribes and to the
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Pharisees, was simply to get right with God. Now, someone speaks up here in chapter 13, again, part of this same discourse.
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Remember where we're at here. There's a great crowd of people gathered around, so much so that they're trampling on one another.
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They're elbow to elbow, if you would have it that way. And here in verse 1 of chapter 13, someone speaks up and they begin to mention the atrocity of Pilate mingling the blood of the
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Galileans with their own sacrifices. Now, what follows is really and truly probably one of the most straightforward statements that you will ever read or hear, because what
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Jesus says is this, repent or perish. There is no vague ambiguity in his speech.
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He's not saying maybe you need to do this and maybe you need to do that. He's saying this, repent or perish.
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Now many in our day, in our time, many even of our young people, sadly, have the idea when they hear a message like this, when they hear a title like this, by the way, if you're taking notes, you can put that as the title, repent or perish.
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Many will think of this as the crazy guy with the beard, not standing in the pulpit, but standing out on the street corner, right?
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With the poster board on the side of the road saying repent or perish. Now, there's a place for that.
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People truly do need to recognize that death is imminent, that death is a very true reality in our lives.
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As a matter of fact, the writer in Hebrew stated it this way, it's appointed unto man once to die, and after this, the judgment.
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Be certain of this, you might be able to escape taxes, but you will not escape death, save the
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Lord comes, then we which are alive and remain will be caught up together with those that have died in Christ before us in the air, otherwise, death is a reality.
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So, Jesus says, repent, unless you repent, you also likewise will perish.
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I wonder if they saw that coming. I wonder what they were expecting, because, again, remember what's going on, who's in this crowd, certainly there are some of Jesus' disciples, certainly there are a lot of unbelievers, certainly the scribes and the
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Pharisees are likely scattered throughout, and the scribes and the Pharisees have their disciples scattered throughout the crowd.
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Because the scriptures told us in chapter 11, verse 53 and 54, remember what the gospel writer put here, the gospel writer wrote this, as he went away from there, the scribes and the
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Pharisees began to press him hard and to provoke him to speak about many things, and they did it for this reason, that they were lying in wait to catch him in something that he might say.
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Again, Jesus did not back away, he did not lessen the message of the kingdom of God, the message was still the same here as when he began to preach when he came out of the temptation in the wilderness, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
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And so we see this truth. So Jesus' response to this statement that they make, and we'll look briefly this morning at the two statements concerning Pilate mingling their blood with the sacrifices, and concerning the statement about the
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Tower of Siloam that fell on those 18, we'll look at those things, but what Jesus' response to their statement was that he revealed their own sinfulness.
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And by the way, that is still our problem, we are sinners in need of a savior.
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But oh, what a savior that we have today. What a redeemer who gave his life on the cross at Calvary, who died for our sins that we might have and know the forgiveness of our sins, and be given eternal life, and forever have hope in him.
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Let's look for just a few minutes today at the history behind these two statements. First statement being the statement concerning Pilate mingling the blood with sacrifices, and the second statement being about the 18 on whom the
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Tower of Siloam fell. Let's look at that. Now J .C. Ryle noted, he said this, we are left to conjecture the motives of those who told our
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Lord about this event. We're left to try to figure out what was the motive of the individuals who said what they said, who asked
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Jesus this question. We're left to conjecture about that. But it did give him an opportunity to speak to them about their souls.
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And oh, what an opportunity we have today, Christians. What an opportunity we have today for any lost folks that might be listening.
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Because the greatest concern that you need to have, the greatest awareness that you need to know is that your soul is a living soul.
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That God made you, as the catechism teaches, with a living soul.
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Can God see you, Sarah? Amen. Can you see
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God? Amen. God always sees you.
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Praise the Lord. So he took this opportunity to speak to them about their souls.
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He took full advantage of this opportunity. Charles Spurgeon said this was a matter of common town talk, this pilot mingling the blood of the
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Galileans with their sacrifices. This was common town talk. So of course they brought the news to Jesus.
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But Spurgeon said notice how wisely he used this shameful statement. You and I too often hear the news of what is happening, but we learn nothing from it.
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As the old saying goes, it goes in one ear and out the other. It seems like there's no processing that goes on, no consideration of what we hear.
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We ought to take careful heed to the truth that we hear. Now, Spurgeon went on to say this, our
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Savior's gracious mind turned everything to a good account. He was like the bee that gathers honey from every flower.
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Again, I will repeat this again, there is no greater task that you can perform than to give thought and consideration to your soul.
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For you will die in Christ or you will die outside of Christ.
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You will spend eternity with the Lord or you will spend eternity in hell.
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It is a great consideration that we must make. And this is where Christ points these people to.
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Now presumably the Galilean Jews whose blood had been shed, and this is kind of the history of this, the
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Galilean Jews whose blood had been shed had come to the temple to offer sacrifices.
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Right? They had come to the temple to offer sacrifices, which was animal blood. And if their human blood had literally mixed with or mingled with the blood of the sacrifices that they were presenting, what this detail indicates to us is that they were slain while carrying out the act of sacrifice.
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Pilate had them killed while they were slaughtering the animals to make a sacrifice to the true and the living
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God. And so the blood ran together. Now we don't have this exact account in Josephus' history, but in Josephus' history we do have a bit of very good information.
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In this account of Josephus' history of Rome, he details, he does detail and lay out, just to give you an example, the evil nature that Pilate had.
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And by the way, I think that a lot of times we end up feeling sorry for Pilate because he ultimately, we know according to the gospel accounts, came to a point where he said he washed his hands of the matter, right, and he turned
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Jesus over to be crucified. To the crowds who cried, crucify him, crucify him, crucify him.
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And we tend to feel sorry for Pilate, but Pilate was not in any way a good man.
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He was a sinner. He was a man who was rebellious to the things of God, stubborn and rebellious as we are.
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But Josephus wrote this concerning Pilate, after this Pilate raised another disturbance in history by expending that sacred treasure which is called
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Corban upon Aqueducts, whereby he brought water from the distance of 400 furlongs, and at this the
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Jewish multitude had indignation and when Pilate came to Jerusalem, they came to his tribunal and they made a clamor, they raised a fuss.
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So when he was apprised beforehand of this disturbance, he mixed his own soldiers and their armor with the multitude and he ordered them to conceal themselves under the habits of private men and not indeed to use their swords, but with their staves to beat those that made the clamor.
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So Pilate heard there was going to be an uproar. He said, he got some of his soldiers, he said, y 'all go undercover, put on cloaks and habits like you're just part of the crowd.
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He said, I don't want you to use swords, but I want you to take staves. Stave is like a club.
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So as history tells it, he gave the signal from his tribunal. Now the
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Jews were so badly beaten, Josephus writes, they were so badly beaten that many of them perished by the stripes they received and many of them perished as trodden to death by themselves.
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It became such a ruckus, it became such an uproar that folks just went everywhere and the ones who didn't die from being beat with the staves killed themselves by trampling on one another.
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He caused a great calamity and a great confusion. So the multitude,
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Josephus writes, was astonished at the calamity of those that were slain and they held their peace after that.
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Pilate was notorious for his treachery and for his vile treatment of people.
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His treatment of the Jews and the Samaritans drove these people to rebellion several times.
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They hated this man with a despicable disdain. Josephus recorded several of the collisions between the
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Romans and the Jews. At one Jewish Passover, he related how 3 ,000
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Jews were butchered and the temple courts were filled with dead corpses. On the occasion of another of these
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Jewish feasts, 2 ,000 perished by being slaughtered. Luke records the death of Galileans at the hand of Pilate here.
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And Galilee was a hotbed, it was a hotbed for fanatics that strived to overthrow the
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Roman occupation of Israel. Galilee was not under Pilate's jurisdiction, but when these
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Galileans came to Jerusalem, Pilate had them killed. So we're talking about a very wicked man who did very wicked things.
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And so that being the context of all that, that one little section there. So we have the wicked acts of Pilate coupled with the veiled assumption that perhaps in some way these
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Galileans were guilty of some secret sin that no one knew about. Now this is where we get a little bit to the possibility of motive.
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When they said to Jesus in verse 1 there, they said this, they told him about the
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Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with the sacrifices. And Jesus answered them, do you think these
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Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way?
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Jesus gives us insight here into their motive. Their motive was not good, their motive was not pure, their motive was not right.
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What their motive was, was they were assuming that those who were killed, those Galileans who were slaughtered, those
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Galileans whose blood mingled with the sacrifices they were offering, they were assuming that they deserved to die the way that they died and that the ones who were asking this question think that they themselves are better than those who died.
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But what does Jesus do? He gets right to the heart of the matter. There is none good, there is none who seek after God, there is none who do righteousness.
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But we all have sinned, as the Apostle Paul wrote, and come short of the glory of God.
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So Jesus straightforward answers their question. Jesus knew that the
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Jews held a common belief, that disasters such as the Galileans had suffered were somehow a punishment for sin.
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John alludes to this Jewish belief even among the Jewish disciples. Remember that rabbi who came to Jesus when
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Jesus healed the man who was born blind in John chapter 9? Who is sin?
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This man or his parents that he was born blind? And what does
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Jesus say? Neither this man nor his parents, but for the glory of God.
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So Spurgeon paraphrases Jesus' question like this. He says this, it's as if Jesus said, do you imagine that there was some extraordinary guilt which brought this judgment upon them, and that those who were spared may be supposed to have been more innocent than they were?
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Now to suppose means to assume. To assume that something is the case on the basis of evidence or probability, but without proof or without certain knowledge.
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Making assumptions will get us in trouble. We need to test everything.
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Test everything that you hear each week according to the scriptures.
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Don't just assume I'm telling you the truth. I may not ever intentionally tell you a lie, but if I'm going away from the text of the scripture then
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I need to be reproved. I need to be rebuked and I need to be exhorted.
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But to suppose means that there was no basis for their certain knowledge.
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And what this supposition, this false assumption was, it was based on a false theology.
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It was based on a false theology. Now theology is very, very important.
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We need theology. We need to know, number one, who God is.
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That God is holy, that God is righteous, that God is just, that God is love, that God is mercy, that God is wrath, and that he alone stands apart from every other created thing because he is not created, but he is the creator.
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And we must recognize that man, us, you and I, that we were made in the image of God.
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And we must know what the scriptures teach, that in the fall, in the
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Garden of Eden, that sin was pronounced upon all, therefore all are sinners. We are sinners and we are separated from God by our sins.
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But we must also know this, that Christ came to save. That Christ came to reconcile us to God.
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He became the sacrifice for our sins.
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It was him who suffered the wrath of God on the cross at Calvary.
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It was him who took on, he who knew no sin, the Bible says in Corinthians, he who knew no sin, became sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
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We must know this truth. And you must know that he was crucified and that he died on the cross.
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He gave up his head, he bowed his head, and he gave up the ghost. He cried, it is finished.
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And he died, drawing his last breath. And they took him down from the cross.
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They put him in a borrowed tomb because he wasn't going to need it but for three days, amen?
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They put him in a borrowed tomb. Three days later, he arose from the grave alive forevermore.
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Matter of fact, when they came looking for him, the angel said, why do you seek the living among the dead?
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For he is not here, he is risen. Praise the
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Lord. Their idea, their theology wasn't based on, it wasn't a biblical theology.
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It wasn't a sound theology. It was a hit and miss type of ideology.
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Warren Wearsby, in his commentary, writes this. He said, when the blind English poet
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John Milton was old and he was obscure, he was visited one day by King Charles II, son of the king that the
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Puritans had beheaded. And this is what Charles II told
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John Milton. Charles II told John Milton, he said, your blindness is a judgment from God for the part you took against my father.
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To which John Milton replied, if I have lost my sight through God's judgment, what can you say of your father who has lost his head?
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Strong, strong, very strong. These folks, these folks in our text, these folks who brought this up had ill intentions of minimizing their own sin and maximizing the sin of others.
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Let this not be said of us. We are taught as God's people, when you see a brother overtaken in a sin, you which are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of arrogance.
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The answer there is no, preacher, in the spirit of meekness. And Paul said this, considering yourselves, lest you also be tempted.
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Right? We are not above sin. But it is crucial, it is crucial for us to recognize that Jesus reminded them quickly when he said, unless you repent, you also will perish.
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That Jesus reminded them quickly that when it comes to sin, the playing level gets, or the playing field gets leveled out real quick.
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So it's crucial to understand for us that repentance, repentance is not an act separate from faith, but saving faith includes and implies the true change of heart and the true change of mind, which is called repentance.
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Matthew chapter one, or I'm sorry, Matthew chapter three, verse one and two. In those days,
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John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea. What was the message? Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
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In Matthew 417, from that time Jesus began to preach, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
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Praise God. To repent is not just a one time event at the point of conversion, as many assume it to be.
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Well, I repented way back then, so I'm good. Repentance is a part of our lives as Christians.
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It's more than just that one time of conversion, but it represents our ongoing lifestyle.
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We sin daily, and sometimes, sometimes, I don't know about you, sometimes we get caught in a rut of sin, amen?
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Anybody that's there? I mean, we're all there, and so we are daily desperately in need of God's grace.
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We are daily in need of God's grace. As a matter of fact, in John's first epistle, if we say that we had no sin, we make him a liar, right?
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If we say that we had no sin, we make him a liar. But if we confess our sins, he is faithful, he is just, to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
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So, in an article by Cameron Smart, a church planter in Asia, he writes these words of wisdom concerning us needing to daily recognize our need of the gospel and the truth of repentance.
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Cameron Smart said this, some people believe that the gospel is only useful for evangelism. Some people think it's a message only unbelievers need to hear.
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Yet the Bible teaches that the followers of Jesus need to continue hearing the gospel even after they are born again.
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Christians should meditate on the gospel every day in their personal Bible reading, and pastors should preach the gospel in every sermon.
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We regularly need to hear about the life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ.
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As well, we need to regularly hear of the call to repent of our sins and to turn to Jesus in faith.
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So, Jesus' point here is that his hearers should not delude themselves.
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They were assuming that these people deserved what they got, but Jesus said, well, well, hang on,
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Buster Brown. Except you repent, you will perish as well.
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And that word perish is a strong word. It's bigger than just die.
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It means that you will forever, eternally perish. That you will forever, eternally perish.
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Vance Havner, an old country preacher, said this concerning that statement when Jesus said, except you repent,
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Vance Havner said, we have almost forgotten that repentance is necessary to salvation.
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In this superficial day, when people glibly, quote, unquote, accept Christ and join a church on Decision Day with no sense of sin or joy in salvation, their debts never having been stirred,
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Havner said, we need to remember the words of our Lord. And those words, except you repent, you shall all likewise perish.
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Havner goes on to say, in the 13th chapter of Luke, our Lord mentions two disasters of that time, in which a number of people had been killed.
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It was the common opinion that such people were greater sinners than the average to bring down such calamity upon themselves.
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But our Lord declares that there is no difference. All are sinners, and unless we repent, we shall all likewise perish.
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He closed this statement by saying this, we have our own way of reckoning one man a worse sinner than another.
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But in God's sight, we are all lost until we are saved. And if a man is lost, he cannot be more lost than another.
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Amen right there. If you are not a believer on Christ, you need not be any worse than you are right now to be lost.
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For it is your lack of believing that condemns you. What a strong statement. Except you repent, you shall all likewise perish.
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In the second example, Jesus is dealing with the second of two types of tragedy. So in this first tragedy of Pilate mingling the blood of the
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Galileans with their sacrifices, this was a human caused by human wickedness and human evil.
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This second tragedy, the tower falling on the 18th in Siloam, was a natural disaster, was a natural tragedy.
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But again, going back to John's gospel, John chapter 8, verse 24, Jesus said there,
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I said therefore to you that you shall die in your sins. For unless you believe that I am he, you shall die in your sins.
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So the difference of here is that in place of repent,
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Jesus uses the word believe, unless you believe. Genuine belief will always, always include true repentance.
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So do not be deceived. If you are not daily repenting of your sins, you might need to examine yourself to see whether you are in the faith.
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Does sin grieve your heart? If you are a child of God, sin grieves
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God's heart. And if you are a child of God, sin very well will grieve our hearts.
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Necessitating repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. Physical death, physical death, or every person alive today is either still in Adam in his sin, you're in Adam or you're in Christ.
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Physical death will be the great divider of every person. This is what Jesus is stating.
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This is the weight that is being carried here. Physical death will be the great divider of every person who has ever lived on the earth.
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Be sure of this today, that you are in Christ. Be sure of this.
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Make certain, make certain you're calling an election today in Christ.
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For except you believe by grace through faith, you will die in your sin.
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Matthew Henry wrote, we must therefore not be harsh in our censures of those that are more afflicted, more than their neighbors, as Job's friends were in their censures of him.
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Job had three friends, Zophar, Bildad, and Eliphaz.
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And this is basically, if you haven't ever read the book of Job, I encourage you to read the book of Job.
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We have a man who not because of his sin had everything taken from him, but because God knew that Job was his child, and that no matter what the devil threw his way, that Job was not going to deny
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God. God took everything from Job, allowed everything to be taken from Job, and yet Job praised
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God. And in the midst of all this other mess that he was going through, he had three buddies, if you want to call them that.
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My friends, Chris, if you get sick, and I come to your house, and the first thing
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I say is, brother, maybe you just need to get your thinking heart right with God, rather than can
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I get you some chicken soup, right? What can I do for you? Can I get you something?
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Can I help you? Can I pray for you? Can I love you? Listen, folks need to be told the truth. But we do not need to assume that we know what
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God knows, because we don't. Because we are not God. And moving to our closing, in verse 6 through 9, because we've looked at these, notice the responses to these tragedies are the same.
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Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Simultaneously saying the same thing there.
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And in verse 6 through 9, again, the scripture writer here, Luke, tells us, he began to speak a parable.
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A parable was a truth. The truth is revealed to the people of God. It is veiled to those who hear.
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Those who hear just don't seem to get it. That's the purpose of parables, as we have given to us in the scripture.
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And he told this parable, a man had a fig tree, and he planted it in his vineyard. And he came seeking fruit on it, and he found none.
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And he said to the vinedresser, look, for three years now, I've come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none.
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Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground? Boy, I'm with that guy right there. Sir will tell you that.
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There's a tree. Let's cut it. And he answered him, sir, let it alone this year until I dig around it and put on manure.
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Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good. But if not, you can cut it down. This parable primarily refers to the nation and the people of the
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Jews. Remember who Jesus is addressing here. What did he say? Judgment was imminent.
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Judgment was soon to come. And we see this, the judgment came. But Jesus is primarily pointing to the nation and the people of the
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Jews. Remember, God chose them for his own. He made them a people near to him.
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He gave them advantages for knowing and serving him above any other people, and expected unanswerable returns of duty and obedience from them, which turned to his praise and honor and would have accounted as fruit.
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That hasn't changed. That hasn't changed. The Lord, still very much concerning us as his people, requires of us duty and obedience unto him, which return glory and honor to him.
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Matthew Henry said, yes, it has, without doubt, a further reference, of course, and it is designed for the awakening of all that enjoy the means of grace and the privileges of the visible church to see to it that the temper of their minds and the tenor of their lives will be answerable to their professions and opportunities.
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And for that, fruit is required. Jesus spoke to them previously. Show fruit.
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That demonstrate repentance. So John Gill said this, barren unprofessors, as were the
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Jews, are not only useless and unprofitable themselves, being fruitless, but they make churches barren.
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And they stand in the way of others who are stumbled by them. They are grieving to God.
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They are grieving to Christ and to the blessed Holy Spirit and are troublesome and are burdensome to churches, ministers, and true believers.
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He would have been running out of the pulpit right there. Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith.
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And Gill went on to say, cutting them down may regard the judgment of God upon the nation of the
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Jews, which Christ would not have his apostles and ministers interposed for the averting of or the excommunication of such worthless and hurtful professors out of the churches by them.
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He told this parable, there was a fig tree planted in his vineyard. It's God's vineyard, by the way.
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And he came seeking fruit on it, and he found none. Jesus came.
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And he came seeking fruit from the tree that he had planted,
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Israel. And there was no fruit. And he said to the vine dresser, look, for three years now,
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I've come seeking fruit. Again, there are multiple interpretations on this.
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One of the interpretations is that the three years that Jesus is referring to the three years of his ministry.
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There's interpretations that say that Jesus is referring to periods of time, the time before the
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New Testament coming of Christ, that space that intervened between the two and then the coming of Christ.
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There are multiple interpretations there. Nevertheless, despite those interpretations, we can rightly understand from the word that Jesus is making this personal.
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And it must be personal, for salvation is personal. You don't get saved in a lump.
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Just because you're a banana don't make you one of the bunch, right? If you're going to be saved, you're going to be saved personally.
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You're going to be saved individually by the spirit and the grace of God. It's going to be
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God regenerating your sinful heart. It's going to be God taking our heart of stone out of us individually and putting in us a heart of flesh.
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It is a personal salvation. Matthew Henry goes on.
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He said he waited long and yet was disappointed, as he was much not high in his expectations.
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He only expected fruit. The writer doesn't say he expected to get a whole bushel full of stuff off the tree.
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He just expected to see something. Show fruit, meet for repentance.
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And he said, look, for three years I've come, I've sought this tree, nothing's happening, let's just cut it down.
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The vine dresser said, look, let's give it a little bit more time. And here we see the patience of almighty
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God. We are burdened and we are grieved when things don't go as our way.
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But friend, another day is a demonstration of the grace and mercy of God.
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Things aren't meant to go our way, they go God's way. And we glorify him in that.
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Henry closed with this statement. He came three years, year after year, applying it to the
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Jews. He came one space of time before the captivity in the Old Testament, another after that, and another in the preaching of John the
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Baptist and then of Christ himself. Matthew Henry said, it may allude to three years of Christ's public ministry, which were now expiring.
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And in general, it teaches us that the patience of God is stretched out. It is stretched out that God is long suffering with many that enjoy the gospel and do not bring forth fruit.
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So many, so many will enjoy the gospel.
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They'll enjoy the feel -goods. They'll enjoy the fe -
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But they're unregenerate. Nay, you must be born.
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Amen. Matthew Henry said, do not bring forth the fruit of it. This patience is wretchedly abused, which provokes
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God to so much greater the severity. Brothers and sisters, today, as one of the old songs states, this is my plea, my exhortation to you this morning.
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Come to Christ, for time is fleeting. Harden not your heart today, for it is
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Christ that you'll be meeting on that glad or on that dreadful day.
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Every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is
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Lord. To the glory of God the Father. Stand with us this morning, if you would, please.