Wednesday, November 10. 2021 PM

12, we'll be reading beginning in verse 49 and then we'll read all the way through verse 9 of chapter 13. A legend tells that originally the the monk who divided the Bible up into chapters did so while riding an ornery mule on a bumpy road on the way to Rome.

And so sometimes we have very odd places for the chapter. Sometimes he was accurate and sometimes he kind of, you. This is one of those things where we have a structure in the writing of Luke that we want to try to preserve, so we'll be reading this odd-looking reference.

But let's begin with a word of prayer. Father, I thank you so much for the time that you've given to us. Thank you for a warm place to meet and ample food to share together and feast together. Lord, we thank you for your word and that it never fails in the purpose for which you send it.

Lord, I ask that you would nourish us and encourage us in Christ, that you would give us a clear view of our Savior in this word, that we will that we would look like him in the world and that we would bring glory to your name.

Lord, help us to encourage each other and to show your love to one another and give us grace to intercede for each other and those who are in need tonight as we come before you in prayer. We pray all these things in Jesus' name.

Jesus Brings Division, Fire, and the Call to Repentance

Amen. Luke chapter 12 beginning in verse 49. This is Jesus speaking. I came to send fire on the earth and how I wish it were already kindled. But I have a baptism to be baptized with and how distressed I am till it is accomplished.

Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth? I tell you, not at all, but rather division. For from now on five in one house will be divided three against two and two against three. Father will be divided against son and son against father.

Mother against daughter and daughter against mother. Mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. Then he also said to the multitudes, whenever you see a cloud rising out of the West, immediately you say, a shower is coming.

And so it is. And when you see this south wind blow, you say, there will be hot weather. And there is. Hypocrites, you can discern the face of the sky and of the earth, but how is it you do not discern this time?

Yes, and why even of yourselves do you not judge what is right? When you go with your adversary to the magistrate, make every effort along the way to settle with him lest he drag you to the judge. The judge deliver you to the officer.

The officer throw you into prison. I tell you, you shall not depart from there till you have paid their very last mite. They were present at that season, some who told him about the Galileans whose blood pirate had mingled with their sacrifices.

And Jesus answered and said to them, do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans because they suffered such things? I tell you, no. But unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.

Are those 18 on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, no. But unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.

The Fig Tree, Judgment, and the Need to Bear Fruit

He also spoke this parable. A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. Then he said to the keeper of his vineyard, look, for three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree and found none.

Cut it down. Why does it use up the ground? But he answered and said to him, sir, let it alone this year also till I dig around it and fertilize it. And if it bears fruit well, but if not after that, you can cut it down.

So we begin in the passage by talking about kindling and we end there. Jesus says he's come to set some things on fire and he wants to get it going. When you read the parable about the tree that's not bearing any fruit, it's going to be cut down.

What does the tree get used for? It gets used for kindling. So you have these images on either side that are related. You also have this idea of division. There is going to be division inside of even to the core of families.

There's going to be division because of Jesus. Three against two, two against three, various people against each other within the families. And on the other side of that in the pattern is Jesus clarifying the need for people to repent of their sins.

Otherwise they're going to die just like the Galileans and the men of Siloam. They would die unprepared. At the heart of the passage is, are two passages that, two sayings that deal with crises. It is time.

The time is upon you. Why don't you understand this? And don't you understand that while you have the time you need to make things right? So when we think about the way in which, the flow in which we have these teachings of Jesus and the way that Luke organizes them for us, we of course begin with this image of fire.

Jesus says, I came to send fire on the earth. Now we have to square this, of course, with what Jesus says elsewhere is the analogy of scripture, scripture interpreting scripture. And Jesus said, I did not come to the earth to judge the earth, but to save.

Right? That's what he said. And that's important for him to say because every other place that you read in the Bible where God pays a visit, the old Hebrew word pakhad, the visit of God always brought judgment.

And so when Jesus is coming and saying he's the Son of God, then everybody, if they've been reading their Bibles and in tune with what happens when God pays a visit, well a whole bunch of people are about to die.

That's what usually happens when God pays a visit. Great judgment breaks out. But Jesus clarifies that he did not come to to judge the world, but to save the world. He makes that very clear in the Gospel of John.

And he said, didn't come to the world to to condemn, but to save. He said, but this is the condemnation that men love the darkness rather than the light because their deeds are evil. And they they hate the dark, they hate the light, do not come to the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.

So what is he talking about here? I came to send fire on the earth and how I wish it were already kindled. Now to understand that, let's look at the next verse. But I have a baptism to be baptized with and how I am distressed that it is accomplished.

Now we're a fair piece away from the time that Jesus got baptized by John the Baptist. Okay, that's already happened. It happened at the beginning of Jesus' ministry. We've already read about that in the beginning of Luke.

So what baptism is he talking about? Any ideas? Yeah, he says, I have a baptism to be baptized with. He's already had the Holy Spirit come upon him. He's already been baptized in the Jordan River. So what in the world is he talking about?

What is the imagery of baptism? Jesus tells us right here. The imagery of baptism is that of being immersed. Baptizo in the Greek means to be immersed. It was used all over the place in the common language to say, you know, make sure you get those dishes under the water.

In the Jewish holiness laws and purification laws, they use the term baptizo to say you need to get the dish all the way under the water. Okay, that's the way that that word was used, commonly. And Jesus says he's got a baptism coming.

We're in, he's going to die and be buried. But you know what? When you put the dish in the water, you don't leave it there like the lazy fool from Proverbs who puts his hand in the bowl and is too lazy to bring the food back to his mouth.

Not like that cartoon. No, when you put it, when you put the, when you put the dish in the water, you immerse it and you submerge it. And then what do you do? You bring it out. Jesus takes this very common image and he says, I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how I am distressed until it is accomplished.

Since chapter 9 in Luke, he has set his face toward Jerusalem and he is on his way. What is occupying his mind, what is occupying his heart as he moves toward Jerusalem? Is his coming death, burial, and resurrection.

What was he distressed about in the garden? Father, if it be your will, let this cup pass from me, but not my will but yours be done. So that's what he's distressed with and concerned about and he calls it here a baptism.

So it should not, so is that this is the, this is the basis, this is the background for when we baptize people, that we point to what we're looking, we're viewing the the gospel being declared of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.

And that we're identifying with that, that by faith we are united to Christ and therefore his death, burial, and resurrection is for us. And I'm declaring that to everyone who is interested to know that I have, I have died and I have been buried and I have been raised from the dead with Christ.

Now if this is, if the baptism comes first, see he says, I have come to send the fire on the earth and how I wish it were already kindled, but I have a baptism to be baptized with and how distressed I am till is accomplished.

Meaning that this has to happen first. So when did Jesus send fire upon the earth? Now the, you know, the sons of thunder wanted to take out that Samaritan village, but Jesus declined the opportunity to fry the Samaritans.

He's, he had a different type of fire he was going to send upon the earth and what was that? Or who was that? I will not leave you orphans. Pentecost, he sent the Holy Spirit and tongues of fire appeared above the heads of all those who were gathered there.

Who sent the Holy Spirit? Jesus says he said he was going to send the Holy Spirit. The signal that he was indeed ascended at the right hand of the Father, reigning supreme as King of Kings, was the fact that he sent the Holy Spirit.

That was proof positive and of course the promise of the Holy Spirit in this regard was, was the, was the signification of the New Covenant. The New Covenant promises in the Old Testament indicated that this is the way that the Holy Spirit would be operating in that blessed covenant.

So he says, I'm going to I came to send fire upon the earth and how I wish it were already kindled. But first he has to be baptized. First he has to die and be buried and be raised. Now in verse 49 he says, I came to send fire on the earth.

Verse 51, do you suppose I came to give peace on earth? What happens when the Holy Spirit shows up? Does everybody in the whole, let's see, the whole of Jerusalem, Judea, do the, did the folks in the Roman Empire all of a sudden start getting along really, really well when the Holy Spirit shows up?

No. Great controversy breaks out. Great controversy breaks out because as, you know, even at the day of Pentecost thousands of people come to faith in Christ. Very soon after that even more thousands and soon after that they stopped counting because there were too many of them.

And the Holy Spirit is at work and people are coming into the kingdom. They are turning to faith in Jesus Christ. Even the priests, even the priests are losing their job at the temple. They're no longer sacrificing sacrifices.

They're turning to follow Jesus of Nazareth. He is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. And this causes great controversy because in these Jewish families, now we have to read it in this context, right?

Do you think Jesus is saying here in verses 51 or 52 and 53 that his purpose is to bust up families? No. That's not what he's saying. He's not saying I've come to destroy families. When you read the rest of the Scriptures, read the New Testament, very clearly Christian families is honored and a joyous blessing.

The point he's making is what he says elsewhere, that you have to love Jesus more than your own family. And that there's going to come points in time where you're gonna have to pick Christ over family.

He said it now this this is very manifest in the in the Jewish culture because here these people, these two folks in the family, no longer offer sacrifices because they trust in Christ, the Lamb of God.

But these three still want to go to the temple and offer sacrifices. See how that works or that it doesn't work? Major, major controversy. And if you're saying that the Messiah has come and he was the Son of the Living God, then you are immediately targeted by all the Jewish religious leaders as apostate and a heretic and deserving of death.

And what does your family do with you now? Right? The controversies were intense. As when Jesus is saying he's going to kindle fire upon the earth, as the gospel goes forth by Holy Spirit power, there is going to be divisions throughout because you're going to have to make those choices.

You're going to have to choose Christ over family. So this is what's going to happen. It's not going to be, he came to give peace between heaven and earth, but it's going to be disruptive in the world systems.

The Crisis of Decision and Settling with Your Adversary

So now this, he says he's heading towards Jerusalem, he's going to be baptized with this baptism, he's going to send fire upon the earth, and then he says to the multitudes, don't you understand it's time to make up your minds?

Don't you understand that the day of decision draws nigh? You can't just, why aren't you paying attention to what is happening? We've already seen several moments of controversy, he's been telling parables about getting ready, he's been talking about them needing to repent and be faithful to God, and he says, you know a lot about the weather and how to get ready for a storm, but this is way more obvious with a whole lot more detail.

Why can't you forecast this? Why can't you, don't you know that times are coming in which you're going to have to make these hard calls and these hard decisions? And he gives another example besides the weather, he gives an example of, wouldn't it be better to settle with your adversary, the one who's trying to take you to court, wouldn't it be better to settle with him before you get to the actual court, where who knows what's going to happen, what the judge is going to decide?

Maybe even that you're, he puts it this way, that you're basically guilty, and why not settle with your adversary before the judge delivered you to the officer and you'd be thrown into prison? Now when we think of prison, we have one of the most horrible prison systems in all the history of the earth, not because of the conditions within, but because of the the nature of it.

We have more people in prison in the United States than all other countries in the world combined. Part of that's because the resolution between the war and between the states, it eliminated private ownerships of slaves, but the federal government still gets to own slaves, and they're all in the prison system, so it's big money.

But the prison that he's talking about were just kind of temporary holding cells. You were only there for a short time and you would come out of there and either get scourged within an inch of your life or you'll be executed.

It wasn't a place that you would live for months and months and months and years and years and years, you know, providing cheap labor for somebody. No, that's not what their prison system was. And so he was, so Jesus is talking about something very dire.

You better settle accounts now before judgment is passed. And so this is the crisis that he's dealing with, okay. This is, you need to understand what kind of a crisis you're in. And then he says, he clarifies what he wants them to do in terms of, you know, the illustration of settling with your adversary.

What he means is repent. And so there are some there that talk to him, there was a great tragedy that had just happened. There were some Galileans. Galilee was a mixture of Gentiles and Jews. Some of the Gentiles might be God-fearers.

Some of the Jews might be faithless. It was a real mix. Plenty of idolaters living up in Galilee. And Jesus's mostly Jewish audience is taking a little bit of glee in a situation that had just happened.

That some of these pagan Galileans who were offering sacrifices to their false gods had somehow ticked Pilate off, who was the chief enforcer in the area. And he had come in, found them come in with his soldiers, and slaughtered them all, and mixed their blood in with the blood of their pagan sacrifice.

So this Jewish audience is like, did you hear what they got? They got what they deserved. Maybe something in the, you know, jogging their memories like, yeah, in terms of a judge and a crisis and couldn't see it coming.

What about these Galileans, right? Kind of pointing at this notorious thing that just happened. And Jesus corrects their understanding. He says, you know, do you suppose these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans?

Now Jesus's own disciples are Galileans, and some of them very devout. And there are many who were faithful Jews going to the synagogue and so on, God-fearers and so on. We meet a lot of Galileans in the Gospels.

But Jesus says, do you think that these who were offering sacrifices to idols were somehow worse sinners than all the other Galileans? He says, no. That's not the point of the story that you all heard.

You've heard the story, you're sharing it, you know, it's gone viral and you're, you know, you're sharing with everybody. But that's not the point of the story. He says, unless you repent, you all likewise perish.

What does he mean? Does he mean unless you repent, Pilate himself will show up and kill you? No. If you do not repent, you will likewise perish. You will perish unprepared. You will perish unprepared.

And then he tells them a story. Or those 18 on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them. This region is, I mean, earthquakes aren't totally uncommon in this area. Apparently there was some structural problems with this tower in Siloam, and it fell and killed 18 men of Jerusalem.

And Jesus says, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwell in Jerusalem? Now that's kind of shocking because you've, the assumption was that if you lived in Jerusalem and around Jerusalem, you were especially holy.

There was a controversy in the church where the deacons were first needed to be ordained. The controversy between the Hellenists and the Jews was about the widows. And the widows who had lived in Judea and in Jerusalem, they were being taken care of.

But the Jewish widows, the whole church is basically Jews, they were Jewish widows, but they had not lived in Judea and in Jerusalem for very long. They had immigrated there, and because they hadn't spent time, you know, getting that holy wash on them from Jerusalem, they were not considered as deserving of help.

And that's the mindset that Jesus is speaking to you right here. And he says, he has just made two statements in which he has said the same thing about Galileans in Jerusalem. They're all a bunch of sinners.

So he's really working against the assumptions in the mindset. He says, I tell you, you know, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. So this brings, so the idea is not dying unprepared. There's judgment coming.

He's been talking about judgment. Judgment is pending. It's on its way. There's all sorts of controversy coming up. You need to get right with God. And so he has a parable. A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none.

This is a common image in the Old Testament and the New Testament for Israel, for the people of God who are supposed to be producing fruit, and they're unrepentant. And so they have, they're fruitless, pointless.

So what do you do with a pointless, fruitless tree? Well then he said to the keeper of his vineyard, look, for three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree and found none. Cut it down. Why does it use up the ground?

But he answered and said to him, sir, let it alone this year also till I dig around it and fertilize it. And if it bears fruit, well, but if not, after that you can cut it down. So again, we're back to the idea of there's a pending judgment, there's a pending crisis, time is short, and he's telling his audience, don't you see?

Don't you get it? Can't you forecast this? You have, you have a little bit of time left. You need to get right with God. Now this is, I think, immediately applicable to any particular individual living in any given time, because we don't know the day or the hour of our own time.

Our days are written in God's book from before there were none. I mean, he's got the whole thing planned out, and we don't know. But at the same time, what Jesus is talking about here is especially relevant to his audience, because within the next 40 years, there's going to be a million Jews dead.

There's going to be a million others sold into slavery. There's going to be, there's going to be chaos throughout the land. There's great destruction coming, and he doesn't want them to think that they can just mess around with their lives.

He knows what's coming. He's a good shepherd. He had compassion on the sheep because they were without a shepherd. They didn't have anybody warning them and helping them and directing them. And so, in compassion, he's saying, if you don't, if you don't get right with God, you're going to perish unprepared as well.

So, this is, Jesus has taught his disciples and he has said, don't fear man, fear God. He has said, organize your life to be productive for him. And at this point, he is giving warning to the congregation, the audience who have come around him, saying that they need to deal with this most important issue, that they not die unprepared.

And that's the lesson. So very often, we'll hear things, we'll hear stories about this tragedy and that tragedy and so on, and sometimes, and you can kind of feel the instinct of who's at fault. I mean, it's the first thing, like all these people just died?

Someone should go to jail. Someone should be on trial. Someone should be held responsible. And of course, we instinctively go that direction because we're made in God's image and so we crave justice. But Jesus says, the first thing we ought to think is, do they die unprepared?

Right? Do they die unprepared? Because even though we're craving justice as a reflection of who God is and he's made us in his image, he's the one who is the just God. He is the justice. And a whole lot of people just came face to face with him.

And so, this is Jesus pastoring us. And this is our primary, should be our primary thought when great disaster strikes and how are we going to think about it. Questions or comments? Right. Yeah. You know, you get this, you know, like when the Hurricane Katrina came in through New Orleans, a lot of that, well, you know, who deserved, you know, they probably deserved it, you know, this, that, or the other, you know, voodoo culture and, you know, calling down, you know, this is the judgment of God.

Well, this case or not or whatever, the first thought is what? How many people died unprepared? All right. Well, I'm going to ask Ken if he'll come and lead us in the prayer time.