“Opportunity & Responsibility” – FBC Morning Light (11/1/2024)

Well, good

Friday morning to you, and today the first day of November, and we are rapidly coming to the end of this year, aren't we?

First day of November. Well, on this particular day, we're reading chapters 10 through 12 in the

Gospel of Luke, and I want to focus on this interchange between Jesus and his disciples in Luke chapter 10, the 70 that he sends out.

And in this commissioning of these 70, and they're like front men, they're going to go to the cities that Jesus is about to go to, the villages, and so on and so forth.

We read of this in verse 1, the Lord appointed 70 others also and sent them two by two before his face into every city and place where he himself was about to go.

And he gives them some instructions along the way, but what I want to focus on is the end of his instructions and how he applies that particular situation.

He says in verse 10, whatever city you enter and they do not receive you, go out into its streets and say, the very dust of your city which clings to us we wipe off against you.

Nevertheless, know this, that the kingdom of God has come near you, but I say to you that it will be more tolerable in that day for Sodom than for that city,

Jesus says. Wow. You get the significance of this.

Here are the villages, the cities that these disciples are going into, and they are going to be held responsible, they're going to be held accountable for the opportunity that they have heard to receive the gospel of the kingdom and to receive

Jesus as he comes into their community. If they reject the message and they thereby reject the

Messiah who has come, Jesus says it's going to be more tolerable for Sodom than for that city.

And then he goes on making further application and he says, woe to you Chorazin, woe to you Bethsaida, for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago sitting in sackcloth and ashes.

You have had greater opportunity, and therefore you're facing greater responsibility.

It will be more tolerable, Jesus says, for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you.

And he goes one more, and you, Capernaum, which are exalted to heaven, you will be brought down to Hades.

He who hears you hears me, Jesus says. He who rejects you rejects me, he who rejects me rejects him who sent me.

So Jesus is saying here that these communities, these cities, Bethsaida, Chorazin, Capernaum, the various cities that the disciples are now going to enter into, these places have great opportunity to hear the gospel and respond to it, repent and receive the

Savior. And if they don't act on that opportunity, they're going to be held accountable, and the responsibility on their shoulders will be huge.

Now, I think there's a lot that can be said in application of this on national levels.

I think of the whole

British Empire, Great Britain, that was at one time such a stronghold for the gospel, and missionaries were going out, and on and on we can go, and yet today it becomes so secular, and churches vacated.

Great Britain isn't alone in that. We're quickly approaching that here in our country as well.

Many of the countries in Europe where the gospel was once proclaimed broadly and held to widely, the opportunity to advance in the faith and receive the gospel has been squandered.

It's being squandered in our nation as well. There's going to be great responsibility in the

Day of Accountability. But I want to apply this personally. I want to apply this to us personally, because the day after tomorrow is

Sunday, it's the Lord's Day. It is a day of opportunity for those who profess to be believers in Christ to gather together, to hear

God's Word, to grow in grace and knowledge of the Savior, and what do we do with that opportunity?

It's an opportunity for us to invite friends and unsaved loved ones.

What do we do with that opportunity? What do they do with the opportunity?

What is to be made of our communities where there are gospel -preaching churches that are proclaiming the gospel and trying to communicate and to invite and so forth, and yet people largely ignore?

What is to become of us if we have these wonderful opportunities at our disposal, and yet we ignore them?

I think of far, far too many people who profess to be Christians who have such a lackadaisical attitude toward the

Lord's Day and toward gathering with God's people and toward hearing God's Word that they can take it or leave it.

Sometimes they come, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they listen, sometimes they don't. What's it going to be like on the

Day of Accountability? I don't pretend to know.

I do know that if they're true followers of Jesus, that the Lord will chasten, the Lord will correct his own, but I'm afraid that there are many who profess to be believers who show by their lack of any interest in the things of God that they're really not, and woe be to them on the

Day of Judgment. What wonderful opportunities have been squandered.

Let's not squander them. Our Father and our God, I thank you for this challenge to us today.

We take full advantage of the opportunities we have to hear your Word and to respond to it and to grow in our faith in Christ.

I pray these things in Jesus' name. I hope you have a wonderful weekend, and I do hope you'll take advantage of the opportunity on the

Lord's Day to gather with God's people and to hear God's Word and worship Him. Have a good weekend.