Monthly Archives: February 2020

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – JUST AS IN THE TIME OF NOAH

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JUST AS IN THE TIME OF NOAH

“‘The time of the Son of Man will be just like the time of Noah – everyone carrying on as usual, having a good time right up to the day Noah boarded the ship. They suspected nothing until the flood hit and swept everything away.

“It was the same in the time of Lot – the people carrying on, having a good time, business as usual right up to the day Lot walked out of Sodom and a firestorm swept down and burned everything to a crisp. That’s how it will be – sudden, total – when the Son of Man is revealed.'” Luke 17:25-30.

People have a morbid fascination with the end of the world. Nostradamus predicted it would happen on 21/12/2012. Movies and TV programmes present the event as exciting forms of entertainment. Prophecy teachers go to great lengths, with charts and PowerPoint presentations, to explain its sequence and to paint vivid word pictures of antichrists, Armageddon battles and the gloom and terror of seven years of tribulation under a terrible world dictator. Writers make a fortune from the royalties garnered from their “Left Behind” books.

These may all be good for box office takings and royalties but are they true to the words of Jesus and the drift of Scripture?

First of all, in spite of the general fascination with the idea, somehow there is a strong resistance to the sober warning of Jesus. There is no doubt that it will happen and He does not leave us in the dark about what to do about it. And yet the majority of people still ignore what He has to say and create their own version.

Books and movies tell us it will happen but they don’t tell us what to do. Run for cover? Won’t work! Stockpile provisions and live underground? Won’t work either! Evacuate the planet? Good idea but highly impractical! Create a new version that has nothing to do with how we respond to our Creator? Won’t change the truth!

There is only one sensible thing to do – take what Jesus said seriously, and why not? After all, everything else He predicted was accurate; for instance, His death and resurrection, the coming of the Holy Spirit, the destruction of Jerusalem, so why not trust what He said about His return?

Secondly, just what did He say? He said it would happen so suddenly and so quickly that there would be no time to react. People would be unsuspecting, getting on with their lives and taking no notice of His warnings and the warning signs He predicted. Like a flash of lightning, He would come; no time to bargain, no time to make good on empty promises made in a moment of crisis.

Jesus’ counsel was to be ready long before that moment. How? By embracing the life He offers through faith in His sacrifice to forgive sin, and entrusting ourselves to Him as our God for the rest of our days. That’s the beginning but it will issue in changes that give evidence of a changed heart – selfishness giving way to generosity of attitude and action, a new purpose and a new destiny, living a life of fruitfulness instead of futility.

When Jesus returns, He will destroy everything that stands in opposition to Him and His purposes. Every worthless thing will be consumed, including everything that is not in perfect harmony with who He is – all sin, evil, pain, sickness, sorrow and death – and all those who refuse to submit to His authority. He cannot do otherwise to be true to Himself. He must give to every person what they chose when they had the opportunity, and the consequences of their choices.

This is not revenge – this is justice. On earth, humans can manipulate justice but not in God’s economy because He cannot deny Himself.

If we think that following Jesus will make us losers, we need to re-evaluate. Yes, we are losers, but what do we lose? We lose all our sin with its guilt, shame and fear and gain the peace of God; we lose our insecurities and our fear of death and gain the assurance of eternal life; we lose our helplessness and hopelessness, our meaningless and purposeless existence and gain the guiding hand of a loving Father; we lose our orphan status – we are now sons and daughters of the living God; we lose our slavery to the devil and gain a new Master who loves us passionately; we lose our destiny on the trash heap of worthlessness and gain eternal life with God.

Isn’t it worth it to make sure now?

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – HE SIMPLY COMES

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HE SIMPLY COMES

“He went on to say to His disciples, ‘The days are coming when you are going to be desperately homesick for just one glimpse of one of the days of the Son of Man, and you won’t see a thing. And they’ll say to you, ‘Look over there!’ or ‘Look here!’ Don’t fall for any of that nonsense. The arrival of the Son of Man is not something you go out to see. He simply comes,’” Luke 17:22-24.

Jesus warned His disciples time and again that bad times were coming because His people had refused to receive Him. He wept over Jerusalem because of the people’s insensitivity to their opportunity. Because they had rejected their Messiah, the Roman army would come and raze Jerusalem to the ground, demolish their temple to a pile of rubble and kill their people until their blood ran like a river in the streets.

Like a thief in the night, Jesus appeared on the human scene, unexpected and unannounced except to the few who were looking for Him. Even His words and His works did not convince them and they killed Him as a fake. How they would long to turn the clock back when Rome finally took revenge for their rebellion against their overlords! They had foolishly called down His blood on their own heads, not realising that their own mouths had sealed their doom.

Jesus made it clear that He was no phenomenon to be viewed as an object of curiosity or interest. When He came the first time, He came quietly. No-one heard the angelic announcement except a few humble shepherds on a hillside outside Bethlehem. He simply came. Those who visited Him were invited by the Father Himself. The rest were unaware that Messiah had made His appearance in human form.

Even when He comes to dwell in the spirit of a human being, He comes quietly. Jesus assured Nicodemus that the work of the Spirit is like the wind. You cannot see the wind but you can see and feel its effects. So it is with the Spirit of God. When He comes as Jesus’ personal representative on earth, to take up residence in a human heart, the effects of His coming are real as the new believer is rescued from the dominion of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of light.

His return will not be a phenomenon to be observed, but a sudden, visible and earth-encircling flash, like a flash of lightning which lights up the sky from east to west. His return heralds instantaneous changes, not like the ideas conjured up by the imagination of movie writers and producers. As much as they are intrigued by the concept of “the end of the world”, they all, strangely enough, ignore its association with the one who created it in the first place.

Nuclear war, heavenly bodies crashing into the earth, massive volcanic eruptions and earthquakes line up to take responsibility for the final demise of our planet, but God is omitted in the mix. However, the Bible tells us that He will destroy all evil by the word of His mouth and make all things new. This makes sense since it was His word that brought forth the world in which we live.

It is not God’s plan to destroy the planet which He created to be the perfect home for man. Just as He did with the flood, He will destroy all the wickedness on it, and restore it to its former perfection to be the dwelling place of all those who have responded to His invitation to join His family through faith in his Son.

“Then I saw a new (renewed) heaven and a new (renewed) earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea….And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with them…’  He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!'” Revelation 21:1-5 (NIV).

He did not say, “I am making all new things,” but “everything new”. When God renews all things, He comes full circle, completing what He started and perfecting forever His family of men and women who have been recreated in the image of His Son. When Jesus returns, He will simply come and that’s it, forever.

The time to decide is now…

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – GOD’S KINGDOM IS AMONG YOU

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GOD’S KINGDOM IS AMONG YOU

“Jesus, grilled by the Pharisees on when the kingdom of God would come, answered, ‘The kingdom of God doesn’t come by counting the days on the calendar. Nor when someone says, ‘Look here!’ or ‘There it is!’ And why? Because God’s kingdom is already among you.'” Luke 17:20, 21 (The Message).

The Pharisees just didn’t get it! They were looking for God’s kingdom in the wrong place. They thought that the kingdom of God was regional, geographical and political. They could not grasp the truth that God’s rule could be among them and within them.

When Jesus began His public ministry, His first announcement was, ‘The time has come…The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news.’ Mark 1:15 (NIV). The good news is much more than that He died for our sins to take us to heaven. The good news, prophesied by the prophet Isaiah centuries before is, “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, ‘Our God reigns!'” Isaiah 52:7 (NIV).

How sad that the ‘good news’ that is generally proclaimed today has been watered down to an escape route from hell! Jesus came to declare and demonstrate the good news that God is in charge, here, now, in the worst of our circumstances, when the stock market crashes and the bottom falls out of our world. He is here with His love and power to change our hearts, to transform us from selfish, self-seeking people into loving and caring sons who trust Him and spend our lives making other people’s lives better at our own expense.

The Pharisees rejected Jesus’ message because, like the rich young ruler, their ‘kingdom’ was ruled by the love of money. They could not serve God and mammon and they had chosen mammon.

The strange thing is that, had they only realised it, the potential to live God’s way was already in them. All they needed to do was to change their minds, receive and believe the truth and they would have been a part of the growing number of people who had moved out of the selfish lifestyle that led to death, into a way of living that copied Jesus.

So, what is the kingdom of God?

Every earthly kingdom is influenced by the ‘god of this world’ – the devil – and is built on the principle of selfishness and greed. Every government and every constitution is designed to exercise a measure of control over people so that society does not deteriorate into total chaos. Thus we need laws to control people’s behaviour. We have every kind of system to regulate and direct what people do, and policing and legal processes to punish those who step outside the law.

But none of these measures can control the heart of a man. Every human being is born with a bias towards greed and wickedness. This is the legacy of Adam and no amount of legislation can change our disposition.    

The really good news is that God can. By paying our debt and releasing us from slavery to Satan, Jesus has invited us into the realm where God rules. As we yield ourselves to Him, He takes up residence in our spirits and redirects us into the truth that He is God, not the devil, and that we are no longer under obligation to the devil and his ways. We are free to love and give instead of demand and grab, and that is the disposition of Jesus and the way God does things in His realm.

The kingdom of God is not limited by geographical or political boundaries. Wherever God is in control of a human heart, He is there. His kingdom can function in the midst of paganism, idolatry and false religions if one person believes and follows Jesus. And so God’s kingdom grows as one life touches another, as the old hymn puts it:

“So be it, Lord! Thy throne shall never,                                                                                               Like earth’s proud empires, pass away;                                                                                            Thy Kingdom stands and grows forever,                                                                                          Till all Thy creatures own Thy sway.”                                                                                              (John Ellerton, 1826-93) 174

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – IT PAYS TO BE GRATEFUL

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IT PAYS TO BE GRATEFUL

“It happened that as He made His way toward Jerusalem, He crossed over the border between Samaria and Galilee. As He entered a village, ten men, all lepers, met Him. They…raised their voices, calling out, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.’

“Taking a good look at them He said, ‘Go show yourselves to the priests.’

“They went, and while still on their way, they became clean. One of them…turned around and came back, shouting his gratitude, glorifying God…and he was a Samaritan.

“Jesus said, ‘Were not ten healed? …Can none be found to come back and give glory to God except this outsider?’ Then He said to him, ‘Get up. On your way. Your faith has healed and saved you.'” Luke 17:11-19.

We live in a world of indescribable beauty and lavish abundance, provided for us by a great big loving God. He does not even discriminate between those who love Him and those who don’t. “‘…He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked,'” said Jesus – Luke 6:16b (NIV).

And yet we live in a world of abominably ungrateful people. Ingratitude is not only the ‘thank you’ people never say, but also the careless and thoughtless destruction of our planet that goes on all over the world every day; the exploitation of our resources, the scattering of litter, the pollution of our soil, our water and our skies, and the decimation of our flora and fauna, all in the name of ‘progress’.

And what about the gifts, skills and talents people exploit with not a thought for the Giver? Any glossy magazine you can pick up is full of the glaring absence of the gratitude and acknowledgement that God deserves for every good and perfect gift. “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever! Amen.” Romans 11:36 (NIV).

There is a price to pay for ingratitude. It sets off a chain reaction in people’s lives that has an unthinkable end. “For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened…they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles…Therefore God gave them over…to a depraved mind…They have become filled with every kind of wickedness…Although they knew God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things, but also approve of those who practise them.” Romans 1:21-32 (NIV).

However, there is a reward for those who acknowledge God as the source of the goodness and favour they experience every day. Nine lepers in our story experienced physical healing but nothing more. They did not find it necessary to express gratitude to God for what He had done for them, but the Samaritan who returned to say thank you and give glory to God, got much more than he anticipated. Not only did he have a healed body but also a renewed life.

Jesus spoke of ‘salvation’ as the added outcome of his grateful heart. What did that mean? Salvation is much more than the narrow idea of escaping hell and going to heaven when we die. To be ‘saved’ means to become whole again by being rescued from the futility of a selfish and self-absorbed life into a life which is being refashioned into the image of God who is “gracious, compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness.” Exodus 34:6 (NIV).

Such a life is useful, fruitful and fulfilled, resembling the Creator who intended for us to be like Him by giving ourselves away in loving service to our fellow men. This cannot happen without the radical heart transformation which happens when we recognise the futility of running our own lives and we turn over the reins to Him.

Gratitude to God and acknowledging that He is God and we are not, is the first step in our journey towards wholeness. God graciously responds by doing the miracle of giving us a new heart and a new disposition of love and faith in Him.

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – HOW MUCH FAITH DO YOU NEED?

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HOW MUCH FAITH DO YOU NEED?

“The apostles came up and said to the Master, ‘Give us more faith.’ But the Master said, ‘You don’t need more faith. There is no ‘more’ or ‘less’ in faith. If you have a bare kernel of faith, say the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this sycamore tree, ‘Go jump in the lake,’ and it would do it.'” Luke 17:5,6.

Faith ‘fitness’, like physical fitness, only comes with exercise. Some of us who are not fitness freaks, would love to be physically fit without the effort! It seems that the disciples wanted to be faith-full without the practice that it takes to increase faith.

But what is faith? Can we have faith in different measures? According to Jesus, yes. He classified faith by words like no faith, little faith and great faith but, at the same time, even the tiniest bit of faith produced results.

Faith is the confidence in the trustworthiness of another. People can have faith in each other to do what they said they would do or to be what they said they would be. The value of faith lies in the faithfulness of the one who promised. Likewise, the value of our faith in God lies is His willingness and ability to fulfil His promises. Faith is also the energy that is released when we put our confidence in the God who promised.

It is understandable, then, that it is not so much the measure of faith we have but the reliability of the one who promised, that is at stake. Faith no greater than a ‘mustard’ seed, the size of a grain of pepper shaken from a pepper pot, will get a response from God because He will never let Himself down. His reputation of faithfulness is at stake in the mix, therefore He cannot deny Himself.

Confidence in the faithfulness of God grows, not by God’s miraculously adding to it but by our personal experience of Him. This is true of the trust that grows between people. It is not something that automatically happens when two people meet and become friends, for example. As they spend time together and interact with each other, they learn to know one another and to trust one another. That trust is either betrayed or vindicated by their behaviour.

In the same way, the strength of our trust in God grows as we test and prove the trustworthiness of His promises until we are so confident of His faithfulness to His word that we would never doubt Him for a moment.       

But there is another aspect to this ‘faith’ thing that we tend to forget. God is faithful to His own nature as well as to His promises. We have a tendency to want to hold Him to what we want Him to do rather than what He said He would do in the context of His nature and His will. He is gracious, compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness but He is also wise and all-knowing. He sees the end from the beginning and knows where every situation is going.

We tend to use faith as a way of trying to get what we want by holding God to His word, often out of context. The devil tried this one on Jesus, only to be soundly rebuked. He tried to get Jesus to manipulate God by suggesting He jump off the parapet of the temple so God would send His angels to catch Him! That was not faith; it was foolishness.

We need to move from trusting God for things, as though faith were some magic way of getting our wants fulfilled, to trusting God, period, when it’s too dark to see the way ahead. It’s saying, ‘Not my will but yours be done,’ when all of me is screaming to get out of where I am. It’s nestling in the arms of the Father in the midst of the storm knowing that I can trust Him because He is there, He is good and He is in charge.