HG117c+120 Luke 17:1-37

Luke 17:1–37 NIV

1 Jesus said to his disciples: “Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come. 2 It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble. 3 So watch yourselves. “If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them. 4 Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them.” 5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” 6 He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you. 7 “Suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? 8 Won’t he rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? 9 Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? 10 So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’ ” 11 Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance 13 and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” 14 When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed. 15 One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. 16 He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan. 17 Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? 18 Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19 Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.” 20 Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, 21 nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.” 22 Then he said to his disciples, “The time is coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it. 23 People will tell you, ‘There he is!’ or ‘Here he is!’ Do not go running off after them. 24 For the Son of Man in his day will be like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other. 25 But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. 26 “Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. 27 People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all. 28 “It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. 29 But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. 30 “It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed. 31 On that day no one who is on the housetop, with possessions inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything. 32 Remember Lot’s wife! 33 Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it. 34 I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. 35 Two women will be grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left.” 36 37 “Where, Lord?” they asked. He replied, “Where there is a dead body, there the vultures will gather.”

We know that Jesus and His disciples were heading south to Jerusalem but they did a trip down to Bethany about 2 miles from Jerusalem to see Lazarus and then they went back north about 20 miles to Ephraim and then a further 15 or so miles to Samaria and the Sea of Galilee. They were now back to the road they probably would have been on otherwise. They only went back north because of the threats against Jesus’ life and the time was not yet right for Jesus to be delivered up. They were a few days away now from the day when Jesus would enter Jerusalem on His triumphant entry - but it is going to take us six more weeks to get there due to the enormous amount of things that happen on the way. This is where the narrative slows right down and it is going to get more detailed as the next twelve or so days in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus develop. These are, in effect, His farewell speeches and actions and more intense teaching to prepare the disciples for what is about to happen.

1-10

In these first ten verses we read that the disciples had asked for their faith to be increased. Why? Because Jesus had just told them that they had to forgive practically non-stop. Our forgiveness to others is not dependent upon the genuineness of their repentance. In this we also have our hope in God for He does not ask of us something He is not willing to do. When we offend Him as often as we do whether the sin is large or small in our eyes, when we confess our sin to Him, He forgives us. When others ask us to forgive them we are also expected to do so.

And it is essential to our spiritual well-being for this to happen. We are being instructed by our Master here, there is no choice for us as servants. We are only doing our duty. This is not something that we should be congratulated upon, it is simply something we must do.

This leads me to ask “who is your worst enemy and whether you are able to forgive?”

Perhaps the worst enemy we need to forgive is ourselves. And I really think I am speaking to myself here. It bothers me that I keep getting things wrong. It niggles me that perhaps God won’t forgive me this time but in the end I come to terms with the fact that He does. But above all it takes me forever to forgive myself. I am my own worst enemy. It is I who must forgive myself. Now I know I am not just speaking about myself for I think that many here in this place are the same. You are your own worst enemy and so you must also forgive yourself.

God can forgive you but you can’t forgive you? I have to tell you that this is an inverted form of pride. We sin by not forgiving. Yes, we sin by not forgiving others but we also sin when we think that we cannot be forgiven by God or by ourselves.

It is not only essential to our spiritual health that we forgive but it also preserves our mental, emotional and physical lives from going down the road of bitterness which studies have shown cause physical symptoms such as cancer, heart disease, stomach problems, headaches and so on. We forgive for our own sake as well as in obedience to Jesus.

11-19

We are then told about ten lepers who were healed but, actually, only one was made well. The ten received physical healing but only one received complete wholeness and it was the one who was thankful.

The Preacher’s Commentary Series, Volume 26: Luke Wholeness and Power

You may have heard the story of the man who was betrayed by a friend. He went to him and asked, “How could you do this to me? Who picked you up out of the gutter? Who gave you your first job? Who lent you money and bailed you out of jail?” The reply was, “You did, that’s true. But what have you done for me lately?”

On the other hand you have those who only can be thankful:

A son came home to visit his dad one weekend and went to help at his shop, and he said to him

The Preacher’s Commentary Series, Volume 26: Luke Wholeness and Power

“Dad, I don’t understand how you run this store. You keep your accounts payable in a cigar box. Your accounts receivable are on a spindle. All your cash is in the register. You never know what your profits are.” “Son, let me tell you something,” answered his dad. “When I arrived in this land all I owned was the pants I was wearing. Now your sister is an art teacher. Your brother is a doctor. You are a CPA. Your mother and I own a house and a car and this little store. Add that all up and subtract the pants and there is your profit.” A well person has a sense of gratitude for any and all good fortune.

The fact is that the troubles were not over for this leper who came back so thankful. He had no family, no job, no home. We are called to be thankful in everything. I touched on this verse on Wednesday, hear what the rest of it says:

1 Thessalonians 5:16–18 NKJV

16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

This is God’s will for us. We can be thankful for we know that no matter the situation we have the promise of God in:

Romans 8:28 NKJV

28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

William Law, eighteenth-century English theologian and clergyman, said, “If anyone can tell you the shortest, surest way to all happiness and perfection, he must tell you to make it a rule to yourself to thank and praise God for everything that happens to you, for it is certain that whatever seeming calamity happens to you, if you thank and praise God for it, you turn it into a blessing.”

We are to rejoice instead of being down or disappointed for God is at work in the situation or place He has put you.

20-37

In the second part of today’s reading Jesus speaks of the Kingdom of God in answer to questions raised.

There are two parts to the answer about God’s Kingdom. One is, it is now, right now - that was the answer Jesus gave generally but especially to the Pharisees. And the other answer was, not yet - that was the answer He gave His disciples. It is both now and not yet.

God’s Kingdom is a grand scheme of the Bible and it simply means God’s rule for He is the King of all kings. In the Garden of Eden was a perfect life where Adam and Eve lived under God’s rule perfectly and willingly until, that was, they didn’t. And since then God has been seeking to restore the Kingdom by destroying sin and creating a people who are willing to be ruled by Him. Hence Jesus coming into the world declaring that the Kingdom of God is at hand, meaning that He is the King who has come to restore order by destroying the works of the evil one.

The Pharisees asked about the kingdom of the One who is the King of kings and He was in their midst right then, right at that moment. He had just proven His Kingship in the healing of the lepers. But entrance into this kingdom is through a working in the heart of repentance towards God by the working of the Holy Spirit. The rule of the kingdom is first inward. You are in it or not. This is the invisible Kingdom.

But then there is something that is not invisible about the Kingdom.

First, this is in our working this out in our lives in public and showing to the world the kingdom. [I do not subscribe to some churches who think that the church will overcome and rule the world to place it into the hands of Jesus when He comes again. Name it and claim it churches and prosperity gospel churches teach this along with what are collectively known as the New Apostolic Churches which are leading people astray. This finds no place in the pages of Scripture.]

Secondly, there is going to be a very visible day when the things of this world will no longer be the same again.

Of course, everyday people have a last day. For around 152,000 in fact today will be their last day. There are those who are caught up in cataclysmic situations that people were not prepared for, whether that was of the Jewish people in Germany who could not believe a mass destruction was coming, or of an unsinkable ship like the Titanic, or a Tsunami that swept a quarter of a million people into eternity in one event. These are all portends. These are all warnings of the largest last day that will come. Am I ready?

This, of course is one of the major reasons to tell others and get them ready for what is going to happen. We need to be shouting ‘Fire!’ in a burning building.

Once there was a fire in my friend’s house in their kitchen and I was in the kitchen at the time. I said: ‘Fire!’ No response. The second time I said: “Fire!” my friend came running and was able to put out the fire. Just a couple of weeks later their kitchen was gutted by the same appliance.

The point is we need a sense of urgency, not like I said “Fire!” the first time, but how I said it the second. Because otherwise people whom we love will not be prepared. It is incumbent upon us to ready and to warn.

Jesus gives a strange saying to us: where there is a corpse the carrion birds will circle. What He is saying is that there will be discernible signs of the impending judgment. We see these things in world events. Will we or those to whom we have been sent be ready?

When Jesus appears the whole world will see it in a instant, from the Arctic to the Antarctic, from America to Australia, Europe, Asia and Africa. No one will miss it. He will come to reign! It will be too late for most that day.

Preconclusion

.25

But there was something that had to happen before this could possibly come to pass, before His glorious reign would be humiliation and suffering. He was to be rejected and despised, the One who had created everything including us and them, He was to be put down as a common criminal. It was necessary for our salvation.

This rejection goes on to this day despite Jesus proving beyond a shadow of doubt His authenticity by rising from the dead. As it was in the day of Noah, as it was in the day of Lot, eating, drinking, marrying, giving in marriage, buying, selling, planting, building - there is complete indifference to Jesus and the state of their souls.

These are people who are too concentrated upon the present. This describes our generation on a grand scale when you think of Amazon, eBay, DIY, Tescos and so on. These are the priorities of this world. Better homes, cars, gardening, Verdis, friends and children are not sins but if shallow and complacent with God it would be better to have none of them for they are lost. The judgement to come is eternal for one will be taken to eternal life another left to suffer the consequences forever.

These are the people who could not let go off their possessions even when disaster was coming to them. Some wanted to go back to their houses, to their possessions and were warned by Jesus about it for those who would try to keep their lives would lose them - this is the warning of Lot’s wife who looked back to her past, to her life, to what she was leaving behind and perished as a result but leave them behind for the sake of His Kingdom, lose their lives, if you will, they would then save themselves.

Conclusion

Everything is getting ready for that final day. Our lives need to be one of forgiveness and thankfulness, of getting ourselves and others ready, of living n and for the Kingdom now. As His people we are under His rule and hold loosely to the things of this world. Jesus is everything. He made us, He supplies everything for us and it is He who is our aim and goal for He is the heir of all things. He is our person, our place, our rule. He is THE King and our future. He gives us the kingdom and all the riches of His glory and we have been perfectly accepted in Him in God.

And all this was through His life, death and resurrection, His ascension and will be completely fulfilled in His coming again. His Kingdom Come. Amen.

Benediction

Colossians 3:15–17 NKJV

15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. 17 And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

Bibliography

Barry, J. D., Mangum, D., Brown, D. R., Heiser, M. S., Custis, M., Ritzema, E., … Bomar, D. (2012, 2016). Faithlife Study Bible. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.

Blum, E. A., & Wax, T. (Eds.). (2017). CSB Study Bible: Notes. Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.

Hughes, R. K. (1998). Luke: that you may know the truth. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.

Larson, B., & Ogilvie, L. J. (1983). Luke (Vol. 26). Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.

Leadership Ministries Worldwide. (1996). The Gospel according to Luke. Chattanooga, TN: Leadership Ministries Worldwide.

Exported from Logos Bible Software, 08:40 10 March 2019.