Sermon Tone Analysis

THE TIME IS NOW          \\ Luke 12:54-59 \\ \\ INTRODUCTION \\ Now is the time for all men to get right with God.

This is the burden \\ of these words from our Lord.

As He sensed the response He was receiving from the multitude, He was moved to \\ speak these words that close this great chapter.

\\ \\ We need to understand these words.

Many of us have an inclination to put off im¬portant things.

We allow a thing \\ of lesser importance to crowd out the most important.

Some of us have just not considered the urgency of getting \\ right with God.

Now is the time!

Our Lord presents two primary evidences that now is the time.

\\ \\ I. THE SIGNS INDICATE THAT THE TIME IS NOW \\ Human beings the world over learn how to read the signs of nature.

Jesus reminds the crowd of how they did it in \\ Palestine.

When they would see a cloud rising in the west, they would immediately conclude that it was going to \\ rain.

The Mediterranean Sea was to the west of Israel and most of the rain on that land comes from the west.

\\ \\ This was accepted as a pretty sure sign of rain by most everyone.

Then when the wind began to blow from the \\ south, they would conclude that a hot spell was upon them.

To the south of Israel lay the Sinai wilderness and the \\ Arabian desert.

Wind from that direction almost always meant scorching hot weather.

Everyone knew this.

\\ \\ Unfortunately we have not been as adept at reading the moral and spiritual signs as we have those in the \\ physical realm.

Jesus emphasizes our fault in not understanding the signs.

"Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the \\ face of the sky and of the earth; but how is it that ye do not discern this time?"

We do have the responsibility for \\ under¬standing the moral and spiritual significance of the times in which we live.

\\ \\ Religion may become one of the things that keeps us from understanding.

When Jesus addressed this crowd as \\ "hypocrites", He is pointing toward this.

They gave outward signs of being religious men but they had failed to \\ really cultivate the important things about their faith.

They were playing at their religion without any real reality in \\ it.

We have people like that today.

They master the rituals of religion without ever touching the reality of God.

\\ Their regular performance of religious rituals keeps them from ever realizing their great need before God.

That \\ generation did not feel their need of what Jesus had to offer because they felt self sufficient in them¬selves and \\ in their performances of religious duties.

They assumed that everything was all right.

\\ \\ The very world system in which we live keeps us from realizing the signs of the times.

The worldly system will put \\ out your spiritual eyes as surely as the Philistines blinded poor Samson.

Some of us have become so \\ preoccupied with our work, our home, our hobbies and our goals in life, that we have given little time to the \\ consideration of what God is doing in the world.

We keep pushing out of our minds thoughts about death, \\ judgment and eternity.

We will think about it just a bit when we have to attend the funeral of a friend but we will \\ put ourselves in front of the television and before long all thoughts of it have been erased.

According to Jesus \\ this is a fault for which we are responsible.

As human beings we do have a God given capacity to give attention \\ to these important matters.

\\ \\ We need to look carefully at the facts.

Jesus is accusing the crowd of overlooking impressive evidence that God \\ was at work in the world.

They could see that a rain was coming but they could not see that God's Son was \\ actually visiting in their midst.

They decided not to consider the miracles that He was performing.

They decided \\ not to listen to the lessons He was teaching.

They decided not to give attention to the demands that He was \\ making.

They would just ignore Him.

\\ \\ Do you wonder at this?

I do!

This makes me wonder if we may not be overlooking facts that are just as impressive \\ in our day if we only had eyes to see.

We may be like the priests in Russia.

According to reports I have read, \\ while the Red revo¬lution was sweeping across their country they were gathered in a conference discussing the \\ color that the robes worn by the priests ought to be.

They were overlooking the signs of political unrest all around \\ them.

They were ignoring the signs of the time.

\\ \\ Someone ask Solzhenitsyn if he thought there would be a Third World War.

He replied, "O haven't you heard, \\ there was one and we lost."

Then he pointed to a map to in¬dicate how much of the world has fallen under the \\ rule of the Russians in the last twenty five years.

We Americans have chosen to sip our booze, pursue our \\ pleasures, make our boasts, trust in our wealth and weapons, while the world about us falls apart and slips into \\ the hands of atheism.

The signs seem to be on every hand that history is moving toward a great climax.

Jesus \\ Christ is coming again.

We need to ask God for eyes that can see the signs.

\\ \\ All of the signs shout at us that it is time to get right with God.

The time is now!

\\ \\ II.

OUR SITUATION INDICATES THAT THE TIME IS NOW \\ Jesus highlights our situation with another little parable.

He takes the kind of \\ situation that happened in everyday life.

"When thou goest with thine adversary \\ to the magistrate, as thou art in the way, give diligence that thou mayest be deli¬vered from him; lest he hale \\ thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the \\ officer, and the officer cast thee into prison.

I tell thee, thou shalt not depart \\ thence, till thou hast paid the very last mite."

Not to be able to pay a debt in that \\ day was a felony.

You could be jailed or enslaved for the non payment of a debt.

\\ It was a wise thing to make an appeal to the one you were indebted to rather than to allow him to take you \\ through the legal process.

While this is an important insight to us in our relationships with others, the concern of \\ Jesus goes deeper.

His word to us is that we should do all that we can to get right with God right now.

He is \\ declaring that the time is now.

Let us see what we can learn about our present sit¬uation.

\\ \\ We have a debt we cannot pay.

Jesus spoke of sin being a debt to God we cannot pay in the Lord's Prayer.

We \\ owe to God perfect love, devotion, and obedience.

We owe to God perfect righteousness.

When we give him less \\ than that, as we do, we are building up a debt I cannot pay.

In the parable Jesus is setting forth the situation of a \\ man who knows that he is indebted in such a way that he will never be able to pay his way out.

\\ \\ This is the reason that we are negligent about getting right with God.

Too many of us have not understood that \\ we owe a debt to God that we cannot pay.

Or if we know it, we assume that God will let us get by without doing \\ anything about it.

The Bible presents a different view of the living God.

He is the God who will extract every mite.

\\ \\ Another factor in our situation is our limited time.

Jesus emphasizes this about the debtor when he says, "When \\ thou goest with thine adversary to the magistrate".

Our adversary is the holy law of God which we have broken.

\\ The magistrate to whom the holy law will take us is the great Judge of the universe Himself.

The debtor has only a \\ limited time to sue for mercy in a direct confrontation with the one he owes.

Jesus is emphasizing that we have a \\ limited time to do something about our situation with God.

It is a tragic mistake to think that there is plenty of time.

\\ \\ Death sets one limit on our time.

We do not know when death may come.

If we have not taken care of this debt \\ before death comes, it will be too late.

\\ \\ Health sets another limit on the time.

I am healthy and have my mental faculties working this morning, but before \\ next Sunday a stroke could render me incapable of a decision.

An accident could take away my reasoning \\ faculties.

Then it would be too late.

\\ \\ The Coming of Christ is another limit.

I do not know when He may come but whenever it is the time is up.