Equal in Sin and Equal in Calamity
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
This story picks up at the end of a sermon that Jesus was preaching which started in chapter 12 verse 1.
This sermon was being preached to thousands of people as it said in 12:1.
During this time there was a very strong school of thought that said “only bad things happen to bad people” or “if something bad happens to you God must be mad at you or punishing you”.
This school of thought is called Retribution Theology.
Today we are just consumed by 24 hour news and we know every bad thing that happens from floods to earthquakes, and any other natural disasters that may happen.
All of these natural disasters flood our senses causing people everywhere to experience vicariously all the pain, sorrow, suffering, and death things like these catastrophes bring.
One of the main things that people ask is why did God let this happen?
or Why did those people have to die? They were innocent and good people.
The fact is that we are asking the wrong questions.
Fact number 1: No one is truly good!
We all fall short of the standard set by God
We are all sinful people.
We see this in 1 Kings 8:46
“If they sin against you—for there is no one who does not sin—and you are angry with them and give them to an enemy, so that they are carried away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near,
In Gods sight we are not righteous this is in Ps 14:1
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is none who does good.
The Bible says all have sinned Romans 3:23
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Because we have all sinned we will die this was true for Adam and Eve and it is true for us as well it says so in Romans 6:23
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Even though we are sinners saved by grace bad things still happen to believers because we live in a sinful world.
Fact 2: God allows bad things to happen for a number of reasons they are:
1.) God allows bad things to happen to His people to test the validity of their faith:
1.) God allows bad things to happen to His people to test the validity of their faith:
would not God discover this? For he knows the secrets of the heart.
And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us,
only in times of testing do we truly realize just how deep our faith is.
2.) God allows bad things to happen to His people to teach them not to depend on themselves but on His divine resources.
2.) God allows bad things to happen to His people to teach them not to depend on themselves but on His divine resources.
For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.
His resources are so much better and deeper than our own.
3.) God allows bad things to happen to His people to remind them of their heavenly hope.
3.) God allows bad things to happen to His people to remind them of their heavenly hope.
Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
4.) God allows bad things to happen to His people to reveal to them what they really love.
4.) God allows bad things to happen to His people to reveal to them what they really love.
Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.
But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.
where we put our heart there our joy shall be also
5.) God allows bad things to happen to His people to teach them obedience
5.) God allows bad things to happen to His people to teach them obedience
Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word.
It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.
6.) God allows bad things to happen to His people so He can show them His compassion.
6.) God allows bad things to happen to His people so He can show them His compassion.
As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.
who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.
7.) God allows bad things to happen to His people to prepare them for greater usefulness.
7.) God allows bad things to happen to His people to prepare them for greater usefulness.
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
8.) God allows bad things to happen to His people so they can be better equipped to comfort others in their trials.
8.) God allows bad things to happen to His people so they can be better equipped to comfort others in their trials.
“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.”
who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer.
To the Jewish people of Jesus’ day the explanation of why bad things happen to people was singular and simple: calamities were always God’s judgement on sin.
The Jews theology was wrong judgement did not happen because one person was more wicked than the next, it is because sin is universal and we all are sinners.
God withholds judgement for a time because He is merciful and patient.
He wants everyone to come to salvation but even that does not exempt us from suffering from time to time because we are still living in a sinful world.
The Instruction vv1-5
The Instruction vv1-5
During His sermon Jesus is interrupted serval times and this is one of them.
Jesus used 2 current events of their day to hammer home the point that all people suffer and it has nothing to do with how good or how bad you are.
The Temple Calamity vv1-3a
The Temple Calamity vv1-3a
The constant tension between Jews and Romans, coupled with Pilate’s brutality, no doubt resulted in many similar unrecorded incidents.
Whatever the particulars, Pilate sent his soldiers into the place of sacrifice and slaughtered the Galilean Jews.
The ethical question was whether those poor Galileans were worse sinners than all the other people in the temple who were not killed.
The theology of the people listening to Jesus that day, as stated earlier, forced them to this dilemma.
If suffering was always a judgment on sin, then these had to be the worst sinners.
But they were in the very act of repentance and obedience to God’s command to sacrifice.
The Lord’s point is that those who perish in such calamities are no worse sinners than those who survive.
Those who live do so because even though they deserve to die like we all do, God withholds what they deserve for a time in mercy.
He allows sinners to live because He is compassionate, gracious, merciful, and “patient toward them, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance” 2 Peter 3:9.
The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
But God uses calamities to remind all people that death is often an imminent surprise for which they need to be prepared.
The exhortation of Jim Elliot, missionary and martyr, is fitting: “When it comes time to die, make sure that all you have to do is die” (cited in Elisabeth Elliot, Through Gates of Splendor [Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale, 1981], 253)
Tower Calamity vv4-5a
Tower Calamity vv4-5a
That tragic calamity did not happen to them because those folks were the dregs of Jerusalem’s society, since Jesus specifically declared that they were not worse culprits (lit., “debtors”; i.e., to God for violating His law) than all the other men who lived in Jerusalem.
This second illustration reinforced the Lord’s point that natural calamity is not simply God’s way of singling out particularly evil people for judgment.
The True Calamity vv 3b, 5b
The True Calamity vv 3b, 5b
This phrase is repeated twice in this passage and talks about an inevitable calamity that everyone on the face of the earth will face.
The most severe judgement from which no one escapes is that unless we repent when we die we will perish.
This means that our souls will be lost to Hell forever, it is final and there is no coming back from it.
We know this is true because of Hebrews 9:27
And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,
The only thing that will save us at that judgement is the blood of Christ.
Nothing other than that matters.
To be saved from our sins we must repent
Repentance involves 2 elements
Sinners must change their mind about their sinfulness
Repentant sinners must first agree that God’s diagnosis of their wretched, sinful condition is just and accurate,
Also that they are powerless to deliver themselves from sin’s death grip on them.
Sinners must affirm that Jesus Christ is the only Savior
Repentance is not only turning away from sin but it also means to turn to God through Christ.
The Illustration vv6-9
The Illustration vv6-9
At the end of this passage Jesus tells a parable that sums up what He is talking about here.
What is a parable?
It is an extended analogy or illustration intended to educate people about and revile aspects of the kingdom of God.
The parable illustrates the tragic reality that Israel would continue to fail to bear spiritual fruit even after the arrival of Jesus as Messiah.
It would finally be destroyed. Like the tree in the parable, Israel was living on borrowed time and demonstrated little reason to hope for anything different in the future.
There are 5 things that we can draw from this parable:
The fig tree has an individual application: It is Israel
Those who fail to produce the spiritual fruit that accompanies salvation will be cut down in judgement
Judgement is near.
At any moment the unsaved could perish and lose their last chance of salvation and face eternal punishment.
The delay in divine judgement is not due to any worthiness on the part of sinners, but the grace and mercy of God the Father.
God’s patience with those living on borrowed time is not permanent.
Benedictions 024 Benediction
024 BENEDICTION
May the Father who bought you,
The Father who has made you and established you,
Make you complete, like-minded and comforted
By the God of love and peace.
