Disobedient hesitation

Transcription

1 Disobedient hesitation Remember Lot s Wife Morning Worship, Lord s Day 27 September, 9.30am Rev D. Rudi Schwartz 1 Bible Readings New Testament: Luke 17:20 37 Old Testament: Genesis 19:15 26 Hymns/Songs Main Points 1. Approach: Dear shepherd of your people, hear 2. Forgiveness of sins: Remember not O God 3. Thanksgiving: With grateful heart my thanks I bring 4. Response: O, for a faith that will not shrink 1. Introduction 2. The Kingdom of God 3. The coming Kingdom of God a. Spirit and attitude b. As if nothing is going to happen c. Building another Kingdom d. Separation between righteous and the unrighteous 4. Remember Lot s wife a. Who was Lot s wife b. A spiritually blessed person c. Spiritually blind and depraved 5. Conclusion Prayer of Adoration and Confession of sins Our gracious heavenly Father, Once again we saw the dawning of a new day You have ordained before the beginning of time. We praise You for your faithfulness. We praise You knowing that there will be another day which will be the last of this dispensation. There will be a first day in the new order of things when the Lord Jesus returns to take us into the glory of heaven where days and nights will have no meaning. You have promised to keep us till that day. We thank You for giving us salvation in Christ Jesus, and that we are safe in his hands till that day. 1 Feel free to copy, quote or duplicate this document.

2 Remember Lot s wife 2 We pray that our life will be to your glory; that the way we spend the hours of our day and the days of our weeks will bring glory to your Name. We pray that You will give us the grace to grow in your knowledge and service to your Name. We know we cannot make distinctions between our service to You and the service to the worldly things. This distinction can only be made if we are worldly and there is still within us a reservation for the pleasures of this world. But being a new creation, being transformed to the image of God in Jesus Christ, we understand that this world belongs to You and that You want us to live to your glory in everything we do: your glory must be seen in every aspect of our personal life and in the way your glory must cover the face of the earth as water covers the sea. Help us therefore to see the need for the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Chris: to proclaim the gospel of hope to your people from them to see the need to live under the Headship of Jesus Christ in all areas of life. It is so that the conflict of this world, born in the sinfulness of men; the poverty in the world, partly because of the greediness and the deplorable way Christian stewardship is conducted; the injustice of this world, rooted in the inborn unrighteousness of man; the hunger, because of oppressive governments, national pride, neglect in the families, abuse of mercy efforts, and laziness of man, injustice to reward the faithful labourer for his input, are all things which concerns us in our Christian calling. To these things we cannot turn a blind eye. Help us to be wise to proclaim the Gospel and to live the Gospel in such a way that a Biblical mindset will be planted; that we, with wisdom and understanding, will draw people we come in contact with to Christ, who dealt with sin effectively, and who gave us his Spirit to teach us to live under the headship of Jesus Christ. We pray therefore, Lord, that You will free us from a worldly mindset, so that we will be able to think your thoughts after You and do what You demand of us. Help us not to think along the categories of this world, to not be persuaded by the arguments of this world in terms of what is good or bad, but to look upon the Word for those answers. We therefore thank You for your Word. We praise You for its teaching in righteousness and holiness. Keep us faithful in our study of your Word. Enlighten our mind by your Spirit to understand it, and give us an understanding to apply it to its fullness to our life. Father, what we are praying for this day, is for holiness. But then, Father, we don t want to be the definer of holiness; You must do it, your Spirit must be our Convictor, who would transform our thinking and our actions to be conformed to your Word. Hear our prayer in the Name of Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray Introduction People of God, in the Name of Jesus Christ, our Lord! The story of Lot, his wife and his daughters, the events surrounding Sodom and Gomorrah, and the destruction of the cities by burning sulphur, are for many people a sort of a tale from ages past. I dare say that not many believe that there were really places like Sodom and Gomorrah, let alone their destruction because of the wrath of God. The Bible refers directly to Sodom and Gomorrah in about 50 places and in all those references the tone is sombre and very negative. It has a message of final judgement.

3 Remember Lot s wife 3 One of these places is in Luke 17. It is not Luke speaking, but our Lord Jesus Christ Himself is speaking. It is therefore important that we understand at least three things clearly in this context: If one believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, it speaks for itself that one also believes in the words of Jesus. When Jesus then speaks of Sodom and Gomorrah, we understand the He knew that these places really existed. One cannot take some of the words of Christ to be true only because one likes the tone of it, and then reject others because one does not prefer it. Reject one part of the Scripture, and you have to reject all of it. But be doing so, one will reject life and end up with judgement. Secondly, if other pages in the Bible refer to Sodom and Gomorrah in judgment terms, Jesus certainly understood it that way: Sodom and Gomorrah are events in the past which had a meaning for the consummation of all future events in God s own timing when the Son of Man comes on the clouds. Thirdly, the horror of Sodom and Gomorrah is real; we cannot mince with words as if what happened then will never happen again because God loved us so much that He will not again allow that to happen. This is exactly what the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ is about in the section of the Bible we read from Luke 17 today. 2. The Kingdom of God It is wise to understand the teaching of the Bible about the Kingdom of God. The Bible teaches that the Kingdom of God has come, but it also teaches that the Kingdom will come. Jesus said to the Pharisees asking Him when the Kingdom of God would come that the Kingdom is already in their midst. (The translation of some Bibles saying that the Kingdom is within you is not clear. The context helps us to understand that Jesus meant that the Kingdom was already come in Jesus Christ.) Christ announced the Kingdom of God in his ministry and work of salvation. Therefore, many of its blessings are here to be enjoyed now; but many of them are not yet here. Some of its power is available now but not all of it. Some of the curse and misery of this old age can be overcome now by the presence of the kingdom. But some of it cannot be. The decisive battle against sin and Satan and sickness and death has been fought and won by the King in his death and resurrection, but the war is not over. When Jesus then in Matthew 12:28 declares: But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can anyone enter the strong man s house and carry off his property, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house. (Matthew 12:28 29) The Kingdom has come in Jesus Christ. The result is the casting out of demons who have no power against the King of the Kingdom; the Strong Man has bound the owner of the house and is now carrying of his property. This aspect of the coming of the Kingdom remains a mystery... There is a mystery about the coming of the kingdom. It is here in our midst without those kinds of observable signs. It is here because Jesus is here, and because Jesus suffered and died, being rejected by his own generation.

4 Remember Lot s wife 4 The there is another aspect of the Kingdom of God, it is yet to come! It is referred to as the days of the Son of Man. It will have a lead up to it, marked by an increasing rejection of the Kingdom of Christ as people in unbelief and disbelief keep living as if nothing is going to happen. It happened in the days of Noah, and it happened in the days of Lot. There will be a definite end to this age. It will happen suddenly, and it will result in the separating of those who longed to see the King come on the one hand, and those who rejected Him while they were living. This coming of the Kingdom is marked by judgement. 3. The coming Kingdom of God a. The spirit and attitude i. As if nothing is going to happen Jesus described the consummation of his Kingdom, or the days preceding the coming Kingdom in terms of the history around Noah and the flood, and Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah. We see that people were living as if nothing is going to happen. The eating, drinking, marrying, buying, selling, planting and building point to activities of people who just believed that things will always run the same course as yesterday: as it was then so it will be tomorrow. By living as if nothing is going to happen, they actually say things will indeed happen, but we leave no room for anything apart from this. This is our world, our expectation, our kingdom. ii. Building another kingdom People who are now building their own kingdoms here without a view on the eternal Kingdom of God when Jesus comes again, are abusing what God has ordained for the coming of His Kingdom for their own kingdoms. It was God s ordained plan that man would build, plant, and marry but these things were meant to be done for his glory. The earthly activities of the creature of God were meant to be focussed on his glory. But in these verses we understand that people live to enjoy things for themselves: their buildings, their paddocks, their crops, their children, their marriages these are the things they live for. John Piper writes: God s righteousness is unwavering allegiance to do what is right, that is, most ultimately, to uphold the infinite worth of his glory We are created to have this same unwavering allegiance to uphold the infinite worth of God s glory in all we do. That is what it would mean for a human being to be righteous. Paul says sin is that sinful man sinned by not upholding the glory of God. All sinned and fall short, or lack, the glory of God. What happened? For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four footed animals and crawling creatures. (Romans 1:21 23)

5 Remember Lot s wife 5 These words are extremely important for the understanding of the rest of the paragraph of Luke 17. When the people in the days of Noah and Lot became worshippers of themselves as they built their own kingdoms, they lost sight of God, his glory, his Kingdom, and his judgement upon sin. This, of course, is what is so prevalent in our modern day society (and, let s be honest with ourselves and about the age we live in: nothing is new, nothing is modern it happened in the days of Noah and Lot too!). Materialism becomes our God. Exchanging the glory of God for created things, we lose the anchors of what holds our morals together, and then devise our own moralistic code: money and sport become the things we worship; worldliness makes room in our heart, and the standards of sinful man become the standards we live by. We become, in the words of Paul to Timothy, lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power. (2 Tim 3:2 5) It is an offense to modern man to even suggest that there is a judgment coming; it is an offense to suggest that his achievements will come to nothing; it is an offense to suggest that men are sinful especially in the sight of modern scientific advancement; it is and offense to suggest that economic prosperity is worth nothing and that he who found his treasure in heaven is far richer that the richest on earth; it is unbelievable to suggest something like what happened in the days of Noah and Lot is going to happen again, only on much grander, cataclysmic, all encompassing scale. iii. Separation between the righteous and the unrighteous In his teaching about the coming of the Kingdom Jesus not only points to the godlessness leading up to the coming of the Kingdom, but He also teaches a separation between the righteous and the unrighteous. In the words of the Lord telling the parable of the sheep and the goats, some will hear these words: Then the King will say to those on His right, Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. (Matthew 25:34) Those who despised the Son of Man and rejected his Kingdom by building their own to their own glory will hear these words: Then He will also say to those on His left, Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; (Matthew 25:41) It happened in the days of Noah, the Bible says, Noah entered the ark. Of Lot it is said, Lot left Sodom. It does not fall within the scope of this sermon to fully explain the grace God towards the righteous, but one thing we know is that God will certainly rescue those whom He elected from all eternity. As the ark was to Noah, and as the angels were to Lot, so the Lord Jesus Christ is to those whom He came to save:

6 Remember Lot s wife 6 4. Remember Lot s wife In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. (Ephesians 1:7 10) The ungodly will face terrible judgement. This verse is enough: Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand? (Revelation 6:15 17) The event of the consummation of the Kingdom of God will therefore both a magnificent display of God s grace in Jesus Christ, and the most terrible display of his judgment in Jesus Christ. For this event, the most grand and important event of all times, we need to be prepared. The importance of being prepared is described by our Lord in one short sentence, Remember Lot s wife. It might have escaped your attention, but Jesus was not addressing the Pharisees at this point. He spoke to his disciples. He speaks to those who have already following Him as if they might forgetting the severity of forgetting Lot s wife. a. Who was Lot s wife? i. A spiritually blessed person The Bible does not say much about her, but we can assume a few things. Compared with millions of her fellow creatures in her time, Lot s wife was a favoured woman. She had a godly man for her husband; she had Abraham, the father of the faithful, for her uncle by marriage. JC Ryle writes this about Lot s wife: When Abram first received the promises, it is probable Lot s wife was there. When he built his altar by his tent between Hai and Bethel, it is probable she was there. When her husband was taken captive by Chedorlaomer and delivered by God s interference, she was there. When Melchizedek, king of Salem, came forth to meet Abraham with bread and wine, she was there. When the angels came to Sodom and warned her husband to flee, she saw them; when they took them by the hand and led them out of the city, she was one of those whom they helped to escape. But these things went past her as if nothing would influence her. She had the world in her heart as she lived and so she died. She was spiritually privileged, and yet she was spiritually depraved. And it is true, that nothing can harden ones hart as the familiarity with the things of God which is not accompanied by lively faith in God and Jesus Christ. Allow me to once again quote JC Ryle: It is a great privilege to live in a house where the fear of God reigns. It is a privilege to hear family prayers morning and evening, to hear the Word of God regularly expounded, to have a quiet Sunday, and to be able always to go to church. But take heed that you do not rest content with these things; do not suppose because you have

7 Remember Lot s wife 7 all these spiritual advantages that you will of course go to heaven. You must have grace in your own heart, as well as attend family prayers. If not, you are at present no better than Lot s wife. ii. She was spiritually blind and depraved The warning of Jesus to remember Lot s wife comes within a special context the coming of the Son of Man. It is even narrower: On that day, the one who is on the housetop and whose goods are in the house must not go down to take them out; and likewise the one who is in the field must not turn back. Remember Lot s wife. Whoever seeks to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it. (Luke 17:31 33) This is the gist of the warning is in the phrase whose goods are in the house ; it is about losing of your life, or the saving of your life. I know it is dangerous to take words out of context, or to just apply one meaning to a single word in all contexts, but we need to know that the Greek here talks about soul it is the very essence of what determines life and what determines death. It talks about those things which have the highest value and cost for us as we set it against life and eternity. One who seeks to keep his life is like the merchant who sold everything to acquire the pearl of great value. It is said of Zaccheaus that he wanted to see Jesus. The work in Greek is seek. It is to be determined to find. The next word is gain or keep the Greek has something of working to get profit. If we can paraphrase this verse then, we could say, Anyone whose heart is set on working for something to think that he could gain his life Jesus declares in Mark 8:36: For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? (Mark 8:36) Let s complete the sentence: Anyone whose heart is set on working for something to think that he could gain his life will destroy himself. Remember Lot s wife. Her heart was in Sodom, though her body was outside. She had left her affections behind when she fled from her home. Her eye turned to the place where her treasure was, and she was destroyed. The warning of our Lord is for us to make where our treasure is; because where our treasure is, there will our heart be also. The cost of discipleship is this: If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? For what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels. (Mark 8:34 38) Lot s wife was ashamed of God. She was more concerned about fitting into the adulterous and sinful generation. She looked back, she yearned back, and her heart was behind her. She was not fit for the Kingdom of God.

8 Remember Lot s wife 8 5. Conclusion Dear friends in Christ, Christ is coming again. His coming will cause separation between the righteous and the unrighteous. Some will be saved, and other will be lost. Some will try to put a price on their souls, but they will lose it. Other would have taken up their cross and followed Jesus, losing their lives, only to gain it. Remember Lot s wife. AMEN.