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Tag: Luke

The Multitudes He Did Not Serve
Sometimes we just don’t get it. We only want to see the nice things Jesus did. We only want to hear the nice things Jesus had say and even now speaks through Scripture and the Spirit.

In case you missed the beginning of this series, we are following the early days of Jesus’ public ministry. We have looked at His early calling of the people to repentance and followed Jesus to his rejection (and near murder) by the people of Nazareth.

Doctor Luke records in chapters 5 and 6 a list of some of Jesus’ early miracles. (How we use these all-too-frequently to attract the multitudes to our church buildings! The bigger the blessings for the multitudes, the bigger the building we need.)

I related an often used part of a favorite teaching of Jesus in an Advent preparation series on The Beatitudes. Oh how we love to point out the miracles of His feeding the 5000 and the feeding the 4000; while we forget that Jesus’ message is to REPENT! Turn back to God, our Father. He sends us the bread from Heaven. Jesus is the Bread of Heaven. His Word is what we MUST digest.

“Blessed are you… Happy are you: This we want to hear. 🙂

We turn now to Luke 6.

Jesus has been preaching repentance. He has performed many miracles. He has shown compassion for many individuals and even compassion for the hungry crowds.

People will follow Jesus anywhere, IF only He will keep performing miracles for them. (You remember, his own neighbors and friends in Nazareth were angry enough at Jesus to want to throw Jesus off the cliff to His death.) Why? We want to be entertained. We want blessings and not curses. We want proof. (Forget faith!) He would NOT perform for the multitudes of for even his hometown neighbors and family.

Jesus of Nazareth – Tyre to the N. – Israel, Judea map

Jesus Ministers to a Great Multitude

17 And he came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, 18 who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. 19 And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him and healed them all.

[Here is the nice part we all love:]

The Beatitudes

20 And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said:

“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

21 “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.

“Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.

22 “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! 23 Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.

Amen! Yes, we need this Jesus.

(Lord bring us a miracle and bring us your reward. Prove you Power to us and we will follow You.)

Ah, but you with ears to hear, hear what Jesus says next:

Jesus Pronounces Woes

24 “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.

25 “Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry.

“Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.

26 “Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.

So you want to be rich, do you? You want Jesus to bless your house with plenty and laughter and good reputation for you and your family… Are you sure? Do you really want it all NOW?

Dear brothers and sisters of His church, of the multitudes of christians;

Hear what you do not recall (and I will shorten it for our short memories; but read it all, if you will:)

Love Your Enemies

27 “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.

Have you been abused? Sexually? Physically? Verbally? Financially? Emotionally?

Do some hate you? (Certainly a fellow believer or sister who claims Christ ought not?)

LOVE THEM.

Though they are your enemies, love them. That is what Christ Jesus commands. (Are you still with us, christian of the crowds and multitudes?)

What is this ‘love’ to which Jesus (IF He IS our Lord) calls us?
- Welcome them (perhaps into your homes, but certainly into your life. (How else will they see Christ in you?)
- Entertain them. No, not like TV or a sport or your cell phone; just do not ignore your enemies as if they are not real people created by God, perhaps for a later winning into His Kingdom.
- Be fond of them. Admit it; you know people who are enemies of Christ Jesus whom you admire and like. Are they not also deserving as you of His love as shown through you?
- Love them dearly. Yes, your enemy; that the love of Christ Jesus may shine into the darkness of their life.
Not only, “love them,” do good to them.

Sure, we all remember the story of the good Samaritan; but Jesus’ point was not so much that a hated man did good for a man, but that men (and women) who claim to be “good” do not often do the good act of mercy, as had the Samaritan unbeliever. Therefore Jesus continues in Luke 6:32

32 “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.

33 And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same… 35 But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.

36 Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.

Jesus’ personal love is also personal love for the unbeliever and for the unsaved, as you and I were once unsaved and an enemy of God (though our profession may have been false and our faith rebellious).

REPENT! Show mercy, as our Heavenly Father has shown us mercy.

and LOVE, as Christ Jesus has loved us.

For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. – Romans 5:10 KJV

No, repentance is not such a bad message for each of us; therefore, be reconciled to your brother in Christ. Be reconciled to your sister in Christ. Be reconciled even to your enemy! Love them.

And just two additional things (from Luke 6:27) added next in v. 28:

28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.

Abuse (of all kinds and of varying degrees) is a terrible thing, an offense between two human beings, both created by God. The word often translated ‘abused’ by this and other versions of the Bible in the KJV reads: “them which spitefully use (you).” It is a better translation (unencumbered by the world’s spin on the meaning). Listen to the meaning from Jesus’ words:

Outline of Biblical Usage
1. to insult
2. to treat abusively, use despitefully
3. to revile
4. in a forensic sense, to accuse falsely
5. to threaten
ALL of these are abuses of the enemy; and the enemy is Satan. Do you use these spitefully in retaliation against those who spitefully use you? Do you respond to your enemies (or even a brother or sister in Christ) in a spiteful way?
Stop it! Jesus commands us: LOVE them. DO good to them. BLESS them. (and here is the hard one for us:) PRAY for them.

–

Oh how I pray for enemies who have spitefully used me. One of them may be you… or your loved one.

–

I pray that they will repent.

I pray that they might confess their sin and turn back to God (that’s what repent means, you know; turn back).

I pray that they might be that lost sheep.

I pray that they might be that one you never believed would REPENT and hear the word of Jesus over the hatred and ways of the world and the sin of who we also once were before He also saved us.

Oh, dear one, REPENT of your sin. I pray for you.

Pray also for me.

Forgive us our trespasses,

As we forgive those who trespass against us.

Are our enemies not our worst offenders?

Forgive us, for the many times we, too have been an enemy of our Lord, Christ Jesus who teaches us:

Pray for our enemies.

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February 17, 2014
Who Welcomes His Ministry? – 2

Returning now to the Gospel of Luke, we look back from Jesus’ move to His fast-growing early ministry in Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee to His hometown of Nazareth and the event of His departure.

Luke 4

English Standard Version (ESV)

15 And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all.

22 And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth. And they said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” 23 And he said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Physician, heal yourself.’

What we have heard you did at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.”

24 And he said, “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown.

Let us pause here to speak of an earlier Prophet of the Old Testament (approx. 850-870 B.C.): Elijah.

1 Kings 16:

21 Then the people of Israel were divided into two parts. Half of the people followed Tibni the son of Ginath, to make him king, and half followed Omri. 22 But the people who followed Omri overcame the people who followed Tibni the son of Ginath. So Tibni died, and Omri became king. 23 In the thirty-first year of Asa king of Judah, Omri began to reign over Israel, and he reigned for twelve years; six years he reigned in Tirzah. 24 He bought the hill of Samaria from Shemer for two talents of silver, and he fortified the hill and called the name of the city that he built Samaria, after the name of Shemer, the owner of the hill.

25 Omri did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and did more evil than all who were before him…

NOTE the proximity of this area in the two maps between this area of divided Israel and the beginning ministry of Jesus in Nazareth.

Ahab Reigns in Israel

29 In the thirty-eighth year of Asa king of Judah, Ahab the son of Omri began to reign over Israel, and Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty-two years. 30 And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord, more than all who were before him.

(It’s an ongoing theme in scripture: ‘And __ did evil in the sight of the Lord.’

Against this the Prophets called all to repentance.

1 Kings 17

English Standard Version (ESV)

Elijah Predicts a Drought

17 Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives,before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.” 2 And the word of the Lord came to him: 3 “Depart from here and turn eastward and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan.

7 And after a while the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land.

The Widow of Zarephath

8 Then the word of the Lord came to him, 9 “Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” 10 So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks. And he called to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.” 11 And as she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” 12 And she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. And now I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die.” 13 And Elijah said to her, “Do not fear; go and do as you have said.

Returning now to Nazareth and Jesus’ mention of this Prophet after His hometown asked for miracles:

Luke 4

24 And he said, “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. 25 But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land, 26 and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow.

And of successor to Elijah, the Prophet Elisha, Jesus said:

27 And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.”

Yes, Jesus is preaching an active and insistent call to the people of Nazareth: REPENT!

And Luke continues to tell us how well Jesus’ call to his own best known and most beloved neighbors responded to His call to repent:

28 When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath.

Angry at the hometown Messiah? (Think of the tourist possibilities… Well, maybe in a few centuries we can whitewash the truth of Jesus reception in Nazareth.)

29 And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff.

30 But passing through their midst, he went away.

What people would welcome the ministry of one of their own by seeking to kill him?

Does Jesus’ ministry and call to repent not meet with the same reception in our own town in these last days?

February 15, 2014
Redemption

I want to tell you a story of an old woman and one of a young woman; a story of relationship and temptation.

2 Samuel 5:7 Nevertheless David took the strong hold of Zion: the same is the city of David.

Scene I is in Jerusalem, about a thousand years or ten centuries after this record of Samuel from scripture.

Luke 2: 36 And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin, 37 and then as a widow until she was eighty-four. She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day. 38 And coming up at that very hour she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.

The woman was married as a young virgin to a man named Phanuel (which means: the face of God). After seven years her husband dies and she has lived several decades as a widow. She was known to be a prophetess. She would not have been allowed at the Temple in the City of David as a Jewish widow had her prophecies not been shown to have been from God. As a Priest might speak at the bidding of God and as a male Prophet might obediently convey God’s words to God’s people, Anna spoke prophesy.

The Lord had spoken through the Prophets of old during the time of the 1000 years (these 10 centuries before Christ), but God had kept silent while a captured people (conquered this time by the Romans) awaited God’s long-sought redemption once more.

Jesus is brought to the Temple and Anna also confirms the identity of the Redeemer of God.

Scene II is in Jerusalem at the same Temple not centuries later, but just three decades, only 30 years.

Luke 4: And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness 2 for forty days, being tempted by the devil…

9 And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10 for it is written,

“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
to guard you,’

11 and

“‘On their hands they will bear you up,
lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”

Again, this is thirty years after the Prophetess Anna had thanked God for this same Son of Man, Jesus.

Satan took Jesus, a man, human like you or me; born to Mary, descendant of David, to the pinnacle of the Temple and said (in effect), “Jump. God will protect you.”

Jesus is hungry and has already refused to turn stones into bread as Satan tempted him to do as the Son of God, not just a righteous son of man. Satan had already asked this Son of Man to bow down to him and promised Jesus power over the Kingdoms of the world IF only he, Jesus, the Son of Man would worship the fallen angel of God. Again, Jesus did not seek the power of this world, as many of us do.

We will return to Jesus’ answer to Satan (which you may know); but first we fast forward beyond the Cross of the Hill of Calvary and the grave and the Resurrection and the Ascension back to the glory of God the Father and the early days of the church and His several appearances to many sons of men to the present.

Scene III takes place in Mount Zion National Park, USA, twenty centuries later, 8 February, in the year of our Lord 2014.

The young woman tempted at the pinnacle is just two years younger that the Son of Man of our earlier scene. Her relationship to her new husband is not one of a virgin to a man of God’s leading, but rather a relationship of sharing in his sport of tempting God for the temporal experiences of living life to its fullest.

She jumped from the pinnacle of Mount Zion. Her parachute did not open. Angels did not catch her. Her body and life were broken on the cold stone below. Her husband witnessed her choice to tempt God, as he so dearly loved to do; and now he is a widower.

On this very day (10 Feb. 1999) fifteen years ago, I, too, became a widower; yet not by my choice or by intentional choice of my godly wife. As God tears many a wife from her husband and many a husband from his wife, I became a widower when the Lord took my wife after a many month struggle against cancer to hold onto this precious life.

Though God has joined many a man to his beloved help-mate, his wife; in almost every instance one will die before the other. A wife will become a widow, as had Anna; or a husband will become a widower, as has the poor husband who just witnessed the death of his wife.

What does it mean that this man who did not jump would later willingly allow Himself to be lifted up on the Cross to die for you and for me?

Jesus Christ, in fulfillment of the scripture (by which He would answer Satan, Pharisees and those who would manipulate God’s word to their own ends) became our redemption. What does that mean to you personally? What does it mean when Satan has lead you to the pinnacle of the choice of your action of life or your action of death?

It is a question of slavery.

God chose Abraham. God chose Isaac (and not Ishmael). God chose Jacob, who He named Israel.

Jacob had twelve sons, sons (tribes or families) of inheritance of the land of the promise to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob. However they betrayed their own brother, Joseph, and sold him into slavery for a price.

Joseph was bought and sold into Egypt, where the Lord saved him and lifted him into the office of Prime Minister only under Pharaoh. Yet Joseph remained faithful to God. He asked his father Jacob’s blessing on his two Egyptian-born sons for his share of the promise of Abraham in a land now ruled by Pharaoh.

Joseph’s land, given to the Israelites in Egypt, was not paid for or an inheritance. In fact, the price of redemption for Joseph had never been paid and by the generation of Moses, sons of Abraham; and the sons of Joseph (descendants of God’s promise) were once again slaves in the land of Egypt with no man to pay the price of their freedom.

God saved them and forced Pharaoh to let His people go. Moses did not save them, but spoke for God, obeyed God, and gave God’s own people God’s own Law to obey; as they had once had to obey every law of Pharaoh. Still, even in the time of David and Solomon centuries later, God’s Chosen People had not had the price of their slavery paid. God’s Chosen were not yet redeemed in any way.

Psalm 49 speaks of the sons of Korah (of the rebellion against God and Moses) stating:

5 Why should I fear in the days of evil,
When the iniquity at my heels surrounds me?
6 Those who trust in their wealth
And boast in the multitude of their riches,
7 None of them can by any means redeem his brother,
Nor give to God a ransom for him—
8 For the redemption of their souls is costly,
And it shall cease forever—
9 That he should continue to live eternally,
And not see the Pit.

To rescue a sinner

You must pay the price.

Who can redeem the sinner? (And we are all sinners, you and me and all sons of men of every time and place.)

If you stand at the pinnacle of choice between life and death, what is the answer?

Scene IV Returning to the Pinnacle of the Temple and the answer of the Son of Man two hundred centuries before this year of our Lord, 2014.

Luke 4:12 And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

And Christ Jesus began His three-year mission on earth as the Son of Man, calling men and women to repentance and grace, living and breathing the love of God our Father for His chosen family of the promise and of His chosen Bride, the church.

Luke 4:

17 And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,

18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

20 And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

“Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

And of His fulfillment of scripture, this is what Jesus said: I AM the price paid for your sin and for the sins of all who are joined to Jesus as our Lord, our Savior, and our Redeemer.

Satan will tempt you before God until the day your flesh will die.

Who will you bow down and worship? What is your answer:

I will gladly follow your worldly temptation, lord satan…

OR Jesus IS LORD?

Do NOT put the Lord your God to the test. Trust ONLY JESUS CHRIST, who paid the price of redemption for your sin and for mine. He IS the one who taught us to pray (Luke 11:2-4):

Our Father

Who IS in Heaven,

HOLY IS your Name.

Your Kingdom will come.

May Your will be done on earth, as it is in Heaven.

Give us day by day our daily bread

And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us.

And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.

February 10, 2014