Luke 10 (Part 2) :17-24 • Joy, Rejoicing and Blessing

we're in Luke 10 beginning at verse 17 so follow along with me as we read through verse 24 it says the seventy-two returned with joy saying Lord even the demons are subject to us in your name and he said to them I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven behold I've given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy and nothing shall hurt you nevertheless do not rejoice in this that the spirits are subject to you but rejoice that your names are written in heaven in that same hour he rejoiced in the holy spirit and said I thank you Father Lord of Heaven and Earth that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children yes Father for such was your gracious will all things have been handed over to me by my father and no one knows who the son is except the father or who the father is except the Son and anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal him then turning to the disciples he said - he said privately blessed are the eyes that see what you see for I tell you that many prophets and Kings desired to see what you see and did not see it and to hear what you hear and did not hear it let's stop there if you would please and let's pray Heavenly Father thank you so much for your word Lord the insight the revelation the the wisdom that is poured out to us through the scriptures now as we dig into these verses help us Lord to unpack them in such a way that we can find the treasures that are there and go from this place filled up and encouraged built up and enabled by your spirit to go forth to walk out the word in our lives to share it with others Lord nourish your people we pray in Jesus precious name Amen as I was looking through these verses that were looking at today I noticed three kind of key elements if you will that really kind of jumped out at me and as you look at them I think you'll see them to notice the first one is joy it says that when the 72 returned and this is this is when they returned having been sent out sent ahead of Jesus into those outlying villages where Jesus was about to go he sent them out and they they they came back and they were just absolutely pumped you know and they were just excited about what had happened and they were just filled with great joy and that's the first thing that we see and then we we see this key element of rejoicing did you notice that was next Jesus talked to them about the fact that they shouldn't rejoice necessarily in the in the idea that you know demons were subject to them and through the name of Jesus but rather they should rejoice that their names were written in heaven and then it goes on to say that Jesus rejoiced in declaring you know in this beautiful prayer to the Father Lord I'm just so thankful that you did it this way your gracious will was to convey these things to two little children and to actually hide them from those who are wise and full of worldly understanding and then the last element that we see in these verses is blessing where Jesus began to speak of how blessed they were because of the things that they had received which he said kings and prophets longed to see but did not see so you have joy rejoicing and blessing all right joy rejoicing and blessing and those are the things we're going to look at here this morning beginning with joy verse 17 again they returned with joy they had great joy having returned from their time of ministry you know I can tell you I'm very pleased that I know that kind of joy I hope you do too it's the joy that God gives to his children when we get the privilege of participating with him in the work that he has called us to do and it really truly is joy its it's a difficult thing to explain I'll tell you that what's that joy like I yeah no no it's like you know it's just it's just joy you know joy that comes from serving the Lord I'll tell you this if you serve yourself you can make yourself happy but if you serve the Lord you will experience a joy that happiness can't equal and that's probably an important distinction and in fact joy is one of the major characteristics of this new life that you and I are called to did you know that you know Christians are not supposed to be the kind of people that walk around you know with our our face kind of falling like man this world if you ever notice that some Christians are kind of like that their eyes talking about the world is we're just hang on you guys because I don't know if we're gonna make it oh you know just buckle up here because this is gonna be it's a rough ride you know and it's like man where's your joy where's your joy I've had people write me and just bemoan the condition of life around them and it happens fairly frequently where people are just caught up in negativity and and believe me if you want to sit and look at it all day long you'll see it I mean the negativities they're the the the the all the stuff that would bring you down it's there if you go looking for it and so you can do that if you want to you can focus on all the problems of this world and you can read all the articles about why the Millennials aren't staying in church and why churches are you know declining in membership and why people aren't feeling particularly led to share the gospel and why most people don't believe the Bible is the Word of God and and and on and on and you can you can fill up your facebook page with that those kinds of articles and you can share them with other people and talk to other Christians about how rotten this world is becoming or you can just get busy and serve the Lord and be filled with joy which by the way I think is the better option just sayin I really do I when I get notes from people who are just that are just filled with negativity you know I'm thinking and sometimes I say it to them but I'm thinking you need to go do something you need to go do something for the Lord you need to get out of your little pity party and you need to go do something and you need to experience the joy that comes from serving Jesus and participating with the Holy Spirit to accomplish the purpose of his will because you see joy is a characteristic of what we ought to be experiencing as believers it's a part of living in the kingdom I don't know if you remember this but let me let me quote for you just a small statement that the Apostle Paul made when he wrote to the the church in Rome here's what he said listen carefully he said the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace listen to this and joy in the holy spirit he said that's what the kingdom of God is it's righteousness peace and joy joy in the holy spirit joy that comes from experiencing tangibly the service of the Lord and I wonder how many Christians have really truly experienced that and like I said if you're not sure and maybe you're kind of thinking you know I could use a good solid dose of joy then let me just encourage you to find a place to serve I mean you spend your energy stop spending it on bemoaning the world you know and the rotten shape that the world is in because I'll grant you anything you say on that score is not going to be incorrect but it is going to bring you down and it's probably going to keep you from merely being functionally useful in the kingdom because you're going to be so discouraged by looking at the problems that you know you're not gonna have any energy to give to the Lord so just go serve God do something go do something and see if God doesn't fill your heart with joy in verse 17 the disciples said if you look with me again there and your Bible they came to Jesus and they said they said even the demons are subject to us in your name and and and Jesus made a fairly inning Matic statement here to them in response notice that in verse 17 he said I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven and all you got to do is read about four or five commentaries to find out that we don't really know what he meant by that because some things they'll say different things and Jesus didn't really explain himself we don't really know if he was saying that he saw Satan fall as a result of the the Ministry of the 72 or if he saw Satan fall in Satan's original fall you know or or even frankly something else but all what we do know what we do know and by the way you run into Bible verses all the time that you don't know exactly what they're saying okay don't don't think you're gonna be able to figure everything out you know one of my favorite responses to people when they write me Bible questions is I don't really know I keep that one on hand because you need to do that you know we're dealing with things that are so far beyond us in many cases but but whenever that happens when you run into things that you don't know here's what you can do you can fall back in what you do know and this statement by Jesus is enough for you and I to know that Satan is a fallen and defeated foe that's enough we've got enough there to know that now I'll also tell you that he has not yet conceded his defeat therefore Satan remains a very malevolent and dangerous enemy one that we are told to you know we're warned about dealing with and and and making sure that we're walking in the power of spirit in the spirit when we are addressing or dealing with him but you know he is he is someone that God is is is well able to give you an idea there there was a time in my life and in our marriage when Satan was really doing a number on us and we were in rough shape and it was about his a long time ago was probably about 3035 years ago or so and it was a it was a rotten time to be honest with you and the enemy was really doing a work and I think the one of the reasons that he was able to do such a devastating work in our lives is because I really didn't understand the power of prayer at that point nor did I understand the power and the authority that has been granted to us through the name of Jesus and through the power of the Spirit to do spiritual battle you know to come against the enemy and to be effective I didn't understand what it meant to resist the devil so that he might flee that's a promise from God's Word resist the devil and he will flee from you and and yet we and we don't we Christians don't really know what that kind of resistance looks like and so we don't know how to do it and as a result the enemy can kind of just waltz in you know and do all kinds of nasty things and so forth so you know it's it it takes sometimes some understanding on our part to lay hold of the fact that through Jesus Christ and his name you know we've been given authority look at verse 19 in your Bible Jesus says behold I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy and nothing shall hurt you well I Got News for you you know if you're if you aren't walking in the reality of the authority of the name of Jesus Christ you can get hurt you can get hurt badly and and there are a good many Christians well I was one of them at one point where I was just kind of sitting back taking my blows you know from the enemy rather than spending time in prayer doing spiritual battle for my wife for my family and and so forth and even myself and we were just kind of sitting around getting you know hit you know going oh and Jesus wants you and I to know that there is authority in his name there's power we have the the full armor of God that we rarely put on we have things through the name of Jesus Christ listen I used to think that Satan and Jesus were kind of in this battle where one day one of them would win and the other day the other one would kind of get the upper hand and it was like any day you wake up you really don't know how things are gonna go and that's just simply not true Satan is a created being and Jesus is the creator and there's no comparison between the two right Satan is under the thumb of Jesus but you and I as individuals made in the image of God need to learn and understand and to know this authority and we need to take it up we need to take it up so Jesus goes on in verse 20 and this is where he begins to speak also here of rejoicing he says do not nevertheless verse 20 do not rejoice that the spirits are subject to you but rejoice he says rather that your names are written in heaven here we have that second key word that second key idea that I was telling you about at the beginning that that rejoicing and you know there's a lot of things in this world that we can rejoice in but not all of them are free of danger let me say that again there's a lot of things in this life that we can rejoice in but not all of them are free of danger in fact just this last Wednesday as we were going through the Proverbs we talked about the fact God says his word do not when your enemy stumbles or when you see your enemy fall lest the Lord take his anger away from your enemy right and so there there's a danger in rejoicing over such things as seeing your enemy and counting on hahaha you got yours sort of a thing that's it's a dangerous kind of rejoicing and here Jesus is warning against rejoicing in those times of spiritual victory which you know are pretty happy times when when that happens and yet he said there's a danger that can be connected with rejoicing in times of spiritual victory why well success can get us thinking I'm something special you know hey enemy you want trouble you got me you know that kind of arrogant sort of an attitude like somehow I did this somehow this is because of me you know that this happened that's dangerous it's dangerous you know walking around like yeah demon submit to me no no they don't they submit to Jesus and so it's it's instead Jesus says you're to focus rather your rejoicing on the fact that your name is written in heaven why is that a safe thing to rejoice in well because you had nothing to do with it you didn't do the work he did the work right the fact that your name right here right now is written in the book of life is because Jesus died on the cross for you and did the work that was necessary to secure your salvation that's why your name is there rejoice in that there's no danger in that there's no danger in rejoicing about that so he says that's what you should rejoice in we continue on with rejoicing in verse 21 look with me again in your Bible this is where Jesus it says in that same hour rejoiced in the holy spirit and he said I thank you Father Lord of Heaven and our that you've hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children yes Father for such was your gracious will I like that rejoicing in the gracious will of the father and and it is expressed as a plan in these verses that God had to reveal himself to those whom to whom society had kind of discarded you know those who really don't matter oh by the way that's us just in case you were wondering it's us and we are the ones that God has chosen to reveal himself to I hope it doesn't offend you that it that he describes us that way let me let me read for you kind of an interesting description of this that the Apostle Paul gives he writes to the church in Corinth and listen to what he says he says consider your calling brothers and sisters obviously he says not many of you were wise according to worldly standards that's true not many were powerful yeah not many were of noble birth you know like none he says this is this is good but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong God chose what is low and despised in the world even though they're not to bring nothing or to bring to nothing things that are so that no human being might boast in the presence of God so in other words he has revealed himself to you and I so that there's no boasting we didn't have the ability to understand the things of God without him we couldn't know him without him revealing himself and it's all him and there's no boasting so who is it that God has hidden himself from look again in verse 21 would you verse 21 in your Bible he says you have hidden these things from who the wise and understanding and he's talking there about the worldly wise he's talking about those who claim to have an understanding he's talking about people who say I know I know and Jesus says those people have become so prideful about their understanding so proud about who they are that God has actually withheld himself from those people in that interesting in other words really smart people God has hidden himself because the reason is it's not just because they're smart it's because they were proud about their intellect it's their prideful attitude I know and you can't tell me anything listen I've studied I got a PhD alright I know these things don't try to tell me what the Bible says right the Word of God says to such an attitude God hides himself he literally will not reveal himself they are now blinded to the wisdom and the revelation that comes from God so who has he revealed himself to well the reference here in verse 21 is that he has revealed himself to little children and by the way when it says little children there it's not talking about if saying you know if you're over the age of 6 you're out of luck the whole idea of little children means to those who are humble like little children to those who are receptive to those who are open to those who are humble like a little child who is willing to be led you know let me read you a statement that Jesus made that is actually recorded for us in the book of Matthew chapter 18 here's what here's what Jesus said very very important he said truly I say to you unless you turn and become like children you will not never enter the kingdom of heaven you know that in years past that verse has actually been used as a proof text for infant baptism and people believed that what Jesus was saying there is that unless you are entered into the kingdom as a little child you won't enter and that's why they many times baptize their children people you know baptize their children they really believe that Jesus was saying you must be like you must come into the kingdom as a child that's not what he's saying he says in that verse unless you turn and become like children and that whole idea of like children means completely dependent do you know how kids are completely dependent on you to survive you know especially when they're really little now they can get to the point where you know they grow up and they can feed themselves what a delight that is for parents right when you wake up on a Saturday morning and you kids ago I'm hungry and you say go get some cereal or something but there's those times before that that if you don't get up and get them something to eat they they can't eat they're utterly dependent on you and it's really that dependence that Jesus is referring to here when he talks about children who to whom has God revealed himself to little children to those who are utterly dependent to those who are humble to those who are receptive to those who are not saying I know and you can't tell me that's not right and so having an understanding of God's will and even being saved is all predicated upon becoming like little children and that's why Jesus made the statement that he did in verse 22 here so look with me in your Bible verse 22 he said all things have been handed over to be by my father and no one knows this who the son is except the father or who the father is except the Son and anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal him and this is a very very powerful statement where Jesus is serving notice to all of mankind that listen the revelation of the father comes at my discretion that's what he's saying you know people all the time people all the time say things like Jesus never once declared himself to be God and I'm thinking did you ever read the Bible here he makes a statement that can only be made by God where he says listen nobody knows the Father except the Son and nobody knows the son except the father and you know what you want to know the father it is at my discretion because no one knows the father except those to whom the son reveals him BOPE right yeah you got to go to the son in order to know the father you got to go through him to know the father he is the Living Word of God the living revelation of God and that's the point that he's making here and and and so he's basically telling you and I that it's all about his revelation it's all about Jesus revealing the father and and that brings us to the third and the last key element from this passage and it begins in verse 23 look with me there then turning to the disciples he said privately blessed are the eyes that see what you see and that's the third element remember it's blessing we had joy rejoicing and blessing and now we come to this blessing he says blessed are they are the eyes that see what you see look at verse 24 very interesting for I tell you that many prophets and Kings desired to see what you see and did not see it and they wanted to hear the things that you're hearing right now and they didn't hear it and he's talking about Old Testament characters that you and I know and love if you've read the Old Testament know it he's talking about guys like David and King Hezekiah you know godly King Hezekiah he's talking about godly Kings like Josiah who long to look into these things he's talking about prophets like Elisha and Isaiah and Jeremiah and and and on and on and Daniel Daniel who sought to know but was told sorry Danny you can't know you guys remember that actually happened in the Book of Daniel it's actually recorded I won't have you turn there but it's recorded for us in in Daniel chapter 8 where Daniel I'll read this to you he said I wanted to know he says when I Daniel had seen the vision he received visions from the Lord he says I sought to understand it I wanted to know what is this about lord I you're giving me this little glimpse this little picture but I want to know it I want to understand it and he says and I heard a man's voice between the banks or yea between the banks of the lie and it called Gabriel make this man understand the vision but he said to me understand o son of man that the vision is for the time of the end and then he went on to say the vision of the evenings and the mornings that has been told is true but seal up the vision for it refers to many days from now Daniel was told to seal up the vision you know that means hide it hide it's not to be known now it's not to be understood now because it refers to at the time of the end it refers and you know a lot of the things that went on in in Daniel or the the visions and the things that Daniel saw there's a still haven't come to pass Daniel saw things about the end times in fact you know you've ever you know but Daniel the Book of Daniel in the book of Revelation is a great study to do side by side because they speak of the same things so but you know but in Daniels day it was all sealed but why do we have the book of Revelation well it's called the book of Revelation which means seeing and it's called the revelation of Jesus because in it the plan of God is revealed through Jesus Christ toward the end days and it's a glorious thing but you and I have been given that revelation Daniel received a little piece of it and he wanted to know and understand it but he couldn't he loved to know but the Lord said no Daniel seal it up it's for another time it's for a time to come so you know the rabbi's the Jewish rabbis actually used to have a saying and it went like this blessed is the generation which the earth shall bear when the King Messiah comes and they understood that there was a true blessing that would attend those who lived on the earth at the time when Messiah arrived on the scene because Messiah would reveal he would share things which men longed to know but did not know and could not know prior to his coming and and and that's absolutely what happened Jesus came and he revealed things that were hidden and unknown and you and I have it that's the cool part you see because of these these things were written down in the Bible we have the very same blessing that the disciples receive do you understand that do you get that do you do you see how incredible it is that we have the Word of God written down we have parables that explain things that cause us to go oh that's how that works that's what that's all about pair of simple parables like the sower the seed and the sower do you know how much spiritual insight we gain from that simple parable oh that's how it works some of the seeds hard hearts choked out by the cares of this world so on and so on we we get it now we see things because they've been revealed to us that weren't revealed in the past people scratch their heads and they were like what in the world is going on there what's what's happening in that situation I have no idea but because these things are all written down in the Word of God we have them we have the same privilege the same blessing that Jesus pronounced upon the disciples blessed are your eyes for they see blessed are your ears for they hear you see and hear things that the men of old longed to know but did not know and you know there's even some special privileges that you and I have living in this day and age and even though you know you know the some of them happened just before I was born there still have been some major prophetic fulfillments in the last you know hundred years I mean major prophetic fulfillments just in the last 100 years such as you know it's it's it's our generation you know that has known and understood how Israel became a nation once again happened back in 1948 three years after the end of the the Second World War Israel was declared once again a sovereign nation and Harry Truman said yep we recognize it how cool was that because prophecy kept talking about the end times and it kept saying Israel Israel Israel Israel and all the people before 1948 were like there is no Israel guys for you and I we know that Israel is there but before 1948 there was no Israel do you get that it hadn't existed for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years and no nation on the earth ever came back from being gone for that long but Israel did because God said it would he said that he would regather his people in the end days and we've actually seen it happen blessed are your eyes for you have seen things that people read about in the Bible and said how in the world is that gonna work I've told you guys before how I used I've read you know writings about you know from guys like George Mueller who lived 150 165 years ago and he talks about Israel one day becoming a nation again he didn't have a clue how it was gonna happen but he knew from the scripture it would and he talks about it well one day Israel will be regathered we know this he would say he's right there in his writing do you grid get his book his autobiography out of the bookstore it's blows you away because he lived in a day before that happened and now it's happened but but you know blessed are your eyes for you saw it and you know when you think about it it's our generation that can read through the book of Revelation and understand how it is even possible for the Antichrist to control the entire global economy in a cashless society we understand how that works we understand that that what a cashless society is they didn't on a global scale are you joking a hundred years ago people looked at well not even that but especially a hundred years ago people looked at that and they're like whoo that's Star Trek if I ever heard it right I mean that's fantasy that's right up there with you know beaming from one location to another yeah right you know cashless society good grief it's all in place it's all in place today we have everything we need for the Antichrist now to appear and to begin his global Dominion everything is in place as far as that whole cashless society global economy sort of a thing goes it's all there the building blocks are there I don't it's weird to say blessed are your eyes that because you've seen it but the fact of the matter is you get it you understand these things in ways that Christians in the past didn't understand so you're living in a privileged kind of a time too so so what do we do where do we go from there you know we're we've been given the revelation of God's Word we've been shown things toward the end days that people in the past have not been shown well you know what do we do we just keep we keep studying the revelation of God's Word because even though we've been shown wonderful and glorious things we're still learning from this we have not figured all of this out there's a lot of unmet prophecies related to the last days that are still to come I mean the Antichrist has not yet revealed himself and I daresay you and I probably won't be around to see it not because I think it's going to be so far in the future but I personally believe the church is going to be taken away and that's what's going to make the way for the Antichrist to reveal himself because you see we are the salt of the earth we are the light of the world that salt light has to be taken out that has to be removed in order for the Antichrist to really come and take that world Dominion that he's going to so what do we do in the meantime we just keep growing we keep studying we keep going through the whole Bible learning understanding opening ourselves to the revelation of God's Word and and and knowing these things because we've been given the ability to know them we've been given the privilege to know them but don't ever forget Christians the reason that we have been given the privilege to know these things is because we've humbled ourselves and we said I can't know this without you I cannot know these things apart from you so if you're thinking that you need to go get your masters of divinity in order to understand the Bible I'm telling you that's not true you need to humble yourself like a little child and come to him in that spirit of humility and say lord teach me and he will open your eyes to things that the wisest person of the world would never be able to understand in the pride fulness of his own wisdom amen

Channel: Calvary Chapel Ontario

Views: 9,154

Rating: 4.9163179 out of 5

Keywords: Bible, Bible teaching, Thru-the-Bible, verse by verse, Calvary Chapel, Bible study, Christianity, New Testament, Old Testament

Id: 3nbJqpZ0Ft4

Length: 37min 16sec (2236 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 20 2019