Luke (Session 17) Chapter 17

well we're going to explore once again this issue of predestination versus free will that comes up a lot we'll talk about that and we'll talk about the kingdom of god and some other topics now the this group of chapters 14 through 18 are really samples of a typical day in the life of our lord as he travels from the galilean ministry on his way to jerusalem where it climaxes of course in his rejection and the climax of the whole program chapter 14 we saw a series of of things the man with drop seed the false popularity false hospitality false security and in discipleship counting the cost and then chapter 15 we talked about those three uh cares and seeks the lost coin the lost sheep and the prodigal son last time in chapter 16 we talked about the unrighteous steward and the rich man and lazarus and this time we're going to explore a little bit about the position of a servant the 10 lepers and then the later return and then 18 will be persistence in prayer when we've covered these five chapters we then will encounter chapter 19 which brings us to the triumphal entry and ushers in the final chapters and the final five chapters to make up the final week of the ministry and so that's what we're up to chapter 17 verse 1 then jesus said unto the disciples it is impossible but that offenses will come but woe unto him through whom they come and obviously a reference to many things but especially judas and this raises an issue that we want to hit head on judas was predicted to be betray christ does that mean is it was it was he responsible or was it just was it predestinated but both can be true and that's what we want to deal with because there's a paradox that is plagued philosophers from the beginning of time fate versus free will is the typical way it's categorized predestination something that is predicted something that is prophesied is certain because that's god's word on the one hand and yet do we within that have free will and i want to deal with it on remember pharaoh in in in exodus we'll talk about a group of these guys pharaoh had his hard heart he had his heart hardened 10 times same number of times by the way of the plagues that were brought upon him in exodus 8 through 10. god predicted that pharaoh wouldn't let them go until the death of the firstborn i like to mention that because most of us have seen the movie the ten commandments and censored mel did quite a bit of research and it's a well done movie in many respects but there is a glaring error because it creates the impression that the death of the firstborn was sort of an afterthought because it comes from pharaoh's own lips and that's it they create they miss a key point in the in the research of that no god predicted back in chapter four when he first calls moses he predicted that pharaoh would not let them go until he is going to take the firstborn and that's a a key point from a pr perspective let's talk about king saul now saul and ago you know the amalekites were the traditional enemy of israel amalek fought israel at refugee that's all in exodus 17. in fact the bible says that yoteva will have war with amalek from generation to generation now samuel commissioned saul to go and smite amalek and utterly destroy all that they have and spare them not and there's a very famous issue there because saul failed to carry that out and now there's a lot of implications that not the least of which is when you get to the book of esther you've got this whole business of haman trying to wipe out the entire jewish population and haman was a descendant from amalek if saul had done what god told him to do there would be no haman and so there this whole issue comes up there let's talk about herod herod killed the babes in bethlehem and that was prophesied in jeremiah 31 and and is so quoted in matthew chapter 2. so on the one hand it was predicted does that make herod responsible or not well a classic case the key one or springboarding from here is judas judas was without excuse even though what he said was predicted in psalm 41 verse 9. and of course another example that always gets comments on when you go through the book of romans is esau esau and jacob their destinies were prophesied before they were born and we see that uh alluded to in romans chapter 9. romans chapter 9 verse 12 to 13 it was said unto her the elder to the mother the elder shall serve the younger as is written jacob have i loved but esau have i hated and so that creates again this whole thing now you may recall from one of our previous lessons here there is an area of study called paradox resolution when you're confronted a paradox and that's what we're dealing with here with the fate versus predestination thing there are tools that you can learn and how do you deal with trying to resolve a paradox and one of my favorites of course is the euler which was classic mathematician he proposed a a a problem from the seven bridges of kennensburg and there are seven bridges and the the challenge was can a pilgrim cross every bridge once and only once and you sit there and try to solve that it seems to elude your ability to do that and so the solution of course that euler is driving at there is a way to solve that problem and if you deal with it with it what's in the box you can't do it unless you do something else you want to go around the source of the river every river has a source so this yields a solution by going around the source what's the point of all this there is a procedure that will unravel most of the paradoxes you run into and that's stepping up a level going up to the highest higher system in this case or another way we say it it's thinking outside the box look beyond the self-imposed boundaries many times we're confronted with something we impose or infer a boundary that isn't it that is challengeable and that's to see that's what einstein did when he was wrestling with the with the the properties of space and he realized we don't live in three dimensions lived in four and once he realized that the whole thing was that led to the the theory of relativity by dr einstein and so time and so time is not uniform in fact einstein's discovery is foundational for any serious student of the bible to understand that time is not uniform in fact it's a physical is a physical property time is physical and a a physicist will never speak of time or space separately he'll always say speak of space time he can't separate those two time varies with mass acceleration gravity among other things we're not interested in the math we understand those time is physical we exist in more than three dimensions four dimensions are listed in ephesians 3 18 by the way but the current experts in this would argue that there's apparently at least 10 dimensions that we live in and four of them are directly discernible six can be inferred by other by other means so and we go through all of this in our briefing package called beyond time and space which we think is a useful foundational understanding of our reality uh that helps uh appreciate the more you understand about the boundaries of science the frontiers of science the more comfortable genesis chapter 1 reads but we'll move on here so when we talk about the nature of god let me ask you a question is god subject to the restrictions of mass i don't think so or acceleration i don't think so see god is not subject to any of these physical constraints so god is not somebody with lots of time that makes nice poetry and hymns and stuff we make reference to that no he's not time he's outside the dimensionality of time altogether he didn't have lots of time he's outside time we need to understand that god is not limited to the restrictions of what we consider physical universe and so that uniqueness of his is his personal imprint with which he authenticates his word by writing history before it happens with such precision that you know it from it's from outside the time to me so we live in time okay we experience it we're physical we experience time but see god is outside time so he knows the end from the beginning and he brags about it all through the scripture especially in isaiah you and i have free choice absolutely a choice that we are held responsible for but god just happens to know what it's going to be when did god first start thinking about you before you were born you were on his heart because he knew your life in advance and so it's not a restriction on your choice it's the foreknowledge of god that we're dealing with here and this is hopefully i hope this helps make it let's move on to then said to the disciples it is impossible that offenses will come meaning judas as an example but woe unto him through whom they come that doesn't relieve judas of responsibility and so what's a practical application of all this don't lead others astray because you're responsible for that too in fact jesus goes on to say it would better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and he cast him to the sea then he should offend one of these little ones wow boy is that scary for people that are not teaching the right things they're going to be held accountable jesus had already noted that the pharisees were not only refusing to enter the kingdom but we're also keeping others from entering we've dealt with that in chapter 11. so the pharisees had a double count they were failing themselves but they're also causing other people to fail scary that's the scary responsibilities for a teacher so jesus take heed to yourselves if thy brother trespass against thee rebuke him and if he repent forgive him straightforward enough see not only were jesus followers not to cause others to sin they were also counteract sin by forgiving others the lack of forgiveness is a form of bondage you want to forgive them to free yourself from that situation it goes on if you trespass against these seven times in a day and seven times in a day turn again to thee saying i repent thou shalt forgive him wow matthew quotes a very similar expression in matthew 18. in fact typical of matthew who incidentally was took shorthand he's precise and he records these things with greater precision more deep more detail matthew quotes a similar more precise remark he says jesus says we must forgive 70 times seven do you know most of my life i just thought that was a figure of speech jim i supposed to give him forgive him seven times i say to you 70 times seven meaning oodles no i suspect there's this magic to that number let me tell you explain what i mean the term 70 times 7 turns out to be very descriptive of how many times israel was forgiven and if we look at go from abraham to exodus that's that abraham it was there were 75 years of abraham and then 430 years in egypt 75 plus 430 is 505 years however there was 15 years that ishmael was a usurper if you take the 15 years from the 505 you get 490 years 70 times 7. okay so what well if you go from exodus to the temple there again it was beginning first kings six to eight it started 594 it was completed seven years later that's 601 years ah but they were in servitude in the judges when you add that all up it turns out to be 111 years that they're in disfavor and bondage you take the 111 from 601 you get 490 years again you take the temple to the edict of arctic xerxes and that's a thousand five bc all the way to 445 bc that's 560 years but 70 those years they were in captivity in babylon it takes 70 from the 560 and what do you get 490 years again well you go from arctic xerxes to the second coming of christ watch out for this one artaxerxes to the first advent 69 weeks plus seven the time seven i should say daniel 70 weeks remember that's 483 years there's a church interval there of an indeterminate amount but if you and then you have the 70th week of daniel when you put that all together again it's 490 years and i think it's kind of fascinating we begin to see behind all this a grid a tapestry that god is weaving and no big insight other than to realize that god knows what he's doing and and he takes himself seriously i think that's interesting so when jesus is 70 times 7 it's my suspicion that was more than just a rhetorical device it's an illusion to something we might want to study moving on verse 5 and the apostles said unto the lord increase our faith that's a great prayer by the way we could all pray that increase our faith it takes a divine capacity your faith is also a gift we know from ephesians 2. our walk must be by the holy spirit and that's the big challenge in our lives is to walk by the holy spirit not to get ahead of him not to fall behind what starts by faith does not get perfected in the flesh how often we're guilty of that the entire epistle of the galatians is really focusing on that very issue that what is born of faith part of the spirit is not perfected in the flesh romans 6 takes that up another notch by saying pointing out that sin ain't going to rain no more you may stumble but sin will not reign in your life because you have a gift of the holy spirit if you're an unbeliever if you're not saved you are in bondage of sin you can't escape it but if you are saved you can because you can call upon the holy spirit to get to give you that strength you need and that leads to another topic that it echoes all through our materials but i think it's worth reviewing as we go that rottenmocker always comes in the offices i've been saved i am being saved i will be saved he says that that way to confuse the students to get them to think it through the word salvation is an ambiguous term it means so many things many things to many people within the institute we try to use a more precise denotative term the past tense of salvation is separation from the penalty of sin when you accept jesus christ your passport to heaven is stamped not guilty you haven't changed but his innocence is ascribed to you the present tense of salvation is separation from the power of sin and if you're in christ you can call upon the holy spirit to live you not just from the penalty that's already been done it was done two thousand years ago on a cross in in judea separation with the very power of sin in your life you you have the ability through the holy spirit to escape that the future tense of course is separation from the very presence of sin and boy do we look forward to that past present future penalty power and presence now we call the the separation of the penalty of sin justification god is justified in for uh separating us from our the penalty sin because of the gift of jesus christ he paid your price 100 percent you can't add to it to try to add to that is blasphemy but that leads to the present tense of sin that's separation from the power of sin we call that sanctification we each one of us are a work in progress and he's not finished with any of us and we call that sanctification and its completion is guaranteed but it comes later and so and then the future when we've are glorified in our glorified bodies we're free from sin even the presence of sin apparently penalty power presence justification sanctification glorification all three of those are simply the past present future tense of what we collectively call salvation we think this is clarifying and it helps deal with the whole eternal security issue also let's move on to verse six and the lord said if he had faith as a grain of a mustard seed you might say unto the sycamore tree be thou plucked up by the root and be thou planted by the sea and it would have it should obey you i haven't tried that lately but i think he makes his point by which of you having a servant plowing or feeding cattle will say unto him by and by when he has come from the field go and sit down to meet and will not rather say unto him make ready wherewith i may sup and gird thyself and serve me till i have eaten and drunken and afterward thou shall eat and drink does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him i true not it's interesting who's giving in other words the servant is instructed to serve and not give orders okay now uh let your loins be girded about and lights burning from we touched on that in chapter 12. girded about being ready to work rolling up your sleeves is our perhaps equivalent expression in our own vernacular all this is a call to diligence basically and don't seek special recognition those two concepts undergird so much of what christ is teaching his disciples a call to be diligent and not to seek special recognition verse 10 so likewise ye when ye shall have done all these things all those things which are commanded you say we are unprofitable servants we have done that which was our duty to do it came to pass as he went to jerusalem that he passed through the midst of samaria and galilee and as he entered into a certain village there met him ten men that were lepers which stood afar off and of course they would because the lepers were separate they were caused to be separated the word leprosy is a term that we we call today hansen's disease it was regarded as fatal incurable deadly disease and transmission was a mystery um they felt it was very very contagious it may not actually have been as contagious it was commonly assumed um but anyway that's that's the way it was regarded and so the lepers were isolated and they stayed together and they had to warn people to stay away carrying a lantern or a sign or whatever stay away unclean they would call attention to the fact so they would not commingle inadvertently with healthy people they had to stay 150 feet away from people and downwind if you would and so so they lifted up their voices and said jesus master have mercy on us and uh word the word travels fast in the world of hopelessness we can't really grasp the concept of hopelessness that came up in the last session we were talking about luke 16. the idea of hopelessness is beyond our imagining there is not a single case in the scripture where jesus was called to help and he didn't respond and so anyway jesus saw them he said unto them go show yourselves unto the priests and it came to pass that as they went they were cleansed wow and there is a obligation for them to show themselves to the priest if they're clean because that didn't that's why the idea of being incurable is perhaps a misnomer because there were cases where people rare but they they were healed but here jesus healed them and they were and one of them when he saw that he was healed turned back and with a loud voice glorified god and fell down on his face and his feet giving him thanks and he was a samaritan now the context here the word samaritan to a jewish audience is a despised person a samaritan was considered sort of a half jew because of the whole history of the assyrian captivity and all that that so they where they were co-mingled with other captives and so they became an impure race so to speak and they were regarded by the the the the jew as a as a as a half-breed of some kind and here the one that came out of the ten one came back and glorified god he happened to be a samaritan and again when the after the civil war the northern kingdom ultimately goes from bad to worse of course and then the assyrians finally are used by god to wipe them out but the assyrians had a practice when they took the northern kingdom captive they co-mingled the captives there with the captives from other places they co-mingled them to avoid any sense of nationalistic resurrections among us among their captives okay and so that was the so they get co-mingled and so judah distinctively when it gets captured by babylon a century later they come back from that after 70 years so they kept their cohesiveness in contrast to the north and so the judeans and the samaritans the galileans are regional appellations samaritans being the half breeds in the middle if you will so jesus answered and said were not ten cleansed but where are the nine they are not found that they are not found that return to give glory to god save this stranger and he said unto him arise go thy way thy faith have made thee whole your faith has saved you is the literal translation a disturbing insight that's given to us here 10 people saved from their lives changed i mean they were they were cleansed from leprosy and nine of them took it for granted went on above the business the only one came and acknowledged it that's a disturbing commentary anyway and when jesus was demanding of the pharisees when the kingdom of god should come he answered them and said the kingdom of god cometh not with observation see they were looking for an earthly kingdom and the pharisees assumed that he would throw off the roman rule and they weren't the only ones that's what judas's hang up was also apparently and so the kingdom of god comes it becomes a subject here and the observation of spying is what the term was there the term is uh paterisus which is a noun form the verb form of that is always used in a hostile sense in the sense of hostile watching or spying and now that that was the category that jesus put the pharisees in and uh from in luke 14 1 back there remember pharisees were hoping to entrap them and in luke 20 they're going to also try to entrap regarding taxes to caesar and so forth all the way through they're trying to carp they weren't you know when you travel you can tell when people ask questions whether interested in information or they're just trying to carp on some issue and that's exactly what's going on here so jesus continues neither shall they say lo here or lo there for behold the kingdom of god is within you now boy is this a misunderstood verse the kingdom of god is within you there are whole theologies built on this that are not correct the word within there is entos in the greek it really means among you it's used with a plural always means in the midst of you not within an individual but in the midst of the group is what the term means the kingdom of god is among you would be a proper meaning the presence of christ is standing there it's not this idea that somehow the kingdom of god is down inside you and so forth no that's not the concept here behold the kingdom of god is among you and the word into entos in the greek is uh makes it its use with the plural always implies that you are among it's among all these other individuals it's not within the individual it's among the individuals and so the exegetical issue is the critical one here after all he's the king so he's among you and so if you've surrendered your life to jesus you are in the kingdom of god if you've surrendered your life to jesus you are in the kingdom of god and it's luke that emphasizes that has nothing to do with your jewishness it has to do with your surrendering to christ matthew focuses on the kingdom from god and he's talking about a whole different thing and let's let you go into matthew to get into all that if you like john luke 17 verse 22 and he said unto his disciples the days will come when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the son of man and you shall not see it and they shall say to you see here or see there go not after them nor follow them okay for as the lightning that lighteneth out of the one part under heaven shineth unto the other part under heaven so shall also the son of man be in his day and he's talking of course about the second coming but first he must suffer many things and be rejected of this generation this is a direct dissolving if you will of this misunderstanding among the jews of having two messiahs the they saw in their in the tanakh in their old testament scriptures two presentations one of a suffering servant which they called ben yosef and the other one the mashiach the ruling king not realizing it was two comings of the same guy and that's what he's clarifying here because he's the one that's the king and yet he's going to first suffer many things and be rejected of this generation so he's laying it out for him here and so mashiach ben yosef the suffering servant the reigning king the two messiah theory if you will and so [Laughter] as it was in the days of noah so shall it be also in the days of the son of man this of course points you back to the days of noah which points you back to genesis chapter 6. and there's two views that come out of this clearly what is implied here is business as usual and he's going to deal with that here the business usually is is is the safe ground that you can cling to and you know you're on good ground there there is the possibility that there's more implied here than just that and i lean that way but that's just a perception on my own part because jesus went on to say they did eat they drank they married wives they were given in marriage until the day that noah entered into the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all so what one way to minimize this illusion is simply say that it was business unusual until the arc came that may be the primary focus here but there are many scholars looking at this more carefully believe that what he's also saying is to understand the situation of the end times you need to understand the days of noah which were the days of hybrids and all this spooky stuff going on in genesis 6. and we will go through all that here again that's fine so okay out of the entire world at that time they only saved nine people do you know that how many did they say the eight and the ark and who else enoch was translated first ahead of all that so one had been removed prior to the flood our friend enoch likewise also as it was in the days of lot they did eat they drank they bought they sold they planted they built it but the same day that lot went out of sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all so jesus is drawing two illusions here one from noah and the flood the other one is lot and sodom and gomorrah in both cases it was business as usual right up until the sudden crisis if you will now it's interesting that in the flood enoch was removed before the flood in sodom and gomorrah lot and his family were removed before the judgment that's going to be a major point here even thus shall it be in the day when the son of man is revealed in that day he he which shall be upon the housetop and his stuff in the house let him not come down and take it away and he that is in the field let him likewise not return back and this is a phrase here in luke 17 very similar to a admonition in luke 21 matthew 24 and mark 15. and then he says remember lot's wife now uh many people assume that that's an allusion to remembering the passage in uh genesis 19. other scholars believe that there was a pillar known to most people of that day that was lot's wife that's a inference josephus and irenaeus apparently that the pillar was something everybody knew about down there in the in the dead sea area and so uh that that's that's it's interesting let's go back and refresh our memory a little bit this important passage in genesis 18. that's the day before the sodom thing and the lord is talking to abraham the three guys come show up with abraham in genesis 18 and he runs and gives them a non-kosher meal because he had a veal and milk but the the lord stands back the two men with them are angels and they go on to sodom and gomorrah for genesis 19. but back in 18 the lord says shall i hide from abraham that thing which i do seeing that abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him that's god's thought process going on there and the lord said because the cry of sodom and gomorrah is great and because their sin is very grievous i will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it which has come unto me and if not i will know and the men turned their faces from thence and went toward sodom but abraham stood yet before the lord and abraham drew near i love this thing and said abraham is talking to god here okay will thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked per adventure there be 50 righteous within the city will thou also destroy and not spare the place for the 50 righteous that are therein that's the abraham's question is a challenge in a sense to the god of the universe okay he continued that be far from thee to do after this matter this is abraham advising god about ethics here that be far from the to do after this manner to slay the righteous with the wicked and that the righteous should be as the wicked that be far from thee shall not the judge of all the earth do right i love this this is what you would call hutzpah and the lord said if i find in sodom 50 righteous within the city then i will spare all the place for their sakes okay if there's 50 there no problem but abraham's jewish here right amen says abraham answered and said behold now i have taken upon me to speak unto the lord which em but dust and ashes that mean i'm i'm just that's nice per adventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous will thou destroy all the city for lack of five and he said god says if i find there forty and five i will not destroy it so far so good right and he spake with him yet again and said this is abraham per adventure there shall be forty found there and god said i will not do it for the forty sake so far so good they said and hello let not the lord be angry and i will speak per adventure there shall thirty be found there and he said i will not do it if i find 30 there so we're getting getting bit and abram said behold now i've taken up on me to speak unto the lord per adventure there shall be 20 found there and he said i will not destroy it for the 20th sake and he said oh let not the lord be angry and i will speak but yet but this once per adventure 10 shall be found there and he said i will not destroy it for the 10 sake okay and he said well let not the lord be yeah and i'm not destroying the tendency and the lord went his way as soon as he had left communion with abraham and abraham returned to his place now as you go through this passage you can't resist the question what about if there's only one abraham didn't go that far he pushed his luck i guess as far as he dared with in this conversation but he left us hanging about the issue of one but that there's an answer to that in the coming chapter something that most people miss when they read chapter 19. okay because we have there in chapter 19 the two angels come down there and they are attacked by the homosexuals of the city and they insist on getting abraham i mean getting a lot out of there and in fact when you get to verse 22 of 19 i want you to notice something the angels are not just doing a lot of favor he says hasty escape thither for i cannot do anything till thou come thither when you read that chapter carefully you realize that the angels the the escape of lotna's family was a precedent condition to the judgment coming the angels could not administer the judgment they're instructed to until they get lot out of there and there's even a negotiation about that sort of but that's important that seems to answer the question that if there's one righteous there they would be spared for the one that's righteous and lot surprisingly is regarded as righteous you and i wouldn't what's he doing there but peter comes to our rescue there i believe yeah ii peter 2. peter says in his letter and delivered just not vexed with a filthy conversation of the wicked for that righteous man that's lot dwelling among them and seeing and hearing vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds in other words lot was very unhappy being there because of all the unrighteous around him but he was regarded as righteous so signified by peter himself in his second letter so the lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished so god knows how to separate them and of course he does remember lot's wife she was also separated right verse 33 whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it i tell you in that night there shall be two men in one bed one shall be taken the other left two women shall be grinding together the one shall be taken the other left two men shall be in the field one shall be taken the other left well now the first thing to notice here what time of day is it well it's interesting two men are sleeping at night presumably two women grinding that's what they did before breakfast to grind the meal for the day two men are in the field that's during the day so we here we have an event that takes place simultaneously where some places it's night some place this morning someplace during the day a subtle thing but it's interesting that you have a around earth portrayed here in the bible and the speaker recognized that you can have night morning and noon simultaneously and that's not trivial and now we have and the answer instead of him where lord and he said unto them wheresoever the body is thither will the eagles be gathered together what does that mean i have asked all the great commentators i run into that question and the honest ones admit to me they don't know talk to hal lindsey about it he has his views but he admits that no one's quite sure it it seems to be a quote of a pro a proverb of some kind that was known to them in that days but exactly what it's alluding to has two different possibilities at least and wheresoever the body is there will the eagles be gathered together the word eagles is part of the problem because the word eagles is ethos which is eagles do not usually go in the quest of carrion so this may refer to a vulture that resembles an eagle that's one view the vultures attracted by the carcass and this proverb is quoted in matthew 24 28 and job 39 and hebrews 1 and hosea 8 in one in one way or another and yet it's eagles not vultures and that's the problem because the eagles are not vultures there are two major opposite views here i want to acquaint you with both of them in one case those that are taken are seen as the blessed ones and that would be descriptive of the rapture or the harpazzo that's one view and that two views here eagles do not seek out carrion eagles might be an idiom for the saints okay now the other view is the ones that are taken or taken for judgment the world conditions at the second coming hyundais may be simply used as synecdoche for birds of prey and that's the two views i'll tell you candidly most of the diligent commentators take this as a call to judgment and they may be right there's an abundance of them that go in that direction i have to tell you candidly i suspect the other way i personally suspect this is an illusion here um of the harpazzo but i'm in the minority i want you to know that that's not necessarily correct that's just my leaning if you will most conservative experts see these verses are referring to the judgment at the second coming let that be known but in contrast to that in the two previous allegories the ones who were taken noah and lot were those that were spared so that would not be inconsistent to the two previous allegories or parables in the rabbinical tradition enoch was born on the day they celebrated the feast of pentecost enoch is reviewed as being raptured on his birthday pentecost and i think that's provocative for a lot of reasons you can carry out through on your own in your own studies lot at sodom is the same thing lots removal is a prerequisite condition for the judgment to proceed and so that carries a lot of weight in my perspective but i'm in the minority so you know we're going to have all kinds of of difference of views on a lot of passages this eagles uh being where the body is is one that uh is universally ducked by most conservative scholars because they admit they don't really know and they almost everybody has a leaning one way or the other but they'll be honest with admit that we don't have good foundational support from the context you can argue either way and i i lean to the the harpazzo perception but that may be my just my my leaning but then we are not looking for the second coming of christ clearly from lots of other scripture we're looking to be caught out of here in advance of a whole bunch of things that have yet to happen before the second coming and we build that case heavily on a lot of things but especially revelation because the lamp stands in chapter 1 are identified as the churches and then we have chapter 2 and 3 with letters to those churches and chapter 4 ends up with john being caught up by name and we find the lamp stands are then in heaven and so we see the raptures marked by the chapter 4 verse 1. the 24 elders identify themselves as the redeemed and they put their crowns in the glass ec before this lamb opens the seals of the seven sealed book which starts the tribulation and all that stuff so from that scenario we're confident in what we call classically a pre-trib position and so we don't look for the second coming we'll we'll be coming back with him at the second coming which happens substantially later so so that's our view does and i don't insist upon it i just i share it with you for your own percep perspective encourage you to do your own study and come to your own conclusions and it's in that spirit we're going next time take a look at luke chapter 18. this will be the last of the series on the way to jerusalem it will be filed by chapter 19 which includes the triumphal entry and that's going to be a huge huge uh surprise to many people as to what that all that chapter all includes but chapter 18 is going to be about prayer and the need to be persistent in prayer you know it's really astonishing even among really serious christians how glibly we talk about prayer and i'll pray for you see that you do that's important the most powerful artillery you have the action of the distance weapon in your armor of god and uh it's interesting that i had a delightful phone call today from hal lindsey we chatted about a number of things and he asked for prayer for his wife and i asked for a prayer for mine and he and i are old enough friends we take those commitments seriously to be in serious prayer serious leaders are men of prayer and see that you are too in the institute we try to encourage that so next time we're going to talk quite a bit about the appropriateness of persistence in prayer and with that let you and i stand for a closing prayer

Channel: Bible Study

Views: 765

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: 0KOlD_OQfX0

Length: 45min 32sec (2732 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 15 2020