The Importance of Discerning the Times We Live In - Luke 12:49-59

i've entitled this section in the book of luke discerning the times it's got three distinct teachings from jesus in it he's wrapping up the time that he's been spending with his disciples talking to them about what it means to be a disciple and in the middle of those the second one he rebukes them because they can discern the weather but they can't discern the time and we're going to get to that we're going to talk about that but i want us to look at each one of these first of all we see that he's going to talk about jesus coming to bring division you you might think that jesus came to bring unity to bring everybody together to have harmony but he came to bring division and he's going to tell and he's going to say that in this this passage and i want to show you what he means as we take a look at it then he's going to talk to them about discerning the times and finally he's going to talk about making peace with your adversary rather than going to court where the judge might rule against you make peace with your adversary before you get there and i believe that he's using that as a larger analogy of the one to whom we must give an account we we are going to have to stand before god one day and uh we'll we'll talk a little bit more about the connection that i think that jesus is making and so we pick it up first of all in verse 49 where jesus says something that's a little hard to understand in fact as we look at this passage he's got a little bit of an edge to him when we think of jesus we think of him as as churches present him we think of little jesus meek and mild which we could call the sunday school jesus and maybe it's it's it's good to present jesus that way to to kids because god could be presented in a terrifying way do you know that in the 18 middle 1800s that all preachers preached hellfire and brimstone they taught the wrath of god that was their point and when they gave altar calls they said the wrath of god is already on you and if you do not receive christ you will face that wrath you will be delivered from the wrath of god if you receive jesus as your savior and that's true and d.o moody at one point in around somewhere around 1860 or so somebody came up to him after a service and said would you consider preaching the love of god in your message and d.o moody says that was transforming to him that he had never thought about because that's not the way christ was preached the jesus that was preached in the 1850s is different than the jesus that is preached today i'm not saying they're a different person i'm simply saying it's different aspects of the same person and today the jesus that is preached i'm afraid is more like the good deal jesus try jesus he's a good deal if you just try him out it's a better way to walk he'll help you if you just try him out you know like try this pizza see if you like it like you tell the child try avocado you might like it who knows try jesus you might like him who knows and i think maybe the pendulum has swung way over to jesus as loving jesus who will tolerate anything and the idea that the wrath of god is on you if you don't know christ is never taught we just don't hear it maybe we need to swing it back a little bit bring it back to the middle and what reminds me of that is the edge jesus has as he's teaching here he doesn't have that real soft kind of an edge that we would think about jesus he's got a when you when you study the teachings of jesus he's got a sharp edge to him and he's talking about real things that are going to going to affect people's lives and you can sense that and you can see it and we see it here in verse 49 he says i came to send fire on the earth and how i wish it were already kindled now that's quite a statement and there are two different ideas that people have about what he means by jesus sending fire on the earth and both of them are accurate hebrews 12 29 says our god is a consuming fire our gods are consuming fire in john 14 26 jesus said but the helper the holy spirit whom the father will send in my name he will teach you of all things and bring to remembrance all things that i have said to you in acts 2 2 and 4 it says and sudden there suddenly came the sound from heaven as of a mighty rushing rain wind and filled the whole house where they were sitting then there appeared to them divided tongues as of fire and one sat upon each of them i have no idea what that's going to look like by the way tongues of fire on each one of their their heads and they were filled with the holy spirit and they began to speak in tongues and they gave as they gave them utterances john the baptist said of jesus i indeed baptize you with water unto repentance but he who comes after me is mightier than i [Music] whose sandal straps i am not worthy to carry excuse me whose sandals i'm not worthy to carry another place he said sandals wrap's not worth it undo whose sandals i'm not worthy to carry he will baptize you in the holy spirit and with fire now john goes on to say that his winnowing fan is in his hand and that he is going to gather the wheat into barns and he's going to burn the chaff so when john says he's going to baptize you in fire was he talking about the fire of the holy spirit which alighted upon the disciples on the day of pentecost right which which could be a sense of burning for jesus being on fire for christ living for him with everything that you have and certainly there is a way that we can talk about the fire of god in our lives in such a way if our god is a consuming fire then may we be on fire for him may we live our lives with an intensity with a passion for the living god and perhaps jesus is making a reference to that when he says when he says i came to send fire on the earth and how i wish it were already kindled now there's another thing that he could mean he could mean the fire of the holy spirit but he also could mean the fire of judgment peter tells us that this whole world is going to burn all of it one day and there will be a new heaven and a new earth created and a new jerusalem that will come down from heaven everything you own everything you see this entire world will be burnt with fire jesus is also the judge yes he's the prince of peace but he is the judge of this earth and he is the one who will bring wrath upon the earth the bible says that during the tribulation period men will hide from the wrath of the lamb we don't think of a lamb too often being dangerous that we need to hide from it jesus is a lamb but he's a lion as well he's a lion and a lamb and sometimes we interact with jesus like he's the lamb and and that might affect the way we live but do you understand he's also the lion in the chronicles of narnia there's one particular point where lucy is interacting with azlin [Music] and she says he's a lion and someone said is he tame and lucy said he's not a tame lion that's the idea our god the bible says is a fierce god what does it mean that god is fierce these are things i think we should look at these are things i think we should find out because we can't make god in our own image we can't make god in the image that we want him to be and people do that instead of taking what the bible has to say about whom god is i don't want to follow the image of god that someone makes i want to follow the true and the living god i want to know who he is what he's about we know he is all loving he is all good he is all pure he he and he loves us but we also know that he's full of justice and that he will bring wrath and indignation upon men and women who do not follow him who will not follow him all of these are taught in the bible so when jesus says and quite frankly i'm not sure how we can tell which one he's talking about it seems to me because of the edge of the rest of these passages that jesus would be talking about judgment if i had to make a guess i'm i'm not going to i think it could be either one if he's talking about one of them if i have to make a guess because of the tone of his teaching now i think he would be saying the fire of judgment i came to send fire on the earth and how i wish it were already kindled now listen to what he goes on to say in verse 50 but i have to be baptized with bapti but i have to but i have a baptism to be baptized with and how distressed i am until it is accomplished so jesus is talking about his death to be baptized is to be immersed in something crucifixion is the most brutal form of death it's it is torturous we get the word excruciating that comes from crucified it means it means to be put on the cross literally it is excruciating because that's what the idea comes from and he says that he's in distress so we know now already from our study in the book of luke that he has set his face towards jerusalem we know he's determined to go and die there we know he knows he's going to be crucified because he said it and and now he says i'm distressed about it i think he's distressed over the condition of jerusalem the condition of israel the condition of the people who haven't received him certainly he's distressed on the aspect of torture remember jesus was fully man and fully god i i don't know about 100 man and 100 god because that makes him 200 something but he's fully man and fully god for sure and as being fully man he wouldn't want to go to the cross he wouldn't want to wouldn't welcome the pain the suffering the humiliation he despised the shame of the cross the bible says but when he gets to the mount of olives and he's coming into jerusalem in the triumph of entry what we call the triumph of entry on palm sunday he stops and he weeps over jerusalem he says how i have longed to take you under my wings like a like a henwood her chicks but you would not and because of that you will be taken captive by every nation he speaks of what will happen to them and i think this all works to the distress that he has i have a baptism i must be baptized with and how distressed i am until it is accomplished and of course that accomplishment brings freedom that accomplishment brings transformation jesus will say upon the cross it is finished and when it is finished then we will have our salvation we will be able to receive him and find forgiveness so then jesus says to them do you suppose that i have come to bring peace on the earth and it's interesting to me because i think we would all say yeah i suppose that you came to bring peace you are the prince of peace and the king of kings but he said i tell you not at all but rather division for from now on five and one house will be divided three against two and two against three father will be divided against son and son against father mother against daughter and daughter against mother mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law now what does jesus mean that there's going to be division it means that the life that we live as christians is so radically different than the world we i think the church makes a mistake when we try to take the christian life and fit that in to the culture that we are living in our culture is quickly moving away from anything that we can be a part of it is it is quickly moving away from it they identify us they hate us they propagandize us and it's only going to get worse as christians the world is not going to accept you they will not accept you as you live for christ we are the restrainer that is in the world in the last days we are restraining abortion we are restraining divorce we are restraining sin we are we are used by him to do that and the world doesn't like it have you ever had somebody say to you i'm sick of you preaching to me when you haven't even said anything to them yet i've had that happen to me they're like i'm sick of you preaching i'm like i haven't even started yet it's getting ready to but i haven't even started so when you get saved i i would i won't ask for a show of hands but i would like to how many of you have had trouble in your home give me a little nod because you gave your life to christ when um when i got when i came back to the lord i came back to the lord at 19 years old and i had a real good friend of mine named keenan booer and this guy was everything he did was was was all in this guy was into rock and roll you know led zeppelin and kiss and i remember all the other groups that he was into but then he got saved when he got saved he just everything into christ in fact he was the one who called me and said listen he goes oh you just got saved you've got to go to church with me and i knew what it was about i've been i'd walked away from the lord a year ago a year before this and i came back because he was so on fire but his mom called me and said robert i think that keenan joined a cult he just burned all his albums he went outside in a pit and took all of his rock and roll albums and burned them and his mom said why didn't you give him away he was like no i'm not going to give this to sin to someone else for someone else to do there's just that that edge but it caused problems in his family and it will cause problems in your family when you truly live for christ there are a lot of families in which it will and jesus says i came to bring division and he meant that because when we live for him we live for him wholeheartedly we live for him with everything it's one of the reasons by the way that the bible tells us that we should be equally yoked should not marry a non-believer don't marry don't marry an unbeliever please don't marry a non-believer do you like the way i went from ordering you to begging with you mary if you marry wait wait for someone who loves god as much if not more than you life will be so much easier but when you give your life to christ there is division and i want you to think about we think about this in relation to america but think about this instead in relation to afghanistan or iran where there's a revival happening where people are getting saved in record numbers in those countries and when they do their lives are in danger when when they do there is a division jesus knew this there's a division here and the division is getting greater there's something going on in the world now where we we and i've said this a couple of weeks ago where we are accelerating towards the end and and there's a dividing that's taking place where people are making strong stands and we will have to make a strong stand for christ and when we make that strong stand there will be a division and i think it's all over the world and so in matthew in matthew 5 10 and 11 jesus says blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven blessed are you when they revile you and persecute you and say all kinds of evil fal evil against you falsely for my sake blessed are we when we are persecuted for his sake and i like at this point to talk to college students as well because you receive a special kind of persecution when you're in the classroom maybe identified as a christian and then just mocked and and your faith torn down and tore down and i say to you rejoice stand your ground stand up for christ take it it may be one of the only times in your life that you are really able to stand up for him and to take persecution for his sake it is indeed an honor to be persecuted for the sake of christ and we should rejoice when it happens although i think we very rarely ever do we're like what a bummer so he now talks about discerning the times he turns to the crowds and he says then he also said to the multitudes he's been teaching his disciples now he turns to the multitudes and he says whenever you see a cloud rising out of the west immediately you say a shower is coming and it is so and when you see the south wind blow you say there will be hot weather and there is hypocrites you can discern the face of the sky and the earth but how is it that you do not discern the times if i gave you if you just had in your mind what jesus is like the way jesus interacts the way he teaches if i gave you that sentence how many guesses would it take for you to think it was jesus hypocrites you can discern the weather but you can't discern the time you see what i mean by jesus had an edge to him and it's and and we put him into the little jesus meek and mild when really you've got god in the flesh with all authority speaking to men expecting to be heard by it and so why would he say you haven't discerned your time also as he makes his way into jerusalem he makes a statement he says you did not know this your day of visitation i think there are a couple of old testament passages maybe more that they should have known that the messiah was on the scene one of them is in the end of the book of genesis when jacob is blessing his sons and he comes to judah judah it would not have been my choice by the way to choose to be one of the twelve the one of the twelve sons of jacob to be the one who with the messiah would come from and if you've studied genesis 32 you know what i'm talking about but our god's a god that does surprising things and to judah he said the scepter shall not depart until shiloh has come shiloh was the place where the tabernacle had been and when you study all the old testament passages and i started to draw it all out today and i thought i don't need to do this right now i'll do it later but when you study the old testament passages it becomes clear that shiloh is a reference to the messiah the tabernacle is christ the shadow of the things that go on in the tabernacle is what christ does just as the fee speak of christ the tabernacle speaks of christ and everything in the tabernacle speaks of christ so when he says that shiloh will not come until the law giver departs so in the early 30s or excuse me the early 20s this is the first century in the early 20s uh the romans took away the right of the jews to rule over themselves they gave them they allowed them to continue to rule religiously but they took away capital punishment from them and they made it a crime for them and they believed and you could go back and read this they believed that the word of god had been broken they knew what the the promise said about shiloh being there when the law giver when the law when the scepter was removed from israel they knew what it meant and they mourned and they wailed they put on sackcloth and ashes and they mourned and wailed because god's word hadn't come true but rather they should have looked around and said where's shiloh where's the messiah they couldn't discern the times there's also that great passage in daniel chapter 9 the 70 weeks of daniel 77s it's in the context of weeks of years they not only had weeks of days one day of rest for every seven days but they had weeks of years one day of one year of rest for the land and seven and six years of working making a seven year week for the land but for 490 years they didn't give it rest they worked it every year and they didn't give the sabbath rest and so god took them into captivity for 70 years he brought him in captivity for another reason but he kept them in captivity for 70 years telling them i'm going to give the land the rest you owe it you owe the land 70 years i'm going to keep you out of the land for 70 years so daniel was reading jeremiah you can read it there in daniel chapter 9. he's reading jeremiah and he realizes 70 years is almost done we've been in captivity for almost 70 years we're about to go back and he begins to pray about it and an angel appears to him and tells him 77s are determined for israel and for jerusalem 490 more years he was thinking about the 490 years they didn't give the rest to and god says 490 more years are determined for israel for for jerusalem to make an end to sin to make an end of transgression you read the list there it's a pretty comprehensive list that everything's going to come to its end but after seven years which is seven seven that's 49 years the the the temple was rebuilt in jerusalem it took 49 years to rebuild the temple in the walls they quickly did it and repaired them in nehemiah's time but it took 49 years for them to rebuild it so he said there will be seven years and 62 years the seven years was the rebuilding and then 62 years after that brings it to 483 years you can do the math later if you want to i realize as i'm going through these numbers you guys are like okay kind of following so six seven sevens and 62 sevens is 69 seven seven times 69 is 483 83 years trust me okay i've done the math i'm very bad at math but trust me on this one all right i have it right and then it says from the command to go from the going forth of the command to restore and rebuild jerusalem until the messiah will be 69 sevens 483 years you have the command given to nehemiah and nehemiah to go and rebuild the walls and the city of jerusalem that's the only command that fits there were four commands given in history to go and restore the nation the the uh the temple which is interesting we know the date of every one of them given by arctic xerxes uh given uh that i forget all of the kings that was given that gave that command but there are four of them the only one that fits is the one to nehemiah because it says to rebuild and restore the city and the walls you had 483 years from the time that command was given and you come to 30 a.d the point is and some people pinpoint it even greater some people go back we know the day it actually gives us the day the command was given and they go through it and they do something with one with zero what do you do with zero by the way when you're counting down and coming up into an a a new you know from 80 to b what do you do with zero but they actually will come to the spring of 32 when they say that jesus was marching into jerusalem on the on his triumphant entry and that's why he said you don't know this day the day of your visitation i don't know that we have to pinpoint it that much but just simply say if you add the years the messiah was in jerusalem the messiah was there they should have known they should have and if you say well that's so calculated there's nobody that believed it back in their day yes they did we know what rabbis taught and they taught that the messiah was going to be there they were looking for the messiah in the days of jesus they just didn't want it to be that guy because that guy wasn't on their side they wanted to be somebody that was like them that had big boxes on their head and robes on and walked around super pious but instead jesus put them down and told them they were full of hypocrisy so they should have known they should have known the word of god these were the people entrusted with the word of god they should have known they should have discerned the time now i do have a question and that is if jesus were here in front of us today if he were talking to the whole church let's just narrow it down to churches that really have a relationship with jesus would he say to us hypocrites you don't know the time you guys can just determine the weather and watching the news guys on tv i'm not sure we can but you can't discern the times there are a lot of things that we could talk about in discerning the times we could talk about men the way people are lovers of themselves lovers of money lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of god having a form of godliness but denying the power that's a lot of the church today they're not it's not about living for jesus it's about living for ourselves it's about the self-help jesus come to church we can make your life better invite jesus in and you can have a better life instead of dying for him jesus said this he said fall on the rock and be broken or the rock will fall on you and crush you how's that for two choices i don't wanna fall on the rock well okay the rock's gonna fall on you then i don't want the rock to fall on me then fall on the rock fall on the rock and be broken humble yourself before god two men went into the temple jesus told this parable one of them stood afar off wouldn't look up stood up far off from the altar the altar is that big giant great where they sacrificed animals on and he and he stared at the ground and he beat his chest and he cried out god be merciful to me a sinner and the pharisee walks right up to the front and says god i thank you that i pray every day that i tithe of all that i have and that i'm not like that man and jesus said i tell you the truth one of those men left forgiven and the other one did not that's what god wants from us to discern the times to understand where we're living and to live for him wholeheartedly we could talk about other signs of the times because i believe we're living in the last days but i think israel is the super sign and i just want to talk about that briefly the nation of israel founded in 1948 god said in the book of ezekiel starting in chapter 36 that the land was going to be desolate the land was taken over by the turks 500 years ago and they destroyed they cut down every tree they could cut down and they salted the land now land recovers after being salted but when you cut down trees there's nothing to hold the water everything just gets just erodes away and so then in the late 1800s late 1800s jews began to return to jerusalem and they began to purchase land in israel they bought swamp land they bought desert land they began to drain the swamps they began to plant trees it was a movement for israel to have a national land and by the early 1900s there were a few thousand jews that were living in israel by 1948 there was hundreds of thousands and today there are several million and the bible said the land would be desolate and that god would prophesy to the mountains read this in isaiah 36 god will prophesy to the mountains get ready be fruitful for my people are about to come the land went from being desolate dl moody talks about jerusalem being totally desolate in the 50s uses that as an example of the opposite of heaven because it's so desolate but then it says that god's going to restore the land restore the fruitfulness of the land and then restore the people to the land and then there would be a nation that would be born again in a day isaiah said and that's exactly what happened in the um if you you don't know the history of israel i'm not going to give a long drawn out history here but if you don't know the history of israel the um the the british kingdom had control over almost the entire world in the 18 late 1800s they began to give back land they began to move out of areas they made the balfour agreement you look it up balfour agreement with israel to give them the land from the mediterranean sea all of what is jordan today and even beyond even what would be into iraq and then they switched it and they gave everything that is on the other side of the jordan river to the jordanians that became jordan today that's jordan today they backed away from their balfour agreement and then in 1948 they had given the land over to the u.n and the u.n had said by england's command or by england's desire that israel and the palestine and palestine and the palestinians could have a homeland israel took him up on it the palestinians unfortunately and by the way there's a revival happening a lot of palestinians are getting saved today a lot of palestinians in israel are getting saved today there's a huge christian section in palestinians so i don't want you to think that there's some kind of a hatred against palestinians because there's not but the palestinians said no not as long as israel is a nation we will not be a nation and they have stuck to their guns by the way they will not establish a nation while israel is a nation they want israel destroyed and so the land was given parts of it was given to israel immediately there was a war and israel took land in 67 the war expanded israel took more land in 73 the yom kippur war they almost lost they should have lost by the way they were attacked by by egypt syria and jordan egypt and sirius were were held back almost miraculously but jordan rolled in and they were on their way to tel aviv had they taken tel aviv they would have taken the whole thing again you can read this stuff in 1973. but they thought it was a trap because they thought they're being stopped on the east and i mean in the south and they're being stopped on the north and they turned around and left they just turned around and left it was almost taken from them but they ended up taking that land let me give you a couple of passages to talk about israel being restored first of all let me let me quote jesus here he's a prophet and jesus is talking about them being destroyed by the romans and this is in luke 21 24 and they will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive into all nations happened in 70 a.d and jerusalem will be trampled by the gentiles until the time of the gentiles is fulfilled jerusalem came under israeli control again in 1967 and the only part of his jerusalem that's not under israeli control is the temple mount and in the last few months jews have been allowed to go up on the temple mount to pray the first time since 70 a.d jews are praying on the temple mount that's all undercover they can't go up and make a big show of it but the police the jewish police are looking the other way now they never did before they're looking the other way now and you will see this in the news soon i'm going to give a prophecy right now all right not a prophecy but a prediction soon you're going to see the temple mount explode over this it is going to explode but the temple will be rebuilt on the temple mount and it will be under their control and what jesus said will be true the time of the gentiles will come to the end the question is what's the time of the gentiles that's the church age i believe it says the same thing in romans chapter 11 but it says it this way blindness and part has happened to israel they are blinded from receiving the messiah until the fullness of the gentiles has come in and they will all be saved now i don't know what all means when it says the law be saved whether it's every single one of them all of israel or whether it's the majority of them but i know this it can't be a few you're not going to say and all will be saved and it's just a few it's a handful when all are saved it's a lot the vast vast majority of them listen to um what it says in zechariah 12 3 and i and it shall happen in that day that i will make jerusalem a heavy stone for all people all who would heave it away will surely be cut to pieces though all nations of the earth gather against it ezekiel 38 and 39 says all the nations of the world are going to turn against the nation of israel listen to what it says in joel 3 1-2 for behold in those days at that time when i bring back the captives of judah and jerusalem i will also gather all nations and bring them down to the valley of jehoshaphat that's the jezreel valley it's got the mountain of megiddo next to it it's the battle of armageddon and i will bring all nations against it in the valley of joseph and i will enter into judgment with them there on account of my people my heritage israel whom you have scattered among the nations which jesus said was going to happen by the romans and jews were scattered that's why they were all around the world but because of their the unique aspect of the law they kept their identity and then he says this they have also divided my land what a statement knowing that israel is being divided today between palestinians and israel they have also divided my land that god's going to bring judgment on them because of that let me just read you a couple more isaiah 11 11 and 12 it shall come to pass on that day the lord shall set his hand again a second time to recover the remnant of his people who are left from assyria from egypt from pathros from cush from elar from shinar from hamath and the islands of the sea he will set up a banner for the nations he's going to set in israel up in the last days a banner for the nations and i will assemble the outcast of israel and gather together the dispersed of judah from the four corners of the earth we have seen that happen in our lifetime israel is a nation today the jews have returned to jerusalem are you discerning the times we are i'm not saying jesus is coming back tomorrow by the way but i'm telling you let's redeem the time because it's close let me give you one more zechariah 12 3 and it shall come to pass in that day that i will make jerusalem a very heavy stone for all people it's going to be the center joel rosenberg likes to say jerusalem is the epicenter of all that god's doing i will make jerusalem a very heavy stone for all people all who would heave it away shall surely be cut to pieces though all the nations of the earth will be gathered there so i guess i gave you that one twice all right so it was important you guys didn't get it once you got it twice all right um so now jesus as he talks about them discerning the time he now turns to them and talks to them about making peace with their adversary the interesting word the word for adversary here is the same word that is used for satan by the way which is interesting he's not using it in that context remember say we don't know satan's name lucifer is not his name lucifer is venus it's the morning star god's mocking him in isaiah when he says how you have fallen from earth o morning star he wanted to be the morning star but he isn't how you have fallen to earth or morning star in the king james bible translated that lucifer which is the latin word for venus we don't know his name we don't know what his name is he's the satan the the opposer the adversary he's the accuser that's the devil he's called the accuser he's the dragon in revelation he's the serpent of old in genesis he is the arch enemy of jesus and i love the fact that we don't know his name so the next time somebody says to you well i'm going to say the name of lucifer say go ahead say venus all you want that's not the name of satan i love the fact that the the world thinks they know his name but they don't know his name we don't we don't know the arch enemy's name we know he's there though and so jesus says this yes and um well let me see yeah okay so jesus says in verse 57. make sure i'm in the right place here uh yes and why even of yourselves do you not judge what is right he says you hypocrite you can't discern the time and why of yourselves do you not judge what is right then he says when you go with your adversary to the magistrate simply someone who's your opponent you're your adversary make every effort along the way to settle with him lest he drag you to the judge and the judge deliver you to the officer and the officer throw you in prison i tell you you shall not depart until you have paid every last might now that's just some good advice if you're in a lawsuit settle listen suing someone you're on the verge of suing someone just listen it's not worth the loss of sleep you're going to have it would be better for you to be defrauded the bible says just give it up you would pay to have good sleep if i came up with a product that would guarantee you eight hours of refreshing refreshing sleep every day i'd be a billionaire it's worth you giving up some money to have sleep it's worth letting whatever family member you think is ripping you off from the inheritance it's worth letting them have it to get sleep but i think jesus is doing something more than just giving us some really good advice i think that he's saying the wrath of god is on you make every effort that you can make to settle with him before you get to heaven before you stand before the judge because one day you will stand before him i have one verse in closing jesus said in john 3 36 and i quoted this earlier he who believes in the son has everlasting life and he who does not believe in the son shall not see life but the wrath of god abides on him that's that's your condition if you don't know christ if you've never invited him in if you've never received him this is not an appeal to make your life better it's an appeal for you to make peace with god because eternity hangs the balance if he says hey look make peace with your adversary because you'll pay for it the rest of your life how about paying for it for the rest of eternity make peace with god because he is the lamb but he also is the lion he is the one who responds to the humble in a lowly come unto me all of you who are weary and heavy laden and i will give you rest for i am lowly and my burden is light if you are humble and you come to him he will receive you but if you don't then he will be the lion and he will be the judge stand with me with you and let's pray together father thank you so much for this passage which really is intense and and that we might be able to discern the times that we are living in we want to be able to stand for you we want you to fill us and use us and to make a difference in this world we don't want to just invite you in so that we can move along in a just kind of a passive way but we want to stand strong for you and lord i pray for those that are here today who have not made peace with you that the wrath of god is upon them and i pray that they would find you humble themselves before you and receive you and we thank you for this in the name of jesus we pray amen

Channel: Calvary Tucson with Robert Furrow

Views: 811

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: jesus, robert furrow, calvary, calvary tucson, bible teaching, bible, tucson, truth, Hebrews 12:1-2, The Race of Faith, For the Joy Set Before Him, Run the race with endurance, Calvary Chapel, Hot topics, Truth Quest

Id: w7FRpJpKnc8

Length: 43min 14sec (2594 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 02 2021