Missions Paul

I wish we’d all been ready

Luke 21: 20-28

²⁰ “When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near. ²¹ Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those in the city get out, and let those in the country not enter the city. ²² For this is the time of punishment in fulfilment of all that has been written. ²³ How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! There will be great distress in the land and wrath against this people. ²⁴ They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

²⁵ “There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. ²⁶ People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. ²⁷ At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. ²⁸ When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

 

I find it so difficult to read these verses with a first century perspective. I am immediately thinking of some end-time battle, apocalyptic destruction and Jesus riding on the clouds to earth. I have to debunk my brain in order to understand.

So here goes ….

The city of Jerusalem was being starved, imprisoned in their own city, they had been let in as pilgrims but unable to leave. The armies of Rome surrounded them. This was it. This is what Jesus had prophesied. It was AD70. The Temple would be burnt to the ground, the city destroyed and the Son of Man would be vindicated.

Jesus paints a graphic horrible picture of trying to survive the onslaught. He uses apocalyptic imagery that the people would understand and especially as they went through the violence their world would indeed be shaking. Now here it is, the verse 27, “At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.” Which is of course Jesus not talking about his return to earth but it is still in the context of the downfall of Jerusalem. So what is it then?

The title ‘Son of Man’ as we have seen on a number of occasions is the prophetic title given in Daniel.

Daniel 7: 13-14 “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. ¹⁴ He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.” Daniel prophesied it in the context of the oppression of the beasts of the earth coming against God’s people.

The Son of Man (Jesus) v the beasts (the religious leaders and the Romans)

Mark records Jesus’ words to the High Priest at his trial in 14:61-63, “Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?” ⁶² “I am,” said Jesus. “And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

What did Jesus mean? Clearly the High Priest and Jerusalem would not see Jesus coming on the clouds.

We need to see this as the vindication from God.

The downfall of Jerusalem was the sign that Jesus had been proven right and was enthroned in heaven.

The destruction of the Temple which refused to recognise the kingdom was the fulfilment of the kingdom Jesus came to bring. This had to happen in the Jesus’ generation.

But that didn’t happen till approximately 40 years after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus.

So what was happening before?

What was life like for Jerusalem and in particular for the followers of Jesus post resurrection and pre-destruction of the city?

Can you imagine?

The city was still held and oppressed by the Romans. There would have been many false Messiahs trying to raise a revolution, they were subsequently squashed. The Temple carried on. Where was the vindication? God was seemingly moving across the world through the Apostle Paul and the other apostles, but where is Jesus in the city, where is this sign from heaven? What happened to the prophecy?

Jesus had also said these words in v 34-36, “Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you suddenly like a trap. ³⁵ For it will come on all those who live on the face of the whole earth. ³⁶ Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.”

Jesus was saying, be ready. Live well. Be alert. Pray.

I am at the moment listening in the car to my Larry Norman albums, the father of Christian Rock Music, he wrote so many songs on the return of Christ. The famous one being “I wish we’d all been ready.”

It is 2019, people around you may not believe what you hold to. The followers of Jesus are struggling across the world. Where is the vindication? When will this end? Where is Jesus?

Luke in his gospel is referring to the Son of Man coming as the vindication mentioned in Daniel’s prophecy and the city did fall. But Luke also knew that Jesus would return again. In his Acts book he recorded in 1:11 “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

And so we wait and we are still waiting, far more than 40 years, 2,000 years later. Will he return in our lifetime? As we look around our world we see that people are not anticipating this at all, even in the Church! Maybe we will be singing ‘I wish we’d all been ready’. The end will come, the vindication will be over, just as He said it would.

What’s the worst thing that has ever happened to you?

Some people go through horrendous times. Even now, around our world, only a few hours away, immense persecution and suffering are taking place on people simply because of the colour of their skin, their tribe, their belief and their lifestyle.

We are going to read the words of Jesus as he prophecies of huge suffering to come on his followers and on Israel, resulting in the fall of the Temple.

His followers could probably believe they would be caught and imprisoned perhaps. But for the second Temple to fall after being built for hundreds of years. This was unthinkable.

In April this year, the world watched in dismay as fire engulfed the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. The horror on the faces of those there was tangible. This was news that reached right across the world and it captures something of the shock and trauma of the Temple’s possible downfall.

Yet that is obviously what happened.

Life leading up to that wasn’t good for the Christians or the Jews.

There was constant persecution and suffering for the followers of Jesus since the resurrection. On the day of Stephen’s martyr in AD34 a great persecution broke out against the Christians but it certainly wasn’t the greatest.

In AD64 Rome had a huge fire break out that lasted nearly a week and burned three quarters of the city. The people blamed the Emperor Nero for the fire and he in turn blamed the Christians. The Romans rounded them all up and in a savage and brutal way killed them. Torn apart by dogs and burned as street lights for Nero’s garden parties even the Roman people thought the torturous deaths too much.

Persecution has continued to this day throughout the centuries. It has centred on the same battle, that is, who is Lord? The early Christians refused to say Caesar is Lord. One amazing story comes out in history of an elderly bishop named Polycarp, who knew the Apostle John personally. He could have saved his life if he had simply put a pinch of incense on the altar as worship to Caesar. He refused, “Eighty and six years have I served Christ, and he never did me any injury: how then can I blaspheme my King and my Saviour?” So in AD155 he was tortured and burnt to death. But the reason for his death continues today. Caesar was called Lord and Saviour. So who will it be, Jesus or Caesar? But even more than that the early Christians refused to recognise the pantheon of gods in the Roman culture, they were remarkably called atheists as a result. One of the great attacks on Christians today is that of the demand to tolerate other Lords and Saviours alongside that of Jesus. The challenge remains for us that Jesus is and will always be Lord.

For the Jews, leading up to the dreadful year of AD70 they had been quite successfully in fighting off the Romans. For example, the revolt in Masada where the Zealots killed 3,600 Roman soldiers. In solidarity with Masada, the Temple sacrifice to Caesar was stopped and then Judea and Galilean Jews were encouraged and started to rebel against Caesar. Caesar was not Lord and the Romans hated them even more.

After the Passover in AD70 the Romans had permitted pilgrims to enter the city of Jerusalem but then prevented them leaving. Nero began the starvation of the city. The Jewish historian, Josephus wrote first-hand accounts as he was Nero’s interpreter and mediator. He wrote of up to 500 hundred crucifixions of prisoners every day and the famine resulting in cannibalism. But the Jews remained strong, this was their culture, their history, their land.

Titus, the son of Nero, finished what others had attempted to do before him. At first he wanted to save the Temple but he could not stop the frenzied attacks from his own soldiers. There is no need for me to write of the cruelty and barbaric treatment from the soldiers on the innocent people. But let me quote Josephus, “No one, can conceive a louder, more terrible shriek than arose from all sides during the burning of the temple. The shout of victory and the jubilee of the legions sounded through the wailings of the people, now surrounded with fire and sword, upon the mountain, and throughout the city… Yet the misery itself was more terrible than this disorder. The hill on which the temple stood was seething hot, and seemed enveloped to its base in one sheet of flame. The blood was larger in quantity than the fire, and those that were slain more in number than those that slew them. The ground was nowhere visible. All was covered with corpses; over these heaps the soldiers pursued the fugitives.”

Who would have thought this would ever have happened? Who could have imagined this?

There was one of course! Let’s read now the passage before I give some simple devotional thoughts to carry with us today:

Luke 21: 5-19 “⁵ Some of his disciples were remarking about how the temple was adorned with beautiful stones and with gifts dedicated to God. But Jesus said, ⁶ “As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down.” ⁷ “Teacher,” they asked, “when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are about to take place?” ⁸ He replied: “Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and, ‘The time is near.’ Do not follow them. ⁹ When you hear of wars and uprisings, do not be frightened. These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away.” ¹⁰ Then he said to them: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. ¹¹ There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven. ¹² “But before all this, they will seize you and persecute you. They will hand you over to synagogues and put you in prison, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name. ¹³ And so you will bear testimony to me. ¹⁴ But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. ¹⁵ For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. ¹⁶ You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. ¹⁷ Everyone will hate you because of me. ¹⁸ But not a hair of your head will perish. ¹⁹ Stand firm, and you will win life.”

 

Clearly Jesus’ prophetic statement was for that generation. Not only did the resurrection vindicate Jesus but the destruction of the Temple proved He was who he said he was. He is Lord and Saviour not the Caesars of this world.

However, the instructions contained within the prophecy have comforted and encouraged many throughout the persecuted history of the Christian Church, even today.

Let me ask the question again: What’s the worst thing that has ever happened to you?

Perhaps you are going through that today?

Jesus would say, during this time:

1. Do not be deceived, v8 “Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and, ‘The time is near.’ Do not follow them.” It is easy to follow people with huge personalities and over inflated egos. Confidence is a magnet but do not follow the ones who draw people to themselves and not to God. In the moment of your vulnerability do not run to man claiming this and that.

 

2. Get ready to tell your story, v13 “And so you will bear testimony to me.” Even in the despair you can give evidence of Jesus, you can testify of what He has done and who He is. Force out your praise.

 

3. Receive wisdom, v15 “For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict.” Jesus promises to give ideas of what you can say and how to respond to the circumstances. In your hell choose the words of heaven to come out of your mouth.

 

4. Be patient, v19 “Stand firm, and you will win life.” Don’t give up, give way, remain in position, fixed on ‘Jesus is Lord’ and you will come into victory. You may lose the battle of the flesh but win the war of the soul.

Beautiful giving!

Luke 21: 1-4 “As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. ² He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. ³ “Truly I tell you,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. ⁴ All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”

Recently a Pastor friend was given a jumper and a handbag that a neighbour didn’t want, ‘for the Church’.

I’ve been given second hand televisions that were made and sold by Noah’s family, second-hand underwear ‘for the poor people, Pastor’ and a painting of what appeared to be someone from the Simpsons. I’ve seen cheques given to the Church offerings from the wealthy to the closing amount of .33pence and having spent £200 to get to a Church to preach received a £5 ministry gift (not a great sermon apparently!)

It seems if you have it you don’t give it or you give it poorly. If you don’t have it but need it then you give what you don’t have and you do so richly.

That’s what is going on in the Temple.

Jesus saw it all.

The rich was saying ‘I don’t need this so God can have it’. They were not going to miss what they were giving.

Then the poor widow gave all she had, what she could not afford to give.

The cries of irresponsible giving are heard.

‘This is bad stewardship’.

Jesus sees and hears it all.

When we have given our all then we don’t have anything left. We are then relying on God for the next stage of our life.

As Jesus looks up, weary from the onslaught of navigating the many attempts of tripping him up, he sees an image of what will happen by the end of the week. He is about to give his all. He won’t have anything left when he does so. It will be complete surrender. The cross is always irresponsible. It is a place where you cannot afford to be. That’s where Jesus went for you and me. But before he did he looked up and saw a widow do just that. Total undiluted surrender of her life. She did not know that giving her all became the encouragement to the Son of God that day.

Beautiful giving!

Look up.

Luke 21 v 1-2  “As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. ² He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins.”

Do you ever feel weary?

Not from a lack of asleep but from people.

Conversations, defending yourself and navigating through the traps that people are trying to set for you. All this can leave you exhausted.

Jesus has been facing questions about his authority, his identity and his purpose. He was tiring physically.

Do you ever feel weary?

When people doubt your work, question your identity and rubbish your future, do you grow tired?

‘As Jesus looked up’ is used elsewhere for the meaning of regaining the sight (Luke 18:41) Do you ever feel weary?

Do you ever feel like you won’t regain your position?

Well, here is Jesus feeling exactly how you feel. He is looking down at the floor or even with his eyes closed.

Will he call it a day?

Will he give up there and then?

Will he say he cannot go anymore?

NO.

He looked up.

He decided he would go again into a new chapter and to engage with other people.

Because Jesus did, then so can you!

Yesterday you may have had enough. But today you can look up again.

Come on, look up and keep going.

Do you know the person you do not want to become?

Luke 20 v 45-47 “While all the people were listening, Jesus said to his disciples, ⁴⁶ “Beware of the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honour at banquets. ⁴⁷ They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely.”

Knowing what we do not want to become is as important as what we do want to become.

Jesus provides a list:

1. Robes: We may want to be liked but we do not want to be proud of our achievements.
2. Greetings: We may like to be welcomed but we do not chase after the praise of men.
3. Seats: We may like to sit down but we do not insist on a VIP seat.
4. Honour: We may like to go out for dinner but we do not need to sit at the centre of the table.
5. Widows: We may like to help the needy but we do not want to have any illicit financial gain from doing so.
6. Prayer: We may like to talk to God but we do not want to do so with any thought of impressing people with our use of words.

These are the things that show they are more important than anyone else. They are the most spiritual. The ones with greater authority. The most popular amongst their peers. The life and soul of the party.

Becoming all that you can become will cost you, there is sacrifice, but it will be worth it.

Becoming what you do not want to become will also cost you and the price is higher and has zero value to it.

Do you know the person you do not want to become?

Don’t make the past and your present too perfect and too big because if you do everything that comes your way will be far too small!!

Luke 20 v 41-44 “Then Jesus said to them, “Why is it said that the Messiah is the son of David? ⁴² David himself declares in the Book of Psalms: “‘The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand ⁴³ until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” ⁴⁴ David calls him ‘Lord.’ How then can he be his son?”

Recently I have started hearing comments that I hadn’t heard since some of the major moves of the Holy Spirit in the world over the last 3 decades. Things like, ‘That can’t be God!’ ‘I don’t think it is a proper conversion!’ ‘She’s not a true Christian’ ‘Time will tell, let’s wait and see, don’t get involved just yet, the jury is out.’

Don’t make the past and your present too perfect and too big because if you do everything that comes your way will be far too small!!

Are we so fixed in a certain position of belief or behaviour that we cannot embrace anything new that God may want to be taking us into? Do we rubbish the new and say it cannot be God (because it doesn’t fit what we know to be true) or dilute it so that it submits to what is our experience and firmly held position. I know a couple of ministers who were once asked to leave a church denomination “if you cannot control this Holy Spirit”. Their overseer seeing a move of the Holy Spirit in their services could not accept it as such because his belief, behaviour and experience was too small for anything new. He was overseeing but he wasn’t seeing what they were seeing. The reason was the ‘small’ in his life was ‘big’ to him and anything new would always be subservient to it. He had not seen that the ‘small’ (his belief and practice) contained a prophetic ‘big’ (the desire of God to pour out His presence) which wanted to come.

This is what is going on in these verses.

The Pharisees were standing looking smug at the put-down that Jesus had given the Sadducees regarding the age of the resurrection to come. Jesus turns back to them and in a superb understanding of the Scriptures tells them they are as blind as the Sadducees because they don’t understand even what is standing in front of them, the age of the Messiah. He does this by asking his own question.

King David was no doubt the Jews greatest king. The prayed and longed for the day of David again. An age when the Davidic Kingdom would be restored. When they would finally defeat their enemies, rule as a strong nation and people of God again and above all rebuild the Temple. They had their hopes set on the future but their eyes were in the past. The son of David, the Messiah, would come and restore the years the locusts had eaten. Their Messiah was an earthly king, descended from David, coming to do earthly things that will bring about the golden age for them.

They had missed it. They had not seen the messages throughout the Old Testament that the Messiah would be God in flesh. He would not be an earthly king but is the King of all Kings.

Jesus using Psalm 110 asks, how can David refer to the one to come as Lord (their Messiah) if he is also known as the son of David (therefore inferior)? No father calls his son ‘Lord’ so why did David do this?

Jesus is revealing that he is more than human. He is not just the son of David which everyone knew as his genealogy but that He is Lord, He is Divine.

Let me re-write the Psalm like this: David writes, “God said to my Christ, “Sit at my right hand …” or “God said to David’s Lord (Jesus)”.

David was prophesying of the Christ to come. He knew He would be Divine.

Jesus asks the question and the answer lies within that question. He knew who he was and chose the last few days before his crucifixion to reveal it.

David knew. The one who they base their very foundation of hope for the future on knew more than they know. He saw what is standing right in front of them but who they do not see.

Their ‘big’ (David) was actually ‘small’ and the son, the Messiah and who was actually standing in front of them (their ‘small’) was indeed ‘big’.

And the position of Christ indicates His authority and His power.
The Bible refers to the right hand as a place of refuge and protection. A place where blessing is declared. A place of intercession. Where authority over all powers is established.
And where is Jesus? At the right hand. Therefore, Jesus is God.

For us, what is still to emerge regarding His authority and power? How will He bless again? What will victory look like for the Church?

Let us not miss a visitation from God whether in someone’s conversion or a renewal of the Church or a turning around of sectors of society simply because it doesn’t fit. For what we hold to in our belief and practices contains seeds of truth that all things are possible. Our big may just be too small to handle the big that is coming. Retired Church leaders can be a blessing or a burden to present leaders. Seasoned Church members who have seen it all and got the t-shirt can form a resitance that will thwart any army. It is possible to be living in what you have intereceded for all your life, a move of God, yet not be experiencing it.

Don’t make the past and your present too perfect and too big because if you do everything that comes your way will be far too small!!

 

The CLEVER question about the wife who saw off 7 husbands!

Luke 20 v 27-39 “Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a question. 28 “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and have children for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless. 30 The second 31 and then the third married her, and in the same way the seven died, leaving no children. 32 Finally, the woman died too. 33 Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?” 34 Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. 35 But those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, 36 and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection. 37 But in the account of the bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’. 38 He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.” 39 Some of the teachers of the law responded, “Well said, teacher!” 40 And no-one dared to ask him any more questions.”

 

Jesus has known attacks of every kind, deceit, manipulation and flattery. But here we read of what a group called the Sadducees thought was a very clever question designed to trick him.

The Sadducees were a group of Jews who were known more for what they didn’t believe than what they did.

They held to the Torah, the first 5 Old Testament books of Moses. But nothing much else.

They did not believe in angels or spirits, life after death or anything supernatural.

More importantly to us here as we have read these verses, they also did not believe in what their question suggested they did!

In what to us seems like a crazy hypothetical story, they then ask this, “Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her? But they don’t believe in the resurrection. So they are not interested in the answer to their own question because they don’t believe in what the question is intimating! This is therefore an attempt to trick Jesus. But it is laden with assumption. Will she make the resurrection? Will the seven husbands make it? The Sadducees are trying to appear superior, clever, above anyone else. In a few minutes Jesus made them loom ordinary and foolish.

 

1. Marriage is for the world we live in.
2. Resurrection to life is for those considered worthy. Not everyone then.
3. In that resurrected world we will not be in need of marriage. It will not have the same importance in the after- life.
4. In that resurrected world there will be no death and in that sense we will be like the angels.

And in a grand finale twist of the knife, Jesus adds:

5. Even their hero, Moses, believed in the resurrection.

 

The Sadducees may have died out but they still exist in different forms today. We all know the clever question. “Why does God allow suffering?” coming from someone who doesn’t believe in God is difficult to answer because if there is no God then why is there a need to ask the question? But even if the question is genuine the answer is the same as when Jesus implied, ‘your picture of the resurrection isn’t the one I have.’ The answer is ‘your picture of God is not the God I worship’. ‘The picture of a God who controls our will and prevents our selfish greed and our potential to be wicked is not the God I worship’.

So the next time you are quizzed, slow the question down, the answer may lie within the question. The CLEVER question isn’t always that clever.

Flattery

Luke 20 v 20-26

20 Keeping a close watch on him, they sent spies, who pretended to be honest. They hoped to catch Jesus in something he said so that they might hand him over to the power and authority of the governor. 21 So the spies questioned him: “Teacher, we know that you speak and teach what is right, and that you do not show partiality but teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. 22 Is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”

23 He saw through their duplicity and said to them, 24 “Show me a denarius. Whose portrait and inscription are on it?”

25 “Caesar’s,” they replied.

He said to them, “Then give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

26 They were unable to trap him in what he had said there in public. And astonished by his answer, they became silent.

There is a whole lot of difference between honour and flattery.

However, they look the same.

You can be congratulated on your work, how you speak, your wisdom and how you are with people. You can be praised for your righteous lifestyle. You can have lots of ‘likes’.

These comments can honour you and yet be a manipulative ruse, a dishonest ambush and as much an attack as if someone had punched you.

The religious leaders wanted Jesus to fall into their trap of making him say something against Rome. His answer was perfect as it always is.

The duplicitous are always close by.

Some don’t even know they are doing it. They think they are simply being nice. Flattery is nice, right?

Raised to truly believe you are capable of being an astronaut soon leads to despondency and questioning your factory-working father (nothing wrong with working in a factory) who wanted his son to travel further in life than he had done and thus satisfying the deep discouragement and failure within himself.

There are so many examples of flattery leading to failure, even inside the Church.

We learn flattery early on in life and then some can become experts in it.

Some have friends that are actually friends with benefits (sorry about the connotation but it’s true). They are hoping to get. Their new friend will open doors for them etc.

Secret plans are being made today based on greed and selfish need. This is spiritual warfare and the Church, the Christian, you, can be at the centre of that plan. Make sure at least you are not the one making the plan.

So how are we not duped? Well of course, we are taken for a ride throughout life. But we try and strengthen our defences without being defensive.

How does Jesus help us?

1. Jesus saw through their duplicity – if there is one gift of the Spirit we need today it is discernment and secondly wisdom. We need to know whether the approach is from God or the enemy of our soul or just our own desires and appetites. We need to pray for this gift.

2. Find the question – Jesus was the master of the right question. He does it again here. Throughout his life there are records of 307 questions. Your question can open up the real reason you are being questioned.

3. Centre your answer around giving – Jesus clearly shows that he is no rebel. Taxes should be paid because the coins bearing Caesar’s image belong to him. Similarly if you bear God’s image then you must give your life to Him. I have found throughout my life that giving to others and giving to God has proven to be the right path to walk on.

Don’t let the Stone crush you.

Luke 20: 17-19 “Jesus looked directly at them and asked, “Then what is the meaning of that which is written: “‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone’? ¹⁸ Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.” ¹⁹ The teachers of the law and the chief priests looked for a way to arrest him immediately, because they knew he had spoken this parable against them. But they were afraid of the people.”

The use of Psalm 118 by Jesus brought further fury from the religious leaders. This was a pilgrimage Psalm and used by the pilgrims surrounding Jesus as he rode into Jerusalem.

Jesus uses it to end his parable on the vineyard and is saying ‘I may be rejected now but I will be seen as the Messiah very shortly.’ 40 years after the parable was taught, the Romans entered the city, flattened it and then led the religious leaders bound in chains into foreign nations. They came under God’s judgment. The stone had fallen on them just as Jesus had said. Whether it comes on you or it becomes a stumbling block to you, Jesus, the Living Stone demands a response.

It is far better to make Jesus the cornerstone of your life. There is a key place in all our lives. Some say the capstone, the place above the door. Some say the cornerstone, the first stone in a building. Whatever it is, it is of huge importance. Is Jesus occupying the place of huge importance? Is he in the decision making part? If he is not Lord then you may stumble over him and worst still you may be crushed by Him.

Where would you put your ‘God forbid!’?

Luke 20 v 9-19

⁹ He went on to tell the people this parable: “A man planted a vineyard, rented it to some farmers and went away for a long time. ¹⁰ At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants so they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the tenants beat him and sent him away empty-handed. ¹¹ He sent another servant, but that one also they beat and treated shamefully and sent away empty-handed. ¹² He sent still a third, and they wounded him and threw him out. ¹³ “Then the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I will send my son, whom I love; perhaps they will respect him.’ ¹⁴ “But when the tenants saw him, they talked the matter over. ‘This is the heir,’ they said. ‘Let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ ¹⁵ So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. “What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? ¹⁶ He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others.” When the people heard this, they said, “God forbid!”

 

Every Jew would understand this parable and even we can see it clearly. The owner is God, the farmers/tenants are Israel and the son is of course Jesus.

All seemed well until harvest time. The farmers were paid by what the harvest brought with a percentage going to the owner. God was wanting a portion, a return from their lives that indicated they belonged to him. God has the right to that. He owns the whole thing. Surrender of the fruit of the harvest is still a problem for some today. Some Christians are still struggling with a tithe never mind giving from the 90% and it has nothing to do with debt or personal circumstances, just greed.

So God sends His servants the prophets.

They beat one, physically hurting the prophet.

“When the people heard this, they said, “God forbid!” No they didn’t.

Another servant came and this time was dishonoured. To the Jew they understood full well honour and shame, it is part of their culture as in many parts of the world. The prophet was sent away in shame.

“When the people heard this, they said, “God forbid!” No they didn’t.

The third one came and they wounded him, the word is ‘traumatizo’. The prophet was thrown out traumatised by them.

“When the people heard this, they said, “God forbid!” No they didn’t.

So the son came, the one who was loved, Jesus. In a prophetic message of what would happen in a few days, Jesus describes how the son was taken out of the vineyard and killed (outside the city wall). The owner’s son, killed by those benefiting from the owner!

“When the people heard this, they said, “God forbid!” No they didn’t.

So the owner returns. When He comes He comes with severe judgment and what the farmers thought was theirs is taken away and the vineyard is given to others, which clearly is understood as the other nations, the people that the Jews despised.

“When the people heard this, they said, “God forbid!”

The point is, we don’t seem to think it is wrong to judge ruthlessly and deal harshly, to be unkind, to abuse, manipulate and treat ruthlessly. Why would we when we are right?

But when the same judgment is used on us. That’s a different story. God forbid!