Luke 17:20-37
Pray with me. Almighty God, we
bless you for every provision. You are the Father above, the
Father of heavenly lights. And we recognize that these gifts
that we have are from you. You’re good and gracious to us.
Take now your tithes, our offerings. but especially our very lives
and mold us by your word and spirit this day and shape us
and make us fit for service so that as we leave this place this
day, we might be of great use, making known to the world the
invisible realities of heaven, making them visible on earth.
And this, your church, the outpost of heaven, but also in our homes,
an outpost of the kingdom of God that shines for your glory. We ask your blessings in Christ’s
name. Amen. Please be seated. And as you
do, turn in your copy of God’s word to Luke’s gospel, chapter
17. Today’s reading are verses 20
to 37. Luke chapter 17. verses 20 to 37. We’ve been making
our way through Luke’s gospel for a little more than two years
now. And there’s light at the end of the tunnel just this week.
I mapped it out and it looks like maybe next August or September,
you’re saying, well, that’s not so great. Next August, September,
we’ll get through. So far, we’ve had about, I think,
97, 98 sermons. from Luke’s gospel. But remember that Luke seeks
to write an orderly account of all the ministry of Jesus to
Theophilus. He undertook this writing to
ensure that Theophilus and we, the church, could know without
a shadow of a doubt that Jesus is our Savior. And so let’s give
attention now to the Word of God that tells us about the work
and the words of Jesus, our Savior. Being asked by the Pharisees
when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus answered them, the
kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, nor
will they say, look, here it is or there. For behold, the
kingdom of God is in the midst of you. And he said to his disciples,
the days are coming when you will desire to see one of the
days of the son of man and you will not see it. And they will
say to you, look there or look here. Do not go out or follow
them, for as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one
side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in His day. The
first, he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation,
just as it was in the days of Noah. So it will be in the days
of the son of man. They were eating and drinking
and marrying and being given in marriage until the day when
Noah entered the ark and the flood came and destroyed them
all. Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot, they were
eating, they were drinking and buying and selling and planting
and building. But on the day when Lot went
out from Sodom, Fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed
them all. So will it be on the day when
the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, let the one who
is on the housetop with his goods in the house not come down to
take them away. And likewise, let the one who
is in the field not turn back. Remember Lot’s wife. Whoever
seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his
life will keep it. I tell you, in that night, there
will be two in one bed. One will be taken and the other
left. There will be two women grinding together. One will be
taken and the other left. And they said to him, where,
Lord? And he said to them, where the corpse is, there the vultures
will gather. Pray with me. Our God, you are
gracious to speak to us by your word with the help of your Holy
Spirit. And we ask now that our ears
would be open, our eyes would be full of sight, our hearts
would be tender to receive this not as the word of men, but as
the very word of God, which it is. And we pray that our hands
and feet would be willing to leave this place this day to
go and do all that you ask. We ask your blessings. Well, one of the disciples or
one of the Pharisees, excuse me, must have drawn the short
straw. He was put up to asking Jesus, when will we see the kingdom
of God? Now, you know, from our study
of Luke all along, Jesus and the Pharisees don’t get along. The Pharisees hate Jesus. They’re
looking for a way to entrap him and to kill him. And we know
that Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, where he will suffer and die. But nevertheless, they are keenly
interested in knowing. When will the kingdom of God
come? Now we have to understand something
for just a brief moment. We have to understand the Pharisees
view of the kingdom. They believed that whoever Messiah
was, and understand they didn’t really necessarily think or believe
it was Jesus in front of them who was Messiah, but they believed
that when Messiah would come, that all of the Roman occupation
would be overthrown by a mighty king who came and who ruled and
who with his mighty army dispersed Rome from the presence of Israel.
We see that every year in Palm Sunday, right? We look at the
triumphal entry and does Jesus come on a white horse? No, he
rides a borrowed donkey. Does the whole world see and
recognize him as King of Kings and Lord of Lords? No, it’s really
just his few disciples and followers who lay their coats on the road
and Get the palm branches and shout, Hosanna, King Jesus. But the Pharisees view of the
kingdom was probably a lot like some people in our country now.
I mean, can’t you just hear it now? I should be your secretary
of state. I need to be in your cabinet.
You know, we’re having a change of power in the coming weeks
and months, most likely, and don’t you know there are people
in line, and that line is backing up outside of Washington. I want
this position. I need that position. That’s
exactly what the Pharisees were doing. Whoever drew the short
straw to ask Jesus the question, when will the kingdom of God
come, was really asking for the whole group who gets to sit at
your right hand. Who will have the places of prominence
and importance? Who will be on the Sanhedrin?
Who will be this, that, or the other? And what does Jesus answer
them? He says, the kingdom of God will
not come in observable ways. You won’t be able to say, look
here, look there. But he says, the kingdom of God
is in the midst of you. Or as some translations tell
us, the kingdom of God is among you. Now, this is one of the
strangest more coming in our passage today.
This is a strangely difficult passage of Scripture. We’re going to do our best to
be faithful and to see what God is teaching us. But the kingdom
of God is among you. And the best way to look at a
passage of Scripture you don’t understand is to look at the
immediate context. How has the kingdom of God so
far been revealed among the people of God? Well, there’s Jesus,
who we know to be the King of Kings. And he’s done many wonderful
and mighty things. When he opens his mouth, he speaks
truth. When he teaches his people, he
teaches them the way of righteousness. When he serves other people,
it’s not with a rod of strength, but it’s with the basin and the
towel. And he goes to those who are sick and oppressed and even
demon possessed. And he makes the lame walk, the
blind see, the possessed are cleaned out. Those with leprosy,
as we saw last week, were healed. And on and on we see the power
of the kingdom at work, not in the greater nation of Israel,
but in the individual lives of men and women and boys and girls.
And we see that expand through the acts of the apostles. We
see it expand through the church. in our age today. The kingdom
of God is no longer located within the boundaries of Israel. It’s
no longer a theocracy. But the kingdom of God is where
King Jesus rules. And he rules in the hearts and
in the minds and in the lives of his people. So now that Jesus
has out of the way the question from the Pharisees, he turns
to his disciples. And he turns to us and he says,
look, dear Christians, you’re going to desire to see the kingdom. And you won’t. Someone is going
to say, look there, look here. Don’t go and follow them. And
he’s saying this to his disciples because something important has
not yet taken place in their day and age. It’s that Jesus,
the son of man, must be rejected by that generation and he must
suffer many things. Now, we understand that the coming
of Jesus, we look at as the second coming. We understand the coming
of Jesus to be one of many theophanies or appearances of God, as we
have seen them through the scriptures. Now, that’s gonna be the last
and the final one. But we know God, he appeared to Moses in
the burning bush, a dramatic event. He came to Elisha in the
whirlwind. Ezekiel was caught up into heaven
and saw the throne room of God. The same with John on the Isle
of Patmos. Paul was caught up into heaven,
as we heard today in our Sunday school hour. And on and on we
might look back through these theophanies and realize they
were bright flashes of light, they were events that could not
be missed. But Jesus is saying first to
his disciples, I must suffer, I must be rejected by this generation. And so we see Jesus on his journey
to Jerusalem, he’s teaching, he’s healing, he’s casting out
demons, he’s revealing his kingdom. and the values of that great
kingdom as he does his ministry. But he wants to remind us in
this passage today that his second coming, the appearance of the
son of man, that lightning in the sky, that flash that will
shock the universe will be sudden and it is imminent. The coming
of Jesus is any day, any moment. And so the question for us with
this passage today is, are you kingdom focused? Or are you in
love with this present world? That’s the lesson Jesus is striving
to teach us. Are you kingdom focused or are
you in love? with this present world. Now
understand this, as a sinner who comes to the scripture and
understands who you are apart from Christ, you come to Jesus
and you receive him by faith alone. Your sins are forgiven,
past, present, and future. You stand justified before God.
Your faith is strengthened as you go to church, as you read
the Bible, as you fellowship with other Christians, as you
continually live receiving Jesus and resting in him alone for
your salvation. We have to be reminded that there
is a Christian walk we must live. I don’t know if you caught it
in the book of Genesis we read just a little bit ago, but it
says, Noah was a righteous man, blameless before his generation,
and he walked with God. That walked word is very important.
In fact, it’s a word that comes just a chapter or so before,
and it’s the same word used of Enoch. Remember, Enoch is the
first person not to taste death. The Bible simply says Enoch was
not, for God took him. But the description of Enoch’s
life, the only word of description we have is that Enoch walked
with God. And that’s over and against all the wicked people
in the generation. Did you catch in Genesis 6 as we read it, how
utterly wicked was the world? It was so wicked, in fact, there
was only one righteous family. That was Noah and his boys and
their wives. And God saved them by rescuing
them in the ark. And he covenanted with them that
they would be his family. And from them, the blessings
would continue to come to the earth. But as Christians, we
need to be serious about our walk with the Lord. Otherwise,
we’re really straddling two worlds. We’re straddling the fence. Do
I walk with Jesus on Sunday and then not walk with him Monday
through Saturday? And then I get my act together
Sunday night as I iron my clothes and know that the worship hour
is coming? Or is our walk with the Lord daily? I mean, sure,
we have some ups and downs. We have some busy times. We have
some times where we aren’t as serious about the Lord and he
calls us back to himself or we hear a good message and we repent
and wake up from our backsliding and on and on it could go. But
is our Christian walk serious? Are we kingdom focused? Or are
we in love with this present world and we try to straddle
the fence between loving God and loving this world. Well, Jesus gives us two very
strong examples of what that looks like. and how it’s not
the way to live. He speaks first of the days of
Noah. Now, you know from what we just read, but from your understanding
of creation, God made the world and everything in it. He planted
a garden in the East. He put Adam and Eve in it. He
told them to live righteously and their offspring and their
work, their labor would extend Eden until it covered the ends
of the earth. That was the goal of the garden.
The goal of the garden was not to stay small and be kept for
themselves, but their job was to cultivate the garden, to be
fruitful, to multiply and to extend Eden to the ends of the
earth. Starts to sound like the Great
Commission, doesn’t it? The same commission for the church.
Their job was to do that, but we know what happened. Satan
came in the garden. He tempted Eve. She took the fruit. She
saw it was a delight to her eyes. She ate it. She gave some to
her husband who was standing there with her. Their eyes were
open. They knew they were naked. They were ashamed and they hid
from God. And thankfully, by his grace,
he came looking for them in the cool of the afternoon of the
garden. And he made for them skins, garments and covered their
unrighteousness. the garden. He put them away
from the tree of life so that they would not take that tree
and eat of it and live forever in their sin. He left open the
great possibility of Jesus coming and saving sinners. But very
quickly in Adam and Eve’s family, when they were cast out of Eden,
they had two boys, one who worshipped God and was accepted, the other
who worshipped God and was not accepted. The one not accepted
by God killed the other. And so we see from Cain killing
Abel, from that, the progression of evil very quickly in the story
of the Bible. In fact, we get to Genesis 6,
5, which we read a little bit ago. God looked upon the earth.
He was sorry that he made man. for he saw that their hearts
were only evil continually. That is a dark verse. That is a death sentence on a
generation, even a culture. And so in the days of Noah, these
whose hearts were only evil, they were eating, they were drinking,
And I don’t know if you caught this phrase, they were marrying
and they were given in marriage. The people of God were only supposed
to marry one another. We know Paul’s admonition to
Christians, don’t be unequally yoked. A Christian ought to marry
a Christian, right? A God-fearer, a Yahweh-fearer
in the old covenant should only marry another God-fearer. But they were marrying the giants.
They were marrying the mighty men of the land. And so the people
of God were mixing with the wicked of the land and generations of
godly, which could have come from the offspring of God’s people
that day, were lost into that dark generation. And God promises
to blot them out. But what was Noah doing that
entire time? Well, for a hundred years, he
was hammering, he was nailing, he was sawing, he was gathering
timber. And Peter says of Noah, he was
a preacher of righteousness and a wicked generation. And don’t
you know that as he nailed and hammered and worked on that ark,
people were ridiculing him. We were speaking in Sunday school
today about our union with Christ and how knowing Christ ought
to bring us great comfort. And don’t you think that as Noah
worked on that ark, he had to say in his mind, as he was ridiculed
and evil spoken against him, this ark will save me. This ark
will be a place of salvation for me and for my family. And
so as the flood waters would soon come, and Noah faithfully
built an ark for the protection and salvation of his family,
an entire generation, and you get that word entire, don’t you?
boys and their wives would enter that ark. An entire generation
ate, they drank, they married, and they did not care that there
was a God who was righteous and he was providing a way of salvation.
And if they too believed, they could have entered that ark.
and been saved from the floodwaters. Well, Jesus gives another example.
Not only does he speak of the days of Noah, he speaks of the
days of Lot. Now, you remember when Abraham
was called to leave the land of his fathers, to leave the
land of his family, and to leave Ur of the Chaldeans, where he
worshipped pagan idols. And he was to go to a land God
would show him, the land of Canaan, the promised land. And he did
so, he left, and he took with him his nephew Lot. Now nephew
Lot was a troublesome fellow to the family of Abraham. Several
times Abraham had to rescue him, but you remember one of the times
they came back from Egypt during a famine and they had grown their
animals. They had too many sheep, too
many oxen, whatever, too many bulls and goats to live together.
And so as they were entering the promised land again, this
is a very spiritual event. Abraham says to Lot, if you go
to the right, I’ll go to the left. And vice versa, if you
go to the left, I’ll go to the right. Well, what did Lot do?
He looked with his eyes towards Sodom and Gomorrah. You know,
they had a Starbucks. This is how we think, isn’t it? How many of us move to a place
because, first of all, they have a good church? Now we look for
amenities. Do they have a Starbucks? Do
they have a Super Walmart? Do they have a Super Target?
Do they have a Costco, a BJ’s? Do they have a tire shop? We
look for amenities. But Abraham saw with spiritual
eyes and he looked to the left, which was the promised land.
And so we see the progression in Lot’s life. He looked towards
Sodom. He moved towards Sodom. He moved near Sodom. And in the
passage that Jesus is referencing here, he’s in Sodom and Gomorrah. In fact, he’s an elder at the
gates most likely, but his family is living in the center of filth. And so this passage Jesus is
telling us here, he’s speaking of the days of Lot. Now, some
of you have read the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, you know,
and are familiar with the story there. They’re blamed for their
lack of hospitality, but there were many other filthy foul things
taking place in that city. And so here is Lot living in
Sodom. And Abraham is out one day doing
whatever Abraham did all day. Two angels appeared to him. They
were a theophany, an appearance of God himself. And they were
coming to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. And the Lord said, I have heard
the outcry from that place. And their wickedness has risen
to my ears and I will go do something about it. And so Abraham, a godly
one, knows nephew Lot, idiot nephew Lot, who had to have a
Starbucks, looked towards Sodom, moved near Sodom, moved by Sodom
and now is in Sodom. If they’re going to destroy Sodom,
guess what? Lot. and his wife and his boys and
their fiances or spouses, they’re going to see the judgment of
God. And so while everyone is eating and drinking and buying
and building and planting and doing whatever they’re doing
in Sodom, and this isn’t just a reference to daily life, isn’t
it good to eat? Isn’t it good to drink? Isn’t
it good to buy and to build and to plant and to marry? And these
are all wonderful things under the sun to do. But you see, when
they consume us, And we’re not looking at the kingdom of God,
and these are our only pursuits. These are our chief and highest
ends. We don’t catch what God is doing. And so Abraham, who
did seek first the kingdom, he interceded for Sodom. And so
while Noah hammered and sawed and nailed and built an ark for
his family, Abraham interceded for his family. And you know
that prayer, all right, God, if there’s 50 righteous, will
you spare the city? Okay. Lord, I dare to speak to
you if there’s 45. Okay, I’ll do that. How about
40? Whittles it down to 30, to 20,
even 10, just Lot’s family. And God says, for the sake of
10, I will spare them. And so the angel of the Lord,
remember they go and they spend the night in the square and Lot
says, no, you got to get in this house. These people are wicked.
So he tugs them in the house. They spend the night, but the
next morning, what did the angel say? We got to get out of here. And there’s a very scary phrase
in that passage. It says, Lot lingered. Lord, I love your kingdom, but
I got to have my Starbucks, right? Y’all know I like my coffee.
So I’m just picking something, McDonald’s, whatever. Lord, I
love your kingdom, but this is a nice place to live. And you
know what he goes on to say, okay, I’ll get out of here. But
you’re saying I got to run to the hills. There’s a small town
just that way. At least let me live okay coffee. How about that?
I mean, this is the rationale going on in Lot’s mind. I love
your kingdom, Lord, except Monday through Saturday. And it says,
literally, the angels pulled him out of the city and they
planted him outside and the rain of fire and sulfur fell down
upon the city. And so while people are eating
and drinking, while people are marrying and being given a marriage,
while people are doing whatever it is they do under the sun,
consumed with this present evil age. Noah was God-fearing and
he prepared an ark of salvation for his family. Abraham was God-fearing
and he interceded on behalf of his idiot nephew who just had
to live in Sodom and Gomorrah. And God would rescue them. The
flood came, the fire and the sulfur came. And what does the
Bible say in both those cases? It destroyed them all. And so remember in our passage
today, Jesus is speaking of the second coming of Jesus. He’s
going to come take all his beloved ones home to be with him where
he is forever. But all the unrighteous will
be destroyed when the flood of judgment comes, when the fire
and the sulfur come. And Jesus says, so it will be
on the day of the son of man. How are we living? What’s in
our minds? What’s in our hearts day by day? Do we have an awareness of the
kingdom of God, that Jesus is the ruler? He is the one who
reigns over all the earth. He rules and reigns in our hearts.
Do we have an awareness that he is making the invisible realities
of heaven visible through our lives, visible through our church?
visible through our faithful Christian kingdom living. Abraham’s
living faith as he built that ark. Noah’s preaching, I’m sorry,
Abraham’s living faith as he interceded for his family. Noah’s
living faith as he built the ark. But also their way of living
that was righteous was a great sign, a great message. And this
generation, as we’re learning and discussing in Sunday school,
is a post-Christian generation. We have finished riding the coattails
of cultural Christianity in America. The South, as we like to believe,
is a Christian region, the Bible Belt, as we call it. Those days
are over, are they not? I mean, how many of you left
home this morning and you saw plenty of parked cars with the
dew of the morning remaining on them? And you’ll go back home
in a little while after lunch, and that’s still the case. How many of us see and hear and
know the realities of this post-Christian generation, but are you concerned
with what they love or with what Jesus loves? Are you a bright
spot? Does your life shine in the darkness?
Could people go down the street of your neighborhood and say,
these people, these people, these people, this, that, the other.
Now these people. love the Lord. I don’t get it. I don’t understand it. But there’s
something different about them. Their children behave. They keep
up their yard. They’re kind to people. When
so-and-so down the street fell ill, they took care of her. They
lived a kingdom set of values. You know, friends, we live outside
of Eden. We live east of Eden. We live
in a cursed world. We live in a sin-filled world.
And on display in your life right now is Jesus at work. He’s forgiven
you. He’s made you new. You’re a new
creation. And the way you live the anew
obedience can be such an evident witness to a watching world. But if you’re straddling the
fence and you’re living five, six days as a, well, just a regular
rank and file pagan, Concerned about money? Concerned about
the square footage of your house? Concerned about the latest model
of the car you’re going to get? And on and on. Or is your entire
week centered around Christ and what he requires of you? A lot
of people have come to what we might call Christianity as a
condiment. You know, we’re all living out
of the drive-through now. Right? Your cars are full of jellies
and honey mustards and ketchups and little wrappers. Because
if we’re going to eat out of the house, we’ve got to eat in
the car for the most part. And you know what a condiment
is. You take a sandwich you get from the local restaurant and
in its own right, it’s okay. But a little honey mustard, a
little ketchup, a little salt, a little pepper makes it okay.
And so we take our Christianity sometimes Or we take our pagan
lives and we shake a little Christianity on it, and we think it makes
the whole better. But in reality, our whole lives
ought to be marinated, steeped, soaked in the flavors of the
kingdom, so that every aspect of our life is not just paganism
with a little Christianity shaken on. But the entirety of our lives
bears the reality of the goodness of God in Christ Jesus. We are
making in our Christianity, in our Christian discipleship, in
our Christian lives, we’re making the invisible realities of heaven
visible on earth. Or we should be. And so is our
faith in Jesus, are our kingdom values discernible? Now, Jesus
issues a very strong warning here. Some of you maybe have
read Luke for the very first time today. And some of you may have read
for the very first time the little phrase Jesus gives, remember
Lot’s life. We spoke of Lot lingering, right? The angels had to grab him by
the shoulders and carry him out of Sodom and plant him outside
the gates before the rain fell. this present world. She was turned
into a pillar of salt because she looked back. She was told
by the angels, as the rest of Lot’s family were, run for your
lives and don’t look back. And Jesus says in our passage
today, if you’re in the field, don’t go back. Or if you’re on
the rooftop, don’t go in and get your stuff. When Christ comes,
the judgment day appears, you just go. But she was warned,
do not look back. She turned into a pillar of salt.
And so Lot’s wife, don’t even know her first name, she stands
for us as a monument of unbelief. She stands for us today as a
monument to reluctance. She stands to us today as a monument
to trying to love Jesus, but being so in love with this present
world that when the day of judgment came, She didn’t just linger
like hubby did. She looked back. She missed her
dishes. She probably missed the Starbucks
too. And you get the point. She was in love with this present
world. And so she is a monument for
all of us. Remember Lot’s wife. Don’t go get your goods. Don’t
return from the field. When you see the appearance of
Jesus, you just get on with him. Jesus goes on to say, if you
seek to preserve your life, you’ll lose it. If you seek to lose
your life, you’ll gain it. There’ll be two people, two in
bed and one gone. This week, my snoring was a little
loud and I woke up and there was no wife in the bed and I
thought of this passage. Here I am left behind, right? Cursed
for snoring. Two will be grinding at the wheel. One will be gone. Now, some of
you have really been paying attention to your Bibles. Where is verse
36? Who noticed it? See how good
you are. You’re now noticing it because
I told you there’s no verse 36. Verse 36 is an addition in the ancient
text that says there are to be two men in a field. One will
be there and one gone. And the disciples asked Jesus
a question. Where will this be? Look for the vultures. They go to the corpses of the
dead. The second coming of Jesus, the
judgment of Christ, the taking of the righteous up to heaven
and the destruction of the wicked will be so sudden, the vultures
will be circling. And so Jesus issues a very strong
warning to us this day. My coming, he says, will be sudden.
you’ll be eating and you’ll be drinking and you’ll be marrying
and working and planting and building. And you can be so consumed
with that. But don’t we have some grand
pictures of heaven in the Bible? Isn’t it a wonderful place where
God gathers with his people? And the realities of heaven,
the beauty and the wonder of it, but most of all, the presence
of God, the presence of all who have died in Christ and gone
before us, the beauty of heaven ought to be so captivating that
every day we mark our calendars, one day one day closer. But you know,
our calendars are filled with eating. They’re filled with drinking
and they’re filled with this and that and the other. And we
look so far out. It’d be a shame, wouldn’t it,
if the kingdom of God was a surprise to us? Because Jesus will come
suddenly. And so take Jesus’ warning to
heart. Remember Lot’s wife. Pray with me. Our Lord and God,
we come before you recognizing that we love this world. We love the things. We love the
bright and shiny trappings of it. In fact, our days, our weeks
are filled with wish list and want list and shopping list and
to-do list. And yes, we have things we must
do to maintain our lives and our living. Let us be those who
look for your appearing and who give thanks to the creator for
their creation. Let us not be so busy that we
miss the bright light in the sky because we love this present
world too much. Help us to remember Lot’s wife. She’s a monument to those who
were faithless. We want to be faithful. And so
give us diligent hands to build the ark. Give us diligent lips
to proclaim and to intercede on behalf