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as some of you know from grace church, i havebeen preaching through the gospel of luke for a long time. there have been people born, lived, workedand died in our church, all in luke. but we're nearly through with luke, and iregret that after about ten years. i want to read a couple of passages in lukethat set the context for us in a discussion of what our lord says about hell. turn to luke chapter 12, luke chapter 12. i want to read the opening section of chapter12 and then the opening section of chapter 13, which is really one continuous messagegiven by our lord on one day.
it's a most remarkable message. if you just look at verse 1, you read thatthere were so many thousands of the multitude that had gathered together; they were steppingon each other. this is a massive crowd of people. it numbers in the tens of thousands--multiplesof the tens of thousands. they're so intent on trying to hear what jesussays that it's turning into a crushing mob like an english soccer match. people are liable to be trampled in this situation. one might consider this a dangerous situationwith a crowd, wanting without the aid of amplification
to get close enough to hear what jesus wasgoing to say. close enough even if it meant maiming thepeople in front of you. or maybe this was sort of jesus' only experiencewith a mosh pit. this is like a rock concert to end all rockconcerts because this is not just entertainment. this is someone who heals sick people. this is someone who raises dead people. this is someone who has things to say thelikes of which have never been spoken, never been thus heard. now if you only had one occasion in your lifeto speak to a large crowd numbering in the
tens of thousands, what would you say? if jesus, for example, one sunday visitedthe largest church in america, what would his sermon be about? if jesus was called to the largest conventionof religious peoples, or convocation of religious people--very devout religious people, verythoughtful religious people, very traditional religious people, very historic religiouspeople--what would his subject be? what would your subject be if you had oneoccasion to speak to a massive crowd? well, if you were to ask most evangelicalsthat question today, the subject probably nine out of ten times would be, "well, theywould choose to talk about the love of god."
maybe they would choose to talk about thegrace of god. but in perhaps the largest crowd that jesusever spoke to, he chose to talk about hell and he chose to talk about hell to the mostreligious people. this is what he said, end of verse 1, "bewareof the leaven of the pharisees, which is hypocrisy. but there is nothing covered up that willnot be revealed and hidden that will not be known. accordingly, whatever you have said in thedark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in the inner rooms shallbe proclaimed upon the housetops. and i say to you, my friends, do not be afraidof those who kill the body and after that
have no more they can do. but i will warn you whom to fear: fear theone who after he has killed has authority to cast into hell; yes i tell you, fear him! are not five sparrows sold for two cents? and yet none one of them is forgotten beforegod? indeed, the very hairs of your head are allnumbered. do not fear; you're of more value than manysparrows. and i say to you, everyone who confesses mebefore men, the son of man will confess him also before the angels of god; but he whodenies me before men shall be denied before
the angels of god." one great message to a massive crowd of veryreligious people--at the very core of that crowd are the pharisees who are the purveyorsof that religion. basically the religion of the common peopleof israel was the religion that had been crafted by the scribes and basically propagated bythe pharisees. the scribes being the theologians; the pharisees,if you will, being the ministers of that system of religion. it was the dominant religion of israel, andit was basically the faith that was proffered in every local synagogue.
so when jesus says to the people, "bewareof the leaven of the pharisees, which is hypocrisy," he is basically saying to them, "you had betterescape the religion you're a part of or you're going to end up in hell." actually most people are okay with hell forhitler. i remember one night--rick reminded me ofit--on larry king i was on with rabbi kushner, who had written the book when bad things happento good people , and the subject of hell came up, and his comment was something like, "welli know there is a hell, but god would never send anybody there." which seems a little pointless, as well asuntrue.
and off camera the discussion was "excepthitler." there is in the mind, certainly of jewishpeople, the fact that if there is a hell, hitler would be there. and since there was a hitler, there oughtto be a hell just for him. most people are okay with a hitler hell. some people would be okay with a hell forsaddam hussein or other massacring dictators. certainly people would be okay with a hellfor joseph stalin and people like him. some people would find hell okay for massmurderers or serial killers or other committers of heinous crimes.
and i would say many people would be okaywith a hell for the grossly immoral. many would be okay with a hell for the outwardlycorrupt and vile and wicked who are impenitent, intractable and irreligious. and all those people will be in hell. however, they will be the minority. they will be a small minority. most people in hell will have been very religious. that's the stunning truth. heaven is not for the good religious peoplein hell, for the irreligious and bad people.
most people in heaven will be religious, allpeople in heaven will be religious, but in a different way. all people in heaven will have come to theirtrue religion through faith in jesus christ. most people in hell will be religious, butin a wrong way. they will have followed a religion that cannotsave. the illusion is, "i'm a good person. god will certainly take me to heaven. god would never send me to hell." that's what's behind this text.
they all expected to go to heaven. they were good people. they were religious people. they worshiped the god of the old testament--thegod of abraham, isaac, and jacob. they believed in the scriptures of the oldtestament. they were looking for the messiah. they believed in prophecy, they believed in--mostof them--a coming messiah, a coming kingdom, a new heaven and a new earth, as we heardfrom randy in the last session. but they were on their way to hell.
and they were being sent there by the purveyorsof a very destructive, damning religion--apostate judaism. that's why jesus begins by saying, "bewareof the leaven of the pharisees." this is pretty typical for the ministry ofjesus. in fact, it's so typical that i'm currentlyworking on another book to come out in a year or so on how jesus dealt with false religion. in a word, how he dealt with the phariseesor the sadducees on some occasion. and repeatedly in dealing with errant judaism,he did not commend them for worshiping the true god and being good, he warned them abouthell.
jesus told them in matthew 5:22 that god wasgoing to throw them into the fiery hell. in chapter 5, verse 29 that he would throwtheir whole person into hell, and he was talking to the jewish people. to the religious leaders, he said, "you aresons of hell whose converts are double sons of hell" (matt. 23). he called these leaders serpents, vipers whowould never escape the sentence of hell. this is what is stunning about jesus' ministry. it was the religious people that he condemnedto eternal damnation.
all false religion, including apostate, christlessjudaism, is eternally damning. now i want us to look at this passage justa little bit, and there certainly is a lot more that could be said and should be saidand we'll be able to say. and then i want us to jump over to chapter13 and draw it to a conclusion. let's go back to verse 1. there are so many thousands of the multitudethat have gathered together that they're stepping on one another, and he began saying to hisdisciples, first of all--i just want to pull that out. this is a huge crowd.
in the midst of this crowd there are somemathetes, the word for learners. there are some who are honestly interestedin what jesus is saying and would classify themselves, as people often did when theyfollowed certain selected teachers, as a disciple of that teacher--in process as a learner. in the midst of the crowd there are the phariseeswho are, for the most part, beyond spiritual help. that's why you have in the new testament onlyone pharisee by name ever converted to christ. there are the very devout followers of thepharisees, who during passion week get a little closer to the idea that jesus might be themessiah and hail him as son of david when
he comes into the city on monday, but theyscream for his blood on friday. so there are the hardcore followers of thereligion pervaded by the pharisees. but there are also these non-hostile discipleswho are in process. some of them aren't true believers. some of them have made up their mind aboutthe lord jesus christ; others are in the process of considering the claims of christ. they are the interested followers, not justthe twelve; disciples is a much bigger word than that. they're following him and listening to himout of interest, out of admiration, out of
openness, out of hope, out of curiosity, outof a perhaps infantile kind of faith. they have not rejected to him, not yet. he calls them in verse 4, "my friends." they still are friendly toward him. over in verse 32 we learn that there are onlya minority because he identifies them as a little flock, and that might be just the truebelievers--very small amount. we know that even on the day of pentecostthere were only 120 of them in the city of jerusalem, gathered in the upper room. so it is to that group of people who eithernow believe in him and constitute the little
flock, or those who were still intrigued andstill interested in him and still want to know that he in particular addresses his words. however, if you go over to verse 54, you readat the beginning of the verse, "he was also saying to the multitudes," and he goes onat the end of this message to direct his words to the whole crowd. so what you have here is our lord giving awarning to people who are still at least demonstrating some interest in the things that he is sayingthat are contrary to their religion. and the stakes are high; the stakes are reallyhigh. it's about your eternal soul.
it's about your eternal dwelling place. there are no more important words than wordsthat direct us away from hell and toward the kingdom of heaven. and so he begins, "beware of the leaven ofthe pharisees, which is hypocrisy. the idea of leaven is permeating influence. leaven was put in dough to cause it to riseand swell and enlarge. beware of the permeating, fermenting influenceof the pharisees; beware of its deadly pervasive influence. he is telling them you've got to escape fromyour false religion.
the last message jesus ever gave, the finalmessage on wednesday of passion week. thursday he spent with his disciples in privateand in preparation for and celebrating the passover, and friday his trials and his death. the last message he ever gave on wednesday,he warned the whole populace that were gathered together in the temple area for his last words,he warned that crowd with basically the same words, "beware of the pharisees, beware ofyour false leaders, beware of the sons of hell who produce double sons of hell." jesus, was he intolerant of sin? yes.
but he said more about false religion thanhe did about specific iniquities, because false religion provides a damning deceptionthat sin does not provide. and so, as he comes in the direction of theend of his ministry, he warns them about damning religion, religion that cannot save, religionthat sends you to hell. and if judaism with its commitment to theold testament scriptures and the god of the old testament is a damning religion, everyother religion that worships any other than the true god must also be a damning religion. stay away from religion that is hypocritical--ceremonies,rituals on the outside, corruption on the inside.
how do you do that? how does one do that? first, you need to be motivated--you needto be motivated strongly to abandon your false religion. that's the first component of the words thatlie before us. and what is going to motivate you? there is nothing covered up that will notbe revealed, and hidden that will not be known. keep reading. whatever you have said in the dark shall beheard in the light.
what you have whispered in the inner roomsshall be proclaimed upon the housetops. you better escape your phony religion becausegod will uncover the truth. god will uncover the truth. you see the words "covered," "revealed," "hidden,""known." no one escapes exposure. listen, hypocrites know they are hypocrites. oh, they can get very good and very adeptat self-deception, but hypocrites know they're hypocrites. you know whether your heart is corrupt.
you know whether your salvation is real orwhether it's superficial. you know whether you have power over sin. you know whether you have righteous longingsand holy aspirations. you know whether you have true joy and experiencingworship. you know whether your heart is drawn out inlove to christ and those who are christ's. hypocrites know they are hypocrites, particularlyif they associate with people who are not and they see the difference. you had better avoid false religion, firstof all, because in the end you're going to get exposed.
hypocrites are going to be unmasked. this is something our lord said numerous timesin matthew, mark, luke. hypocrites will be unmasked. what hypocrites successfully conceal fromother people, they do not conceal from god. notice the contrast, dark and light, a metaphorfor revealing what hypocrites want hidden. hypocrites are only good at what they do ifthey can hide it. that to hide the reality, play the game, we'veall heard those testimonies--some of you are living them right now. you are in severe danger because even in evangelicalchristianity today, in that large kind of
umbrella that we call evangelical christianity,there's plenty of room for false religion. a superficial speech about a relationshipwith jesus christ and no reality. but some day, whatever you have said in thedark will be heard in the light, and what you whispered in the inner room shall be proclaimedupon the housetops. inner rooms, interesting concept; an innerroom was just that in a house. in the middle of the house they would havea room that could be locked and it had no windows. there was no access. thieves typically dug their way into houseswhich were made of brick or made of mud, essentially,
and they would dig through the outer wallsto get the valuables they wanted to get. so there were in larger homes inner roomswhere everything could be secure. well, whatever is going on in the inner roomin the life of the hypocrite is going to be uncovered by the lord himself and taken tothe top of the house and shouted out loud for all to hear. i remember reading when i was a young manin my college days the biography of oscar wilde the noted english playwright. oscar was a homosexual and a very perverseone in a day when that was absolutely unacceptable social behavior.
toward the end of his very storied, epic lifeas a literary contributor became known to the world the truth about him in very sordidand tragic ways. and it was oscar wilde himself who said, "thetruest thing he ever said, i forgot," he said, "but what a man hides, he will one day heardshouted from the housetop." and so it is in the life of every person whohides something; it will be uncovered and it will be declared. and what are the implications of that? consequently, verse 4, "i say to you, my friends." and there's pathos in that; there's compassionin that; there is sympathy in that; there's
tenderness in that. "do not be afraid of those who kill the bodyand after that have no more that they can do. but i will warn you whom to fear: fear theone who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell; yes, i tell you, fear him!" number one, god will unmask hypocrites. number two, god will send hypocrites to hell. that's why i said, heaven is full of religiouspeople, true religion. hell will be mostly religious people, falsereligion.
"and i say to you," continues the sequenceof truth, "my friends"--my friends, those who are still in any sense friendly to meand listening to what i'm saying, do not be afraid of what kills you physically, do notbe afraid of what men can do to you. there, just as a side note, is the heart ofhypocrisy--fear of man, fear of what people will think. many are unwilling to tell the truth aboutthemselves because they want to be accepted in a certain group; you want to be acceptedin the church, the youth group, whatever. you fear men. you're consumed with what people think.
but what our lord is simply saying is notso much that although that is truism, what he is saying the worst case scenario for mostpeople is to die, and so we fear death, and in the ancient world people killed other people,perhaps in a more random way than people do today. certainly more people die today in wars becauseof the expansive killing power of weaponry, and perhaps more of them die in natural disastersbecause of the massive population. but in the ancient times, life was hard andpeople died and people took lives and people feared for that. and so he says, "don't fear them because allthey can do is kill you, and after that they
can't do anything else." that is to say, they cannot determine youreternal destiny. here's who to fear, fear the one who afterhe has killed you has the authority to cast you into hell. who's that? it's not satan. it is not satan. oh i understand that hebrews says that satanhas the power of death in a general sense, but though satan has the power of death ina general sense, he can take no life except
under the sovereign allowance and purposeof god. fear the one who after he has killed you hasauthority to cast you into hell. that can't be satan; satan doesn't have authorityto cast anyone into hell. satan himself will be cast into hell. the lake of fire, which is the current hell,and the final form being the lake of fire is the place prepared for the devil and hisangels--it is god who casts satan and all fallen angels and all impenitent, unbelievingsinners into hell. this is god who is in view here. don't fear man; fear god.
fear the one who has the right to send youto hell forever. i mean, it's natural for us to fear somebodytaking our lives. we take great precautions today, securityprecautions so somebody doesn't come into our world, into our room, into our house andtake our life--we understand all of that. much, much more important to fear the onethat you can't lock out. fear the one that you can't restrain, theone who can both take your life and send you forever to hell. some think that this means the grave, thegrave because there's no eternal punishment. now there are some who believe in annihilationor soul sleep--there's no conscious, eternal
punishment; you go out of existence, or youvirtually go out of existence falling forever asleep. that...that's what this is talking about. it's simply talking about the grave. that is not possible. that makes nonsense out of the context. because men can put you in the grave, whywould it be more important to fear god if all god was going to do was the same thingmen could do? the soul will never die--your soul is immortal;your soul is eternal.
but it is god who can rip it out of the bodyand catapult it forever into eternal hell to be joined later by a resurrection bodyto feel the full power of the pain of eternal torment. fear the one who can send you to hell forever. just a few things about hell since we're talkingabout that. gehenna is the word, ge-ennan (valley of hinnom,the land of hinnom, the ground of hinnom on the south and west of jerusalem). it's a very interesting piece of real estate. just a little bit of background: originallywhere the jews set up the perverse worship
of idols. it was called tophet in the old testament. the jews worshiped idols there, just southand west of jerusalem. tophet means "place of spitting, spittingout" or "abhorrence." it came to mean a place of burning. one of the things they did in tophet, in thevalley of hinnom, in worshiping idols, was worship the god molech, and molech requiredthe death of a child. in order to placate molech, you took yourbaby and put your baby on the fire and incinerated your baby to appease this otherwise angrygod who would bring calamity into your life.
one writer says, "it would seem that in thetop of this place there was a deep hole in which much wood was piled and the wood wasignited by a stream of brimstone, according to isaiah 30. the wicked kings, for example, ahaz and manassehactually made their children pass through this terrible fire as offerings to the gruesomeidol molech. others copied their wicked example. jeremiah 32 talks about that. and jeremiah predicted that the divine judgmentwould strike tophet, that god would visit the terrible wickedness that occurred in ge-ennanwith such mass destruction that the place
would become known as the valley of slaughter. god-fearing king josiah defied this idolatroushigh place and stopped its abominations, fulfilling that prophecy. josiah destroyed that place as a place ofidol worship. here's the interesting footnote--turned itinto the city dump. jerusalem's garbage was taken out there forcenturies so that it always smoldered and it always burned at all times, and it becamea perfect image of hell--ever burning fire, abomination, judgment, slaughter, wretchedness,wickedness so ge-ennan in the greek became gehenna, which became hell.
our lord had much to say about hell--talkedabout it as a place of unceasing fire, torment, burning, smoke, weeping, wailing, grindingtorture, blackness, isolation. "yes, i tell you, fear him!" fear him who can send you there forever. there's a third reason for fearing god. number one, he will unmask all hypocrites. number two, he will send them all to hell. number three, he knows everything; no oneescapes. how many times have you heard these versesquoted?
"are not five sparrows sold for two centsand yet not one of them is forgotten before god. indeed the very hairs of your head are allnumbered, do not fear, you are of more value than many sparrows." how many times have you heard those read asverses of encouragement? oh, god knows every time a sparrow falls,or better in the greek, every time a sparrow hops, so perhaps even better, every time asparrow dies, borrowing from matthew 5. in that context, of course, it's talking aboutgod's protection and god's encouragement and god's care.
but here it's a very different situation. every sparrow sold god knows about. the very hairs of your head are all numbered. don't fear. you're of more value than sparrows. in a sense, that's encouraging. but the warning is about this--god knows everysingle detail about your life. yes, he knows when sparrows hop; yes, he knowswhen they fall; he knows when they die. he knows the hair of your head, and i understandthe average is 150 thousand, because if it
is, he knows it. it's not that he counts. it exists; he knows it. he knows every tiny detail, and he knows whois his. and he knows who is not. god's knowledge is complete; nothing escapeshis infinite omniscience. that is frightening news to the hypocrite. that is wonderful news to the true believer. you're not going to fool him.
so our lord is saying to this crowd, massivecrowd, a very religious, devout people: "you better escape your false religion." he's not talking to mass murderers and pedophiles. he's talking to moral, upstanding, religiouspeople. you better escape your false, hypocriticalreligion because , number one, god will uncover the truth. number two, he will sentence you to hell. and number three, he knows who you are. and he knows those that are his and thosethat are not.
how do you escape? verse 8, "i say to you, everyone who confessesme before men, the son of man shall confess him also before the angels of god; but hebefore men shall be denied before the angels of god." it has to do with whether or not you havemade a true, open, public confession of jesus christ. it greatly disturbed me recently when johnmccain was being interviewed on a couple of occasions. and when he was asked about his faith, whichis usually a synonym for hypocrisy and false
religion, he was asked about his faith andhe would not answer because it was a very private thing. really? "everyone who confesses me before"...what?..."men." what is the right answer when someone saysto a politician or to anybody else, "tell me about your faith." it is to say this, "i confess jesus christas my lord and savior and the only lord and the only savior, and the only redeemer." it's not a private thing.
that's hypocrisy in most cases, and i don'tknow the heart of any of these people. i'm just drawing off what i'm hearing. you know that part of the text. you know the gospel, romans 10:9 and 10, right? if you believe in your heart that god raisedhim from the dead and confessed with your mouth jesus as lord, you're...what?...you'resaved if that confession is real. if you want to escape hell, you must confessjesus christ as lord. no confession of christ, no heaven, no heaven. even devout, orthodox jews are on the wayto hell along with everybody else who rejects
jesus christ. a christless judaism is no different thanislam. a christless judaism is no different thanbuddhism. it's not different than atheism. it's no different than any other form of unbelief. jesus said in john 5:23, "if you honor me,you honor the father, you honor the father, you honor me." it's a package deal. you will never be confessed by god as oneof his own before the angels until you have
acknowledged jesus as your lord. now this long message continues and i wantyou to move to the thirteenth chapter for just a kind of a wrap up. we know this is the same event because itbegins in verse 1, "now on the same occasion," this is the same day in the same place, jesusgiving the same message. "on the same day there were some present inthis crowd who reported to him about the galileans whose blood pilate had mingled with theirsacrifices." now this is sort of like the jerusalem gazette,i guess--this massive crowd, lots going on when jesus is teaching.
there's a lot of back and forth, and on thissame occasion this is kind of the clincher to this great message--somebody brings upa recent event. and what it was is described here; and bythe way, this is all we know about it. some galileans came down to the temple, whichwas the only place you offered sacrifices, went in and were offering their sacrifices. pilate, who was the governor of judea from26 to 36 through the life of the lord for about ten years there, who was a vicious,corrupt, egotistical guy who mostly irritated and infuriated the jews, he ended up tragicallylosing his position, being exiled and committing suicide.
but pilate went in to the temple, this tellsus, where they were offering their sacrifices, these galileans, and his soldiers in behalfof pilate and slaughtered them so that their own blood got mixed with the sacrificial blood. i mean this is a dramatic, dramatic scene. what precipitated this? one could imagine easily, these were galileanswho were known to be anti-roman, insurrectionists--basically pilate's primary responsibility, along withall the roman procurators and roman governors, was military. they were the commander in chief of the romanmilitary presence.
so somebody like pilate, or any other position--man,in that position in any of the other countries conquered by rome--would be primarily in thatposition because they had ascended the ladder of military achievement. so he's first and foremost beyond anything--he'sa soldier. secondly, he would have administrative abilityas well, which would move him up the ranks, and being a soldier as you would well know. he also was responsible for the collectionof roman taxes, so he had a little bit of economic responsibility. but primarily he was a man who had spilledblood all his life and he knew you control
people by making sure you have power in militarypresence. whatever was going on with these galileans,whoever they were, whatever they had done, pilate had determined that they needed tobe executed and they needed to be executed in a way that would be so vivid and so publicand so unforgettable that it would send a message right through the nation. now remember, they would assume, the jewswould, if they remembered 1 kings chapter 1, that when you got into the temple thatyou were sort of, you know, off limits. you remember adonijah ran to the altar andgrabbed the horns of the altar like this was safe haven.
pilate didn't care where they were. he was telling the jews there's no safe haven;you cannot escape from me. i will find you and i will slice you and diceyou wherever you go. that place may be sacred to you; it is notsacred to me. and by the way, he despised the jews, whoalso despised him. and there are a lot of historic reasons forthat. and then we go with that in mind to verse2, and there there's an implied question there, why did this happen? "he answered and said to them, 'do you supposethat these galileans were greater sinners
than all other galileans because they sufferedthis fate? do you think this happened to them becausethey were worse sinners than everybody else from god's perspective? why did god allow this to happen to them?" this was the typical theology. you know, if you get an illness, or you'reblind (like john 9), or you get killed, it's because you're worse than somebody else whodidn't get killed. remember job's friends? the reason you're suffering is because ofyour sin.
that's the reason you suffer, because that'swhy everybody suffers. so the more you suffer the worse you are. suffering is in direct relationship to sin,and these people got slaughtered because they were worse than everybody else. is that what you think? you think that's the way the world goes? you think that's the way life happens? you think the people recently in asia whowere drowned were worse than the people who weren't drowned?
you think that? that's sort of the typical logic. that was their theology. is that why that happened to them? verse 3, "i tell you, no." and then jesus picks up on it. verse 4, "do you suppose that those eighteenon whom the tower in siloam fell and killed them were worse culprits than all the menwho live in jerusalem?" this is another one of pilate's projects tobuild an aqueduct from the pool of siloam
to provide water for jerusalem. he was always worried about water coming tojerusalem; that was a huge issue. herod had built an absolutely incredible aqueduct,bringing water from the north, falling for miles and miles and miles at a three-degreelevel, and it was built with such perfection that the water continually flowed down. you still see remnants of it in caesarea. but pilate was into water projects; herodwas into buildings. pilate was into water projects apparently--andin the construction of some water project connected to the pool of siloam.
a tower that was built, some superstructureto build this thing, collapsed and eighteen people were killed. and so the question then comes, "do you thinkthey were worse than all the people in jerusalem who are still alive? do you think that's how things work? do you think that's why calamities come becausesome people are worse than other people?" and our lord's answer again, verse 5, "i tellyou, no"--no. that's not the point. here's the point; go back to verse 3.
"unless you repent, you will all likewiseperish." verse 5, "unless you repent, you will alllikewise perish." here's the essence of the gospel. believe in the lord jesus christ or you'regoing to go to hell. repent of your sin or you're going to perish. that's the gospel. death comes without warning. death comes to anybody and everybody. it will come to you and you can't controlwhen it comes to you.
everybody's going to die, that's the message. that's the point. when i was first asked by the media in 9/11,what's going on here from god's perspective?, i said, "pretty simple; you're going to dieand you have no control over when. and you better repent so that you don't perishin hell, and believe in the lord jesus christ--only hope. escape your false religion. repent of your sin; believe in christ. simple message.
and then he closed this whole long sectionthat same day with a parable in verse 6. he began telling them this parable. "a certain man had a fig tree planted in avineyard, came looking for fruit on it, didn't find any. said to the vineyard keeper, 'behold, forthree years i've come looking for fruit on this fig tree without finding any. cut it down! why does it even use up the ground?' and he answered and said to him, 'let it alone,sir, for this year too, until i dig around
it and put in fertilizer; and if it bearsfruit next year, fine; but if not, cut it down.'" end of sermon. wow! end of sermon? yeah. what is it about; what's he saying? he's saying everybody's living on borrowedtime. every fruitless life, every life with no spiritualreality, every life producing nothing for
god is living on borrowed time. most universal gift of common grace is time,time to repent, time to believe in the lord all...all sinners live on borrowed time. genesis 6:2, "my spirit will not always strivewith man." "now," paul says in his letter to the corinthians,"is the day of salvation." here's an illustration of that. a vineyard producing nothing, absolutely nothing,the lord says, "cut it down!" it's useless. why should it even take up the ground space,suck up the water from productive vines?
and the keeper pleads, "just give me one moreyear and i'll work on it. and if it doesn't produce, cut it down--it'sborrowed time." "examine yourselves," 2 corinthians 13:5 says,"whether you be in the faith." hell is real. and in my next session with you, you're goingto find out from a man who went there to tell about it. our father, we again are grateful for everyword, but especially we are enriched by the teaching of the lord jesus because it showsus the truth in the context of a life lived in the world.
remind us that when jesus met with the mostreligious people, he didn't talk about a common heaven. he warned them about the hell ahead of themand that they were living on borrowed time. it is appointed unto men once to die, afterthis the judgment. may we escape any hypocritical religion, confessjesus as lord, and repent and be flooded with the reality of the promise and the hope ofescaping hell and enjoying the glories of we ask that you would do a great work in heartsfor your glory, in christ's name. amen.
