Deus Ex Machina, Luke 20:1-8

Preaching through Luke has been a journey which began almost two years ago, and many of you have made that journey with me.  I hope that for those of you who have been able to attend regularly, that this study has provided you with insights into the gospel that you had never realized before.  Perhaps some of you may have really come to understand for the first time the truth of the gospel, the specificity of the way of salvation, and the necessity of sanctification.  My hope is that you have not just added some historical knowledge concerning the life of Christ on merely an intellectual level, but that the applications learned through studying Jesus’ teachings have radically changed your life – changing the way you actually live life. Changing the way you see the world. I hope it’s changed the purpose of your life from being self centered to being God centered.

And it is also my hope that through this study of Luke it has helped to flesh out the full personality of Christ for you.  I’m afraid that so many people have a one dimensional perspective of Jesus Christ that isn’t really true to the Bible.  But it’s important to know and worship Christ for who He is, not who we want Him to be.

Some of you know that I recently purchased an old Kawasaki motorcycle that I have been trying to restore. For some reason, there is a connection between surfing and motorcycles.  They would seem to not really all that compatible, but they both appeal to the same kind of personality I guess.  So anyhow, I ran across this company that started in Bali but now has stores around the world that restores café racer type motorcycles and sells surfboards and surf related stuff.  For me it’s like the best of both worlds. But they had this weird name which is Deus Ex Machina.  And so I wanted to know what that meant.  Turns out it is an old Latin expression which means god in the machine.  It was used to describe a device in  Greek poetry by which the author of the poem or play brought about a successful ending to his plot by the introduction of a god let down by a machine, or something like a crane, which solved a problem of a plot that didn’t seem to have a logical ending.  The god of the machine then is a contrivance of the author by which he is able to insert a god and artificially provide a solution to a dilemma.

Now I was reminded of that phrase as I was considering how we look at the nature of God.  Is God merely a contrivance, a device of our own engineering, that we somehow manipulate in order to extract us from a difficult situation?  Is the God of Christendom really that small as to be manipulated by the machinations of man? Can we just create God to be whatever we want Him to be, to solve our particular dilemma in just the way we want?  Can God be defined by mere mortals? Is God really just the god of the machine, something manipulated for our benefit?  How can we know the God of the Bible?

To answer those questions, to truly understand God, we must understand first of all that Jesus was fully man and fully God.  Jesus said to Philip in John 14:9, that “if you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.”   That is an incredible statement.  And that statement means that it is essential that we fully understand the true nature of Jesus Christ,  His complete personality, because He reflects the nature and character of God exactly.  Hebrews 1:3 says that “[Jesus] is the radiance of [God’s] glory and the exact representation of [God’s] nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.” So it’s important that we see Jesus for who He really is, and that we worship God for who He really is.  Because Jesus said in John 4:24 that "God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."  It does us no good whatsoever to worship a God of our own design.  We must worship God in truth.  As He really is, all that He is, even if He does not conform to our expectations, even when He doesn’t solve our personal dilemma.

So as we enter chapter 20, I would just remind you of the different characteristics or attitudes or personality attributes of Jesus that we have seen presented here in just the last couple of chapters of Luke, because it has direct correlation to the passage we are looking at today.  At the end of chapter 18 we saw the compassion of Jesus at the healing of a desperate blind beggar.  We saw the joy of Jesus in the opening story of chapter 19 about Zaccheus.  Joy at a lost sheep of Israel that was found, that was saved.  We saw the judgment of Jesus in the parable about the evaluation of the 10 slaves and the ten minas.  Uncompromising judgment that took away the mina from the worthless slave and gave it to another.  We saw the justice and wrath of Jesus when He called for His enemies to be slain before Him in His presence.

Then we saw humbleness of Jesus in the story of Christ entering Jerusalem on a donkey.  Then we saw the sorrow of Jesus as He saw the city laid out beneath Him and He wept over the city because He foresaw the terrible consequences of their rejection of Him as the Messiah.  Then we saw the righteous anger of Jesus as He entered the temple and chased out the merchandisers who had made the temple into a den of thieves.

All of those attributes collectively should help us to recognize a more complete picture of who Jesus really is; and ultimately, what God is really like.  And folks, that is so very important today in light of the common misconceptions about God and the gospel that is prevalent in the teaching of TV evangelists and many liberal churches.  Jesus said God must be worshipped in Spirit and in truth.  And so we must recognize God for who He is, who He says He is in His word, and then bow our knee to Him as Lord.  Any effort on our part to limit God, to redefine God, or to characterize God as anything less than who He really is, is simply idolatry.  You can say you are worshipping God and yet be worshipping an idol, a god devised by your contrivance, after your preferences, and after your prejudices.  We must worship God in truth.

Let me be absolutely clear.  God can not be defined only as love.  That word has become the catchall of the modern church.  The Bible does say that God is love.   But the Bible also says God is a God of wrath, God is Holy, God is Righteous.  God is the ultimate Judge of the Earth.   But many modern church leaders want to say that God is only a God of love, and therefore love cancels out all the other characteristics of God’s nature.  That is a dangerous thing.  That false doctrine causes someone like Rob Bell, former pastor of Mars Hill Church and creator of the Nooma films, to write a book called “Love Wins”, which denies the doctrine of hell and consequently a host of other essential doctrines.  According to his and many other modern theologian’s warped view of God, God cannot be a God of love and send anyone to hell.  And so His view of God conveniently overrides the scriptures, and wipes out the Bibical doctrine of hell, because in His mind they are incompatible.

Such a contemporary lopsided view of God causes someone like Joel Olsteen to stammer and stutter and sidestep the question of whether or not Jesus is the only way to get to heaven.  Because his distorted view of God as love does not allow for a God who would not accept someone who was sincerely seeking God through Buddha, or in Islam or through any other false religion out there.  As long as you’re sincere, he believes there is a good chance that the God of love will not be able to say no and will accept you into heaven irregardless of one’s faith .

The whole question then comes down to who or what is your authority?  Is our eternal destiny determined by our individual preferences or beliefs, or is there a God in heaven who has the right, the absolute authority, to establish the parameters of His kingdom, and to govern the affairs of His kingdom and His citizens?

The root of the problem is that man by his nature hates authority.  Man by his nature is rebellious.  It started with Adam and Eve in the Garden.  Their sin was not that they ate a piece of fruit that was off limits.  Their sin was a sin of rebellion.  They believed that they were a better judge of what was right and wrong, of what was good or bad for them than God was.  And so they acted in rebellion against God and did what they thought was good, when in fact it was evil.  Consequently rebellion is the source of all evil. 1Samuel 15:23 says, “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry.”

The problem with the world today is that it is rebellious, it hates authority.  The world hates any authority that tells them that what they want to do is sin.  And unfortunately, it is not limited just to the world. The modern church as well hates authority.  That is why there is an all out attack on the authority of God’s word from within the church.  The modern church as an institution hates absolute authority.  It rejects the authority of God’s word, and exchanges it for a doctrine of relativity.

The modern church today says that we have to accommodate the mores of the world.  And so today society says that women should be able to be in a place of leadership in the church.  Only a chauvinist would deny a woman the position of a minister of the church.  Yet the Bible clearly says in 1Tim. 2:12 in regards to the church, “But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.”  It says the same thing in 1 Cor. 14.  Yet the modern church doesn’t want to be told that, so they exchange the truth of God for a lie.

The church today says that sin in no longer sin.  It doesn’t matter if the Bible says that homosexuality is an abomination before God.  Society says that it is acceptable.  And so liberal church leaders say that God is love and therefore God accepts all forms of love.  They reject the authority of God’s word and instead say that they are capable of deciding what is right and what is wrong.  The church today winks at divorce.  But the Bible says that the person that divorces and marries another is guilty of adultery.  The Bible says that God hates divorce.  But the church says it’s not a big deal if you don’t love them anymore.  The Bible says that all fornication is sin.  But the modern church says it’s ok if you love the person. They reject the authority of God’s word.

But Paul warns in Romans 1:18 that there is a greater dimension to God than simply that of love.  It says, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.”

So at the heart of the gospel is the authority of the word of God.  If you take that out, if you start to tamper with it, question it, subjugate it to man’s ideas of relevance and importance, then you take the heart right out of the gospel.  You take the power to save out of the gospel.  The truth can only set you free when it is actually the truth.

Now this problem with authority started with Adam and Eve like I said, and it has reached epidemic proportions today in the modern church, but it also was around in Jesus day.  In fact, you could say that it was even worse in Jesus’ day, because that rebellion culminated in the crucifixion of  God Himself in the person of Jesus Christ.
And as we look at our text today we see this question of authority being enunciated by the religious leaders of that day.  In fact, it is a pretty serious delegation of religious leaders.  No less than the high priests were part of the delegation as well as the elders of the Sanhedrin, which was the religious ruling class of Judaism.  This was the highest levels of the Jewish religious orders coming to accost Jesus.

And what they ask Him is found in vs. 2, ““Tell us by what authority You are doing these things, or who is the one who gave You this authority?”  Now the question that raises is what are “these things” that Christ was doing?  And the answer is found in the end of the last chapter.  Jesus had come into the temple and started cleaning house.  He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves and He drove out those who were buying and selling.  It says in Mark that He wouldn’t allow them to carry their merchandise through the temple either.

I hope you get the full picture here.  Jesus grabs up a bullwhip, and He goes into the temple courtyard and starts driving these vendors out of the temple.  This is not a lovey dovey Jesus pictured here.  He is exercising the divine wrath of God.  These merchants had set up in the temple grounds with all kinds of animals for sale.  And so you’ve got this effect of something like cattle pens in the temple where people could purchase an animal for sacrifice. And they operated in conjunction with the priests who were making outrageous profits from selling these “approved” animals.

Then on top of that are the money changers.  The priests had the racket set up so that in order to pay your temple tax or even to buy a sacrificial animal, you had to pay in the currency of the temple.  They wouldn’t accept Roman money.  So they of course would charge you a hefty commission to change your currency into temple currency.  It was yet another form of extortion.

So Jesus sees all this going on.  In John’s gospel, there is a record of Him cleansing the temple in just this same way at an earlier time in His ministry.  So after all that time, Jesus has come back and the temple vendors and priests are right back at it again, and so He does the same thing that He did before, He grabs a whip and weighs into the middle of the whole mess, cracking the bullwhip and kicking over tables and chairs and driving the men out of the temple.  And He doesn’t even let them carry out their merchandise.  He drives them out and leaves their stuff scattered all over the grounds.

And as He is doing all of that, He says, “It is written, ‘AND MY HOUSE SHALL BE A HOUSE OF PRAYER,’ but you have made it a ROBBERS’ DEN.”    He is quoting scripture to them.  I love that.  All these crooked priests and the vendors running for the exits and Jesus is chasing behind them cracking a bullwhip and quoting scripture.  Furthermore, He is saying it is His house.  It’s not their house, it’s His house.

Now the next morning, the temple is cleaned out, the money changers are gone, the animals are gone, and Jesus comes back in there and sits down in the middle of the temple and begins to preach.  And people are hanging on to His every word.  Why?  Because He spoke with authority.  The people said about Him that never a man spoke as He spoke.

But the religious leaders don’t recognize that authority.  And so they come to Him in force and ask Him by what authority is He doing these things, who gave Him this authority?  Basically they are saying, “Hey Jesus, who do you think you are?  What right have you to come into the temple, our territory, and drive out the vendors?  What authority do you have to make a claim on the temple that it is your house?

Here is the thing.  As far as they were concerned, Jesus had no credentials.  He wasn’t a priest.  He wasn’t a graduate from some established rabbinical school.  He wasn’t of the tribe of Levi.  He wasn’t part of the Sanhedrin.  He had none of the credentials that they thought that He should have.

You know, I experience a similar kind of problem sometimes.  I don’t have a  degree from some big established seminary.   I don’t have the backing of some denomination.  I don’t wear the prescribed uniform of the typical religious leader.  I don’t even have a church building.  And so I sometimes get a little bit of that same criticism.  What authority do you have?  Who gave you the authority to preach about sin and hell and the judgment to come?  Who do you think you are?

And my response is the same as John the Baptist when he was asked a similar question.  I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, “repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”  My answer is to quote the apostle Paul who said in 1Cor. 9:16 that I am constrained to preach the gospel out of compulsion.  Woe is me if I do not preach the gospel.  My authority is only that God has called me to preach the word of God without apology, to preach the word in season and out of season, to reprove, rebuke and exhort with all longsuffering and patience.  I can say “Thus says the Lord” without hesitation because I speak from the word of God.  I don’t add the machinations and scheming of man’s wisdom.  I preach the word of God chapter by chapter, verse by verse.  And I believe that the word of God is the absolute truth.  The word of God is the breath of God that gives life.  It is the absolute rule of life and practice and everyman will be judged by it according to how they responded to it.  My job is not to build a church building, or draw a crowd, or entertain people, my job is to preach the full counsel of God’s word without compromise.

Well, Jesus uses a question to answer their question.  Because He knows that they have framed their question in order to try to trap Him.  To try to find a way to convict Him of blasphemy.  They have been planning and plotting to kill Him for a while now and this last episode in the temple on their own turf has pushed them over the brink.  They will in fact kill Him in just three days or so.  But for now, Jesus turns the tables on them and asks them a question.  Vs. 3 Jesus answered and said to them, "I will also ask you a question, and you tell Me: 4 "Was the baptism of John from heaven or from men?"

Now what is Jesus talking about when He says the baptism of John?  Well, four times in scripture, Mark, Luke and twice in Acts, the baptism of John is called the baptism of repentance.  That was the significance of John’s baptism.  It wasn’t just a ritual.  In fact, it had been a ritual conducted by the temple for non Jewish believers to go through so that they could worship the God of the Jews.  It was a Gentile ritual.  So when John preached a baptism of repentance, he was saying in essence that a Jew had to repent just like a Gentile in order to receive Christ.  But the real significance of baptism was saying that you must confess and repent of your sins because the Messiah is coming.  You must get ready for the coming of the Messiah.  And the way to be accepted by Him into His kingdom is to repent of your sins.  That is the message of the baptism.  But the actual act of baptism is just a symbolic, outward sign that you are repenting of your sins.  That you bury the old man, the old ways, the old flesh in the water of repentance.  You die to that old man there in the water,  and you rise up to a newness of life in Jesus Christ leaving behind the old man.

Now that baptism of repentance is the framework for the question Jesus asks of the priests.  Was that message of John from God or of men?  Well, the Bible very clearly teaches the doctrine of repentance.  There are so many OT references to repentance that I cannot take the time to spell them all out here.  But David the Psalmist speaks often of the need for repentance.  It is a common theme in the OT.  David repented of his sin with Bathsheba and God forgave him.  He said in Ps. 51, “a broken and contrite heart O Lord you will not despise.”  He said in Psalm 32:3, 5 “When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. ... I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I did not hide; I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD"; And You forgave the guilt of my sin.”

So the priests should have understood the doctrine of repentance.  But they did not want to accept it.  They weren’t about to humble themselves in repentance.  They weren’t about to acknowledge that they had any sin.  They had explained away their sin by creative Biblical interpretation. They had redefined the law so that they could say that they had no sin.  In fact, they thought they were righteous.

Listen, the most dangerous thing you can do, whether you are a Christian or a not, is to say that your sin is not sin.  That is the most dangerous thing you can do. To redefine sin so that it is not sin.  To say that you don’t sin, or that there is no need to confess sin anymore is a dangerous thing.  I spoke a little last week about the false doctrine called antinomianism which is sweeping through the modern church.  It is a basically the doctrine that says that as a Christian you no longer sin.  There is no more need to confess your sins anymore.  That grace has absolved you from all responsibility to live righteously and holy before God.  That is a very dangerous doctrine, folks. If there is no sin, then there is no need for the discipline of the Lord upon His children.  And so once again a false doctrine counters the authority of the word of God, because Heb. 12 tells us that we should strive against sin, but when we sin the Lord reproves us.  Vs. 6 FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES, AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES." ... 8 But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.” If God doesn’t discipline you for your sin, then you are not a son of God, you are illegitimate.

So rather than acknowledge that the baptism of John was from God, the priests confer together to try to find a way out of the question.  They are afraid of the people, because the people thought that John was a prophet.  So they are not going to speak against John, even though they obviously did not believe John.  Because John presented Jesus as the Messiah, didn’t he?  If they believed John, then they would have to believe Jesus.  Because John made it clear that he was the forerunner for the Messiah, and Jesus was the Messiah.  That’s another clue to a false prophet, by the way.  They don’t want to say anything that will offend people.  A false prophet wants to please people, to appeal to people, to flatter people for the sake of taking advantage of them.  And that is what these priests were doing.

So they confer together and decide to say, “we don’t know.”  That’s yet another clue to a false prophet.  They refuse to be dogmatic.  They consider the animosity of the culture, and the authority of God’s word that clearly states something as sin and consequently the need for repentance, and they say, “Well, we aren’t really sure that that is what the Bible is really saying.  After all, in that culture things were different.  But we live in a different culture and so we can’t say exactly what the truth is about certain things.”  They undermine the authority of scripture by saying it can’t be known, or it can’t be trusted, or there are errors in the translations which leaves the door open to other possibilities.  They don’t know the truth, or won’t say.

But here is the real dilemma of what these priests were facing.  The real crux of the matter is that if they accepted the ministry of John as having the authority of God, then they would have to accept the ministry of Jesus as having the authority of God.  They would have to accept that Jesus had every right to come into the temple because it was His house.  Psalm 110 says that the Messiah was the great high priest  forever according to the order of Melchizedek .  He surpassed all their authority.  In fact, He was the one who gave them their authority.  So He had every right to come into His house and clean out the robbers and cheats.

If they accepted the ministry of John, then they would have to accept that Jesus was the Messiah.  They knew that Ps. 45 says the Messiah was to sit on the throne of David, the king who was to rule over the nations, whose kingdom would never end.  And so they would have to bow before Jesus as their king and submit to His rule.

If they accepted the ministry of John, then they would have to accept that Jesus was that prophet like unto Moses, of whom Moses said in Duet. 18, “GOD WILL RAISE UP FOR YOU A PROPHET LIKE ME FROM YOUR BRETHREN.”  They would have to accept that He not only spoke the word of God like Moses did, but He was the Word of God incarnate, the Word made flesh and dwelling among them.  And yet they did not accept Him.  They rejected Him.

So they would not say. They would not see the truth.  They would not bow their knee. These were the ones of whom He said in chapter 19, “We do not want this man to reign over us.”  They would not accept His authority.  They would rebel and continue in their insubordination to the very God of the universe until one day God would destroy them in His presence along with all His enemies.   So Jesus responded to them in vs.8 by saying,  "Nor will I tell you by what authority I do these things."  Jesus would leave them to their rebellion.  He would not answer them anymore.  From this time on, they were hardened in their rebellion and He would not answer them a word.  He had exhausted His patience with them.  It was as Romans 1:28 says,  “And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not proper.”

Listen, I don’t know where you are at today spiritually.  Some of you may be really irritated right now because I had the gall to call your pet sin, sin.  Some of you may have your feathers ruffled and find yourself thinking, “who does this man think that He is?  What kind of authority does he have?  How can he know anything?”  My only answer is to say that the only authority I have is the word of God.  If God said it in His word, then I believe it and I will preach it. John chapter one describes Jesus as the Word of God made flesh.  The Word of God is true and authoritative.  But you can choose to accept it or not.  You can reject it and leave here today and continue in your rebellion and think that the god of your imagination is going to accept you just the way you are.  You can continue to worship Deus Ex Machina, the god of your machinations. And if that is the case, then you will have to face the consequences one day for trampling underfoot the Spirit of grace and the precious blood of Jesus Christ which was shed on behalf of sinners.  If you refuse to repent of your sins, then the blood of Christ avails nothing for you, and you will face the wrath and judgment of God, whether or not you choose to believe in it.

Some of you here today may be in the same situation as the priests and the elders were.  This may be the last time that God speaks to you.  The last opportunity for you to repent.  The summer season is coming to a close.  You may never come to this service again.  God may have given you His last warning before giving you over to a reprobate mind to do those things that aren’t proper.  I hope that is not the case for anyone here today.  I pray that today is the day of your salvation. Today is the day of repentance.  Don’t presume upon the grace of God.

Or some of you today can do like David did, and acknowledge and confess your sin to God and ask Him to renew a right spirit within you.  Today you can be right with God.  But please understand something.  Jesus is not just your Savior.  He is also your Lord and King.  To come to Christ you must do what those priests and elders of Judaism could not do; that is bow your knee to the will of Christ.  Allow Christ to sit on the throne of your heart, and live for Him.  Live no longer for your glory, but for His.  If Jesus is the Son of God, then He has every right to rule and reign over your life.  And if you are not willing to let Him rule, then you cannot be a citizen of the Kingdom of God.  You must submit to the authority of His word.  For those that come to Him in repentance, God has promised to give us the Spirit of Christ as our Helper, to empower us to live according to His word.  To help us to be obedient to His word from the heart.

Are you willing to let Christ take His seat on the throne of your heart today?  Is your body the temple of the Holy Spirit?  Is Christ reigning and ruling in His temple?  He has every right to the throne of our heart and our obedience.  Let’s pray.

The danger of superficial worship; Luke 19: 28-48

Whether or not you realize it, there has been a monumental shift within the modern church in the last century or so.  Particularly in the last half of the last century, events and attitudes that perhaps seemed almost imperceptible at first have quickly gained a momentum and coalesced into a movement that has brought about sweeping changes throughout the church.

I would like to say that all these changes have been good.  After all, there were some movements in the past such as the Reformation that swept through Europe and into America that changed the church for the better.  But I’m afraid that is not the case with this movement.  It’s difficult to put a name on it that encompasses everything that is going on.  Some people have suggested that the movement should be called the New Emergent Church.  But I don’t know if that is too limiting and in definitive .

Whatever it is that you want to call it, it is the most dangerous movement that Christianity has encountered since the Dark Ages.   It literally threatens to destroy not only the church as we know it, but it is also demonically designed to ultimately destroy souls by deluding them as to the true nature of the church, and specifically the true nature of the gospel.

Regardless of what you call this movement, regardless of the great diversity of denominations that are being sucked into it, it’s got one characteristic which is common to all.  This great demonic delusion is focused on undermining the supreme authority of God’s word.   There really is no other greater purpose of the church other than to protect, to preserve, to proclaim and publish the word of God that men might be saved.   And yet today the word of God is almost nonexistent in many main line churches.  And even when it is found, it’s importance, it’s prominence is diminished and relegated to an ancillary component of what is called worship.  The scripture, which is the very essence of Christ, the Word of God, the voice of God, is subjugated to the whims of fashion, trends, technology, translations that emasculate the Word, teachers that downplay the authority of the Word, and so called spiritual experiences which trump the Word.

The incredible thing is that the greatest adversary of the church is not the atheists, nor the Islamists or any of the world’s agents in the media or government.  But the greatest danger to the church is coming from within the church itself. The authority and supremacy of the Word of God is being attacked on so many different levels within the church in a varieties of ways and yet the average person is completely unaware of it. One of the primary ways this is happening has been through a shift in emphasis from the preaching of the Word of God with authority to an emphasis on what is called worship, or praise and worship.

Worship leaders today are often given a form of leadership found in the church that circumvents being vetted by the credentials for pastors or deacons found in 1 and 2 Timothy and yet they have more influence in the church many times than the pastor himself.  People decide church associations today not based on what kind of preacher the pastor  is, or even if he is preaching the word accurately, but they pick  churches based on musical styles and often the worship leader’s talent.

Worship is often presented as a time of spiritual awareness, evoking an emotional response,  a euphoric feeling that comes through music, sometimes an ecstatic outburst of emotion that is attributed to the Spirit.  Worship has become a catch all for a multimedia presentation that encompasses, music, lights, images and sounds that coalesce in an experience that is loosely based on an even looser theology.  The problem is that very often that theology,   if it’s  not in outright error, is so lopsided in it’s perspective that it rarely presents the full gospel.  It’s very often a partial gospel, encompassing a lopsided view of God as a one dimensional being who is limited in scope to only an emotional quotient called love, and which consequently sacrifices all the weightier issues of salvation such as sanctification and holiness as being archaic and out of touch or even legalistic.

Now as I alluded to earlier, there is nothing new under the sun.  Technology may be newer, musical styles may have changed, but false theology has been around forever.  The devil just keeps repackaging it, reformatting it for the next generation.  Even in Jesus day, even with Jesus present, there are elements of false worship and errant theology that He has to deal with.  So in this passage we are looking at today, in addition to looking at the historical account of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, we will see a contrast of true worship and errant worship.

First of all though, let’s consider the context of this passage.  It is obviously divinely connected to the passage preceding it.  In that parable, Jesus told a story about a king who came to receive his kingdom in a far away country.  And he put his servants in charge of the kingdom until he returned.  But there were people in that country, his citizens, that said “we will not let this man reign over us.”  Jesus says in the story that when the king returns, he first addresses those faithful slaves who were good stewards of what he entrusted to them.  He rewards the faithful.  But those that were unfaithful with their stewardship he takes away even what they have and gives it to the faithful.  And those that rebelled against his kingship, he says he will slay in his presence.

Now that is the immediate context of this passage we are looking at today.  Jesus is the King who is coming to receive His kingdom.  He came preaching “repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.”  He was the King come to receive a far away kingdom.  And while He was on earth, He entrusts His servants with a stewardship.  They are given the responsibility of managing the kingdom and utilizing it’s resources in a way that will benefit the kingdom.

And that is exactly what Jesus had been doing.  He had called 12 disciples to follow Him, to learn from Him.  They had been entrusted with His Word.  They sat under His teaching.  One day, they will transcribe those words under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and compile the Holy Scriptures, the Word of God.  So in the time of His incarnation, Jesus delivers the Word of God, the gospel, to the disciples, not only the 12, but all those that truly leave all to follow Him and accept Him as Lord and King.

Now on this day, Jesus begins the final part of His journey to Jerusalem.  He leaves Jericho, and approaches two small villages on the outskirts of Jerusalem and sends two of His disciples ahead into the village.  He tells them that they will find there a donkey and her colt tied up there.  And He tells the disciples that they are to bring Him the colt and if anyone asks what they are doing, they are to say that the Lord has need of it.  So they go on ahead and they find everything exactly as He said.

So they bring back the colt to Jesus and put their robes on it for a saddle and then put Jesus on it.  Now this is the first part of their worship.  Notice first of all that worship involves obedience.  These disciples are given a set of instructions that probably seemed kind of ridiculous to them at first.  Go into the next village and you will find a colt tied there.  Untie it and bring it here.  And if someone asks you what you’re doing, then say the Lord has need of it.  They probably were saying, “Right?!”  This is a good way to get arrested.  It didn’t make sense.  Jesus hadn’t yet been to that village, so how could He know there was a colt tied there?  And yet they unquestionably obeyed His world.  They didn’t argue.  They didn’t question. They did what He said, and the results were exactly like Jesus said they would be.

You know, the greatest detriment to true worship of God is our own intellect sometimes.  We think we know better than God how to design a church, or how to relate to people.  We think we know better than God how to attract a crowd, how to keep people’s interest.  So we circumvent the preaching of the word and engineer some type of human program that we think will accomplish the end result that we want.  But then at some point in the future, we discover that it didn’t really accomplish what we thought it would. 1Cor. 1:21 says that “since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe.”

What those disciples didn’t realize, is that by being obedient to the word, they were also fulfilling Biblical prophecy.  In Zechariah 9:9, written 500 years earlier, it was written, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; He is just and endowed with salvation, humble, and mounted on a donkey, Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

And that is another key to true worship.  True worship in accordance with the word of God accomplishes the will of God.  See, even though they did not initially understand what they were doing, or why they were doing it in this way, the word of God explained it.  The disciples were more than willing to celebrate Jesus as the coming Messiah, as the conquering King who would deliver their nation from the iron fist of Rome.  But if they had studied the scriptures, they would have discovered that Zechariah says that yes, He was coming as a King, but that His purpose was salvation, not to conquer Rome.  Zechariah says, “He is just and endowed with salvation, humble and mounted on a donkey.”  A donkey was not a war horse, but a beast of burden.  Jesus came to bear our burdens, to bear the burden of sin to the cross and be offered there as a sacrifice for our sins so that we might have salvation.  And salvation is the only way to enter His kingdom.

Jesus’ purpose in entering Jerusalem was completely contrary to the disciples expectations. Christ entered Jerusalem not to conquer Israel’s political enemies, but to conquer sin.  To defeat sin, by dying on the cross, being buried in the grave, descending into hell, and then raised by the power of God after three days.  He defeated sin by robbing sin of it’s penalty; spiritual death.  That is another element of worship that is missing in so many modern churches today.  There is no preaching about sin, no emphasis on the need for confession and repentance from sin.  Listen, there is no salvation without repentance from sin.  Salvation by it’s definition is deliverance from the penalty of sin which is death.  But there is hardly any mention of sin in modern worship today.  It’s all about relationship. It’s all about love.  It’s all about grace.  And yet the Bible is clear that there is no salvation without repentance of sin. Jesus said twice in Luke 13, that unless you repent you will perish.

I believe that repentance is pictured in the disciples laying down their garments in the road for Him to ride on.  The robe was a man’s covering.  It was his dignity, it signified his status.  We have the same thing today.  Our status is printed on our clothes.  We put little horses and polo players on our clothes so that people will know our status.  It tells people something about us.  Clothes are our first line of defense.  These disciples laid down their defenses.  Jesus says in another place that a man’s robe was used to keep himself warm at night.  And so I don’t want to belabor the illustration too much, but I believe that laying down your robe symbolized a laying down of your dignity, your status, it was humbling one’s self before God.  It was acknowledging your submission to the Lordship of the King. It was recognizing that your covering was ineffective, and you needed to be clothed in the robe of righteousness that Jesus provided for us at the foot of the cross.

I find very often in modern worship, almost the exact opposite of humiliation.  Instead of humbling oneself to worship, there is very often an exaltation of the musicians, an exaltation of the entertainers whereby they are receiving the adoration that belongs to God.  That is a dangerous thing ladies and gentlemen.  That’s why I said last week that natural talent is not synonymous with spiritual gifts. In fact, many times I think a natural talent can be a detriment to being used by God because it draws attention away from God to you.  That’s why Paul said he was given a thorn in the flesh, to keep him from exalting himself.  He was a brilliant man.  That was well known even to the Governor Festus and King Agrippa which prompted Festus to say, “Your great learning is driving you mad.”  So God gave Paul a thorn in his flesh to keep from exalting himself, so that the glory might be to God.  God alone deserves our adoration.

Now look at vs. 37-38 “As soon as He was approaching, near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles which they had seen, shouting: "BLESSED IS THE KING WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD; Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!"

So as the procession leaves Bethpage and ascends the Mount of Olives the disciples start to praise God with a loud voice for all the powerful works that they had seen.  Now this sounds more like what we think of when we think of praise.  But let’s look at the characteristics of their praise.  First they recognized Him as King, and secondly they recognized him as Lord.  So they acknowledge and praise Him as the rightful King of His creation, but they also submit to Him as Lord.  You may remember last week I referenced that depending on the politics of the president, I may or may not care for the guy currently in office in the White House.  But regardless, he is the president and I am a citizen of the United States.  There are times when that is a grudging acceptance on my part.  But my attitude is something else entirely when my guy gets in the White House.  Then I proudly say that he is my President.  Not just the president of the country that I happen to be living in, but my President.  There is a difference, because I am in agreement with his politics, his platform.

That’s a poor illustration perhaps of what it means to acknowledge Jesus as King, and Jesus as Lord.  Jesus as King is acknowledging His domain, His right to rule. Jesus as Lord is gladly submitting to His rule in my life.  Listen, true worship is submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in my life.  It’s not singing a couple of songs and continuing in my sin.  It’s not clapping my hands on Sunday morning and sleeping with my boyfriend or girlfriend on Sunday night. That’s why I started off by saying that true worship is obedience and then repentance.  You can’t worship God and continue in sin.  Nor can you refuse to acknowledge your sin as sin.  That is a big one today.  In the new worship mentality they first undermine the authority of scripture so that they can no longer say with certainty what constitutes sin.  Then they take away the onus of sin by an aberrant doctrine of grace, and then they eventually try to redefine sin as not sin after all.  And once the devil gets you to the point where you no longer think your sin is sin then he has you in the place that he can destroy you.  And that’s his goal all along.

Another important element of their praise was peace in heaven.  They are not talking about peace on earth - the absence of war or strife which is the social gospel that a lot of churches are buying into.  But the peace that heaven gives is peace with God.  And peace with God only is possible when the justice of God and the wrath of God against sin is satisfied. Paul says in Romans that we were enemies of God and that through Jesus we have peace with God. Rom. 5:10 “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” Rom. 5:1 “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

And secondly, having made peace, we now glorify God in heaven.  How do we do that?  Do we do that by simply saying it, by praising God in song, by repeating “glory to God?”  No, not just singing praise, but living lives that bring praise to God.  We glorify God not just with our mouths, but by the testimony of a transformed life.  We saw that in Zaccheus.  His transformation brought glory to God.  Bartimaeus, his transformation brought glory to God.  You want to worship God?  Then let your transformation bring glory to God.  Jesus said in Matt. 5:16 "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”  Your good works done as a result of your transformed heart will bring glory to God as people observe your behavior in your daily life.

Now when the Pharisees and the religious leaders heard the disciples praising Jesus as the Messiah King, these men revealed that they were in fact the very ones that said, “we will not have this man to rule over us.”  And so they said to Jesus in vs. 39, "Teacher, rebuke Your disciples." But Jesus answered, "I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out!"  Now this is an interesting thing for Jesus to say.  It actually has a dual meaning.  First and most obviously, Jesus is saying that God isn’t dependent upon our praise, but He can cause even inanimate objects to erupt in His praise if He so desires.  There is a notion out there that God is this pitiful, narcissistic kind of  God that sits in heaven almost in a fit of despondency, waiting and wishing that someone would call, someone would tell him how wonderful He is.  That somehow God just needs people to tell Him how great He is in order for Him to be happy.  And if you just do that on a regular basis, God will bless you in return.

I would just remind such people of what Paul said to the philosophers on Mars Hill, that “God is not served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things.” God’s happiness is not dependent upon our praise.

But this statement about the stones is also a reference to judgment.  In Habakkuk 2:11-12  the prophet writes about the judgment of God upon the city and says "Surely the stone will cry out from the wall, And the rafter will answer it from the framework. Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed And founds a town with violence!”  What Jesus is referencing here is that these men who are the rulers of Jerusalem that said “we will not have this man rule over us,” in denying Jesus the praise and recognition that He deserves are actually bringing upon their city the judgment of God for their rejection of His Son.  That is exactly what the parable indicated in the previous chapter.  That God would bring destruction upon those men that reject His Christ.  And that is exactly what would happen to Jerusalem.  God would bring judgment upon it just 40 years later because it rejected the Savior, God’s only Son.  So what Jesus in essence is saying, is that even if these people were to fall silent, the stones of your city will cry out as a testament to the foolishness and the consequences of your rebellion.

Now that explains Jesus reaction and statement in the next few verses. Vs. 41 “When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it,  saying, "If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation."

Jesus wept over the city because He knew that their worship of Him was superficial.  The crowds were following Him now, but they would be calling for His crucifixion in less than a week.  They had a man centered theology rather than a God centered theology.  In their version, God would bring the Messiah to deliver them from their enemies, to bring prosperity to their nation, to bring peace from their oppressors.  It was a social kingdom, a political kingdom, that was solely for their benefit.  And so Jesus is weeping over the city because He knows that in the plan of God there must be suffering before exaltation.  He must first be their sacrifice in order to be their Savior, and only then can He be their King and they His citizens.

But the crowds aren’t interested in sacrifice.  They don’t want to hear about suffering.  They want a solution to their immediate problems.  There are a lot of people today that are drawn to God, are drawn to a superficial kind of worship that is man-centric, that appeals to their emotions, appeals to their particular crisis.  And the new worship template promises them an easy solution to their problem.  God is love, and He just loves to love you, and because He loves you He will give you everything you want if you just believe that He loves you.  What they fail to teach you though is the full counsel of God’s Word that requires that you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength and all your might.  And that if you truly love God like that, then God’s will must be paramount, it must take precedence over everything and every one.  That means you cannot love God and the world, you cannot love God and money.  You cannot love your family member or your girlfriend or your boyfriend more that God.  God must have preeminence. There is a cost to loving God, and the cost is the love of the world.

Well, Jerusalem would within the week reject Jesus Christ as their Savior, as their Sacrifice.  They would call for His crucifixion.  And just 40 years later the historian Josephus would record that Titus would encircle Jerusalem, he would erect a wall, he would bring a siege upon the city, and then after 6 months in 70 AD he would break through the walls of Jerusalem and massacre every man, woman and child.  Some would estimate that over 200,000 Jews would be killed inside the city.  And then Titus set fire to the city.  They believed that the walls of the Temple had gold in them and to get at the gold they burned the city and then tore apart the walls to get at the gold.   Today there is only one fragment of the city of Jerusalem still standing, the Wailing Wall.  It’s where the Jews go to pray for the Messiah to come.  They still refuse to recognize that He already came and they did not recognize the time of His visitation.  Some of you here today, I wonder if you recognize that today is the day of Christ’s visitation?  Today salvation has been presented to you.  The question is whether or not you will accept Jesus as Lord and follow Him or reject Him.

Immediately after entering the city, Jesus entered the temple and began to drive out those that were selling. In vs. 46 Jesus says to them, "It is written, 'AND MY HOUSE SHALL BE A HOUSE OF PRAYER,' but you have made it a ROBBERS' DEN."  What an indictment against their house of worship!  They had prostituted the temple of God.  They had prostituted the sacrificial service.  They had set up money changers and animal brokers and so forth within the temple walls to supposedly accommodate those that were coming to worship God.  But instead they had corrupted the system to the point that instead of helping people worship God they were robbing people.

Ladies and gentlemen I am afraid that many churches today are prostituting the gospel of God.  The house of God has been turned into a carnival.  The church has bookstores and coffee shops and bazaars and dinners and marathons and car shows and flea markets and every possible entertainment and event going on.  Yet as Proverbs says the people perish for lack of vision.  The church has lost it’s vision, lost it’s purpose.  The church isn’t a community center.  It’s not a social hall.  It’s not a concert hall.  The church is a place where God’s people come together to worship God in Spirit and in truth.  It’s the place where the water of life is given freely and without charge.  It’s the place where people’s souls are fed, hearts are encouraged, and sinners are convicted.  It’s not a place where we try to make sinners feel good about themselves.  But where sinners repent and are delivered and set free.  But unfortunately many churches today are robbing people of the gospel of salvation.

In the earliest church in Jerusalem during the time of the apostles, they were feeding the widows and the apostles said let us set aside certain men for that task.  But as for us, the apostles said, “we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” (Acts 6:4)  That’s the priority of the church.  And that’s the priority of worship as well.

So Jesus cleaned house.  You know, I wish all these people that only believe that God is love could have been there that day when Jesus got a bull whip and overturned all the stalls and tables and drove out all the animals and vendors and money changers out of the temple.  I don’t think most of those people would recognize Jesus nor would they worship Him.  This was the second time by the way that Jesus cleaned out the temple.  In John’s account it says the disciples remembered the proverb that said, “the zeal for your house has consumed me.”

Folks, we need some old fashioned zeal for the house of God.  We need some zeal for the word of God and the preaching of the word of God.  We need to put an end to the prostitution of Christianity, the business of the church and get back to being about the business of the kingdom of God.

That’s what we see Jesus bringing the people back to in vs. 47, 48.  It says, after that “He was teaching daily in the temple; but the chief priests and the scribes and the leading men among the people were trying to destroy Him, and they could not find anything that they might do, for all the people were hanging on to every word He said.”  You see that?  Jesus was teaching daily in the temple.  He was preaching every day and the people were hanging on to His every word.  That’s zeal for God.  I long to see people with a zeal for the word of God, that don’t want to miss a service, don’t want to miss a message.  That are willing to sacrifice the enticements of the world for the sake of knowing Jesus Christ and becoming conformed to His image.

Jesus said in John 6:63 "the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”  Listen folks, Paul reminded Timothy to hold onto the scripture which he had learned  from childhood “which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”  Let’s not lose sight of the priority and preeminence of the word of God in our worship.  And then let us be obedient to the word of God.  And if we are obedient to the word of God then we will have no problem submitting to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.  And when the Lordship of Christ is evident in our lives then our lives will be a living testimony to the glory of God.  People will see our transformation, our good works and glorify God.

 I pray that starting today you will renounce superficial worship.  But diligently commit to living out Romans 12:1,2. “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

The stewardship of the kingdom, Luke 19:11-27

If you were here last week then you will remember that we looked at the conversion of Zaccheus in the beginning of this chapter.  Zaccheus was a man of small stature, but great faith.  Although he had been a man that employed wicked, evil business practices before his conversion, after he met Jesus he was transformed into a man that used his unrighteous wealth for the kingdom of God. 

 Jesus said about Zaccheus that salvation had come to his house, because he too was a son of Abraham.  Now last week I explained that Jesus used the phrase “son of Abraham” not to indicate that he was Jew.  Practically everyone there was a Jew, including Zaccheus, but what Jesus is indicating that Zaccheus’ salvation was the result of something that was associated with Abraham in particular. 

The Apostle Paul makes it clear that faith was the defining characteristic of Abraham. Gal. 3:6-7 says “Even so Abraham BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS. Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham.” So saving faith is the characteristic associated with Abraham. Paul is quoting from Genesis when he says that Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.  So righteousness and salvation, comes as a result of faith.  I would hope most of us would accept that doctrine.

But what exactly is faith? Listen, faith is believing the promises of God and then acting upon them.  Let me say that again.  Faith is believing the promises of God and then acting upon them.  Saving faith is not just believing that God exists.  The Bible says that the devils believe in God and tremble, yet they are not saved.  Faith is not an emotional desire, it is not wishful thinking.  Faith is not the power of positive thinking.  Saving faith is acting upon the promises of God.  Listen to what Heb. 11: 8 says, “By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going.”  See, his faith was characterized by action. Abraham believed God and he acted upon that belief, trusting that what God promised He was able to provide.

So Zaccheus was a child of Abraham because he was saved by faith.  And how was his faith evidenced? How was his faith acted out?  By the fact that he was willing to give half his money to the poor and pay back everyone he had defrauded with four times as much.  Zaccheus showed true faith by his willingness to do from his heart what Jesus never told him to do.  That is in direct contrast to the rich young ruler of the last chapter, that thought he was a child of Abraham by birth, thought that he was righteous, and yet his unwillingness to divest himself of his riches in order to follow Christ revealed that his heart was selfish and unrepentant.  The rich young ruler went away sad, because he went away unsaved. Oh, he believed in God.  But he did not have faith in God to do what Jesus asked him to do.  That’s what James is talking about in James 1 when he says, I’ll show you my faith by my works.  Zaccheus’ actions were the evidence of his faith.

Now all of that is by means of introduction and is very important to understanding our text today.  Because as you can see in vs. 11, Jesus is still in Zaccheus’ house.  So after declaring Zaccheus a son of Abraham, declaring that he was saved, Jesus is going to illustrate that principle of obedient faith with a parable.  Now there is another purpose to the parable that is stated by Luke; that is, that Jesus used this to refute the common thinking that existed among the disciples, who supposed that the kingdom of God was going to appear immediately because He was going to Jerusalem.  Now that is the obvious purpose to the parable.  But as I have just pointed out, there is another very important lesson contained in this parable as well, which is how obedient faith is to be worked out in the meantime.

So let’s consider the stated purpose first; that the kingdom of God is going to be delayed.  Jesus uses a story about a nobleman that receives a kingdom in a distant country.  Now this would have been a familiar scenario for the crowd assembled there.  Jesus made the parable up, but He may have used an actual historical situation to base it on that they would have undoubtedly been familiar with.  History tells us that just before this time, there was a nobleman named Archelaus, who was one of three sons of King Herod, who had inherited kingship of the area surrounding Jericho where Zaccheus lived.   After his father's death Archelaus went to Rome to receive the sovereignty from Caesar over this part of his father's kingdom. Confirmation by the Roman emperor was necessary, because though Israel was Herod's empire, in reality it was part of the Roman Empire.  However, Archelaus was hated by the Jewish population.  And so the Jews sent a delegation to Rome to dispute Archelaus's claim to kingship.  But nevertheless the emperor decided to  appoint him as ruler over half of his father's kingdom.

Now that is the historical context.  The people would have very easily identified with the story.  But the obvious point that Luke says that Jesus is making is that the king first receives the kingdom in a distant country, and then he goes back to be officially appointed as king.   In other words, there is going to be an extended time when the king is absent.  He comes to his kingdom, and then he goes back to receive the kingdom which might have been like an official public ceremony and then one day in the future he comes back again to take his kingdom and demands a reckoning with those he left in charge and those that had opposed his kingship.

But this idea of the kingdom being delayed would have been a foreign concept to the disciples and whatever religious leaders were in attendance that day.  Both Jesus and John the Baptist before Him had been going around the country preaching “repent for the kingdom of God is at hand.”  That was the Messianic message that everyone had been wanting to hear for thousands of years.  The followers of Jesus believed that Jesus was in fact the Messiah.   The rabbis and Pharisees and the religious leaders of Israel were speculating whether or not Jesus could be the Messiah.  Most of them tended to believe that He was not.  But the massive crowds that were following Him largely because of His miracles wanted to believe that He was the Messiah.  In just a few days they would congregate in Jerusalem as He rode into town on a donkey during Passover week, and they would greet Him and celebrate Him as the Messiah.

The problem was that their Messianic theology did not match the reality of the scripture’s prophecies.  Their theology centered on a literal kingship, the physical reinstatement of the throne of David that the Messiah would sit on.  And they believed that He would overthrow the Roman yoke, defeat all their enemies, and Israel would become the greatest, most favored nation on the earth.  They believed they would enjoy unrivaled peace and prosperity in this kingdom as God would rule and reign through the Messiah sitting on the throne in Jerusalem. 

That’s why they did not understand all the talk about dying and crucifixion and that the Son of Man would suffer and be delivered up in Jerusalem.  Even the disciples did not understand it.  They would be arguing right up to the point of entering the Garden of Gethsemane about who was going to get to sit on Jesus right and left hands on thrones when Jesus received His kingdom.  And that is why both the disciples and the crowd would all fall away from Him in His moment of suffering.  Suffering did not fit into their theology. 

And you know what?  Suffering doesn’t fit into most modern evangelical’s theology either.  Modern evangelical theology has distanced itself from many doctrines so clearly presented in the Bible like judgment, hell, suffering, tribulation and sacrifice.  I believe that is why when in the end of the ages, just before Christ returns in the clouds which Jesus spoke about in Mark 12, that there will be a great falling away, which is going to be so deceitful that if it were possible it would deceive even the very elect.  I don’t want to start an eschatological debate with anyone, but I believe that the church is going to go through the refiner’s fire of tribulation.  If you follow the news, then you should understand that that fire is already kindled.  So you better make sure that your theology is founded on the  truth of God’s word and not some book you read or some movie you watched. 

So Jesus tells them this parable to illustrate the correct eschatology.  And that eschatology has not changed in two thousand years by the way.  We are still living  in the “in betweens,” the time between His first coming and His second coming.  So let’s consider then what our responsibility is in this time in between.  That is I think the real point to this illustration.  Zaccheus’s utter transformation was the catalyst for this parable.  His willingness to respond from the heart with even more than the law required him to do revealed that he had been truly saved.  The law required that he give his tithe to the temple which would have been about 23 percent if you added everything up, and he said I’ll give half; 50% of all that I have.  The law said if you defrauded someone you were to repay them twice as much, and Zaccheus said I’ll even double that.  That was illustrative of the faith of Abraham.  It’s illustrative of saving faith.  It’s proof that his heart has been transformed from greedy to giving.  From selfish and prideful to loving and humble.  Those are the characteristics of someone who has been saved.

Jesus illustrates that kind of saving faith with this story.  Now before the nobleman goes back to officially receive the kingdom, he calls 10 servants and gives them a mina each.  Now a mina is equal to 100 days wages.  And he says to them, “Do business with this until I come back.”  Now there are three types of people that are represented in this parable.  Three types but only two categories.  And I believe every one of us here today are represented by one of these three types of people.  The first group is the faithful slaves.  That is the guy that made 10 minas and the guy that made 5 minas.  They both are in the faithful category.  They were obedient to the king and give him a return on their stewardship.  The second category is the citizens that hated the king and said “we will not have this man rule over us.”  These are the ones in flagrant rebellion.  But the third category is the guy who did nothing with his mina.  He is not any different from the second category actually.  He isn’t in open, flagrant rebellion, but he reveals in his unfaithfulness that he was not willing to have the king rule over him either.  Now as I said, I believe the Bible makes it clear that there are really only two categories of people in the world.  Those that are saved, and those that are lost.  There is no almost saved, no sort of saved, you cannot serve God and mammon.  You are either in the kingdom or you are not.  So even though there are three categories in this parable, there are really only two types of people.

And this is verified in scripture by the way.  The most obvious parallel to this is an almost identical parable known as the parable of the talents found in Matthew 25 vs. 14.  The parables are very similar.  But the scripture is clear that they are in fact different parables given at different times in different places, even though a lot of the verbiage is the same.  A talent by the way is a unit of money.  It amazes me how people interpret that parable as God giving them talents like singing, or art, or acting or whatever.  And then pastors will give seminars on how to discover your talents.  Then they make the mistake of equating some natural or physical talent to a spiritual gift.  And the next thing you know, the church looks like a version of American Idol. 

Let me digress here for just a minute and say that your natural talent and your spiritual gift are not always interchangeable.  In fact, I’ve found that God may give you a spiritual gift that is not something that you are naturally talented in.  Your natural talent may actually hinder you from doing the work of God.  It’s too easy for pride to get involved when you have a natural talent.   A spiritual gift is when God equips you to do something by the power of the Holy Spirit that you could not do in the flesh.  Got that?  It has nothing to do with whether or not you think you are talented in a particular area.  It has something to do with being obedient to do what God wants you to do when you can’t do it in your flesh, when it doesn’t come easy for you. 

Paul is a great example of that.  This was an extremely talented, intelligent man.  But  Paul said all those things that had been gain for him, he now counted them but rubbish.  And God gave him a thorn in the flesh, he said, to keep him from exalting himself.   It’s commonly believed that the thorn in the flesh was a condition of near blindness, marked by a running infection in his eyes.  And so it was said by the churches that in physical appearance Paul was contemptible, but his letters were weighty and strong.  Now that characterizes a man that did not rely on natural talent, or charisma, or good looks, or great physical abilities, but relied on the wisdom and the power of God and was able to do amazing things.

But back to Matthew 25, in the parable of the talents you see an almost identical situation to the parable in Luke. Three men, each of them given a unit of money.  And at the reckoning two are rewarded by their master, but one hid his talent.  So when the slave tells his master that he hid his talent in the ground, the master’s response is to say, “You wicked, lazy slave, you knew that I reap where I did not sow and gather where I scattered no seed. 'Then you ought to have put my money in the bank, and on my arrival I would have received my money back with interest.  'Therefore take away the talent from him, and give it to the one who has the ten talents.”  But here is where the text is different.  Jesus says in Matthews parable,  "Throw out the worthless slave into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”  See, Jesus reveals in Matthew’s parable that this unfaithful slave is considered as an unsaved person.  He shows by his actions that he is not really saved.  So in the parable of the talent there are only two possible categories; either saved or unsaved.  Either of the faith, or of the faithless.

Now let’s go back to our text in Luke and look at the first type of person that Jesus mentions.  And that is the flagrantly rebellious found in vs.14.  These are the ones who send out a delegation saying, “We do not want this man to reign over us.”  First of all, note that they are citizens of his kingdom.  The fact that they do not like their king, or want to serve their king, or respect their king, does not invalidate the fact that he is still their king.  You know, I may not like whoever happens to be in the White House from time to time.  I may not agree with them, or even respect them, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are the President of the United States, and I am a citizen of the United States.  And as such I am subject to the laws of the United States.  In fact, Peter tells us this is the Lord’s will.  1Pet. 2:13-14  “Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right.”  We are told to pray for those that are in authority over us.  We are not told to rebel against authority.  We are told to pay our taxes.  Now that is even to an ungodly king or ungodly president.

But the point Jesus is making here is that even people that hate God and rebel against His rule are a part of His kingdom in the sense that they belong to Him.   I find it ironic that the very breath with which these God haters rail and rant against God is given to them by Christ. Col. 1:16-17 says,  “For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things have been created through Him and for Him.  He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” 

Yet Jesus says in this parable that even though they were part of His kingdom, they rebelled against Him and did not want to submit to His rule over them. John 1:10-12 “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name.”

So even though they do not accept Him as God, nor worship Him as God, yet they will still give an account to Him one day.  The Bible says that one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.  But for that confession to be effective, it must be a confession of faith.  That which is seen is not faith.  When they are brought before the Great White Throne judgment, and they see the Lamb of God who was slain, the Savior that they rejected, they will believe then.  But it will be too late. 

Jesus says as much in the last verse of the parable in vs. 27 "But these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slay them in my presence." This is correlated in Rev. 20:12, 14-15 “And I saw the dead,(that is the unsaved, spiritually dead) the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. ...  Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.  And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”

Now the second type of person in the parable is that of the faithful.  Jesus says that the slaves were each given mina.  I believe that what the mina represents is not money or talents or even necessarily time, but the gospel – the full counsel of the word of God.  In John chapter one Jesus is referred to as the Word.  It says the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.  And all things were made by Him.  And then skipping down it says, “and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.”  So the gospel is nothing less than all the scripture, all the Word of God.  Jesus said in John 6:63, the words that I have spoken unto you, they are spirit and they are life.  The Word of God is the greatest treasure, the gospel, the power of God unto salvation.  It is the means by which the Holy Spirit teaches us and guides us.  It is the Word of Life.

So these faithful slaves then represent those that are faithful to the Word of God.  They have accepted it by faith, they are obedient to the Word by faith, and they bring about fruit in keeping to their measure of obedience.  Now to prove that I remind you of the parable of the sower.  I’m sure you are all familiar with that parable found in Matthew 13.  Jesus says a farmer went out to sow seed.  And some seed fell on good ground, some on rocky ground, some by the hard packed road, and some fell among thorns.  You know the story, I hope. I won’t go through it all.  But Jesus gives an explanation, because the disciples didn’t know what it meant.  And Jesus explains that the seed was the Word of God.  And the seed which fell on good soil produced a crop, some one hundred fold, some sixty and some thirty.   See, the crop is the evidence of their salvation.  The Word of God enters into an obedient, faithful heart and produces fruit. 

And then look at the reward.  The king says to the one who returned ten minas, “Well done, good slave, because you have been faithful in a very little thing, you are to be in authority over ten cities.”  And to the one who returned five minas, he said, “And you are to be over five cities.”  Listen, do you realize that in the eternal glory we will rule and reign with Christ?  That those who shared with Him in the fellowship of His sufferings here will also share with Him in His glory?  The point here is to be laying up treasures in heaven, where moth and rust does not corrupt.  God has promised to reward those who are faithful.  So it behooves us to remember what Paul says in 2Cor. 9:6 “Now this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.”  Listen, there will  be varying degrees of reward in heaven.  Eternity lasts a long, long time folks.  I hope that you are investing in heaven.  Jesus’ last words to the church is found in Rev. 3: 21 “He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.”

Finally, let’s look at the unfaithful slave.  He said, “Master, here is your mina, which I kept put away in a handkerchief; for I was afraid of you, because you are an exacting man; you take up what you did not lay down and reap what you did not sow.”  The Greek word that is translated as exacting there is actually the word that we get austere from.  It means harsh, severe, stern.  This guy is revealing what he really thinks of his Master.  He doesn’t like Him.  He doesn’t want to submit to Him.  He doesn’t really want this man to rule over him.  He thinks he is too strict, too harsh.

The unfaithful slave says, you collect what you did not deposit, you reap what you did not sow.  In other words, he thinks that God is over reaching his authority.  God doesn’t really own everything.  It’s kind of like the man who thinks that God can have my ten percent tithe, but the 90 % belongs to me.  God can have an hour or so on Sunday mornings, but  the rest of the week belongs to me. 

There is even a bit of licentiousness in there.  There is a hint of antinomianism couched in this rebuttal by the unfaithful slave.  He says, you know, grace means that I don’t have to be concerned about works.  You do the works with or without my help.  You reap where you didn’t sow.  You have the power that is supposed to be doing everything, and so I can do nothing.  He excuses his disobedience by claiming that his master is so powerful that he doesn’t need his help.

Listen, I think that every generation has it’s pet heresy.  There may be no new heresy under the sun, the devil just keeps repackaging them for each subsequent generation.  But I think that one of the pet heresy’s of the 21^st century is that of antinomianism.  It’s the belief that the grace of God is so overpowering, so encompassing, that it eliminates every human responsibility.  And so there is no sin, there is no need to confess your sins, and there is no human responsibility.  And though very few people are brash enough to come out and say it quite that frankly, the modern day false prophets are all teaching a version of it.  Joel Olsteen, Joseph Prince, Joyce Meyer, they all have taken the prosperity gospel to it’s obvious, inevitable conclusion, and that is that God only wants you to be happy and prosperous and successful and healthy and all you have to do is have some form of faith and God removes all sin from you forever, and puts all the resources of heaven at your personal disposal and you never have to suffer, you never have to sacrifice your personal happiness, you never have to repent, or ever have anything bad happen, it’s all good, all the time.  And people buying into that false doctrine by the thousands and they are being deceived that salvation doesn’t require surrender of this world, salvation doesn’t require repentance, salvation doesn’t require obedience, salvation doesn’t require sacrifice, salvation doesn’t require morality, and salvation doesn’t require righteousness.

Listen, Jesus uses this parable to teach that salvation is marked by obedience from the heart, and obedience is evidenced by your deeds.  I could give you dozens of scriptures that emphasize that.  But let me just quote a few quickly. James 1: 22 “But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.”  James 4:17 “Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.” Matt. 12:50 "For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother.” Rom. 2:13 “for it is not the hearers of the Law who are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified.” James 2:17 “Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.” 1John 2:3 “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.”  And 1John 3:7  “Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous.”

Don’t be deceived folks.  We can’t always tell the wheat from the tares.  But the Lord of the harvest will be able to tell the wheat from the tares, because it will be obvious by their fruit.  I don’t know how many people are deceived into thinking that they can be right with God and not have to be obedient to what He commands.  But I’m afraid that many people today fall into that camp.  Jesus said in Matthew 7, “many people will say to Me in that day, “Lord, Lord, did we not do all these things in your name?”  And He will say unto them, “'I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.”

Listen, I think that this unfaithful steward thought that he would be ok when the king came back.  He was presuming upon the grace of God.  He didn’t think faith was much more than a feeling.  He thought God was supposed to serve him, he didn’t think it was necessary for him to serve God.  But he failed to realize that obedience is the means to sanctification.  And Hebrews 12: 4 says that without sanctification, no one will see the Lord.  Sanctification is the fruit of your salvation.  It is the working out of your salvation with fear and trembling.  It is what Zaccheus was doing when he promised to make restitution to all he had wronged.  It was a zeal for righteousness that came out of a transformed heart.

Jesus says about that unfaithful slave, that they will take away what he has and give it to him that had 10 minas.  And when they questioned the wisdom of that, Jesus gave them the principle; “I tell you that to everyone who has, more shall be given, but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away.”  This is the principle of spiritual life.  The one who has real life, abundant life in Christ, life through the Spirit, new life, the life that brings forth fruit, that produces growth, the one who has that kind of life, more shall be given to him.  At the Bema seat judgment, when God rewards the faithful, he will give those that were faithful more responsibility.  He will give those faithful in little things, great things.  Oh, the value of being faithful in little things. Zech. 4:10 says, “For who has despised the day of small things?”  Be faithful in little things, ladies and gentlemen, if you want to be found faithful at the judgment. 

But for the one who does not have that kind of life that produces fruit, that evidences new life, that is born of the Spirit and by the power of the Spirit works the works of God, that is obedient to the Word of God, to that person that does not have spiritual life, even the life that he has will be taken away.  His physical life will end and all that he has worked for here on this earth will not serve him in the next.  And his spiritual life will be forever destroyed.  He will be forever separated from God because he said “I will not allow this Man to rule over me.”  He placed himself on a higher pedestal than God.  Everything that he worked for will be taken from him and he will be cast into the Lake of Fire. 

Well, the question I would ask you in closing is; if your spiritual life was to be judged by the evidence, would you be counted among the faithful or the unfaithful?  Are you gladly responding to the rule of God over your life, being about the business of the kingdom until Christ returns, looking forward to your reward?  Or are you rejecting the absolute rule of Christ?  Have you tucked away a bit of religion that you hope is enough, presuming upon the grace of God, while indulging in your sin?  I hope that you are in the first group.  But if you honestly examine yourself in the light of God’s word and you recognize by the conviction of the Holy Spirit that you are not living a life of surrender to Christ’s rule, then I beg of you, surrender yourself to Him today.   Call upon Him while He may be found.  Today is the acceptable day of salvation.  Today Jesus is calling you.  I pray you will answer that call by repenting of your sins, and faith in Jesus Christ as Lord, resulting in obedience.