The Coming Kingdom (Part 2)

The scripture reading this morning is found in Luke's Gospel, Luke chapter 17.

Luke 17 · chapter mention

I will be reading verses 20 through 37.

And I do want to encourage you to turn there.

And if you don't have a Bible with you, there should be a Bible located there in the pew, that pocket there.

You can find it on page 876.

Page 876.

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We want you to have it.

It's our privilege and joy to be able to give away copies of God's word on a regular basis.

So please take it home and use it and then bring it back and we'll study it together.

Luke chapter 17, beginning in verse 20.

Luke 17 · chapter mention

Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, nor will they say, Look, here it is, or there, for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.

And he said to the disciples, The days are coming when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it.

And they will say to you, Look there, or look here, do not go out or follow them.

For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day.

But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.

Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man.

They were eating and drinking, and marrying and being given in marriage until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came down and destroyed them all.

Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot, they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulphur rained from heaven and destroyed them all.

So will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed.

On that day, let the one who is on the house top with his goods in his in the house not come down to take them away.

And likewise let the one who is in the field not turn back.

Remember Lot's wife.

Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it.

I tell you, in that night there will be two in one bed, one will be taken, the other left.

There will be two women grinding together, one will be taken, and the other left.

And they said to him, Where, Lord?

He said to them, Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.

Thus ends the reading of God's word.

This is really the second part of studying this passage.

We studied the first uh few verses two weeks ago, and so we won't cover all of that information again, but just to remind you of what we talked about then, we saw uh in that passage uh the idea of the already and the not yet, that in one sense, because Jesus is the king, and he is in the midst of them, that the kingdom of God is inaugurated with the first advent of Jesus Christ.

And yet Jesus tells of a day when he will return, as lightning shines from the east to the west and flashes over the sky, so will it be when the Son of Man comes.

And so he tells them that there are really two advents of Jesus Christ.

The first, when he came as the suffering servant to die on the cross, to pay the penalty for sin, and then he is coming back in justice, in wrath to establish his kingdom.

And we live in that period between the already and the not yet.

And we we talked about wrestling with that tension.

We realize that we've been redeemed and yet we still have fallen bodies and live in this fallen world and struggle with sin and sickness and sadness and death, and we look forward to that day when Christ returns.

And he told them when the Pharisees asked this question of when will the kingdom of God come, he told them that, in one sense, the kingdom is already in the midst of them, and it's not something that can be discovered in the ways that they would think, in scientific method.

They couldn't see it even though it was right there before him.

But then Jesus says there's coming a day when the kingdom of God will come in power and glory, and it will be unmistakable.

You can't miss it.

But he said, first comes suffering and then glory.

And we saw that in verse 25.

But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.

Well, what will it be like in the days of the Son of Man?

And I think here, as I mentioned last time, Jesus is giving an overview, focusing more on the attitudes of the heart than trying to fill in all of the details that we find in other places of Scripture.

But where we look at and we see the heart attitudes of people during those days, during these days.

Notice what we find in verses 26 through 30.

And what will it be like in the days of the Son of Man?

I would say what we find here is immorality and indifference, is what we see Jesus describing in these verses.

Verses 26 through 30.

Look at what he says.

He says, just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man.

Now, if you were to turn back to Genesis chapter 6 and ask the question, and many of you are familiar with what it was like in the days of Noah, but in Genesis chapter 6, it gives us some indicators of what was going on.

Genesis 6 · chapter mention Genesis 6 · chapter mention

In verses 5 and 6 of Genesis 6, it says this The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart were was only evil continually.

And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.

There was wickedness that was pervasive.

Every intention and thought of man's heart was only evil all the time.

And the Lord regretted that he had made man.

In verses eleven through thirteen we find this.

And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.

And God said to Noah, I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them.

Behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

And so we see the corruption of the days of Noah.

We see the thoughts and intents of their hearts are continually evil.

We see that it was corrupt in God's sight.

We see that the earth was filled with violence, pervasive violence through and through.

And yet, when we turn to Luke chapter 17, what's shocking is what Jesus doesn't say.

Luke 17 · chapter mention

And what he highlights.

Look at what Jesus says.

Verse 27.

They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage until the day when Noah entered the ark.

What does Jesus highlight here?

He doesn't highlight the obvious violence and depravity of man.

He doesn't highlight the wickedness and the evil that was so obvious and evident to everyone.

He says they were eating and drinking.

They were getting married.

They were enjoying life.

They were going about their days.

They were going about their business.

They were living life as everyone else does.

Notice what he says next in verse 28.

Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot.

And again, we remind ourselves of what it was like in the days of Lot.

We find that in Genesis chapters 18 and 19.

Genesis 18 · chapter mention

And let me just sum up the story.

I think most of us are familiar with it.

But what was happening in the days of Lot?

The story opens, if you remember, when two angels, the angel of the Lord, two angels come and appear to Abraham and tell Abraham that they're going to destroy, that God is going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.

It says in verse 20 of chapter 18, because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and their sin is very grave.

If you remember the story, Abraham begins to intercede for Sodom where his nephew Lot lived, and he began to ask them, Will you destroy this city if there are 50 righteous in there?

And the angel says, No, if there are 50, I won't destroy.

And then he says, Well, how about 45 if there's just five less than 50?

And he says, No, and then how about 40 and 30 and 20 and all the way down to 10?

Will you destroy this city if there are 10 righteous people in it?

And the two angels go to Sodom and they meet Lot at the gate.

If you remember, as they meet Lot, they tell Lot of their intentions to sleep there at the city gate, and Lot pleads with them, knowing the corruption of the city, knowing the danger that they would be, and pleads with them to come and stay with him.

And they relent and they stay with him.

And the text tells us that at night the young men, the old men and the young men of the city come to Lot's house in order to bring the two men out so that they can have relations with him.

If you remember the story, in a desperate attempt for Lot to save these two men, he had a responsibility to care for strangers and people he was hosting.

And in Lot's twisted thinking, he offers his daughters to them in replacement for these two men to this lust-filled mob.

And they refuse the offer, they begin to break down the door.

Lot himself is rescued by these two men, dragged back in.

The angels strike the men blind, and even in their perverted passion, they continue to claw and grasp at the door, trying to break in in spite of their blindness.

Lot his two wives, his wife and his two daughters flee from Sodom before God brings down sulfur and fire from uh out of heaven.

Lot looks back and in jud and Lot's wife looks back in judgment.

She's she's turned into a pillar of salt.

Ezekiel chapter 16, verses 48 and 49, adds this.

Ezekiel 16:48

It says, As the L as I live, declares the Lord God, your sister Sodom and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done.

Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom.

She and her daughters had pride, excessive food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.

They were haughty and did an abomination before me, so I removed them where I saw it.

What we find when we look through the Old Testament is that the hearts of the people were of Sodom were totally, totally depraved.

There was not a part of their lives that was not pervasively influenced by sin.

Their attitudes, their actions, their thoughts, their desires were all influenced by sin.

And they were depraved through and through.

But what does Jesus mention?

And again, it's almost shocking when we look at what Jesus highlights here.

He says, just as it was in the days of Lot, they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building.

Again, it's shocking that Jesus doesn't mention all of the things that we see in the Old Testament.

He doesn't mention the homosexual lifestyle and the attempted rape and the pride and the gluttony and the prosperous ease and the callousness to the poor and needy.

He doesn't highlight the obvious sins.

He mentions the common realities of life.

Now, in both instances, and Jesus points this out to those people, to the people in the days of Noah and to the people in the days of Lot, judgment was sudden and decisive.

From the people's perspective, they didn't even realize it was coming, even though, especially in the case of Noah, they should have.

He took years and years and years to build the ark, and yet they didn't repent.

Noah preached to them and they didn't repent.

They had hard hearts, their eyes were blind, their ears were deaf, they couldn't see or hear.

On that day when Lot went out and fire and sulfur rained down from heaven, even Lot's son-in-laws, those men that were to be married to his wife, thought he was joking, the text says.

So what do we glean from this?

What do we glean from this?

Well, first of all, Jesus unmistakably wants us to know that judgment is coming.

That judgment is coming, that it is unavoidable, that it is a certainty because God has determined it.

And I know the hearers in Jesus' day, just like us, as we heard references to the days of Noah and the days of Lot, immediately we would go in our minds to the Old Testament passages and think of the flagrant, unrepentant immorality and violence that was judged by God.

But what Jesus points out here is that indifference and neglect of God will also bring judgment.

That none will escape.

In fact, in just a few weeks, we're going to see Jesus addressing this attitude of saying, I'm glad I am not like those people who are so wicked.

And in our minds, we can think because we're not as bad as we could be, that we're okay.

And what Jesus wants his hearers to remember, and what we need to understand is that if we don't turn to Christ, we are no better off than the worst of sinners.

That our sin is equally worthy of judgment.

They weren't judged because of the depth of their sin.

They were judged because they did not turn to God in repentance and faith.

That was what brought judgment on them.

It didn't matter what they were doing.

If they didn't have a relationship with Christ, they are lost.

If we don't have a relationship with Christ, it doesn't matter how good we are, it doesn't matter how moral we are, it doesn't matter how uh fine of a citizen we are, we don't break the law, we don't speed, we uh we we don't swear, we we don't watch immorality on TV or in the movies, we're we're moral, upright citizens.

It doesn't matter.

If we don't have Christ, we are as lost and separated from God as the worst of the worst that we can imagine.

Judgment is not going to pass us over just because we have lived a good, moral, upright life.

We will find ourselves in the exact same place as the most evil and wicked people that we can conjure up in our minds because it isn't a matter of our morality or our goodness that does not save us.

And the indifference that we might have, you see, they were going about their lives.

A lot of them, we see in the Old Testament the depths of depravity in there, but but just like today, uh, there are a lot of people that just go about living their lives.

They they grow up, they get a job, they go to college, they they they get married, they have children, they don't have affairs, they they don't do all of these other things, they live good, moral, upright lives.

And it's very easy for for people who live good, moral, upright lives to think I'm okay.

I don't have to worry about it.

I don't have to worry about uh you know I'm not like those other people.

And and there we can lull ourselves into a false sense of security, not recognizing that when judgment comes, if we don't have a relationship with Jesus Christ, it is not the amount of sin that we have that will bring judgment.

It is the fact that we have not accepted the only remedy for our sin, and that is the person of Jesus Christ.

And the indifferent unbeliever is no better off than the flagrant sinner in relationship to heaven.

Your sin is equally worthy of judgment.

Well, what causes us to be indifferent?

Obviously, sin does.

And I think we all recognize that when we are uh caught up in one sin or another and we're we're we're living for ourselves and living for pleasure, and it's very easy to see why our hearts are directed away from focusing on God.

But what Jesus reminds us here, it's not just the bad things that can draw us away from God.

It's the good things.

We can live our lives, not doing things that are flagrantly immoral and yet have an indifference to God.

God is never a factor in our lives.

We we go about living our lives, never taking into consideration our relationship with Christ, never thinking about the fact that we live before the face of God and that everything we do is done to his glory.

And if it's not done to his glory, then something isn't right.

And it's so easy for us to be indifferent.

I'm glad that Jesus didn't begin to list what can cause us to be indifferent.

It can be being married or being given in marriage, it can be living our lives and doing business, it can be eating and drinking and enjoying the good things of life, planting as farmers or building as construction workers, and just going about our daily lives without God being the center of it.

And what Jesus reminds us here is that judgment will come.

And judgment is going to come on the wickedly unrepentant, immoral, and judgment is going to come on the indifferent, moral, upright citizen, because judgment will come to all those who have not accepted Jesus Christ.

And it's unavoidable, is what Jesus says here.

The fires came down, the waters came, and all were destroyed.

Destroyed them all.

And he says, so will it be on the day when the Son of Man comes.

The only remedy is the cross of Christ, is the person of Jesus Christ.

Well, there's a second attitude that Jesus addresses here towards uh his second coming of looking and longing.

And I want to point out here, because I think this goes in the direction often that we oftentimes misread what Jesus is saying here.

And I and I have to be honest with you, I think uh most of my Christian life I have misread the point that Jesus is making here because it fits so nicely in with some other ideas.

What Jesus says here in verses 31 through 33 isn't about believers.

It isn't addressing believers.

As I've read this over the years.

And I would say probably even as recent as the last few weeks or month or so, my mind immediately would have said, Well, this is talking about the resurrection of believers, often referred to as the rapture.

But I don't think that is Jesus' point here.

And let me show you why.

I think that Jesus is not addressing those who have a relationship with Christ.

So follow with me and just think about what is being said here in verses 30 through 33.

First of all, the Bible does tell us that there is going to be the resurrection of believers, but when it describes that, it describes it in terms that are sudden and instantaneous in a twinkling of an eye.

There is not going to be time when the believers in the first resurrection are resurrected, it is going to be instantaneous transformation.

In fact, in 1 Corinthians 15, 30, 51 through 53, it says, Behold, I tell you a mystery.

We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed, for the perishable body must put on imperishable, and the mortal body must put on immortality.

We won't have time to think, let alone turn around to come down and take things out of our house, or to come back from the field and to turn back.

In fact, at that moment, we wouldn't want to.

And this is Jesus' point.

At that moment, even if we could, it would never enter our minds.

See, look at what he says here.

Look at what he says here.

Verse 32, I think, is the key, and it's three words.

Remember Lot's wife.

Remember Lot's wife.

Odd phrase.

Remember Lot's wife.

Think about Lot.

Think about Lot's wife.

What happened?

As they were leaving Sodom, as they were being taken out, ushered out by the angels, and they were fleeing to safety.

They were on their way.

They were almost to the place where they would be saved.

And what does Lot's wife do?

She turns around and she looks back at Sodom.

And when she turns around and she looks back at Sodom, she is judged and she turns into a pillar of salt.

God brings judgment on her.

Remember Lot's wife.

What was Lot's wife's problem?

She was with her husband and her daughters and the angels, but her heart was still in Sodom.

She may have been with the people that were getting rescued, that were getting saved, but her heart was not there.

Her heart was back in Sodom.

And she was almost saved.

She was almost rescued.

She had all of the privileges, all of the opportunities.

All she had to do was to continue in the way that she was, but her heart was not there.

Her heart was in Sodom.

And so she turned and looked and was judged.

One author says this some people are so taken up with material things that Christ, that Christ thinks it necessary to warn them that on that very day in which he will be revealed to execute the wrath of God on evil sinners and conglomerations of human iniquity, they will be tempted to go back into their house or city to get their favorite possessions, because they cannot imagine life without them.

For the sake of these things, they will lose life itself.

You see, what Jesus is saying here is asking a question, where are our hearts?

Really, he's asking a question of where is our treasure?

Because where our treasure is, there our hearts will be also, he says in Matthew chapter 6.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

So the question is, where is our treasure?

And Lot's wife's treasure was in Sodom, it was not in God.

And our lives, where is our treasure?

Is it in the things of this world?

Or is it with the expectation of the return of Christ and our love for our Savior who died for us and lives for us?

The message here is a message to those who had every opportunity, who were almost saved.

But their hearts were back in Sodom.

Their hearts were tied to the things of this world.

Even at the last moment, they aren't thinking about the eternal things, they're thinking about this life.

In fact, look at what Jesus says, and this is how he sums it up.

He says, whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it.

Whoever seeks to preserve this life, we try to grasp on and get the most out of this life and enjoy it.

You only go around once.

You only live once.

We even, you know, shorten it to YOLO, you know, you only live once.

But what we don't realize is you live only once.

Not you only live once, you live only once, and what are you living for?

He says that those who try to seek to preserve their lives will lose it, and whoever loses his life will keep it.

The one who comes to Christ and turns away from sin and turns away from self and comes to Christ with empty hands and says, please save me, forgive me for my sins.

I give you my life.

The one who seems to lose his life, his independent life is the one who saves it.

I think Jim Elliott's quote sums it up.

He says, He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.

And then Jesus tells us the time is now because judgment will be sudden and decisive.

Judgment will be sudden and decisive.

Verses 34 through 37.

Judgment is a time of great dividing.

He says, I tell you, in that night, there will be two in one bed, one will be taken, the other will be left.

There will be two women grinding together, one will be taken, and the other left.

Some versions have uh some manuscripts add another uh verse in there that's uh 36.

Two men will be in the field, one will be taken, the other left.

Um really a repeat of what is what is already said, the same concept that's in the other.

Um, some take this to mean, um take this to mean that some are going to be taken in judgment and the others are going to be left.

I I don't think that's the most natural and obvious reading of what is here.

What is being said is some that one will be taken, one will be rescued, and the other will be left, and it will be so sudden and so decisive that when that happens, you won't have a chance.

When judgment comes, it is too late.

And Jesus' warning here is simple: judgment will be sudden and it will be decisive.

Jesus doesn't fill in all of the details that we find elsewhere in Scripture of how the end will unfold, but he tells us enough to know that judgment is coming and it will be decisive and it will be certain.

And so the time is now.

This is the day.

This is the time to turn away from ourselves, to turn away from this world, to turn away from our pursuits of life independent of God and turn to Christ in repentance and faith.

He was calling his listeners 2,000 years ago to recognize that judgment is coming and it will be sudden and decisive, and that same message is what he is calling us.

The disciples don't understand the full depth of what Jesus is saying here because look at their question.

They don't ask when, like the Pharisees.

Look at what they ask.

They ask where.

You know, do they, we don't know.

This is a very uh uh very um enigmatic, uh very uh cryptic kind of saying that Jesus gives at some levels.

They ask, where, Lord?

They want to know is this uh a location that he's talking about?

Is it going to be concentrated in one area?

And he says to them, where the where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.

Where, Lord?

And honestly, scholars struggle to understand exactly the meaning.

There's a lot of related, and let me just share three kind of related understandings of what Jesus is saying here, and also in Matthew 24.

Uh, some think that Jesus is saying, just as people from far away can see vultures circling high in the air, uh, Christ's return in judgment will be visible and predictable, and they tie that into as lightning flashes from the east to the west.

Uh, others take it to mean judgment will fall on sinful humanity.

Where there are spiritually dead, there will be judgment.

And similarly, uh, some think that is teaching that just as dead bodies attract vultures, so the spiritually dead invite judgment.

Um, there's uh a question of exactly the implications of what Jesus is saying here, but I think the the message and the imagery is clear enough.

Jesus is telling us that now is the time.

Let me close with sharing a story from uh the pastor Donald Gray Barnhouse.

Dr.

Barnhouse shares in one of his evangelistic sermons from the book of Romans, he tells a story of a time he went, uh he was a pastor in.

Apparently, battery's dying is sudden and decisive, too.

Donald Gray Barnhouse tells a story.

He's in Philadelphia, he's a pastor there, and uh he goes to visit um visit a man in the hospital.

And he goes to visit this man.

This man isn't a believer.

This man uh doesn't have a relationship with Christ, has been pretty hardened and callous to the things of God.

And so he he hears about this man, he goes to visit him, knowing the man wasn't a Christian.

He wanted one last chance to present the gospel to this man.

But even on his deathbed, this man showed little concern for his eternal destiny that Dr.

Barnhouse decided that this called for drastic measures.

He asked the man if he could have permission to sit in his room all night.

And uh Barnhouse uh pulls up a chair, and and the man looks at him kind of puzzled, and he says, Why are why do you want to sit in my hospital bed all night?

And he said, Well, I have been a pastor for many years, and I have had the honor and privilege of being at the death of many saints who have trusted in Christ and seen them go to heaven.

But I have never been by the bedside of somebody who doesn't know Christ, and I want to see what happens.

Suddenly the man realized he was not so nearly ready to die as he thought he was.

And by the time their conversation was over, he had prayed to receive Christ.

Now is the time.

Today is the day.

Whatever is in your life, wherever you are, however far you think you've walked away from Christ, it is only one step towards the foot of the cross.

He is there to accept you, to receive you if you will admit that you're a sinner, recognize that you cannot save yourselves, and turn from your sin, turn to Christ in faith and say, I believe you died on the cross for me, for my sins.

I I accept and ask you to come into my life.

And he will.

Would you join me as I lead us in prayer?

Father, Father God, as we are here this morning, and sometimes passages take us in places that we don't think they will at first.

The familiarity of it causes us to miss the heart of the message that you have for us.

And Lord, I pray for each one of us, I pray for those who know you, that maybe we have become indifferent and callous to you and that we disregard you in most of our lives.

Father, may your Holy Spirit bring repentance that we will turn away from our indifference and our callousness, even if we are just enjoying the good things of our lives apart from you.

May we turn and ask you to work in our lives that you might be central and center of all things.

And Lord, for those who are here who have never trusted you.

Some may be in the in the depths of depravity and the worst sins that one might imagine, and some might be in their own minds pretty well off, but Lord, we are all sinners.

Each one of us, and apart from you, our destiny is the same.

And so, Lord, I pray for those who don't know you that they will turn to you.

And Lord, you have said that all who come to you, you will in no way cast out.

That your sacrifice, the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, is an infinite sacrifice that can pay the penalty for every and all sin.

And so, Lord, I pray that those who don't know you, that today will be the day that they put their trust in you.

We ask in Christ's name.

Amen.