Did anyone else think it wondrously ironic that Hebron - the city that inspired fear in the hearts of the first generation of Israelites, causing them to reject God's promise of victory and lose out on the Promised Land - was chosen as one of the cities of refuge? I thought that was neat. (The fields and villages around the city were still Caleb's)
Anyway, on to the NT today.
I read a couple of sermons by John MacArthur on the different sections of this Luke passage and they were very interesting. Jesus first talked about light and sight and how the problem was not lack of light (evidence), but their lack of sight.
MacArthur describes it this way....
We wouldn't understand anything, would we, if God didn't turn His light on, is that not so? We wouldn't understand God, we wouldn't understand anything about Him, we wouldn't understand His nature, His character, His purposes, we wouldn't understand the plan of salvation unless God turned the light on and here's the light...Thy Word is a light, a lamp. This is the truth.
And there was the light in person, God in human flesh. As 2 Corinthians 4:6 puts it, the glory of God shining in the face of Jesus Christ. The light of the glory of God shining in the face of Jesus Christ. The light was on, the very light of God and through Jesus God was revealing everything that needed to be revealed. He was revealing sin and righteousness and judgment. He was revealing the truth about everything. Light was everywhere....
He is the blazing shining forth of God's glory. Jesus came and made everything clear, everything about sin, everything about righteousness, everything about judgment, everything about the Kingdom, everything about salvation, everything about true holiness, true religion. Christ was the blazing light of God's glory....
in those three years of Jesus' ministry, they were flooded with light. It's not an issue of light. Jesus made everything clear that needed to be made clear about sin and about repentance and about faith and about salvation and about grace. But men love darkness rather than light because they cherish their sins, even their sins of self-righteous pride.
The light of Christ is extended to the ends of the earth. It's not about the revelation, it's about the perception. And the lamp of the soul is the mind. The eye of the soul is the heart. And your hearts and minds are blind if you cherish your sin. You stay in a state of blindness...
Every false religion, every form of heresy, every system in the world apart from the true gospel of Jesus Christ is nothing but another form of darkness. But the sad reality of it is the people think it's light. There are people who think Jewish Cabala is light, it's darkness. There are people who think that Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses have the light, it's darkness. And Jesus is saying to these Jewish leaders, you better be careful, you better watch out that the light you think is in you is not in fact darkness....They thought they saw and they were blind. They thought they heard and they were deaf. Thought they had sensitive hearts and their hearts were as hard as stones. This is so dangerous, so dangerous.
(emphasis mine)
God literally took those people who would not believe and made it so they could not believe and could not be converted. (John 12:37-41)
The problem isn't light, the problem is sight. And the deadly danger is to have the pretense of sight and to miss the preciousness of the true sight when the scales of sin come off your eyes and everything becomes clear. This is God's gift to the penitent who puts his trust in Christ.
God knows your heart. He knows where you are. Before you reach the point where your blindness becomes permanent, this is the time to plead for your sins to be forgiven, scales to come off your eyes, embrace Christ. (emphasis mine)
Jesus then went on to give an example of their lack of sight and He preaches to the religious leaders.
This sermon I found very interesting. It is truly far more difficult to evangelize a religious person than an immoral one....
Jesus is truth personified. He is the living manifestation of the holy Law of God, and as such, He perfectly understood that religion, spiritual teaching contrary to the truth comes from hell and sends people there. Anything but the truth is a damning deception that has the greatest power to destroy souls forever cause it gives the illusion that all is well. In fact, I would go so far as to say that of all the evils in the world, of all the sins in the world, of all the iniquities in the world, our Lord knew that religion was the worst, false religion, and especially false Judaism and false Christianity. And that's why the severest eternal judgment will be rendered for the religious who perverted the Old Testament and the New Testament....
I don't think all people who fall into false religion pursue those religions in order that they might become hypocrites. You just end up there. And all people in false religions are hypocrites. They are religious on the outside, but frankly they are evil on the inside because the only thing that can change the inside is the gospel. And so they're all hypocrites to one degree or another. They're making a better show than what's really going on inside. And that's what all religion does. Religious people become highly skilled at covering their corruption with external morality and ritual cause it's all they can do....
Jesus mercifully... confronts a hypocrite, a Pharisee. And He confronts him with the necessary purpose of facing his hypocrisy head on and disclosing it to the man. This is essential. Religious people can't be converted until they realize the hypocrisy of what they're involved in. This, folks, is a lesson on how to evangelize religious people. One of the very best, and the Lord gave a lot of these because He evangelized a lot of people one on one. Here is a great illustration of how you evangelize religious people, and in this case, extremely religious people. But don't expect a lot of good results....they become so adept to the hypocrisy that they do not yield it up easily. Rather than repent of hypocrisy, they turn up their hatred for the one who confronted.
What is religion?
Love for symbols, love for sin, love for the simplistic, love for secondary things, love for status and Jesus exposed this man and his friends because there's no other way to get to the heart...
what should characterize those who truly know God? Not the outside, but the inside, love for righteousness, love for God, love for Christ, love for Scripture, love for the truth, love for others, love for sound theology, love for lowliness and humility.
Tomorrow's passage: Joshua 22-24, Luke 12:1-31
6 comments:
Great post Tammy. Read it over a couple of times. So much truth and so much conviction! Thanks!
The verses about the light struck me, too, as I was reading. Great post. It's true... we do have a tendency to cherish our sins, and I really appreciated the section on spiritual teaching contrary to the truth. One of the reasons I quit watching Oprah a few years ago, actually. She has such a huge viewing audience and so much influence, and she was using it to push things that are just wrong, in spite of claiming to be a Christian. I believe her to be well-meaning and have good intentions, but I'm afraid she's led a lot of people "down the garden path" so to speak.
Your comment about it being harder to reach a religious person than a non-religious person stands out for me. It's so true. When someone is so deceived and completely believes a lie, they honestly don't know that they don't have what we have. They are COMPLETELY deluded and can make exactly the same arguments we make in defense of their beliefs. It's EXTREMELY frustrating!! I know that only the Holy Spirit can make a difference, can lift the veil, but it's so hard to just trust and pray... and WAIT!!!
I love your last paragraph about truly knowing God. That is so so important to remember!
Great post Tammy. What was said about the light and darkness really struck me.
And "people think it's light"... I know too many people who have these perceived notions about christianity, the church & religion and yes, they are the HARDEST to reach. And something about that turned them off... I just pray that they will see the light, and escape the dark.
Great post. I appreciated you sharing the insights you found. The last two things from each reading stood out for me:
From the old testament:
45 Not one of all the LORD’s good promises to Israel failed; every one was fulfilled.
and the new:
53 When Jesus went outside, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law began to oppose him fiercely and to besiege him with questions, 54 waiting to catch him in something he might say.
I thought these fit so well together because God knows exactly what he is doing. He makes promises and keeps them. While Jesus was on earth, He too was doing exactly what He was supposed to do. They tried to catch Him in a mistake-a goofup- and they couldn't do it. He was perfect and He did everything He said he was going to.
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