CRESCENDO
Text: Luke 12:49 - 56
Have you ever had something happen that made your Adrenalin glands kick in instant overdrive when you were almost asleep? It said that Beethoven would sometimes shock his audiences with a shift from soft music to abrupt harsh noise. Imagine sitting there as one in his audience listening to him playing music soft enough to lure you to sleep and then shocking your ears with an abrupt clashing sound as he put his forearm across several keys at once. What was his point? His point was that the world we live in is not always a “soft and cosy place”. (N. T. Wright. Luke For Everyone. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster, 2001, p. 158). In much the same way Jesus shared with his audience then and his congregation today that life is not always a rose garden. Life is not a dress rehearsal. Some who are open to the gospel are often rejected by those who oppose it and sometimes they are family members.
Wait a minute! Didn’t Luke’s Gospel mention “peace on earth and good will among men” (Luke 2:14) as Jesus our Emmanuel (our God with us) after Jesus’s birth? Do you remember Simeon’s words to Mary…”This child is set for the fall and rising of many” (Luke 2:34)? Could that be why Jesus is now addressing his congregation then as those of us in His congregation to day this way at the closing verses of Luke 12?
Three things we can glean from this text are combustion conviction and conversion.
COMBUSTION
Why is fire such a big deal in this passage of scripture? 1) Symbolism : To the Hebrew mind, fire is about judgment. One pastor summed it the best when he clarified it this way. “The symbolism of fire denotes two things: Fire destroys the temporary and it refines the permanent”. (Michael Duduit. Ed. The Abingdon Preaching Annual: 1995. Rick McDaniel. “Costly Change.” Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994, p .286).
2)Refining fire: The same fire that “consumes our dross also refines our gold” according the the hymn “How Firm A Foundation”.
3)Rekindling the fire: The apostle Paul gives us good advice when he said, “For this reason I remind you to fan into flame [some versions NRSV say rekindle; other versions KJV say stir up which is the translates as rekindle in the original Greek NT] the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands…” (2 Timothy 1:6 ESV). As it says in Luke 11:13: “If God wants to give to those who ask of Him the gift of the Holy Spirit …” (and he does), then shouldn’t we do all that we can to keep that fire going rather than quenching God’s Spirit (I Thessalonians 5:19)? In the original Greek to quench mean the same thing as to extinguish.
How many people do you know that are playing with fire?
1)Playing with fire: As a kid I once played with matches and set a small portion of the yard on fire. Needless to say I went to stomp it out before it got bigger than my foot. Playing with matches is one thing but playing with the fire of God’s judgement is no joke.
2) Hell is no joke: The fires of hell are no joking matter! According to three verses in the bible the worm will not do and the fires of hell will not be quenched (Mark 9:44, 46 and 48). Consider the verse of Isaiah 66:24 which basically says the same thing. Since the fire will never burn out and the worm (maggot) will never die because it eats a body that it will never devour which suggests the idea of eternal suffering and remorse. (George A. Buttrick. ed. The Interpreter’s Bible. Volume 5. Thirty-Seventh Reprinting. James Muilenburg. Chapters 40 -66: “ Introduction and Exegesis.” 1987, p. 773). That is why we can say that hell is no joke!
CONVERSION
Do you believe that God want to save us all?
1)Repentance: II Peter 3: 9 says so! “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” (ESV).
2)Redeemer: John 3:16 - 18 says so! John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 3:17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 3:18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
If God wants to save us all, then why is there a hell? 1) Chosen people: If God wants to save us all does that mean that we are predestined? We are predestined by God for heaven, but we must choose God. Remember that God chose the children of Israel to be His chosen nation--- the nation that would be called the light to the Gentiles. Isaiah 49:6 said it this way: “… I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (ESV). As we know from the history, God sent prophet after prophet to get the people to get right with God after every relapse into sin. Their pattern looked like sin, repent, repeat sin, repent and so on.
2) LLLUSTRATIONS on eternity: “One day when Vice President Calvin Coolidge (1921 - 1923) was presiding over the Senate, one senator told another senator to go “straight to hell.’ The offended senator complained to Coolidge as presiding officer. The vice president looked up through a book he had been leafing through while listening to the debate. “I’ve been looking through the rule book,” he said “You don’t have to go.” (Robert J. Morgan. ed. Nelson’s Complete Book of Stories, Illustrations & Quotes. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2000, p. 434). The go to book for leading meetings called Robert’s Rules of Order written by Henry Martyn Robert and Sarah Corbin Robert was originally published in 1876. I cannot help but to wonder if that was the book Calvin Coolidge was leafing through when he came to that conclusion.
“Walter Hooper, C. S. Lewis’s secretary chuckled when he read this grave inscription: “Here lies an atheist, All dressed up with no place to go.” When he told C. S. Lewis about this, Lewis didn’t chuckle. He responded the atheist probably wishes that were true.” (Roy B. Zuck ed. The Speaker’s Quote Book. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Kregel Publications, 1997, p. 192). The bible is very clear about eternity. Where we go in eternity is decided by us in this life. God will not send us to hell without our consent. Life is not a dress rehearsal!
Is it written in a book that we don’t have to go to hell? The answer to that question is “yes”. 1) Two books: Revelation 20:12 mentions two books. The book that is not mentioned by name has often been referred to as “the Book of Deeds” by many because it contains ou entire history. Everything we have ever done or said. The other book is known as the “Lamb’s Book of Life” (aka Revelation 21:27). If we have not chosen the Lamb of God---the Lord Jesus Christ who takes away our sins (John 1:29), then we will be judged only by the Book of Deeds. 2) Great white throne: Hebrews 12:2 mentions the throne of God that we will all experience as we stand before God. If our name is not in that Lamb’s Book Of Life, then we will not be able to enter heaven according to Revelation 21:27.
CONVICTION
Have you ever thought of yourself as a convict? 1) Guilty as charged: We don’t like questions like that because they make us feel awkward. When we think of a convict we think of someone who has been found guilty in a court of law. We are all convicts because we have all fallen short of the glory of God and have missed the mark (Romans 3: 23). All we like sheep have gone astray. 2) Jesus is the remedy: Isaiah 53:6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 3) New life: Just as convicts who have turned over a new leaf want a new start. Spiritual convicts who accept what Jesus has done and the price He has paid have become new creatures in Christ who have a new mission---to evangelize those close to us.
Will our convictions and our witness as new creatures in Christ get us in trouble? The answer to that question is yes. 1) Witness: Our English word for witness is the same word that is used for martyr in the Greek New Testament. How often do we hear about people being persecuted in this modern day for their belief and witnessing Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior?
2) Divisions: How many people have you known to be divided because of their faith in Jesus Christ? It might not be as bad in the United States as it is in other countries but in communist China or militant dominated Muslim territories of the middle east. Jesus brings peace to those who hunger for salvation and division for those who oppose the Gospel. Fiction often imitates real life. In the movie God’s Not Dead there is a scene where a little brother from a Muslim betrays his sister to his father because she was listening to Christian music after becoming a Christian. According Sharia law the father could have killed that daughter for being in an infidel. There was a scene form the movie where the father considered strangling his daughter but he threw he out instead.
Let the redeemed of the Lord say so (Psalm 107:2)! 1) Earth is not our home! In his book Imagine Heaven, John Burke said this: “God did not create hell for humans. He created hell for eternal angels who made an eternal choice to rule themselves----hell is where they rule”. (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2015, p. 233). 2) Preparation: John 14: Jesus tells us in John 14:6 that He is preparing a place for us. We will not receive that place until our work on earth is done! 3) Rejection: It is possible for us to reject that blessing. Look at these tow passages of scripture that illustrate that point. Matthew_25:34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: …. Matthew_25:41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels (ESV)
We can witness and pray for the lost asking that God will protect them and help them to choose salvation. All lost sheep need the Good Shepherd which is why Jesus tells us that we have others that are not of this fold (John 10:16).
