Sermons

Well, it is a joy to be here. Thank you, Mark. And I did say, I kind of envisioned the elders sitting around in a room, a dark room, figuring out who's going to preach what text next. And they're like, I don't want to do that one. I don't want to do that one. Call Zakevich in LA. See if he'll do it. So, I said yes when I got the text. But I also feel safer. You know what's going on in LA. So, I'm glad I'm here and not back in LA this weekend. Let's hope we can have more order.

It is a joy to be here again, and congratulations. I know you have a new pastor. I heard you hired a leprechaun. And so, well done. He's coming soon. I think you got four weeks of non-Irish freedom. The tyranny is about to start. You know the Irish. I went to Scotland for my studies, so I know the feud between those two people groups. But it is good to be here, and we are gonna have a wonderful time, Lord willing, in our passage, so go ahead and take your Bible and open to Luke chapter 12, and we're gonna look at verses 49 and down to verse 53.

Jonathan Edwards is considered to be one of the brightest minds in American history. He was born in the year 1703 and died in the year 1758, just before his 55th birthday. He was a pastor, he was a professor, he was an author, a prolific author. He was a missionary and the third president of Princeton University. But at 18 years of age, all that was ahead of him. He went to Yale at 12 years of age, and he finished as a valedictorian. At that point, he delivered the valedictorian speech in Latin. And at 18, he decided to become a pastor. His father was a pastor, his grandfather was a pastor, his uncles were pastors, and so he ends up in New York City at 18 years of age, taking a church that had recently split. And so, he was about to embark on this mission and the ministry that God has entrusted to him. And he sat down and knew that he needed God's assistance in that endeavor. And so, he sat down and wrote 70 resolutions. You probably have read them or you've heard of them. That's the context in which they were crafted.

And some of those resolutions directly apply to our passage for this morning. The 10th resolution, he wrote, “resolved, when I feel pain, to think of the pains of martyrdom and of hell.” The 50th resolution, “resolved, I will act so as to think I shall judge would have been best and most prudent when I come into the future world.” Number 51, which he wrote on July 8, 1723. “Resolved, that I will also act in every respect as I think I shall wish I had done if I should at last be damned.” And then 55, “resolved, to endeavor to my utmost to act as I can think I should if I had already seen the happiness of heaven and hell's torments.” A few of these resolutions directly focused on eternal judgment, on heaven and hell.

He wrote those last two on July 8th, 1723, and it would be exactly 18 years later, to the day that he was to preach “Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God.” A message that he preached almost accidentally. He went to church mid-service during the great revival, and the speaker that was supposed to preach was sick. And so, he was nudged by another individual to get up and preach. And so, Jonathan Edwards got up and he preached that sermon in Enfield, Connecticut. And it is the most famous sermon that has ever been preached on American soil. “Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God.” The people that heard the message are said to have shrieked and cried out in horror. Edwards waited for the people to calm down as they were weeping and wailing, convulsing on the ground in response to what Edwards was preaching. He was focusing on eternal damnations.

And this is some of what he said. “The wrath of God burns against them. Their damnation doesn't slumber. The pit is prepared, the fire is made ready, the furnace is now hot, ready to receive them. The flames, do now rage and glow. The glittering sword is wet and held over them, and the pit has opened its mouth under them. They have deserved the fiery pit. The devil is waiting for them. Hell is gaping for them. The flames gather and flash about them, and would fain lay hold of them and swallow them up. The fire pent up in their own hearts is struggling to break out, and they have no interest in the mediator. The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over a fire, abhors you and is dreadfully provoked. His wrath towards you burns like fire. He looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire. You've offended Him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince. And yet it is nothing but His hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. O sinner, consider the fearful danger you are in.” That's what the people heard. Of course they would respond in horror at that kind of preaching.

But at the same time, Edwards also offered mercy and kindness from the Lord. His message was balanced with a message of forgiveness. He said, “the Lord flung the door of mercy wide open, and He stands in the door crying and calling with a loud voice to poor sinners.” We need to understand this, that the message of ,“Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God.” is to be a message of forgiveness and repentance and the call to that repentance. Because of that message, Jonathan Edwards has been designated in American history as a preacher of fire and brimstone.

But in our passage this morning, Jesus takes the pulpit. And He becomes the preacher of fire and brimstone to His audience and to our benefit. Follow along as I read verse 49 and beyond. Jesus says, “I have come to cast fire upon the earth and how I wish it were already kindled. But I have a baptism to undergo and how distressed I am until it is finished. Do you think that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division. For from now on, five members in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three. And they will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, and mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” Let's pray as we begin this message.

[Prayer] Lord God, we thank You. And we need Your sustaining grace to understand this passage. We thank You for Your word. We thank You for the Holy Spirit who helps us understand it and apply it. We ask that You would work in our hearts even now as we look into these sobering words from Jesus about why He came. We pray this in His name, amen. [End]

In order for us to fully understand this passage, we need to understand the context, the greater context of chapter 12, and moving into the first few verses of chapter 13. Multiple times in chapter 12, Jesus is referred to as the Son of Man. In verse 8 of chapter 12, Jesus says, “if you confess Him before men, He will confess you, and He being the Son of Man, He'll confess you before the angels of God.” Beginning in verse 40, He imagines a scene of a master coming back to meet with his servants and He calls himself the Son of Man who's coming back at an hour that you do not expect. And that idea is repeated in verse 43 and again in verse 46. So, there's the Son of Man references in chapter 12, but they are juxtaposed with the motif of judgment.

In verse 5 of chapter 12, Jesus says, “I will show you whom to fear. Fear the one who, after He has killed, has the authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear Him.” The end of chapter 12 gives us an idea or an image or a story about a person who is in debt, and he refuses to settle his debt. And so, he's dragged to court in front of a judge, and Jesus says, before that happens, make sure you settle your debts. And of course, the implication is, settle your debt with God before you face God as judge. And then when you look at the beginning of chapter 13, some people come to Jesus and say, Jesus, did You hear what happened? Pilate has killed some people in the middle of a feast, and their blood was mixed in with the blood of the sacrifice. Or did You hear about the tower that collapsed and killed certain individuals?

And Jesus' response is, death happens. But unless you repent, you will likewise perish. Jesus isn't being indifferent or unsympathetic. He's calling people to recognize the eternal consequences of their sins. So, the greater passage around our paragraph is the theme of judgment, hell, destruction, and the coming of the Son of Man.

Now, the Son of Man, as a title for Jesus, was a popular title around the time of Jesus. We mostly know it because of Daniel chapter seven, and we'll look at that verse in just a minute. But in the New Testament, the Son of Man appears in multiple places, in all the Gospels, for example. And there is an element of the Son of Man being a reference to His humanity. Jesus came and had no place to lay down His head. Jesus came and was hungry, and He was thirsty, and He was tired. And in those passages, Jesus speaks as the Son of Man. That takes us back to Ezekiel, the Son of Man who's human. But there's also the understanding that the Son of Man is a figure who will come in the future to judge.

There are multiple places like that. One of the clearest in the New Testament is John chapter five. In verse 26, Jesus speaks,” just as the father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the son also to have life in Himself. And He gave Him authority to execute judgment because He is the Son of Man. Don't marvel at this, for now is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice and will come forth. Those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.” Jesus calls Himself the Son of Man in the context of judgment.

But there are other places, for example, there's a book called First Enoch. First Enoch is actually cited in 2nd Peter and in the book of Jude. We were joking this morning with Ken that he was doing his devotions in the book of Enoch, in the Apocrypha. But it's helpful to understand what the people were writing and thinking and talking about around the time of Jesus. And listen to just a quick paragraph from that book. “Because the Son of Man has come and has been revealed to them.” This is a future scene. He sat on the throne of His glory, and the sum of judgment was given to the Son of Man, and He caused the sinners to pass away, to be destroyed from the face of the earth. And those who were led astray, with chains they will be bound, and in their assembling place of destruction they will be imprisoned, and all their works will vanish from the face of the earth. And from that point forward there will be nothing corruptible, for the Son of Man has appeared and has seated Himself on the throne of His glory, and all evil will pass away before His face.” So, people were hearing this, people were reading this. So, the Son of Man continually took a person's mind back to a future judgment scene.

In Daniel chapter 7, verses 13 and 14, Daniel prophesies about the Son of Man. And he says in verse 13, “I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven, one like a Son of Man was coming. And He came up to the ancient of days, that's referring to the Father, and came near before Him, and to Him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom, and all the peoples, nations, and men of every tongue might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not be taken away, and His kingdom is one which will not be destroyed.” So, you have an element of judgment and an element of reign. From the Son of Man, that's in the future.

So, as we look at our text for this morning, we need to understand that Jesus speaks as this Son of Man. He's presenting Himself to the listeners in the future sense. And He gives us three declarations, three specific statements that describe Him as the Son of Man who has come to judge. In verse 49, He says, “I have come to cast fire upon the earth.” In verse 50, He says, “I have a baptism to undergo.” And in verse 51, He says, “I came not to grant peace, but to bring division.” So, from that we can glean three judgments that come from the Son of Man.

And the first is in verse 49, “a judgment of destruction.” A judgment of destruction through fire. Jesus actually says the word fire first. So, in the original it would sound this way, “fire, I came to hurl upon the earth and how I wish it was already kindled.” Jesus puts the word fire first in order to emphasize that we need to be thinking about what He's about to do. And He wishes He could do it even now.

Now this isn't the first time Luke spoke about fire in his gospel. Back in chapter three, John the Baptist speaks of the coming of Jesus, and he says “when He comes, He has a fork in His hand, and He's going to thresh the floor, and He will gather the wheat into a barn, and—He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” In chapter 17, there's a reference to the fire that came from heaven on Sodom and Gomorrah. And so, this time, Jesus saying, fire I have come to bring upon the earth, is continuing this theme of fire that comes with the Son of Man.

But we have a dilemma to resolve. Because if you remember other statements by Jesus, He's very clear about coming to save, not to destroy. The most famous verse in the Bible, John 3:16, we know it, but then the next verse, “for God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world may be saved through Him.” Or in Luke chapter 9, verse 54, just a few chapters earlier. You remember the scene when James and John ask Jesus to call fire from heaven to destroy a village in Samaria, remember that? And Jesus rebukes them for even having that thought. And if you were to trace the word for rebuke in the gospel of Luke, you'd see that it's a word that used to refer to Jesus rebuking demons. Jesus rebuking the storm when He calms it. Jesus rebuking a fever that Peter's mother-in-law had. Jesus rebuking Peter when he says, you're not going to the cross, and He says to him, “get behind me, Satan.” That is the same word that traces throughout the Gospel of Luke. That is to say, the rebuke from Jesus to James and John when they wanted to call fire from heaven was a serious, aggressive rebuke, as He was talking as if to a demon.

And yet, Jesus Himself says, “I have come to bring fire from the earth.” How do we resolve this dilemma? Well, if you look up just a few verses, in verses 41 down to verse 48, Jesus gives us a parable about a wicked steward who begins to abuse his colleagues because the master is away. And the end of that parable is that he will be judged. There's a sense of vengeance that Jesus wants to accomplish for all the injustice that is taking place in the earth. That's the previous paragraph right before ours.

And if you were to look what follows our paragraph, in verses 54 down to verse 59, Jesus confronts the Jewish leaders and says, you're able to predict the rain when it gets cold, when the clouds are coming, you know rain is coming, but why can't you discern the times? In other words, judgment is coming, why can't you understand that? And then He gives us that story about a man who has debt and refuses to settle it before he's dragged into court. There is the immediate context of our paragraph of injustice, debt. And Jesus aims to resolve all that. And so, He speaks as a judge who is standing at the door. Remember that from James 5:9. He's ready to come in. If somebody's at your door, you're not gonna make them wait too long. That's inappropriate. Jesus is standing at the door and He's about to come in. That is the scene that we should imagine when we read verse 49.

And of course, there's plenty for Jesus to judge. This month is called Pride Month. And just imagine if you understand what that means, the sin that's a part of that celebration. Al Mohler had a fantastic podcast on Monday of last week explaining where the terminology comes from, why the rainbow was adopted to represent that lifestyle. And he said that the root of it all is a celebration of sin and it comes from pride. And you remember how God treats pride, when He hurled Lucifer from heaven because he was proud in his heart. You can only imagine what God is thinking as this nation is celebrating pride and immorality. Or the riots that are taking place in multiple cities. Or the wars that are taking place. God isn't pleased between what's happening between Iran and Israel or Russia and Ukraine. So, you can imagine why Jesus would make a statement like that. He sees the sin and He's not indifferent.

But then He sees the sin in our hearts. Even if we've been forgiven, we are still sinning and that doesn't please the Lord. We have been covered by the blood of Christ and yet it still offends Him. The statements that Jonathan Edwards made a few hundred years ago are still true. God abhors sin. And of course, Jesus is ready to judge and to set all things right. Then why is He waiting?

2 Peter 3 answers that. In verse 7 of 2 Peter 3, we read, “By His word, the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some consider slowness, but is patient toward you, not willing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance.” Let's not confuse delayed judgment with indifference. It's an opportunity for all of us to keep repenting.

And if you haven't repented from your sin, if you have no relationship with Jesus Christ, then you will experience the fire that He is promising in verse 49. You will experience Him and His judgment. And you will face Him as judge unless you repent from your sins. And you recognize Him as the only Savior and you bow before Him as the true King of kings and Lord of lords, and you will never face Him as judge. You will only face Him, and when you see Him for the first time, here's what you will hear. Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your master. That's what all of us will hear if we are His. And if you're not, He calls you to repentance in this text.

The fire that Jesus is promising is described in Revelation chapter eight. It's worth it for us to go there and read that opening paragraph of Revelation eight. This is the setting of the tribulation. “When the Lamb, who is the Lord Jesus Christ, will judge the earth and all sin.” For seven years there's judgment that takes place. And so, in Revelation chapter eight, beginning in verse one, we see the lamb opening the seventh seal. “There was silence in heaven for about a half an hour. Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God and seven trumpets were given to them. And another angel came and stood at the altar having a golden censer and much incense was given to him so that he may add to the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar, which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense went up with the prayers of the saints out of the angel's hand before God. Then the angel took the censer and filled it with the fire of the altar and threw it to the earth, and there followed peals of thunder and sound and flashes of lightning and an earthquake. And the seven angels, who had the seven trumpets, prepared themselves to sound them. And the first sounded, and there came hail and fire, mixed with blood. And they were thrown to the earth, and a third of the earth was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up. And the second angel sounded, and something like a great mountain, burning with fire, was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood.”

This is just one scene of judgment centered in fire. That's what Jesus is speaking of back in Luke chapter 12 verse 49. He's ready to judge and He is the only judge. John chapter 5 verse 22, Jesus says, “not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son.” Romans 2:16 says that “God and Christ will judge the secrets of man.” In other words, God has designated His Son, our Savior, as the only judge. And there's a fixed day, according to Acts 17, verses 30-31, “when He will judge everyone and everything.”

So, when Jesus says, I have come to cast fire upon the earth and how I wish it were already kindled, He is speaking as the Son of Man who is ready to unleash judgment and destruction on this globe and on every single sinner. And for Him to say that before the cross indicates that the injustice and the sin that He is so aware of is provoking Him and He's ready to judge even in that moment. He wishes He could set everything right even before the cross. But according to God's plan, He first has to experience our judgment through death, and that takes us to our second statement.

The second judgment that comes with the Son of Man, and that is a “judgment of death,” and that is in verse 50. And here, again, Jesus also has been emphatic. As much as He put the word fire at the beginning of His sentence, He puts the word baptism in the original language at the beginning of His sentence. “Baptism, I have to be baptized with.” Actually, the word undergo is a second repeat of the word baptism. “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how distressed I am until it is finished.”

When we think about baptism, we rightly understand it as identification. The people in Israel in the Old Testament were baptized into Moses, meaning they were identifying with Moses as their leader. In the New Testament, when somebody's baptized, we identify with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That's the meaning of baptism, consistent in Scripture. It was consistent also around the time of Jesus that passages that are outside of Scripture. What verse 50 is saying is that Jesus, in this baptism, is identifying with our sin. It is our sin that forced them onto the cross. And so, He identifies with us in this baptism.

But there's also an element of judgment here. In Mark chapter 10, verse 38, Jesus responds to His disciples who ask Him, can we sit on Your right and on Your left? You remember who asked that? James and John. They were kind of uppity. They had high expectations. Coming from a wealthy family, knowing the high priest, they thought that they belonged in Jesus' right and His left in the kingdom. And Jesus responds in this way, Mark 10:38. “You don't know what you're asking.” What a statement. You have no idea what you're asking. “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink? Or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” And if you remember, in arrogance, they say we are. They have no idea what they are saying, and Jesus does, but He links in this passage the cup of God's wrath with baptism, referring to the cross, because four chapters later in chapter 14 of Mark, He will pray three times, remove this cup from me. And then a few verses after that prayer in Gethsemane, He will actually refer to himself as the Son of Man. So, you have a link that's being made between judgment, baptism, the cup, and Jesus as the Son of Man by the author Mark.

But that takes us to the Old Testament to understand exactly what Jesus means by this baptism imagery by the cup that we now saw in Mark chapter 10. In Psalm 75, verses seven and eight, we read, “God is the judge. He puts down one and raises up another. For a cup is in the hand of Yahweh, and the wine is foaming. It is full of His mixture. He pours it from this. Surely all the wicked of the earth must drain and drink down its dregs.” So, Psalm 75 gives us this insight that God has a cup. And it's filled with judgment. It's His wrath that He will force every sinner to drink all the way to the bottom.

Jeremiah chapter 25 takes the same image and develops it. It's a long passage. But just in summary, what Jeremiah chapter 25, and beginning in verses 15 all the way down to verse 28, it says that Yahweh, the God of Israel, says, “take this cup of the wine of wrath from My hand and cause all the nations to whom I will send you to drink it. They will drink it and stagger and go mad because of the sword that I will send among them. Then I looked, and then I took the cup from the hand of Yahweh and made all the nations to whom Yahweh sent me to drink it." And then he goes into a list of nations, from Jerusalem to Egypt to Edom to Ekron to Media. And then it says this in verse 27, “you shall say to them, thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, drink, be drunk, vomit, fall and rise no more because of the sword which I will send among you. And it will be if they refuse to take the cup from Your hand to drink, then you will say to them, thus says Yahweh of hosts, you will surely drink it.” That is to say, no one will escape the cup of God's wrath. Not a single person in any nation. And so, everybody's itemized in Jeremiah.

I say this because we need to understand, when Jesus says, I have a baptism to be baptized with, and it's the cup of God's wrath, we need to understand what He was seeing in that cup. Why He would pray three times, let this cup pass? Jesus knew what was in the cup. He knew it from eternity past. As part of the divine plan, He crafted it. He is a member of the Trinity. He's one of the three persons. Jesus wasn't indifferent, He wasn't ignorant of what's in the cup. We are, and hence those passages help us understand exactly what Jesus drank for us.

But look at the second part of verse 50. “How distressed I am until it is finished.” It's the same word that we find in John 19:30, when Jesus says on the cross, “it is finished.” Same exact word here. Which aims at an end. As a purpose that someone needs to fulfill. And Jesus says, until it's finished, I am in turmoil. I'm oppressed. I'm anxious. That's the meaning of that word. Paul uses that a few times in reference to himself when he's oppressed from both sides and he doesn't know what to do. It's not confusion, it's just a desire for resolution. Jesus wanted to get to the cross.

Luke 9:51 said that “He set His face like a flint to Jerusalem to get to the cross.” He wanted to accomplish salvation. He wanted to absorb the wrath of God for us who would believe in Him. That's the oppression that Jesus was experiencing. And when we read other passages in the New Testament about Jesus' response to the thought of going to the cross, in John chapter 12, verse 27, He says, “My soul has become troubled.” It's the word that is used in the Bible to describe an earthquake. My soul is in turmoil, it's shaking. “And what shall I say, Father? Save me from this hour? But for this purpose, I came to this hour.” Jesus isn't trying to avoid the cross.

Spurgeon says, “He saw how terrible that will was and He shuddered at what was included.” To such a degree that in Luke 22 we see that an angel from heaven had to come down and encourage Him, to sustain His will, to sustain His focus, to actually get up from the ground in Gethsemane and face His arresting officers, face Judas the betrayer, and make it to Golgotha. Judas understood that everything was coming together for that moment, the gathering storm. Where if you look at the gospels, they describe the Jewish leaders, Judas, the Romans, the entire nation preparing for the Passover and the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. And Jesus says in John 14:30, the ruler of this world is coming. In Luke 22, He says, “this is the hour and the power of darkness.” Referring to all that's taking place in Gethsemane and at Golgotha.

The cup of God's wrath, as described in Jeremiah, or the Psalms, is a cup that fully contains God's anger at sin. And Jesus drank it for us. And those who are not in Christ will have to drink that cup themselves for eternity. And so, as Jesus looked into it and understood what was in it, He shuddered. He collapsed on the ground. And Hebrews 5 says He was wailing and He was weeping, begging the Father three times to find another way to avoid the wrath of God.

If Jesus was begging His father to avoid the cup of wrath, do we think we can handle it? His disciples in foolishness says, we can handle it. We can't. And that brought severe turmoil to Jesus in that moment. And so, Jesus says, “I'm distressed until My baptism is finished.” It's this holy impatience that one commentator describes it. What a thought, that the judge was eager to be judged for us. And He drank it for us; He took that cup. That's the Savior that we have.

But this Savior brings destruction in the future. He went through His own death to save us. But there's a third judgment. It has “a judgment of division.” A judgment of division, and that is what is described in verses 51 until verse 53. The image that Jesus describes here of setting one family member against another because of one family member's belief in Jesus, that image is actually adopted from Micah 7, verse 6. In Micah 7:6, we read, “the son treats his father as a wicked fool. Daughter rises up against her mother. daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And the man's enemies are the men of his own household.” The image here is simply describing historical Israel in sin. This conflict in the household, that's all that means. It's not prophetic, it's not in any way referring to what's happening in Luke or future judgment or the relationship people have because of Christ. This is simply saying Israel and Judah were in sin and the sin reached the most intimate relationships in the household.

But Jesus takes that image and now says, I'm gonna adopt it for what My coming as the Son of Man to this earth actually does to relationships. And this is a judgment of division. Jesus demands that we pick a side. You can't be neutral. You can't play both sides. You can't be Switzerland. You have to pick a side, the axis of evils or the axis of allies. And Jesus says, if you're truly Mine, then you will experience conflict, even in the most intimate relationships. Not just at work, not just in the community, and not just in school. No, you will even experience conflict in the household if one of the members doesn't belong to Christ.

And so, Jesus says, in the present, from now on, from the point of Jesus's coming, from this point, if you follow Christ, in the present, you will experience conflict. And you know what that's like. Mark alluded to it earlier. There is conflict that takes place whenever somebody believes in Jesus Christ, and when somebody rejects Jesus Christ. That doesn't only happen in Muslim countries or Buddhist countries. No, it even happens here, in our nation, where people are so committed to their sin that they will isolate themselves from the family, or the sin is so severe, so wicked, so corrupting, that the family will ask that family member to be away from the family, not to corrupt the younger siblings, for example. I've known families like that even in their own church. I'm sure you know what Jesus is speaking of here. There will be division and you will have to pick a side.

In Matthew chapter 10, Jesus actually describes it even more severely when He says, “brother will betray brother to death. Father, his child, children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. You will be hated by all because of My name, but is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved.” Jesus is saying, you will have to make a decision. You will either follow me and be willing to give up everything, even your own life, He says in Luke 14, if you want to be My disciple. Jesus demands that we rethink our relationships in light of eternity. And if it means giving up your family members for Him, we should be willing to do that. That's the fire that's implied. Remember that those who don't side with Christ will experience the fire. So be willing to go through a division now to avoid the fire in the future.

Jesus will not take second place. That's clear in Colossians 1:18. One commentator said, “the essence of Christianity is that loyalty to Christ has to take precedence over the dearest loyalties of this earth. A man must be prepared to count all things but loss for the excellence of Jesus Christ.” So, in the present tense, we have tense relationships, potential. I'm not saying everybody does, and everybody will all the time, but there is that possibility, and we need to be willing to sacrifice that for Christ.

But in an eschatological sense, there is an actual division that's coming, and that's the judgment of sheep and goats. Jesus describes that in Matthew chapter 25, when on that judgment day, He will divide. And He will place some on His left and some on His right, and some will go to hell, and some will go to heaven. And some family members will be on one side, and others on the other side. That's the ultimate implication of the words of Jesus in verses 51 and 53. There will be a separation that takes place now, and there's consequences for eternity.

So, when we think back to Jonathan Edwards, and the famous sermon, the most famous sermon ever preached on this soil, “Sinners in The Hands of An Angry God,” we have to understand that when he was imagining Jesus Christ as King and Judge and Savior, He was warning people of what the Son of Man will do when He comes and the fire that awaits.

And so, as we conclude, listen to the words of Edwards as he thinks about Jesus and the judgment that He experienced and then the salvation that He offers. “Jesus had then a near view of that furnace of wrath, into which He was to be cast. He was brought to the mouth of the furnace, that He might look into it, and stand and view its raging flames, and see the glowings of the heat, that He might know where He was going and what He was about to suffer. So why does Jesus continue going to the cross, knowing that He will be cast into a dreadful furnace of God's wrath? The anguish of Christ's soul at that time in Gethsemane was so strong as to cause that effect on His body, sweating drops of blood, but His love to His enemies poor and unworthy as they were, was stronger still. The heart of Christ at that time was full of distress, but it was fuller of love. His sorrows abounded, but His love did much more abound. Christ's soul was overwhelmed with a deluge of grief. But this was from a deluge of love to sinners in His heart, sufficient to overflow the world, and overwhelm the highest mountain of its sins. Those great drops of blood that fell down to the ground were a manifestation of an ocean of love in Christ's heart. Christ would not undergo these sufferings needlessly if sinners could be saved without. If there was not an absolute necessity of His suffering them in order to their salvation, He desired that the cup might pass from Him. But if sinners on whom He had set His love could not agreeably to the will of God be saved without His drink in it, He chose that the will of God should be done. He chose to go on and endure the suffering, awful as it appeared to Him. Still, He finally resolved that He would bear it, rather than those poor sinners whom He had loved from all eternity should perish.”

Nothing will separate us from the love of Christ and the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. Because Jesus said, I'd rather drink it than have Mark drink it, or Kent drink it, or Amy drink it, or Ford drink it, or Peter, or Paul, or James, or John. He wanted to drink it so you wouldn't have to. What a Savior.  Let's pray.

[Prayer] Lord God, thank you for Jesus that He drank the cup for us. We don't fully understand what's in that cup, but He did and He staggered and collapsed so that we wouldn't have to. Jesus, thank you for undergoing the baptism of death. Thank you for being faithful to fulfill the plan of God, even though Satan tried to derail you through Peter, through Judas. We thank you that you continued to the cross. And now we can approach you as Savior and as King, not as Judge. We pray this for Your glory and in Your name. [End]

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