Luke 12, and today we're concerned
with v. 49-53. And as a bit of a backdrop
to this, remember that we started out with a dinner with the Pharisees
and the, woe to you, Pharisees, and woe to you, scribes, and
woe to you, lawyers. And then we have the comforting
words that the Savior spoke to the disciples. You little flock,
you little Faiths, don't worry about anything. And we have this
dividing that he brings out time after time after time here through
Luke chapter 12. Last time we looked at this parable
that he brought there in Luke 12, 35, and the next thing that
we come to here, and it seems like it's kind of in the middle
of a different subject, but really it's not. In Luke 12, 49, and
we'll read through 53 there, to send fire on the earth, and
what will I if it be already kindled? But I have a baptism
to be baptized with, and how I am straightened until it be
accomplished. Suppose ye that I am come to
give peace on earth? Nay, I tell you, nay, but rather
division. From henceforth there shall be
five in one house, divided, three against two, two against three.
And the father shall be divided against the son, and the son
against the father, and the mother against the daughter, and the
daughter against the mother, and the mother-in-law against her
daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. So
we have the subject of division come up, and that's really basically
what this block of scripture talks to. And today's message
I've entitled, Sending Fire. And you know, in religion, oftentimes
people view preaching in Bible things as fire and brimstone,
and damnation, and threatening, and all kinds of manipulations. But here, he says, I've come
to send fire. Well, you know, he wrote that
in the Old Testament. That's where that comes from,
that block of Scripture. And he says, I've come to send
fire on the earth, and what will I if it be already kindled? It's
nothing new. What I'm going to tell you right
now is not anything new. And it just amplifies what the
results of the gospel is. It's a divider. And the context
of this block is the fact that the true gospel is a divider. And you know, we find there's
just not much ambiguity in Grace Believers about the power and
effect of the gospel. The gospel, it raises intense
reactions among the hearers of the gospel, whether that be for
good or whether it be for bad. Paul said to one, I'm the saver
of life unto life, and to others, I'm the saver of death unto death
when I preach the gospel. And there's not many people that
are saying, nah, I don't really... It doesn't affect me. I don't
care about it. It's no big deal. You can do
it. You can believe if you want.
But most of the time, people really have strong feelings about
it. And believers, to them, it's the power of God and salvation.
And to unbelievers, it's foolishness, as Paul wrote about the Greeks
and a stumbling block to the Jews. And mostly, they have rather
violent reactions to it. And so what happens, we want to look
today for a minute. This machine just froze up again
here. So we want to look for a minute
here at what happens in a believer when the Word of God is made
alive in them. Well, you could think of it as an intense
fire. It's an intense fire in them
there. It's a consuming fire. You know
Malachi, if we go back to Malachi chapter 3, it's called Refiner's
Fire. And the more grace is revealed
through the Word of God, the more the dross of works and self-righteousness
is purged away. And what remains is purely relying
totally on Christ for salvation. Let's read there in Malachi chapter
3, verse 1-3. Behold, I will send my messenger,
and he shall prepare the way before me. And we've looked at
that John the Baptist here in our book of Luke and in the New
Testament. And the Lord whom you seek shall
suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant
whom you delight in, Behold, he shall come, saith the Lord
of hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming, and who shall
stand when he appeareth? For he is like refiner's fire,
and like fuller's soap. and he shall sit as a refiner
and a purifier of silver, and he shall purify the sons of Levi
and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the
Lord an offering in righteousness." Well, what is that offering in
righteousness? It's the belief that Christ, the Lord, is our
righteousness, and that's what that means. So the more He purifies
us, the more He refines us, the more He takes away whatever dependence
we had on our own self and our own attempts at self-righteousness. And even after we're saved, it's
tempting to incorporate works into our belief that, well, we
need to do this, we need to do that. And you know, when we looked
at the previous chapters in Luke, He says, It's not a question
of the quantity or quality of the faith that you have. I will
take care of you. Solomon was never arrayed as
one of these flowers of the field. It's your father's good pleasure
to give you the kingdom and not based on how much faith you have
or how pure your faith is or how great it is. And you know,
when we have the Word revealed in us, it just creates a fire
in our soul and our heart that brings life to us. You know those
two, when we get into eventually, sometime when we get to Luke
Chapter 24, We see those two on the road to Emmaus, and perhaps
maybe some of you have experienced a time like this when the Lord
has opened the Scriptures to you and revealed something about
Himself to you. But those two on the road to
Emmaus give a good example of the effect of the truth of the
Gospel when it's revealed by the Lord. They said, They said
to one another, did not our heart burn within us as He opened the
Scriptures? And He talked with us by the
way. And He opened the Scriptures to them. That means he gave them
an understanding that they didn't have, like the Philip in the
Ethiopian eunuch that was on his way back from Jerusalem where
he'd been doing this useless worship. And he was reading from
that prophet Isaiah, and Philip was transported down there to
him and began at the same scripture and preached unto him Christ.
The same thing as we find here where the Lord opened to them
the Scriptures, and He said He expounded to them in all the
Scriptures the things concerning Himself. Boy, we have some good
examples of that today in this lesson. So you know the Holy
Spirit moved Jeremiah to record this intense response to the
Word of God in a believer. And if you turn over to Jeremiah
in your Bibles, in Jeremiah chapter 20, verse 9, by the Holy Spirit,
Jeremiah wrote, His Word was as a burning fire in my heart. And if you was to read the context
of that little section there in Jeremiah, you find that there
was a high priest there named Peshur, and he was a false priest,
and he was leading the people astray and causing all kinds
of mayhem and lying about the Lord. And Jeremiah, he was angry at that guy. And
he kind of felt like, I'm just not going to tell him about the
real God. I'm just going to, I'm keeping it in. But he said,
you know what? The word of the Lord was like
a fire in my heart. And he said, I tried to hold
it in, and I could not. He said, I couldn't. I couldn't
put up with this nonsense that this guy was spewing forth. I
had to say something. I had to come forth with the
truth of the Gospel. He said, I could not contain
it. I couldn't hold it in. I must
give it forth. And you know, we find that same
thing is true of believers in every age. They just can't go
back to that religious kind of nonsense. And further on in Jeremiah
in chapter 23, beginning in verse 28, We have the same thing where
you have the religious folks are spewing forth awful stuff. And it's referred to as a dream.
And boy, when you think about that a little bit, you think
about the religious folks of then and the religious folks
of today. We have a dream. Kumbaya. Peace everywhere. Global happiness. Global friendship in religion. We all just need to believe the
same thing as long as it's what I'm believing. Excuse me a second here. didn't need a Norton update. But they have a dream. They have
a dream about world religious unity, and universal salvation,
and God died for everyone, and free willism, and it's just up
to everyone to get on board with it. Jeremiah said, the prophet
that hath a dream, let him tell a dream. But he that hath my
word, let him speak my word faithfully. Jeremiah 23, 28. He says, what
is the chaff to the wheat? You have you have two very different
elements there you have this chaff the husk it's just useless
and in the old days they would harvest the wheat and they would
put it on the threshing floor and grind it a little bit and
the ripe husk would fall away and they would flip it up in
the air and the wind would just blow that husk away and the wind
and the heavier grains would fall back to the floor, and then
those pieces would be ground into a fine flour. But the chaff,
the husk part, it's blown away, it's good for nothing. The true Word is like the wheat
in its nourishing and its life-giving. But the chaff is like those false
prophets, those false preachers of Jeremiah 23, 25, and 26. I didn't read that part of it,
but you could read it if you wanted to back up a couple of
verses and read about them. They're good for nothing. They
lie and give people false hope and they're easily consumed,
that chaff is easily consumed by fire. Boy, not too many years
back we had the big wheat fire up there behind the hospital
up there by our place and boy it was a roaring big old It burns
hot and quick, and then it just puffs out. In Jeremiah 23, 25,
it says, And this is the Lord speaking through Jeremiah. He thinks that they don't hear
that, but the Lord says, I've heard what they say about me.
The prophecy lies in my name saying, I have dreamed, I have
dreamed. I have traditions of elders. I have what the good old boys
told me. If I was running the show, here's
how religion would be. And everybody would have the
opportunity, and they just need a little nudging. How long shall
this be in the heart of the prophets that prophecy lies? Yea, they are the prophets of
the deceit of their own heart." Boy, true words there. You know,
the heart is desperately wicked. Who can know it? And in an unregenerate
state, to be put in a position of declaring the gospel that
you know nothing about It can only go one way. You can't tell
about something. You don't have any idea of what
it is. You don't know anything about
it. They prophecy the deceit of their own heart. The prophet
that hath a dream, let him tell a dream. And he that hath my
word, let him speak my word faithfully. And that's what we're to do here.
We're to declare the word of God faithfully and not add anything
or leave anything out. What is the chaff to the wheat
sayeth the Lord and then in verse 29 he says is not my word as
a fire Sayeth the Lord is not my word as a fire It's not a
it's not a threatening thing. He says it's just what it is
what it is My word has two effects It's a fire. It's a consuming
fire in a negative way against those that don't believe and
those that reject me, but in the hearts of my believers, it's
a consuming fire. It's all their hope, all their
righteousness, all of their everything is bound up in the Word of God,
and it's a burning fire in their heart with what Jeremiah said.
He said, it burns in my heart. I can't keep it in. I have to
tell people about it. I have to announce it. Let's move back in time to Jeremiah
5.11, where he's running into this similar problem. They have belied the Lord. That
means they just tell lies about Him. They give a false impression
of who God is, what He is, His righteousness, His mercy, His
sovereignty. They have belied the Lord and
said it is not He. That's not God. My God would
never do that. Neither shall evil come upon
us. Neither shall we see forsworn or famine." Boy, there's that
element of it. Oh, Lord bless you and give peace. Well, that's not the peace that
he always talks about. It's peace that exists between
him and a believer because of the work of Christ on the cross,
because of his finished work. They belied the Lord and said,
it is not he, neither shall evil come upon us, neither shall we
see sword or famine, and the prophets shall become wind. The word is not in them, and
thus shall it be done unto them. And then, remember, this is kind
of a two-part soliloquy here. This is what Jeremiah was preaching
to those people. And then the Lord says to Jeremiah,
in verse 14, "'Thus saith the Lord, because you speak this
word against them, I will make my word in your mouth fire, and
this people would.'" So it goes from being a burning,
consuming fire in Jeremiah's heart that he can't contain himself,
that he has to preach the gospel, that he has to declare the truth
about God, the truth about who he is, the truth about his sovereignty
and election and his eternal love for his people. And on the
other hand, he says, when it goes out in this other way against
the unbelievers, it's going to be a consuming fire. And these
people are wood, and we all know what happens with wood. You know, I got my wife wood
for, and she set it all on fire when it was cold last week. It's
like she went all the time. Thus, this saith the Lord, because
you speak my word, I will make my word in your mouth fire, and
this people wood, a consuming fire to those against God. And
in Hebrews, Paul writes about this kind of the same thing in
Hebrews, and this consuming fire that's applied to them that reject
the Word of God. In Hebrews 12, 25, he says, not him that speaketh. For if
they escaped not who refused him that spake
on earth, much more shall not we escape if we turn away from
him that speaketh from heaven, whose voice then shook the earth."
And that word shook means to topple, to agitate, to destroy.
And here we have this dividing principle again brought to our
attention as we go through this. "...whose voice shook the earth,
who toppled it, who agitated it, destroyed it. But now He
hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake the earth, not the
earth only, but also heaven. And this word, yet once more, and I have this underlined and
highlighted, this Word signifies the removing of those things
that are shaken, those things that can be toppled, those things
that can be agitated, those things that can be destroyed. This Word
of God signifies the removing of those things. things that
are against God, as things that are made, that those things which
cannot be shaken, and that word means absolutely cannot be toppled,
agitated, destroyed, may remain. So you have these two things.
The Word of God is going to shake things and topple them and agitate
them and destroy with the intent of removal, signifying the removing
of those things that are shaken. And those things which cannot
be shaken, cannot absolutely be toppled, agitated, may remain.
So that Word of God has these two effects on folks. Wherefore,
we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved. And that again
means the opposite of shaken. We received a kingdom which cannot
be moved. Let us have grace. Let's give
praise to God. Let's have grace whereby we may
serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. We have an understanding
of who He is and what He is, and how He moves in His people
in accomplishing their redemption. And then He says in verse 29,
for our God is a consuming fire. To believers, the words of fire
are words of life and spirit. The word of God is, in Hebrews,
it says it's quick. If you go on down through chapter
12, we just read a little bit of chapter 12 there just now,
and ended in 29, but in verse 50 later on, he says, or in Hebrews
4.12 rather, it says, the word of God is quick. It's life-giving. a sharp, it's a divider. It divides
even to the soul and the spirit. And so let's kind of keep that
understanding of this. I am come to send fire on the
earth. Then as we move into verse 50
here, but I have a baptism. to be baptized
with. I'm come to send fire on the
earth, and what will I if it be already kindled?" And we've
seen that he alluded to some testament in the old scriptures
that talked about that. He says, but I have a baptism
to be baptized with. And how am I straight until it
be accomplished? Suppose ye that I am come to
give peace on earth? I tell you, nay, but rather division. So let's look at that a little
bit. So we have this same continuation
of the theme that's been running through the scripture there,
and this division. And he says, I have a baptism
to be baptized with. And if you look in some translations,
it has it, I have an immersion to be immersed with or in. And it speaks to the total imputation
of all the sins of all his people, the total suffering that he must
endure to satisfy the Father on their behalf. And later on in some other scriptures,
he talks to some of the disciples and says, we'll jump in there
and help you with that. And he says, you think you can
be baptized with the baptism that I'm going to be baptized
with? I don't think so. There's no way that you can be
the sacrifice that's going to be acceptable to God for the
sins of His people. It just can't be. You don't really know what you're
talking about there, He says. So if we remember back to a previous
lesson in Luke 9, He said, I have an immersion to be immersed with. In Luke 9.20, He said unto them,
Whom say ye that I am? And Peter answered and said,
The Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God. And He straightly
charged them and commanded them to tell no man that thing, saying,
The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected of the
elders and chief priests and scribes and be slain and raised
the third day. So when He says, I have an immersion
to be immersed in, we cannot comprehend the total meaning
of what He did in our behalf there and how He took all of
our sins and took them to the cross and nailed them there.
The handwriting of ordinances that was against us. was nailed
to the cross. And how He assumed all those
things for us and imputed to us His righteousness. And how
He had to pay the ultimate price to the Father in that period
of total separation from Him as He hanged there on that cross.
And there was darkness and lightning and thunder and storming. And,
my God, my God, why has Thou forsaken Me? And He says, the second half of chapter 12,
verse 50, and how I am straightened till it be accomplished. And
I kept looking at that and I thought, well, in some of my translations,
they translated, I was so distressed. How am I distressed and how am
I under stress till it be accomplished? Well, from his man standpoint,
there may be some, an element of truth to that, but I don't
really think that that's what it means with when we couple
it to the fact that I have an immersion to be immersed with. And I think that's the correct
way to view this scripture in religion. Oh, Jesus is worried
about suffering and death, and God has done all He can, and
He must leave it up to you, distressing that His suffering might not
be effectual, and that it's up to you to, I've done all I can. But in the broad context, the
Lord is bringing the gospel, and He's bringing it. It's like
a fire, and that gospel has two results. To one, it's life. To the other, it's death. And
the same gospel fire we read about in that Old Testament had
the same effects. Then, as it does now, those who
confess the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah, and those who reject
the Word of God, and some, as we mentioned earlier, in seeming
disinterest, and yet others in a more violent manner, The same
word for straightened is used in Acts chapter 18, verse 5. If you turn over there to Acts
chapter 18, verse 5, and Silas and Timotheus were come from
Macedonia, and it says, and Paul was pressed in the Spirit. and testified to the Jews that
Jesus was Christ. And it gives us the kind of the
context and idea that he was compelled and totally absorbed
by the Spirit to testify that Jesus was the Christ. He had
that, he was like Jeremiah, he said, I have this burning, and
he says, they really made me mad because they've got all this
idolatry and false religion and telling lies on God and everything.
Well, I'm just not going to tell them anything, but he was pressed
in the spirit to, to talk about the unknown God, to talk about
the real God, to talk about the sovereignty of God and how Christ
died for His people according to the Scriptures and was raised
again the third day. So again, the thought that Paul
was conveying by the Spirit was he was compelled and totally
absorbed to testify that Jesus was the Christ. And I think that's
what this word straightened. He says, and how straightened
I am until it be accomplished. He says, my face is set like
a flint to go to Jerusalem and accomplish this. Looking at that text in this
lesson then, it kind of gives us a sense that Jesus was totally
immersed, totally absorbed in the redemptive work of suffering
to the saving of the people given to Him by the Father. He absolutely was straightened. He absolutely was compelled.
to infuse His people with the fire of the gospel of His death
on their behalf, and being killed and then raised again the third
day for their justification. And it had had violence. You
know, I'm sure these disciples were saying, oh man, We're a
little worried this could get out of hand. You hear you are
flaunting this stuff in the face of those Pharisee guys that hate
us, and having dinner with them, and making them look like idiots,
and we're a little worried, but you know what? When he revealed
himself in them, they couldn't help but say that Jesus was the
Christ. So we have these two results,
the truth of the fiery gospel having two results. that we've
seen throughout the scriptures, and it causes severe division. He says it's going to cause the
father to be against the son, and the son against the father,
and the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the
mother, and the mother-in-law against the daughter-in-law.
It's just, there's just a sharp dividing there, and the only
thing that makes any difference at all is the Holy Spirit in
the new birth, putting them kind of all on the same page, as it
were. Until then, there's division.
And there's a strong division between the people that believe
in the false gospel and say, well, I did this, and I did that,
and I've kept all these from my youth, and on and on and on
and on. And the people that said, man, I'm an unworthy servant.
I'm just saved by grace, and there's no other way to say it.
I didn't do anything that was worthy of merit, and certainly
everything opposite of that. I did everything I could to prevent
that, but God overcame all of that. So as we look back in Jeremiah
23, what is the chaff to the wheat? Is not my word like a
fire, saith the Lord, like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces? And you know that you think about
that hammering of that rock is kind of like a metaphor for a
family unit or a religious family or religious worldwide organization. He says,
my word hammers on that like a rock and breaks it in pieces. And so this chaff, this false
religion, false preachers, is separated from the wheat and
good for nothing. You know, John the Baptist, he
mentions this in Matthew 3 and Luke chapter 3. We kind of went
through this a little bit back in our earlier studies in Luke. I'll read the, they're virtually
the same. I'll read the one from Matthew
here in Matthew 3.8, where John the Baptist, he's been approached
by these people that are supposed to be real religious. And he
calls them vipers, a bunch of vipers. Who has warned you to
flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth some evidence of
repentance." And so in verse 8, that's what he says, "...bring
forth therefore fruits, meat for repentance. And think not
to say within yourselves, we have Abraham to our father. For
I say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise up children
unto Abraham, and now also the axe, is laid to the root of the
trees. Therefore, every tree which bringeth
not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.
I indeed baptize you with water into repentance, but he that
cometh after me who is mightier than I, whose shoes I'm not even
worthy to bear, he shall baptize you with Holy Ghost and with
fire." So again, we have these two elements of fire here. The
Holy Ghost is going to come and baptize them with fire, and they're
going to have some understanding. Remember what Mike taught in
the Bible class in Acts chapter 2, that all those people heard
in their own languages the wonderful works of God. And they understood
that in the gospel sense there. He says, the Holy Ghost will
baptize you with fire and whose fan is in his hand and he will
thoroughly purge his floor and gather his wheat into the garner,
but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. So these
two, again, we have these two effects of the fire and the dividing
in the hammer that pounds on what's initially one solid rock
and breaks it into pieces and some of those pieces are just
rode there like gravel for the parking lot to be driven on. And others are saying, oh, that's
an agate. I don't think I'll put that in
my pocket and keep that. That metaphor for religion and
the family unit that's broken in pieces, the dividing is is
really illustrated in Hebrews, the 4th chapter. I love that
chapter because it talks about resting in Christ. That chapter really begins in
chapter 3, and he's talking about those that were in that exodus
out of Egypt. And the gospel fire was preached
unto them, and it has clear reference to those people in that Exodus
at the time of the writing. And to all generations, Exodus
chapter 13, verse 21 said, the Lord went before them by day
in a pillar of a cloud to lead them the way and by night in
a pillar of fire to give them light to go by day and night. And that is referenced in numbers
and quite a few places in the Old Testament. And he says, they
had the pillar of fire to tell them which way to go. And that
was just not physically, like here's the root. The pillar of
fire was to tell them about the work of Christ. It was a metaphor
for the gospel there. So when we get to Hebrews, Chapter
4, in verse 2, he says, For unto us was the gospel preached, and
we just read that from Exodus 13, the pillar of fire. to show them. For unto us was
the gospel preached as well as unto them, but the word preached
did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that
heard it." You know, you would think that after all the curses
that happened on the Egyptians, and the Passover, and the parting
of the Red Sea, and the killing off of the Pharaoh's army, and
the manna from heaven, and the water from the... all the things
that happened to them in the wilderness, Yet not being mixed
with faith, it's just like, oh, that was nice. But we're tired of the manna.
We don't have any. This water is kind of icky tasting. We don't like it. Let's build a golden calf. That's just the nature of man
without regeneration. For unto us was the gospel preached
as well as unto them, but the word preached did not profit
them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. The two
results. To the one, it did not profit
them, not being mixed with faith, and they entered not into his
rest because of unbelief. That's what the scripture says.
To the other, And not many of them could this
be applied to. He says, they all died in the
desert. They all died in the wilderness. Just a couple that
escaped this. But there was a couple. They ceased from their own works.
he that enters into my rest hath ceased from his own works, and
they are given total reliance on Christ for their salvation.
For we which have believed do enter into rest. As he said,
I have sworn in my wrath that they shall enter into my rest,
although the works were finished from the foundation of the world."
End of verse 7. And again, he limitheth a certain
day, saying, And David, today, after so long a time, as it is
said, Today, if you'll hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not have afterwards
spoken of another day. For there remaineth therefore
a rest to the people of God, for he that is entered into his
rest He also has ceased from his own works, as God did from
his. And so let us labor, therefore,
to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example
of unbelief. For the word of God is quick
and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing
even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit in the joints
and the marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of
the heart. What the fire of God's Word. The Gospel of God is a
consuming fire. May our hearts burn within us
when we read His Word, and He's pleased to open the Scriptures
to us, and expound in all the Scriptures the things concerning
Himself. End of our lesson today from
Luke 12, 49-53, Sending Fire. Be free, my friends.