Well, welcome to our continuing
Bible study in the book of Luke, and we're in chapter 19, and
we're beginning in verse 11 today, down through verse 27 in a parable,
one of the last few parables that we'll be looking at in this
gospel. And just by way of review, the last
time we were together, we were in that chapter about Jesus entering
and passing through Jericho and meeting with that divine appointment
with Zacchaeus. Appointment in Jericho, we call
that, and his dealings with Zacchaeus. And he says, today salvation
has come to thy house. What a wonderful blessing for
that hated publican there. one of the many publicans that
Jesus dealt with, and I think there's six separate times publicans
are mentioned in the book of Luke. And so, he's kind of departing
Jericho, and I was interested in looking at some archaeological
stuff in preparation for this, and there was actually two sections
of Jericho. There was a residential section
that were the old testament Jericho was. And then there was a new
municipal part of Jericho that was the part that was built by
the Hasmoneans and by Herod. The great had his palace there
and his son Archelaus would be there too. So And as Jesus passed through that,
they were about a mile and a half apart. The two areas were separated
by a little agricultural plot in the middle. So you would go
from the residential area to the municipal area, and then
that would be where the road departed to go to Jerusalem. And that's kind of where we find
ourself today. And by way of remembrance in
the close of our last lesson, in verse 9 and 10 of Luke chapter
19, Jesus said unto him, unto Zacchaeus, this day of salvation
come to this house for as much as He also is the Son of Abraham,
not just physically, but spiritually as well. For the Son of Man is
come to seek and to save that which is lost." Such an important
statement there, the purpose. And so many, and even today we
find the same thing is true. So many have this false notion
of what the purpose of God is, what the purpose of Christ is.
And they have these different ideas about why he was there
and what he would accomplish. And so he puts this stark reminder
there, the son of man is come to seek and to save that which
was lost. So important. Underline that,
highlight it or whatever, but so important. And so in today's
lesson, verse 11, and as they heard these things, he added,
and spake a parable because he was nigh to Jerusalem and because
they thought that the kingdom of God should immediately appear.
As the crow flies 14 miles, from Jericho to Jerusalem. And they say a person in good
health could walk that a long day if they were so inclined. And we'll look at that a little
bit later. But he spake this, he added and
spake a parable because He was nigh to Jerusalem, and because
they thought the kingdom of God should immediately appear. He
said, therefore, a certain nobleman went into a far country to receive
for himself a kingdom and to return. And he called his 10
servants and delivered them 10 pounds and said unto them, Occupy
till I come. That be the name of our message
today is a two-parter actually that I think we'll have. this
divided into two sections, but occupy till I come. But his citizens
hated him and sent a message after him saying, we will not
have this man to reign over us. And it came to pass that when
he was returned, having received the kingdom, he commanded these
servants to be called unto him, to whom he had given the money
that he might know how much every man had gained by trading, And
then came the first, saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained ten
pounds. And he said unto him, Well, thou
good servant, because thou hast been faithful unto very little,
have thou authority over ten cities. And the second came,
saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained five pounds. And he said
likewise to him, Be thou also over five cities. And another
came, saying, Lord, Here is thy pound, which I have kept laid
in a napkin. For I feared thee, because thou
art an austere man. Thou takest up, thou layest not
down, and reapest that thou didst not sow. And he said unto him,
Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant. Thou
knewest that I was an austere man, taking up that I laid not
down, and reaping that I did not sow. Wherefore then gavest
not thou my money into the bank, that at my coming I might have
required mine own with usury? And he said unto them that stood
by, Take from him the pound, and give it to him that hath
ten pounds. And they said unto him, Lord,
he hath 10 pounds. And he says, for I say unto you
that unto everyone which shall be given from him that hath not
even that which he hath shall be taken away from him. But those
my enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring
hither and slay them before me." Quite an interesting block of
scripture here, just so many fascinating things that we find
here, and endless commentaries about what the pound is worth,
and it's called minas in some of the translations, it's called
the ten minas, and on and on. So we'll try to get to the basics,
which is, the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that
which was lost. That's what this is all about.
It's not about a bunch of other stuff. So as we look at this, they heard these things. And
this parable, it says, he gets two reasons why he gave the parable. And as they heard these things,
he added, and spake a parable, because, one reason, they were
not in Jerusalem. And it doesn't say exactly where
they were on this road from Jericho to Jerusalem,
14 miles between the two cities, but it's like straight up. Jericho is 800 feet below sea
level. 800 feet below sea level and the
Mount of Olives the elevation of the Mount of Olives is 2642
feet so it's almost 3 quarters of a mile in change of elevation
in 14 miles now when we when we lived in Alaska the sea level
of Fairbanks where we lived was 435 feet and And it was 735 miles to the Bering
Sea. So we had about two feet of elevation
drop over that. And so by river miles, it's like
1,000 miles. Because the rivers, there's just
no drop in elevation. They just kind of wander all
over the place like a snake. But here, We have about 4,000
feet of change in elevation just going from Jericho up to the
Mount of Olives. That's a steep climb. I have
some pictures of it here I'll share in some graphic stuff here
in a minute. But that was one reason. They
were nigh to Jerusalem, 14 miles somewhere along that way, and
because they thought the kingdom of God should immediately appear. So we have these two reasons
and and it's important this he hit this word added He and as
they heard these things which was the Son of Man has come to
seek that which To seek and to save that which was locked he
added these two things and because They thought they were near to
Jerusalem, and they thought the kingdom of God should immediately
appear. It's so interesting that people have these notions about
Christ, and, oh, he's just a good moral teacher, and when he comes
back, all these things are going to happen. You know, soon, Norman
will be getting to Zechariah 14.4. It says, in that day, his
feet will be on the Mount of Olives. And he's 14 miles from
there. And this is not the first time
he came to Jerusalem, of course, but it's the last time. And so
he's added these two things. And his true purpose in his mission
to seek his lost sheep, when Zacchaeus being one of them,
which was lost, and He's not come to restore morality, fix
injustice, or political ideals. He was come to seek and to save
those whom the Father had given Him in the covenant of grace,
and to lay down His life, a ransom for them, thereby saving them
by the substitution of His own self there on the cross in their
behalf, to be their atonement. And that's on his mind. His face
is fixed like a flit going to Jerusalem. And he knows that
this is the time. He knows that this is the final
few steps. And that's what's on his heart.
That's what's on his mind. That's why it's so important
when we think. He looked up and he saw Zacchaeus and he called
him by name. He says, I know my sheep. He calleth them all by name.
I call them and they follow me. And Zacchaeus, can you imagine
the relief? I don't know if many of you remember
back to when the Lord revealed Himself to you in salvation,
what a relief it was, how wonderful it was. And for Zacchaeus, who
had no friends except other publicans and sinners, people were wouldn't
have anything to do with him. How wonderful it must have been
to have the Savior look up and call your name and say, today
salvation has come to your house. How great that is. So, one of
the reasons that we have this parable was that this truth was
entirely opposite of what the people and even the disciples
believed. They thought, he's just coming
to be our physical king, And he's going to throw off the Roman
yoke. And in Acts chapter 1, it's written,
when he appeared to them, will thou at this time restore the
kingdom unto Israel? That's what they thought even
after the resurrection. So their mind was in a different
place, and their idea of Christ was a different idea. And he's
trying to bring to them the true spiritual nature of everything. And I've come to seek and to
save that which was lost. And this stuff's all going away.
This stuff's all worthless. This stuff's no good. And so,
yet, just like today, they look at Jesus for so many wrong reasons. They have such a wrong impression
about Him and why He came and how He's doing things. And one
of the things that's nice about this lesson today, and we'll
look at it a little bit, is it kind of brings together so many
things about the manifold wisdom of God and His infinite grace
and His providence and His sovereignty and how He brings all things
together. to accomplish his purpose. And we find all the ones that
are connected here are according to his determinate counsel and
will. So he added, and spake a parable, because they thought the kingdom
of God should immediately appear. That's a very interesting word,
and when I was researching that a little bit, it turned out to
be kind of a nautical term. And when you're at sea, the earth
is curved, of course, and you can only see so far, but when
you come in, as you're coming over the horizon and you're coming
into a port, your port appears on the horizon, and you can finally
see it, and you can say, there's the lighthouse, there's home. And so that's kind of what that
word appear means. In Vine's expository dictionary,
it says it was probably an nautical term which has the meaning of
to come into view as sailors would view their port on the
horizon of view as they sailed in. And so they had left Jericho
at 800 feet below sea level, and they're going up this steep
ascent to end up in Jerusalem. And I have a kind of a graphic here. See that, Dominic? You probably can't read it because
it's backwards. But it shows Jericho down here and then this
is kind of the cutaway view of going up to Mount of Olives and
then down into Jerusalem. So you can kind of pass that around
if you want. I thought, you know the disciples,
they must have felt that same way as they're climbing up this
long hill and they get up to the top of the Mount of Olives
and you can see down into the Kidron Valley from there. You
can see down into Jerusalem and say, there's the goal here. And their mind was, Jesus is
going to go down in there and be king and throw off the Romans. So they must have felt kind of
that much the same way. And surely Jesus would make Himself
known as the Messiah, the King, and in their view, restore the
kingdom again to Israel. I have this picture of that road. the land of milk and honey. You know, they just didn't know
as yet that the Kingdom of God was among them, in the person
of Christ. even in them, as the Scripture
says, and he had a far different purpose of grace than they could
imagine. It was so much more than they
could even think or believe. And, you know, they would have,
as they got up to the top, of this road, they would have turned
off just a little bit and there's so many interesting things happened
on this road. This is the same road as where
the Good Samaritan found the one that was robbed. beat up
and left for dead. They would have turned off right
before you get to Jerusalem, going to Bethany where Lazarus
was raised from the dead. And Bethphagia is right adjacent
to that. And that's where we'll find the
triumphal entry starts out, where they left Befaghi on the colt
and went over the Mount of Olives and down into Jerusalem in the
triumphal entry. So many interesting things happen
on this road. And I have kind of a drone picture
of the Mount from the Mount of Olives looking down into the
Kidron Valley and then at the approach there to Jerusalem. If you have Google Earth on your
computers, it's interesting to look that over and just see. So in our book, in Luke chapter
10, verse 30, it gives us the report, Jesus answered and said,
a certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. It's interesting
that when He says, you went down to Jericho from Jerusalem, it's
like down. And when you're going up to Jerusalem,
the spiritual Jerusalem, it's like going up. There's a spiritual
application there. But a certain man went down from
Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among thieves, which stripped
him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed him, leaving
him half dead. Boy, what a picture of our Savior,
as He's the one that comes and takes care of all the issues.
And then He says, if he runs up any more bills, I take care
of it. I take care of it all. So now that we've kind of looked
at the two-fold purpose of the parable, and as we look at the
parable itself, and Jesus, as was usual, used a familiar physical
object or circumstance to illustrate and teach a spiritual truth.
And he did that all the time. familiar things and then tried
to deliver a spiritual application based on what was familiar or
known. And so here we have a physical
reality that they were all really familiar with. And some things
that we might want to remember and note is that when the Romans conquered this
part of Palestine, They, as they did in most places where they
conquered, they put sub rulers in there to kind of keep order
and to communicate with the people because the people were different
culture and they had different customs. And
the Romans, they just were interested in having control of the land. money from the people and peace,
and to have it be part of their empire. And this area was kind
of important because they had a war going on to the east of
there, and the Parthians, and they weren't doing well in that,
and the Parthians were kind of whomping on them. But they got
a lot of revenue from that area, and it was important because
that was how you got your stuff through that area to the front. So it was kind of an important
place. And so they had these sub-rulers, these under kings,
to maintain order and keep the peace among these diverse people
that they conquered and to make sure that their revenue flowed
to Rome to support their their armies and their mode of living. And the first king placed by
the Romans here was Herod the Great. Herod, and he was just
an evil man. He would have been the one that
slew all the babies, and he was the one that would try to set
up pagan worship in the temples.
And he died a horrible death, if you remember from your scripture.
And you know what was really interesting
was Herod was an Idumean. which is the Greek rendering
of Edom, Edomite. And we know what the Lord thought
of those Edomites. So the Romans set up this Edomite
over this area. He would have gone to Rome to
get the official approval of him being the king there, and
then he would have come came back and he established his palace
there in Jericho in what they call the municipal area of Jericho.
He built a palace, and he had a son named Archelaus. He had
several sons. Boy, those people, they were
evil, mean people. They slew all their relatives
that they didn't want to try and take over their kingship. And it was just terrible, terrible
rulers. And when Herod died, he had a
will that said, here's how I want my kingdom divided up among my
sons. And Archelaus was the one that
he wanted to have be in charge of this area of Judea that we're
looking at today in Jericho and Jerusalem. And also in Galilee. Now, he was the one that we mentioned
had constructed some elaborate gardens in municipal Jericho
and he actually had started kind of being kingy before his time
And started doing a lot of things that people didn't agree with
and the Jews took issue with and and Since he hadn't officially
been proclaimed king yet, and and he was a poor ruler and they
hated him and And there was a prior Passover, there were some Jews
that were protesting his tyranny, and he had 3,000 of them killed. 3,000, just took the army and
said, those guys are troublemaker, kill them all. And so then, He
had to go to Rome for his official establishment as king after his
father passed, and this period had gone by. And they hated him
so bad, they sent a delegation of Jews, their ambassadors, I
think the word they used was, to try and prevent Caesar from
proclaiming him king over them. So the Jews went to Rome and
they said, we will not have this man reign over us. He is evil
and we hate him. Ultimately, they didn't succeed
entirely, but they did convince Caesar that He wouldn't name
him actual king. He bestowed on him the title
of Ethnarch, which was the ruler over that province, the Tetrarch
being divided into four different areas. And he was Ethnarch over
his area that he was in charge of. And Ethnarch means ruler
over a part. And so he returned from Rome
and he did rule for about nine years But he was so awful and
he just caused so much trouble That the Romans deposed him and
banished him to Vienna. I think it was after nine years
and He was replaced by Herod Antipas And we know Herod Antipas
from his dealings with John the Baptist and Mary and his brother
wife Herodias, and so that all ties in. So Herod Antipas kind of got control
of that land, and plus he had Galilee and all that other section. And you remember, you will recall
back in further on in the gospel that Pilate, when he found out
that Jesus was from Galilee, he says, oh, that's Herod's.
Send him over to Herod and have him deal with it. Well, it's
the Herod Antipas that took over after Archelaus was banished. And so, just to kind of by way
of refresher, back in Matthew chapter 2, verse 19, when Herod,
Herod the Great was dead, Behold, an angel of the Lord appeared
in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, Arise, and take the young
child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel, for
they are dead, which sought the young child's life. And he arose,
and took the young child and his mother, and came into the
land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judea,
in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither,
Notwithstanding being warned of God in a dream, he turned
aside into the parts of Galilee, and he came and dwelt in a city
called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken
by the prophets, he shall be called a Nazarene." So you see
how this is all kind of coming together, and every step, every
molecule, every single thing is under the direct guide of
God Almighty. It's under His direct counsel
and will and determinate purpose. Everything is going according
as He has determined it would go. And so we have established
this link here by Him who works all things after the counsel
of His own will. He who was and is always the
King of kings and the Lord of lords and sets up the kings of
this world according to his purpose and pleasure, Daniel 4, the Most
High ruleth in the kingdom of men and giveth to whomever so
he will for his purpose. And so we see these things come
into play just according to his purpose, for of a truth against
thy holy child Jesus, whom thou has anointed, both Herod Antipas, the replacer of Archelaus, the
son of Herod the Great, Herod Antipas, and Pontius Pilate,
and the Gentiles, and the people of Israel were gathered together,
For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before
to be done." Boy, the infinite grace in everything is just astounding. And the more we dig into it,
the more we just find that he's working all things for good to
them that love God, who are the called according to his purpose.
And as Jesus is going up this steep ascent into Jerusalem,
all these things, all these places. He'd been at Jericho with Joshua
centuries before. Saved Rahab the harlot who was
in the lineage of when he would be born later on. All these things
come together. These rulers, these people that
conquered much of the known world, who got to be king and why. what
they did, how He took them in and used them for a bit and then
got rid of them and put in somebody else to do His will. All those
things come together. So, in this parable, He's using that parable that
Archelaus went to Rome to get established as a ruler and come
back and the people said, we'll not have this man to reign over
us. That's just a picture of the world. That's just a picture
of everybody's about Jesus. And he used that kind of example,
not that he was anything like Archelaus, he was the exact,
probably, divine opposite of an Archelaus type character,
but they won't have him to reign over them. And in this parable,
he has these different divisions of people that he's talking about.
He has his good servants that do his will, and he has the other
servants called a wicked servant, And then he has the citizens,
which hated him. So we have those three divisions
here that we're going to be looking at. But the similarities between
and with Archelaus is just a part of that which had been determined
from before the foundation of the world. The disciples thought
Jesus was just about to ascend his throne and begin ruling. He's going to go into Jerusalem
and he'll be the king. And the first order of business
would be to get rid of those pesky Romans. So it's kind of pictured in that
ascent up into Jerusalem from that pit that they were in down
in Jericho. And in reality, the kingdom of
God was with them. And he was, in truth, about to
depart this world for a time, having finished the work the
Father had given him to accomplish in the covenant of grace." The
approach to Jerusalem is nearly in view. The 10 pounds, Luke
9, 13. And so this parable kind of continues
for the instruction of the church, and it's similar in scope to
the parable of the sower in a lot of ways. There's certain classes of people
described here in this parable, just like there were in the parable
of the sower, we have the seed that fell on the good ground,
we have the seed that fell on the thorny ground, the stony
ground, the barren ground. And we know that parable really well. And so here we have just the
same kind of issues, but in a different setting really. He came to seek
and save that which was lost, that scripture that says because
he was nigh to Jerusalem, he was about to accomplish, he was
about to finish the work. by going to the cross. And this
certain nobleman that's in the parable, certainly it just pictures
the Lord God Almighty, and the scriptures say, in the fullness
of time, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the
law, to redeem them that were under the law. It says who He
was, how He came, and what His purpose was, all in that one
sentence there. He had the ten servants, and
he only talked about a couple of them, because it's just a
picture, it's just an allegory, it's just a representative. And
he doesn't say, well, servant number one did this, servant
number two did that, servant number three. He just said there
was ten servants, and he only talks about three of them, really,
so they're representative of what we find. and divided into
two subsets. And it's interesting that he
says the good servants, some of them gained 10 pounds. They took their pound. He had
10 pounds and he divided it among them, so they each got one. Picture
the gospel. We all get the same gospel. We don't get this gospel for
you and this gospel for you, or you get ten pounds of gospel
and you get none. So they all got the same thing. And that's what Paul said. I
gave you what I received. How Christ died for our sins
according to the Scripture. And so these servants, some had Good success, as we might term
it. But it was all according to God's
purpose and will. And that's hard for us as humans
to kind of wrap our minds around that because sometimes we don't
really get to measure. We may never know in this life
what the effect of the gospel has been that we've delivered
to others. On sermon audio, our messages have gone out over half
a million times they've been listened to. Who can tell what
that's going to bring? It may bring no fruit. It may
bring some, but we don't know. And to the one that gained 10
pounds, he said, Hallelujah, brother, good job. And to the
one that gained 5 pounds, he said, Hallelujah, brother, good
job. But to the one that says, well, I took your gospel and
I wrapped it up and hid it in a napkin so nothing happened
to it. He said, wicked servant. You
didn't do anything with it. What a picture of those Jews
down there in Jerusalem going about their business, doing their
religious duty every day and doing the sacrifices and all
the things they did. And he says, you know what? You
don't go in yourself, and those that would go in you hinder.
You're just a wicked servant. And so we have those classes,
and then we have the citizens who hated him. The people of the world, they
hated him, and we will not have this man to reign over us. So
we're going to stop there. And we'll pick this up next time
we get together, probably be a couple weeks. But just kind
of today was designed to be kind of an introductory to that thing. But always keep in mind, the
son of man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.
And that's the important thing. So occupy till I come is what
he said. So we'll stop there. And thank
you for your attention.