[0:00] We're going to read together now from the Bible, and if you have one to hand, and I'd encourage you to get hold of one if you can, hopefully you've given one if you didn't have one when you came in.
[0:12] We're turning to Luke, the Gospel of Luke, and to chapter 6. Luke and chapter 6, and if you've got, if you have one of those red church Bibles, that's page 1033.
[0:26] Page 1033, we've been going through the Gospel of Luke the last several months, and last week we looked at verses 12 to 16, and we're going to read from verse 12, just to give us a background, and then through to verse 26.
[0:47] So Luke and chapter 6, page 1033, verse 12. One of those days, Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God.
[1:03] When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose 12 of them, whom he also designated apostles. Simon, whom he named Peter, his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James, son of Elpheus, Simon, who was called the Zealot, Judas, son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.
[1:30] He went down with them and stood on a level place. A large crowd of his disciples was there, and a great number of people from all over Judea, from Jerusalem, and from the coastal region around Tyre and Sidon, who had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases.
[1:50] Those troubled by impure spirits were cured, and the people all tried to touch him, because power was coming from him and healing them all. Looking at his disciples, he said, blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
[2:08] Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and insult you, and reject your name as evil because of the Son of Man.
[2:28] Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets. But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort.
[2:47] Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.
[3:10] It's good to sing some oldies, isn't it? We do sing some new songs as well, but it's good to sing some oldies like that, that really, well, they speak from our hearts, don't they? Well, please would you have your Bibles open to Luke chapter 6, and that'll be a help to you, because we're going to look particularly at these words of Jesus in verses 20 and following.
[3:32] And again, if you've got one of the Red Church Bibles, that's page 1034. It's always good, if you can, have the Bible open. It helps you to see what it is that Jesus is saying, not what I'm saying necessarily, what Jesus is saying and understanding that.
[3:46] At the Museum of Modern Art in New York, we're having a display of the latest works, or of the works of Henry Matisse.
[3:58] And one of his paintings is called Le Bateau, which for you linguists, you know, means the boat. This is back a long way, back in the spring of 1961. And for 47 days, crowds of people came and viewed the painting of this sailboat, this wonderful reflection in the water beneath.
[4:16] That was until a lady by the name of Genevieve Haber, a Wall Street stockbroker, saw it. She immediately recognized that the picture was upside down.
[4:26] A simple mistake to make when you're looking at modern art, you might think. The museum guard, she alerted to the matter, was not exactly receptive.
[4:39] He said, you don't know what's up and what's down, and we don't know either. Anyway, eventually the painting was put the right way up. In Acts chapter 17, there are some Christians in Thessalonica who are arrested by a mob and dragged before the city officials.
[5:01] They're accused of turning the world upside down. The reality is that the message of the gospel, the message of Jesus Christ, the true truth, as it were, of who God is, turns the world right way up.
[5:22] This is what Jesus does here in Luke in chapter 6 with his first open air sermon that Luke records. He's been speaking and preaching in the synagogues, the places where the Jews would gather on the Sabbath day to hear, and he would teach, and he'd caught a lot of ructions there.
[5:39] They'd been thrown out of one of them at least. But now as he speaks to this massive crowd, there are his disciples and apostles, and then there are people who've come. We're told, we read there, from far and wide, even from beyond the boundaries of the country, from right down in the south, right up into the north, thousands probably of people gathering to hear and listen to Jesus.
[6:02] And here he speaks these words, words which are a corrective to our view, our view of ourselves, our view of the world, and our view of God particularly.
[6:15] You see, because of the effect of sin in the human heart and in the world, all of us naturally view the world upside down.
[6:27] That's why we see things happening around about us that really should never happen. Sin has the power to turn evil into good and good into evil.
[6:37] Sin has the power to turn wrong into right and right into wrong and false into truth and truth into false. That's what we see in our generation. That's what we see around about us every single day.
[6:53] And the problem is, the longer that we look at the world upside down, the more we get accustomed to it. The more we get accepting of it. Isn't that the case?
[7:03] The more we see violence, the more we hear of falsehood and deceit in the world around about us, the more we see of wickedness. Don't we find ourselves getting more accepting of it?
[7:16] More, even if we don't agree with it, we look at it and say, well, that's just the way it is. Things can never change. But in Jesus' words here in verses 20 to 26, Jesus opens our eyes to view a reality.
[7:33] A reality that we do not see, but a reality nonetheless that we must see and that we must grasp. In these two groups of four, Jesus reveals those who are the blessed and those who are the woeful.
[7:50] We do use the word woe, don't we? Say, oh, he's got many woes, don't they, when somebody's having a hard time? You know, he keeps telling me the tales of his woe or her woe.
[8:03] We know what it means. It means trouble, difficulty, hardship, distress. In our mind, these two are mixed up.
[8:13] You see, when we read this, what it should say is, woe are the poor, woe are the hungry, woe are those who weep, woe are those who are hated. And what we do think, when we look at the world, and as the world looks at itself, says, blessed are the rich, blessed are the well-fed, blessed are the happy who laugh, blessed are you when everyone speaks well of you.
[8:34] Do you see, it's completely counterintuitive, isn't it, to our view of the world, to our view of life. But Jesus says, this is the reality. This is the right way up.
[8:45] And the question is this, dear friends, are we willing to have our sight corrected? Are we willing to go to Christ, the spiritual optician, as it were, to give us a right view of ourselves, and of the world, and of God?
[9:04] Are we willing to acknowledge, this is one of the hardest things for all of us, to acknowledge that we have got it wrong, all this time, and that actually Jesus' way of viewing things is the right way?
[9:18] It's only as we submit to Jesus, who knows what is right, and tells us what is right, only as we submit to his authority, can we begin to see things the right way up.
[9:33] And as they really are. So I want to take these pairs, as it were, that Jesus has, the blessed and the woeful, and as they reflect upon one another.
[9:47] So I'm going to take the first pair, which I would say, blessed are the poor, woe to the rich, and so on, and then go through it in that way. And hopefully these, as we do so, we shall start to see something of the corrective that Jesus brings.
[10:03] So blessed are you who are poor, woe to you who are rich. Now Jesus does not mean, and we need to get this right, Jesus cannot mean and does not mean those who are materially poor.
[10:17] Material poverty is never a blessing. Sometimes it's good, as it were, perhaps to go without for a bit that we might appreciate, but Jesus is not saying, blessed are the people who are just poor.
[10:29] Blessed is everyone who's poor, because they're all going to heaven. All the poor are going to heaven. That's not what Jesus is saying. First of all, we need to recognize he's talking to his disciples, those who have trusted in him, those who are following him, those who have committed to him.
[10:43] So it's they who he's speaking to, particularly, especially. But Jesus is something else in mind when he speaks about being poor. You who are poor.
[10:55] What does he mean? Well, in the Bible, and we use it as well, poor means much more than simply going without. David, in Psalm 34, refers to himself when he says, this poor man called and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.
[11:14] He wasn't yet the king, but he certainly wasn't poor. He was still far from being in need. We speak of somebody, again, who's in trouble and difficulty.
[11:24] He might say, oh, the poor thing. They've just had a terrible time of it. They've lost their job. Oh, the poor man. Or she's just gone through a horrible marriage breakup.
[11:38] Oh, the poor woman. We think of that, don't we? We're not saying, oh, they've got no money, are we? We're saying they are people who are in real need, people who are going through times of great struggle, people in need of help, people in need of support.
[11:54] There's a pity that we have for them. And the disciple of Jesus Christ is someone who is poor. Matthew, in his Sermon on the Mount, uses similar language, poor in spirit.
[12:06] It means there's someone who knows that they are in need. They know that there's someone who sees themselves as in need of God, a savior, a rescuer, in need of God's grace, in need of God's mercy, in need of God's help.
[12:24] To be poor is to be someone who recognizes that in themselves they do not have what it takes to make them right with God. That's what every Christian knows and senses and realizes about themselves, that they are poor, that they're not righteous or good or perfect, but in fact they have sinned and in great need.
[12:50] But Jesus says to the rich, woe to you who are rich. Now, again, does that mean everybody who's got lots of money? No, it can't do. If you read the characters in the Bible, then many of them were financially rich.
[13:04] Abraham was probably the richest man in the whole of his neighborhood. And Job as well at one time. And King Solomon was richer than any man probably who ever lived.
[13:15] That's not what it means, again, clearly. But of course, people who are rich financially can often be very proud.
[13:27] Self-trusting. Prosperity can produce a sense of self-belief and a reliance upon self and a sense of, I don't need anyone else or anything else, especially not God.
[13:39] But anybody who has that attitude, whether they are financially cash-strapped or not, whether they are really doing well or not, a rich person is someone who thinks they have all that they need within themselves.
[13:55] I can face life. I can do it myself. I'm a self-made man. I can provide for my own family, my own needs. I don't need help, and especially I don't need help from God.
[14:09] In fact, really, if I was to think about it, if I ever did think about it, really, you know, God would actually want me to be in heaven with him because, you know, I'm one of them who really has made it for myself.
[14:23] I'm a good person and so on. But Jesus says, it's not the rich who are blessed, but the poor. Blessed are the poor.
[14:35] Why? For yours is the kingdom of God. The poor believer, the person who actually recognizes that they are in great need from God, who humbles themselves before God, who recognizes that they need the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, is a person who is far richer than they realize because yours is the kingdom of God.
[14:55] Everything that God rules over, everything that God possesses, everything that is God's is yours, dear Christian. Do you realize that? We don't realize that sometimes, do we?
[15:07] We are the richest people in the world because everything that belongs to God, he's given gladly to us. Why? Because we're his children. And he withholds no good thing from his children.
[15:20] In fact, Paul, as he writes to the Christians in Ephesus at the very start of his letter, says this, praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who's blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
[15:35] Christ. Right now, dear Christian, you have everything that is God's and it's yours. It's not just yours when you get to heaven.
[15:46] We'll get to enjoy it more there because we won't be limited by these physical bodies with their faults and failings. But it's already ours. God is not withholding from you any good thing, nor will he withhold from you any good thing because everything is yours.
[16:02] So you may feel and look at yourself and say, well, I'm not much. In fact, I'm nothing. You may even feel perhaps through your life, people have treated you as a nothing and you've come to believe that you're a nothing.
[16:21] But the reality is in Christ, you are an everything. Child of God, son of the king, inheritor of a kingdom that shall never fade or spoil, treasures, beyond compare.
[16:35] Blessed are the poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. But why does Jesus pity the rich person? Woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort.
[16:50] The tragedy is this, that the rich person, the person who thinks that they've got all that they need within themselves, the person who has self-belief and self-confidence, the person who makes this world their treasure and their goal has everything they're ever going to ever have.
[17:08] They've got it all already. And there's nothing more to come. This world is it. That Lamborghini is the best car you're ever going to drive.
[17:19] That five-bedroom house, which is detached with a sprinkle, is the best you're ever going to get. You're never going to get anything better than that. How dismally disappointing.
[17:29] The self-reliant person who views what they possess as the source of all of their joy can know nothing of the riches of heaven, nothing of the treasures of the kingdom of God, can know nothing of the love of God and the joy of sins forgiven and of life everlasting and eternal.
[17:52] That person's to be pitied. How do you feel when you watch the news and on the news there comes a couple in Staffordshire who've won 70 million pounds on the Neuro Lottery.
[18:07] Do you say, oh, I wish that was me. I don't. Honestly, 1 million would be nice. 70. But that's all they're going to have if they're not Christians.
[18:19] That's it. 70 million is a pitifully tiny, small, insignificant amount. It can only buy things that are passing and temporary.
[18:32] Things that can be stolen and wear out. Things that separate people from one another. It can't buy the love of God. The peace of Christ.
[18:43] The joy of heaven. It's a person who has all those things. Whoa. Whoa to you. If you're living for that, you've got nothing in the end of it.
[18:55] And nothing really that's worth having even in the midst of it. Then Jesus says, blessed are you who hunger now and grieve now.
[19:09] I'm going to put those two together and I'll explain why. But woe to you who are well fed and laughing. What does he mean?
[19:21] Again, I have to say this and it's so important to understand it. There is never, ever blessing in hunger. God does not will or wish that people should be physically hungry.
[19:33] And I would say, dear friends, it is a tragedy. It is one of the worst abominations of humanity that today in the 21st century there are people who will die of hunger around the world.
[19:45] And they will not die of hunger around the world because there is not enough food grown in the world. They will die of hunger around the world because of greed and power, selfishness, war, corruption, deceit.
[19:58] The blight of humanity. How can we say that we've evolved and advanced when we let children and people die of the most basic need?
[20:10] Hunger. That's not what Jesus is talking about here. He's not saying that everybody who's hungry will be satisfied. But he's talking again to the believer.
[20:22] There's a sort of hunger that afflicts every follower of Jesus. It's a hunger for God to be glorified. It's a yearning for people to acknowledge him as he truly is and love him.
[20:37] It's an ache within the heart of the believer that rises up whenever we see God being mocked or ridiculed. Or the name of Jesus being slandered and cheapened. When we see that gospel being spurned.
[20:48] There's something within the Christian that yearns for, longs for people to recognize and to see. That God is so good. You see it again and again in the Psalms.
[21:00] There's one place, Psalm 2074. Where the prayer, as it were, of the psalmist says, Rise up, O God, and defend your cause. Remember how fools mock you all day long.
[21:13] He's disturbed and upset within his spirit because men are mocking God. And men are ridiculing the people of God. There's a hunger within the Christian.
[21:25] What is it that every believer here wants more than anything else? Do they want a Lamborghini? No. Do they want a bigger house? No. No, they wouldn't mind one if it came along.
[21:36] What does every Christian want here? We want people to know the goodness and the greatness of God. We hunger and long for God to be praised. We long for him to be exalted.
[21:46] We long for him to be lifted up on people's lips and worshipped and adored. That's why when we gather together as Christians on a Sunday, whenever we can, it's a joy to us to hear the praises of Jesus, isn't it?
[21:57] And at times, dear friends, as Christians, as followers of Christ, such a hunger and such a longing causes us to weep.
[22:13] Causes us to weep aloud and to cry. It breaks our hearts when the God who has done all things for all people is not praised but is rejected and scorned.
[22:28] That's why I put those two together. I believe that they go together. In the hungering, Jesus puts, or Father Matthew in his gospel, and says, hunger and thirst for righteousness.
[22:40] God's right. What is right? What is just? What is pleasing to him? And that's what we long for. And when we don't see it, and when we see the opposite, it breaks our hearts.
[22:52] Yes, there's a wonderful joy to be had in following Christ. Please don't mistake me. To know Jesus is to know joy unspeakable. To know Jesus is to know delight, which is beyond explanation, which blows into a cocked hat anything else that the world can do.
[23:08] Whatever high it experiences through drugs or excitement or through adventure, all those things are nothing compared to just a moment of knowing that you're loved of God.
[23:19] But there are times as well, dear friends, when we see such wickedness in our own hearts, we see it in the lives of others, when we see that God is not honored and our hearts weep and break, and sometimes outwardly as well.
[23:36] We see the darkness of people's hearts. We see the emptiness of the world where God is denied. Do you not weep over your nation? Do we not weep over our neighbors and our family and our friends who do not know Christ?
[23:52] Don't we shed tears for them as we pray for them? Yes, we do. And if we don't ever shed tears for them, then have we too long looked at the world upside down?
[24:03] Too long accepted that that's just the norm, the way things will be? May the Lord help us be weeping people.
[24:13] But that compares to those who feel none of those things, those in verse 25, those who are well fed now and those who laugh now. What does that mean?
[24:24] Surely it's those who are content, those who find themselves filled with all that they can see and hear and touch and taste and feel, that they enjoy to be distracted with the comedy, they enjoy to laugh, especially at the things of God as well.
[24:39] Well, don't we find that more and more in the so-called humor and comedy of our day? They are full of what pleases their own pleasures, their own desires, their own lusts.
[24:50] They don't give any consideration to the God who gave them all these things, from whom all blessings flow. They're enjoying life. They're filling it with every possible thing they can.
[25:03] They are full of the world, full of its pleasures, full of its delights, full of its entertainments. And so they're laughing.
[25:16] But Jesus said, blessed are you who hunger and you who weep now. Not the full, not the content, not the laughing.
[25:28] Why? Because again, this world is not all that there is. Why? There's coming a day, dear friends, when the glory that belongs to God will be his.
[25:45] There's a day coming when the name of Jesus will be praised. And those who deny him shall bow before him and acknowledge him as Lord and King. Paul, in writing to the Philippians chapter 2, speaks of that day.
[25:59] At the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth. And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God.
[26:10] There is a day coming when this world will come to an end. It will be no more. There's a day coming when your life and mine in this world will be no more. And then there will just be God. And then whether we have acknowledged him or not, whether we have praised him or not, whether we have realized who he is or not, we will find ourselves on our knees before him and declaring, because we cannot help but acknowledge that Jesus is the Son of God.
[26:35] What we never saw, what we always mocked, we see now as the most serious and sobering reality. And the sad day that that will be for those who are well fed and who laugh, because then they will be empty and then they will be grieving.
[26:59] See, the day of Christ's return, the day when we meet with the living God, is going to be a mixed day. For the believer, it's going to be the day of unspeakable joy, unspeakable delight, when they see the one who is crucified for them, the one who died for them, such was his love, acknowledged and praised, and he welcomes and receives them into his glory and all the treasures of heaven.
[27:20] But for those who have rejected, those who have ignored, those who have just been content with what they've got and had no time for the things of God, it will be a day of sorrow, unspeakable sorrow, everlasting sorrow.
[27:35] Their hearts will ache for all eternity at the foolishness and the stupidity of not trusting Christ. Forgive me, friends, I can't help but weep.
[27:50] For some of you even here this morning, and many others that we both know, because Jesus' words are that they will go hungry and that they will weep and mourn.
[28:07] Yes, blessed are you if you hunger now. Blessed are you who weep now. Well to you who are content and full and laughing.
[28:21] There's one last thing here that Jesus brings to us in this couplet, and it's rejoicing. They're rejected compared to the popular.
[28:34] See, the disciple of Jesus is not going to be Mr. or Mrs. Popular. The disciple of Jesus walks in the footsteps that Jesus has trod, and those footsteps are footsteps of rejection, of being despised, of being mocked, of being put to death.
[28:54] To follow Christ must include suffering, because Jesus himself has made it so very plain. He said to his disciples when he had them together, just those 12 in the upper room in John 15, if the world hates you, keep in mind it hated me first.
[29:13] If you belong to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I've chosen you out of the world, and that's why the world hates you.
[29:24] Remember what I told you. A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they'll persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they'll obey yours also.
[29:36] They will treat you this way because of my name. And so Jesus says, blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and insult you, and reject your name as evil because of the Son of Man, because of him, because of Jesus.
[29:56] It's always been that way, says Jesus. Rejoice in that day, verse 23, and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven, for that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.
[30:07] The prophets were the servants of God throughout history, throughout time. And those who stood up for God and spoke his word to a wicked and perverse generation, to people who hated God, were always, always reviled.
[30:24] Think of Jeremiah, one of the greatest prophets of the amazingly long ministry. What did they do to Jeremiah? We were told just one place, chapter 37, the king, nor his attendants, nor the people of the land paid any attention to the words the Lord had spoken through Jeremiah the prophet.
[30:43] They ignored him. They did worse than that, we're told later in that chapter, we're told that they were angry with Jeremiah and had him beaten and imprisoned in the house of Jonathan, the secretary. Jeremiah was put into a vaulted cell in a dungeon where he remained a long time.
[30:57] Did worse than that later on, they put him down in an empty cistern, a pit, which had no water in it, but was filled with mud and he was up to his waist there for days upon days. It's always been that way, dear friends.
[31:12] There is no easy route of following Christ. Pilgrim's Progress, which Martin mentioned, is a wonderful book that talks about the ups and the downs, the struggles of following Christ.
[31:24] The genuine follower, the genuine believer in Jesus cannot help be out of step with the rest of the world. He cannot but live a life which is topsy-turvy to the rest of humanity.
[31:37] He does not compromise. He does not go along with all the innuendo and the falsehood and the deceit and the corruption and the taking of bribes. He cannot, because he is a follower of Jesus and he loves him, he has to walk his way.
[31:54] And therefore, dear friends, whenever you do that, you're going to come to loggerheads with everybody else who likes to bend the rules and who likes to take a backhander and who likes to mock and laugh and use innuendo and insult and so on.
[32:10] There's a little picture downstairs which 610, I think, or the Sunday school made and it's got a load of, go and look at it when you go down for a coffee. It's got a shoal of fish all swimming that way.
[32:22] It's got one fish swimming the other way. That's you and I, dear friends. Swimming against the tide. Swimming against the flow. But Jesus says, rejoice because you're blessed.
[32:39] You're blessed when you swim against the flow. You're blessed when you're different. You're blessed when you put Jesus first in your life and seek to follow and live for him. You're blessed when the driving force of your life is nothing else but doing the will of God who is good.
[32:58] Why? Well, we have it here. Two blessings, in fact. The first blessing is this. It's proof that we really are Christians. We really are followers of Jesus. We know how easily people use the name Christian, don't they?
[33:14] If they've been christened or they've been married in church or even just because they're English, they're the Church of England so they're Christian. We know how very different there is to being a Christian in name and Christian in life, Christian in reality.
[33:28] Christian in name means nothing at all. You might as well call yourself Hungarian for all I care. It doesn't make you Hungarian any more than calling yourself a Christian makes you Christian.
[33:42] Call yourself sausage. Call yourself anything you like. It doesn't make any difference. The name doesn't matter. It's what you are in reality. And if you're a Christian in reality, then you'll be disliked from time to time.
[33:59] Not all the time. People tend to put up with us and bear with us. But we're standing in the lineage, as it were. We're standing in the line of all those who truly were Christians, truly were followers of Christ, truly were believers in the living God.
[34:14] If you've ever been mocked or ridiculed or put down for Christ, then that's evidence you're his. Secondly, says Jesus here, and what a wonderful thing is, rejoice in that day, the day that you're mocked and ridiculed and people pull you apart or even, as we know, in many parts of this world are put to death and imprisoned for Christ.
[34:31] Rejoice in that day because great is your reward in heaven. Heaven will more than compensate all that we've lost. Heaven will more than compensate all that we've suffered in this world.
[34:44] All that we've gone without. All the sacrifices we've made, dear Christians, heaven, just a second in heaven, I believe, will compensate everything that we've been through.
[34:59] That's how great it will be. There's something worth living for and it's not here, it's to come. But how that stands in stark contrast, doesn't it, to the person there in verse 26, woe to you and everyone speaks well of you.
[35:17] A person whose whole life is built upon striving to be popular. That's all they've ever done, that's all they want to do. I want people to like me, I want people to accept me, I want people to be pleased with me, that's the whole motivation for my life.
[35:32] Now of course, none of us want to be difficult, none of us want to be disliked, none of us are to go out of our way and suddenly even there, there can be Christians who can do that.
[35:43] They go out of their way just to annoy people, be irksome with people and thinking somehow they're being persecuted for Christ's sake when actually they're being persecuted because they're just pains in the neck.
[35:54] That's not how it's meant to be, dear friends. We're told to live at peace with all men. We're told to be gentle and gracious in all our dealings with others.
[36:07] However, if nobody ever says a bad word against you, if people always say, oh, such a nice chap, or you never hear him saying anything contradictory, never hear her say anything against anybody, even when they're living in the most sinful and wicked and awful life, Jesus says, take warning.
[36:32] If when people come up to you and they speak to you terrible gossip about someone else and you just smile and say, yes, oh, that's, that's, and you won't speak up and you won't be willing to be unpopular because people will come and maybe even they'll speak about a Christian they've heard and not really realizing you're a Christian, not knowing you're a Christian and mock Christ or something like that or blaspheme his name and you never say anything or never move by, they're friends, that's a real warning.
[37:01] That's how their ancestors treated the false prophets. The false prophets were people who would come and lie. They would say to the king and everybody else, oh, what you're doing is great, God's with you.
[37:14] There's the sort of people who would stand up at the front of a whole nation and say, God will bless you because you're a good nation when they know very well there's wickedness and evil all around.
[37:26] They just wanted people to like them. And such a person is to be pitied, says Jesus. Pitied beyond pity. Because if we stand for and look for and long for the acceptance of all people, then we definitely do not want the acceptance of God.
[37:46] We're willing to reject God's acceptance of us and love for us because we'd rather have the love of people and the acceptance of the world. Such a person is to be pitied because they have no heavenly reward.
[37:59] They have no future. They have nothing to come. All that they have is what they have now. And that's it. Like those bold words stamped on the side of a crate, this way up.
[38:21] Jesus' words are plain for us all to see. whether we act on them or ignore them.
[38:37] The whole of life, death, and eternity hangs. Blessed or woe, which are you?
[38:50] Let's sing together our final hymn. It's going to come up on the screen behind me.
[39:03] It's looking for that day and to that day when Jesus comes again. And as it says in the hymn, for them, a cry of joy and a cry of anguish.
[39:15] Christ certainly is coming and we certainly must meet with him. So let's stand and sing Jesus is Lord, the cry that echoes through creation. Let's pray.
[39:54] This splendid flower eternal world around. The Son of God will give us more angels and heavens.
[40:12] Yet this has come to taste the living bread. Jesus is God whose voices raise the scars and burners.
[40:31] Yet in his wisdom, they'll serve his crown. Jesus, the man who washed our feet and bore our suffering, He came and cursed to bring salvation's blood.
[40:54] Jesus is God whose glory has been emptied.
[41:07] Not even death will crash his feet of love. The crisis may be changed on us and when forgiven.
[41:23] Jesus is God whose glory is the Lord. Jesus is God whose glory is the Lord.
[41:36] Jesus is God whose glory is the Lord. Jesus is God whose glory is the Lord.
[41:51] And every eye and every heart will see his glory. The judge of all will take his children home.
[42:07] Now to him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his presence in glory without fault and with great joy to the only God our Saviour.
[42:24] Be glory, majesty, power and authority through Jesus Christ our Lord before all ages, now and forevermore.
[42:34] Amen.