Our scripture reading is from the gospel of Luke chapter 22. I'd invite you to turn to Luke 22 will begin reading at verse 35 this morning
Luke 22 beginning at verse 35 the words of God Then Jesus asked them when I sent you out without purse bag or sandals. Did you lack anything? Nothing they insert he said to them But now if you have a purse take it and also a bag and if you don't have a sword sell your cloak and buy one It is written and he was numbered with the transgressors and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me Yes, what is written about the son about me is reaching its fulfillment the disciples said see Lord here are two swords That is enough he replied Verse 47 while he was still speaking a crowd came up and the man who was called Judas one of the twelve was leading them He approached Jesus to kiss him But Jesus asked him Judas are you betraying the son of man with a kiss When Jesus's followers saw what was going to happen they said Lord should we strike with our swords and one of them struck The servant of the high priest cutting off his right ear But Jesus answered no more of this and he touched the man's ear and healed him The grass withers and the flowers fade but the word of our Lord stands Forever let's return to Luke 22 the passage that we read with John just a few moments ago Those of you who are visiting with us this morning we welcome you we pray to The Lord will bless you through this worship We're in a study in the gospel according to Luke he'd been here for over two years We'll be here for a few more months. We've come to the near the end that we'll be here for a few more months It will help you If you don't have a Bible with you it'll help you to take one's on cue and open it Because of the nature and the passage before us In the words that are used and Some there's some bigity words used here and it will help you to have those before you We're in the at the end of Jesus with the disciples in that upper room where they'd kept the Passover and celebrated the The Lord's Supper Jesus is just told Peter that he will deny him and they're getting ready to leave the room The disciples as we've seen in the last few weeks is that he was going to be crucified Uh, that's where we are Let's pray and ask the Lord Jesus who was there then he's here this morning. Let's ask him to teach us. Let's pray
Our Father some people suppose That when someone stands behind this desk that the congregation hears His theology or his brilliance are His lack of brilliance are his Oratory ability or torque Our Father the Apostle Paul said That all true preaching from your word Was not a demonstration of a person's brilliance not a demonstration of a person's Oratorical ability he said that All true preaching and teaching was a demonstration of the power of the Holy Spirit Our Father the truth is I cannot speak so that we'll make any difference in anyone's life But Jesus can by the power of the Spirit and we pray that he'll open our ears to hear And open our eyes to see and he'll open our hearts to receive
Our Father that's the only way That we will be changed or that we'll continue to grow from the inside out in your grace Oh Father we cast ourselves upon you depending upon you in your strength In Jesus name for His glory Amen The choice between two swords
Animals use a variety of weapons in self-defense
Do you know why birds do not eat the milkweed maw Caterpillar Now it's a beautiful worm. It's a beautiful caterpillar You would think a bird would look at that caterpillar and said that's going to be the best meal I've ever eaten But a bird will not do that a bird will look at the milkweed maw caterpillar and said you know I once tasted Of that worm and they are the worst tasting worm on the face of the earth They will make me sick at my stomach. I will not eat a milkweed maw caterpillar That's a great defense in it Just you know he has the milkweed maw caterpillar has no natural enemies in the world Cause he's just too bad to eat. He's like liver and asparagus and things like that You know you just won't eat him
Then there's the hog-nazed snake The hog-naused snake for its defense system rolls over on his back And pretends to be dead. You're out of a snake doing that He really does and you see a picture and the snake is just lying there any you know what he does he even opens his mouth Like he's dead like a dead snake Now where do you learn to do that? I mean you know lying over on his back maybe but his mouth open pretending to be dead The chameleon you all we all know how That how the defense mechanism of chameleon that chameleon on a brown leaf turns brown On a green leaf turns green on a red leaf turns red becomes the color of his background You know a bulldog Can beat a skunk any day But it just isn't worth it That repulsive biting odor from a skunk that just goes everywhere the dog goes no These are strange defense systems aren't they In the passage before us Jesus gives the disciples of final lesson in self-defense Weapons that the disciples would use as they faced the hostility of the world
Let's These these verses are easy to pass over in reading the commentaries the last few weeks There was barely anything written in the commentaries after he talks to Peter about The fact that Peter will deny until they get to guess him that these verses just skip I could not find a sermon That dedicated just to these verses But these verses in the life of the early church We're some of the most important Teaching in the early church it made a difference in the history of the early church and kept them from making some terrible terrible mistakes So as Jesus spoke to disciples about self-defense what did he say First I want you to look at this passage and see a reigning Evil a ruling evil. Let's read with verse 35 Then Jesus asked him when I sent you without purse or bag or sandals Did you like anything nothing they answered he said to them But now if you have a purse take it and also a bag and if you don't have a sword sell your cloak and buy one It's written and he was numbered with the transgressors I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me I will be numbered with the transgressors the world will come against me. Yes What is written about me is reaching its fulfillment now skip down to verse 53 The last part of verse 53 This is speaking to evil and he says this is your hour when darkness reigns A reigning evil what did Jesus mean there in verse 35 when he said you know when I sent you out without purse Bag or sandals did you like anything if you go back to Luke chapter 9 we were there oh a year or so ago Maybe a year and a half ago if you go back to that passage Jesus was sending his in Luke 9 Jesus was sending his disciples out To to preach in the cities of Galilee in the towns of Galilee This was an intern trip it was all the job training for the disciples as ministers And at that time Jesus said to them to James and John and Matthew he said Don't take a bag Don't take a purse don't take a staff don't take any money don't take any bread He wanted them to learn to depend in their ministry On his strength and on his efficiency that he would supply their needs Well, he mentions that here in verse 35. He said John Peter remember when I told you Since you out on that trip and that preaching mission and I told you not to take anything with you He said well now it's not true here He said now You better take a bag you better get a purse and if you don't have a sword you better buy one They didn't mean that literally He was telling them that they were about to experience hostility on a level they had not known He was saying with Bob Dylan a hard reign is about to fall A reign of persecution like they had not seen They would see him crucified But that was not his only message here because you see he goes back and he mentions when he sent them out preaching He's alluding not only to his crucifixion He's alluding to the fact that they're going to go out into a hostile world and from that night on from that very evening on Their lives would be in constant danger of imprisonment and death They never knew a day after this that they weren't in that kind of danger Ten of these men whom he addressed that evening would be crucified would be martyr They would be killed by the world for their faith Evil was approaching in the darkness of that night Jesus was saying Evil will have its way tonight He was saying evil as he looked at his disciples He was saying evil will have its day in your lives as
Jesus saw Judas coming toward him
He said this is your hour. He was saying to Satan. This is your hour When darkness reigns
The last two thousand years of history Over and over again, we've seen darkness reign. We've seen evil reign There's been times in our own lives when we've seen evil reign today Ellie the cell is known as a winner of the new bill price He has been awarded some 75 honorary degrees He has won humanitarian awards from nations all over north and south america From europe and asia Almost 50 years ago Ali the cell was a 15-year-old prisoner in a not-seat death camp The first day arrived at camp. He saw his mother and baby sister led away To the gas chambers To the death rooms Later he would see his father die from starvation in exhaustion He wrote a book About his experience that awakened the conscience of the world He wrote about this death camps. It was appropriately entitled Simply a night a night darkness In the book he tells in one story he tells of a supply of arms that the SS have discovered a supply of weapons that the SS troops discovered in one of the camps And they found two men and a boy connected with those weapons and they interrogated those two men and just a very young boy They could get nothing from them even with torture So they sentenced these three to be hanged the cell tells the story And i'm just going to quote him One day when we came back from work we saw three gallows rearing up in the assembly place SS all around us machine guns trained the traditional ceremony Three victims in chains and one of them the little servant The sad-eyed boy The SS seemed more preoccupied more disturbed than usual to hang a young boy in front of thousands of spectators Was no light matter The head of the camp read the verdict all eyes were on the child He was lividly pale almost calm but biting his lips The gallows threw it shadow over him This time the executioner refused to serve three SS replaced him The three victims mounted together onto the chairs They're three next replaced at the same moment within the nooses Long live liberty cried to two adults but the child remained silent Where is God? Where is he? Someone behind me asked Total silence throughout the camp on the horizon the sun was setting Bear your heads Yield the head of the camp his voice was raucous We were weeping Cover your heads Then the march past began the two adults were no longer alive But the third route was still moving Being so light the child was still alive For more than a half hour he stayed there struggling between life and death dying and slow agony under our eyes We had to look him full in the face He was still alive when I passed in front of him Behind me I heard the same Man asking Where's God now? And I heard a voice within me answer him Where is he? Here he is hanging Here on this gallows
In quote What was the cell saying? He was saying evil God was dying Evil was raining Didn't like me reading that did you I didn't like reading it Read a lot of passages like that this week I left out some parts just because it was just too horrible to read But we need to hear that Much of the west suffers from an avatar about evil Much of our country goes about thinking that man is basically good and there are only small pockets of evil somewhere out there You know somehow evil is an aberration and in all the rest of the world is good They think we live in a modern world where evil is antique because of education and wealth Into the life of me. I can't understand While the world thinks like that the cell does not think that way I don't see how any educated person can think that way Think on these names linen Stalin Mao Zedong Adolf Hitler Idiomine Popeot all these men Combined were responsible for the deaths of over 100 million people And they all live not a thousand years ago not two thousand years ago not three hundred years ago They all live in the 20th century
They killed over a hundred million people
Arguing arguments are made even Bisexual writers that these men were demonic If we think we will not see men like these in the 21st century Bringing the darkness of the evil to nations and the continents then We don't understand the history of the world We're living in denial and neither do we understand the nature of man
Remember These were not Charles Manson figures That were somehow leading a little group of 15 people These men that I named had nations following them In agreement with their policies Of the evil People not only has its day in our world It has its day in our hearts Alexander Sozenese and really struggled with this. I mean he came to the good light. He saw the evil And he had a friend and he wrote about him and they grew up together and they went to war together and they were in foxholes together and they They were fast friends and his friend Join the secret service and his friend became someone who tortured people His his friend became a warden of the good light became an officer who tortured Christians like sozenets and
And sozenets and struggles to understand that he said how come he can do that And and how come I end up and you know sozenets became a champion of freedom The winner of the Nobel Prize
one of the most important men in the 20th century And he said and he really intellectually argued this and he said how can my friend do this and how can I become what I am And this is what he wrote Listen to it This is in the good light archipelago If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds And only if it were necessary to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them But that's not the case The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being And who was willing to destroy a piece of his own heart in quiet Sozenetsen looked inside of his own soul and heart And he said you know I have a heart like my friend and I could become The evil torture now the question that Jesus said before the disciples was How did how does a Christian respond to this Not only the evil out of the nations How does he fight the evil out in the nation now be careful here last after 9.11 We saw that there was such a thing as a just war that could be waged by nations against evil But Jesus was not speaking to the nations here with Jesus is speaking to the church He's saying what happens when the church what happens when the disciples face evil coming to kill them What do they do and how's the Christian even supposed to face the evil that's in his own soul how does he do battle there A reigning evil That brings us to the second point An ineffective sword look at verse 38 the disciples said see Lord here are two swords now The words we read is that's enough That's not What the great means and we'll look at it in a minute. It's not what Jesus really saying. He wasn't saying well two swords are enough Skip down to verse 49 then When Jesus followed where Saul was going to happen They said Lord should we strike with their swords and one of them struck the servant of the high priest cutting off his right ear But Jesus answered no more of this and he touched the man's ear and he healed him What was going on there and the disciples were still thinking we've seen it for the last several weeks The disciples still thinking Jesus is going to leave a rebellion. He's gonna take up the sword He's going to take the throne in Jerusalem. He's going to be a Messiah that reigns upon the earth. He's going to throw the Romans out And so in the building nation they would even surpass that of David and Solomon Well, they saw these men coming to take him and they said this is it This must be the time and they say Jesus shouldn't we strike where their swords
Now these were the two swords they mentioned earlier That's stopping them anything. How could they think your question is going to be the same How could this motley crew of former fishermen and the CPA or tax collector of farmers? How could they think That with Jesus That that there could be this marvelous victorious uprising and he would take the throne I'll tell you their logic was not ludicrous The religious and penic political leaders of the Sanhedrin had been right They were coming to arrest Jesus correct. Why did they come to the middle of the night? They were afraid of the crowds They said so themselves. They said you know if we go arrest in the temple there's going to be a what Jesus was the most popular man this rather the time He could have said a word in tens of thousands would have flocked To support an uprising by him The disciples understood that There was another reason the disciples thought they could do this thing They had seen Jesus make the blind to see the depth of here the paralyzed wall pips him raise the dead If he could take five loaves and two fish and feed 5,000 people he could take two swords and turn them into 50,000 in a moment
What did he talk them? What did he talk them? think Jesus had never given them a lesson in hand to hand combat He had never set up a gorilla camp and said here are the tactics about the leadership of a small band of gorillas He had not taught them military tactics What have his lessons been about for three years? Faith forgiveness holiness grace confession of sin loving your enemy prayer preaching The spiritual growth of the heart. That's what his lessons had been
However, they had gone in After three years being a faith and returns and confession They still thought he's going to take the sword and build a kingdom
You know Jesus looked at and he said That's not how the kingdom will be built That sword will not be effective. That's effective with nations If that God's ordained he's put the sword in the hand of the nation for the good of the people Such a thing is just war And we think the disciples should have understood Disciple should have known that the kingdom would come by faith and scripture and prayer
You know what we have no room to talk Look at the history of the church time after time when the church has been faced with evil the churches picked up the sword just as quickly As the nations have time after time the church has done that and as the church ever gone grown During those times now the churches gone in the great decline look at the crusades church wouldn't a great decline with the church picked up the sword Do you know what and we say here? Well, you know we're Evangelicals in this country and and we say you know the churches in no danger here of picking up the sword now We do it in a different way There's not one bit of difference between Peter picking up that sword and taking a whack at one of those men coming after Jesus Then Christians who Ignoring prayer and preaching and faith and the Holy Spirit say you know we need to be about we need about that We need power and the way people the church to get power today is go lobby congress The way to church to get power today is getting involved in the political process now We need to be involved in the political process We've prayed for years that a god would raise up a generation out of independent that would be strategically active in the political arena we need that god calls us to that, but that's not how it feels is kingdom That's not how the kingdom is built And yet so often that's where we run as a church we run And we use the methods of the world in over here are the weapons at Christ's gate prayer Preaching the gospel the power of only spirit spiritual power to change men's hearts Is that where we run to or back to which we run now? We come over here to this ineffective here. I'll take up the sword. Let's go to congress. Let's do this. Let's do that How can we get more people in here? We don't talk about prayer in preaching We get it down in our own lives take it down in our own lives as Christians How do we face every single Christian family in this place? We know the hostility of the world don't we? We face the hostility. How can we raise a godly family? How can we raise a Christian family in this society That's so full of sin and so full of evil and we feel the hostility of the world Let me tell you something we say well So I do this in my house. Well if I have a big enough house And if I can close my children and if I can send them to the right schools And if I can you know get them through college and I can do all these things well What happened to prayer? What happened to preaching? What happened to the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit? Do we care more about the presence of money in our home or the presence of the Holy Spirit in our home? Do we care more about the presence of the cross in our home or the presence? Of prestige You see I've got to admit in my home in most of our homes I think it's true when we want power Power to have a good family it lies in money it lies in education lies in knowing the right people and you know what none of these things are here It's prayer It's God's word We're just like Peter We're going to pick up the ineffective so we see a reigning evil An ineffective sword And thirdly and finally I want us to see an undefeatable power Come back. Let's look at verse 36 again and read from there and let's see what he was really saying he said to them But now if you have a purse take it and also a bag and if you don't have a sword say you're cloaking by one That's it's written And he was numbered with the transgressors. They're going to get me. I'm a transgressor. They're counting me with the transgressors And this is about to be fulfilled in me Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment This cycle said see Lord here are two swords. That's enough to reply. I love this. Remember I say to If you really want to understand scripture you can't put halos on these guys and you can't put Put wings on and you can't Have Jesus just going around saying these past platitudes. I mean we've seen him you satire ironing all this other thing And what he's telling them He's looking at him. He knows they don't get it and he said you know dangerous coming He said you better understand I'm not going to take the throne and reign rather it's going to be just the arms that evil is going to reign right now And he said it's going to take you know a person a bag and You're going to want to get a sword, but he didn't mean that He was saying evil's coming and you better be ready And so they responded they just they didn't see the figurative nature of it. They said fear two swords He what Jesus was saying Jesus looking at him and he said I've had it You know when you find out something to your children all afternoon long are all week long and they haven't gotten it And finally you just look at him and you say I can't believe this and you just walk away. That's what Jesus was saying He was there. It's An idiom that just said I give up You guys Aren't just plain stood back. I think he keeps saying that to us a lot
Give up and then a garden They look at Jesus and said now we got a sword. Can you just say them? You just see James's ballot and Peter got together to say you know, they're going to come get him now We better have some sores protected Peter pulls out his sword And cut off this guy's ear In Jesus look at the words there Jesus has a no more of this stop stop
He was saying I've had it with you guys. He even heals the man's ear
and he He says you know It's not in this gospel another gospel Luke didn't record but another gospel. He says you know Peter I could cut you squealing that so I could call 20,000 angels To come 20,000 20 legions 20,000 legions of angels This world is wiped out right then Put yourself in the disciples place Jesus was bound It's being roughly carried off. They had never seen that happen
In it fell on them. They're going to crucify They're going to kill him in that moment They thought it was over. They thought Jesus had given up. Is that what he had done? Had he given up
You seem carried off He's bound Had he given up Jesus was going into the greatest battle that would be fought in the history of mankind He was going into a war that they couldn't even begin to imagine He went to the greatest battle go to the cross and he took that cross and he slew that He went to the cross and he took our sins our sins and our guilt were laid up on him Just as the prophet said they would be He was crushed just as I say I said he would be he was pierced just as By the judgment of God for our sins. He went to the grave taking our hell And then the father raised him up On the third day and what had happened Sin and death and hell had been defeated That was the battle And it could not be fought with a sword and it couldn't be fought with money and it couldn't be fought with position and prestige Ask yourself what would you have done if you had been Jesus with the power that you had you know He could have healed everyone. There was on earth. He could have healed Everyone of every disease But eventually Everyone would have died and then they would have stood before God in judgment He could have given health and wealth to every man alive He could have given every man alive Five million dollars. He could have done it. He had it. He could have done it Every man would have been wealthy But the world would still have been filled with selfishness and jealousy and greed and drive for power and thievery and murder and lust and adultery and revenge and hate and prejudice And intergeneration they would have been the same poverty and cruelty that had been there before
Jesus could have called the legions of hundreds of thousands He could have defeated Rome and set up an earthly kingdom But men would have still died and faced judgment At Calvary the Messiah fought the only battle That mattered the battle to free us and to free our hearts From sin and from evil and from the judgment of God and he took that cross and slew death himself Those were the weapons and that's what he was saying. What did he say to his disciples Just as he says to the national government use the sword protect the people fight at just war when it's necessary He says to the church He said to the disciples go into all the world and preach the gospel go and hold the cross not the soulhood And those are your weapons the weapons of faith And the weapons of confession of sin and forgiveness of sins and loving your enemy And the power of God's word and the Holy Spirit About 80 years ago in a village in northern Syria A bloody game became a Christian This was an Islamic country Christianity was outlawed and immediately persecution began against a view His father-in-law took his new wife from him The villagers came and tore down his house He was beaten he was ostracized he wouldn't give up his faith Then he was taken by a mob outside the village. He was tied to a state Wood was stacked up if you always put on it They were about to burn anything And they asked him they didn't know them all the hit they had known him all of his life he knew them they They tried to get him weekend warmer town. He wouldn't and they said is there something you'd like to say And he said I want to pray and he began to pray And he prayed For his father-in-law He prayed by name for the people that tore down his house and he prayed prayed by name for all the people standing around him Who were about to burn him and he asked God to forgive him. You know, he was a new Christian He didn't know the Bible that well Where did he learn that? Where did he learn not to curse them? Where did he learn not to swing and fight? What did he learn? He learned it from Jesus because he heard Jesus on the cross They father-forgive a bit because he didn't know what he's doing forget the soldiers who cruised the he heard that Those are the weapons They fought with the weapons of across these are the weapons that we're in
Man said down killed 46 million people when he came to power He said I'll destroy the church. I'll wipe out the church There'll be no Bible left in China. There'll be no missionary left in China. There'll be no Christian left in China When Mayo came to power there are 50,000 Christians When Mayo died, do you know how many Christians there were in his China? atheistic China that he had ruled with treachery and torture for all of his There were 50 million Christians. They didn't do that with the sword They did that with this. They did with this. This was the gospel They did this by praying for the enemies. They did this by being like a baby Oh by the way when the baby said he meant his prayer He looked up and there wasn't anybody like to fire that all left
Then always worked that way He lived But sometimes you get burned Sometimes Christians get burned this very day all over the world Some Christians will die for their faith And you know what? God will use that To fertilize the ground In the culture that will grow more
You know What did Jesus tell the disciples when he left? He said Go to Jerusalem and wait Go to Jerusalem and wait go back to the upper room and you wait there Don't you dare go out and preach the gospel not until the Holy Spirit comes not until God's power comes up on you and there was Some weeks later God's power God's spiritual power fell upon that upper room And Peter picked up another sword a different sword and he went out and preached in the very city to the very people who had crucified Jesus And three thousand people were converted that day Peter learned to wield