Know Your Bible Lesson 51: Disturbing Revelations

The Roman Centurion

Jesus has finished His long sermon on a mountainside, and now He’s returning to His home base of Capernaum, a city that is located next to the Sea of Galilee. A huge crowd is following Him, no doubt hoping to get a glimpse of the famous Miracle Worker in action. As Jesus enters Capernaum, representatives of a Roman centurion hurry over to greet Him. A centurion was a Roman military officer who commanded a unit of 100 soldiers.

Normally the Jews despised pagan Romans, but this particular centurion has won the favor of certain Jewish elders with his unusual pro-Israel attitude. But he also understands that Jewish bigotry declares it is unlawful for Jews and non-Jews to mingle in public. So instead of approaching Jesus himself, the centurion sends some Jewish elders to go and entreat Jesus on his behalf. The centurion has a slave who he greatly cherishes, and the slave has become fatally ill. The centurion is hoping Jesus might be willing to heal his beloved slave, and he’s trying to approach Jesus in the most respectful way that he can.

The Jewish elders earnestly begged Jesus to help the centurion. “If anyone deserves Your help, he does,” they said, “for he loves the Jewish people and even built a synagogue for us.” (Lk. 7:4-5)

Jesus agrees to help and the elders start leading the way to the centurion’s house. Messengers rush ahead to let the commander know that Jesus is on His way. When he hears this, the centurion quickly dispatches some more of his friends to intercept Jesus again.

But just before they arrived at the house, the officer sent some friends to say, “Lord, don’t trouble Yourself by coming to my home, for I am not worthy of such an honor. I am not even worthy to come and meet You. Just say the word from where You are, and my servant will be healed. I know this because I am under the authority of my superior officers, and I have authority over my soldiers. I only need to say, ‘Go,’ and they go, or ‘Come,’ and they come. And if I say to my slaves, ‘Do this,’ they do it.”

When Jesus heard this, He was amazed. Turning to the crowd that was following Him, He said, “I tell you, I haven’t seen faith like this in all of Israel!” And when the officer’s friends returned to his house, they found the slave completely healed. (Lk. 7:6-10)

Always looking for opportunities to point out the spiritual rebellion of the Jews, Jesus drops the mother of all insults by declaring that this non-Jewish centurion has demonstrated more faith in Yahweh than all of Israel. In other words, Yahweh finds this Roman Gentile far more pleasing in His sight than all the Jews put together. Yikes. This is extremely insulting language, especially coming from a Guy who is supposed to be Yahweh’s big shot Prophet.

What Does It Mean To Be “Chosen” By God?

Today you often hear that the Jews were Yahweh’s chosen people. What does this mean exactly? It means they were given a ton of spiritual illumination or education about who God was and what He wanted from them.

Suppose representatives from a prestigious university traveled to a community of folks who were dirt poor to invite certain individuals from that poor community to attend their university free of charge. Those chosen individuals are being given a special privilege: a chance to gain an education that’s economically out of reach for their peers. This was what it was like for the Jews: they didn’t seek out a relationship with Yahweh; He came to them. He gifted them with a bunch of insights about who He was and what He wanted. If they’d been wise, they would have recognized the great privilege God was bestowing on them and made it their top priority to please Him. But instead they were foolish and they squandered their great opportunity.

Now suppose some of the folks from that poor neighborhood went to the university but they didn’t take their studies seriously. Instead, they partied and cheated and cut classes until they were eventually kicked out. What a waste that would be. This is what the Jews did: they blew off the fact that they had been chosen by Yahweh. Instead of making the most of the great spiritual opportunity that they had been given, they squandered it. Then they tried to redefine their “chosen” status to mean that they had some eternal guarantee that God would always give them special protection and abundant blessings. But no, that was never what being “chosen” meant to Yahweh. Being “chosen” by God always means being given a special opportunity to please Him–whether it be by carrying out specific assignments or responding well to some new spiritual insight. The problem with God choosing you like this is that once He does, you become more accountable than the fellow who wasn’t chosen. The greater your understanding of God is, the more obnoxious your defiance of Him becomes. Today the whole “chosen” situation has completely backfired on religious Jews who boast of having a special connection to Yahweh only to then embrace soul attitudes that He doesn’t like. If you’re not going to use spiritual wisdom well, you’re far better off to never receive any. The problem is that we humans don’t get to decide who God gives insights to. Once He tells your soul something, you become accountable to Him for how you respond to that information.

Because the Jews in the Bible had received so much spiritual education, we find Yahweh and Jesus being much more severe in how They respond to the rebellion of the Jews. Once you know better and you have the resources to make wise soul choices, you simply have no excuse for blowing God off.

In the Gospel books, Jesus goes out of His way to emphasize how obnoxious and shocking the spiritual rebellion of the Jews is. He does this because the Jews were without excuse to be treating Yahweh so rotten. Now remember: God is the only Judge who is able to judge accurately because He is the only One with a complete understanding of the situation. While it’s easy for us to assume Jesus is being unreasonable or that Yahweh is demanding the impossible, this is never the case. Our Gods are extremely gracious Beings, so when They express disgust towards certain souls, that disgust is always based on facts, not false assumptions.

Standing amid a crowd of Jews who have been watching how He handles the Roman centurion’s request, Jesus now exclaims:

“I tell you, I haven’t seen faith like this in all of Israel!” (Lk. 7:9)

And it’s to Israel’s great shame that this is true.

The Widow’s Son

We’re told it’s a short while later that Jesus travels to a city called Nain. Once again, He’s being followed by a large multitude of people. As He arrives in the city, a large funeral procession is heading out. A woman’s only son has died, and this was an especially devastating loss in a male-dominated society.

We’re told that Jesus has compassion on her and tells her not to cry. Then He touches the coffin, and the man inside sits up and starts talking. What a shock! A wave of reverential awe sweeps over the crowd as mother and son are reunited.

Great fear swept through the crowd, and they praised Yahweh, saying, “A mighty prophet has risen among us,” and “Yahweh has visited His people today.” And the news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the surrounding countryside. (Lk. 7:16-17)

God is always multitasking and clearly one of the goals of this miracle was to draw even more attention to Jesus throughout the land. Who isn’t going to be impressed with a Guy who can bring dead people back to life? Talk about ultimate power. It’s amazing how “devoted” people suddenly become when the miracles start happening.

A Discouraged Baptist

Now while Jesus has been busy with Self-promotion, John the Baptist is stuck in a jail cell getting very depressed. Nasty old Herod threw him into prison for calling Herod out on some of his glaring sins, one of which was Herod marrying his own brother’s wife. As soon as John was thrown in jail, his cousin Jesus fled to the north, making it exceptionally clear that He had no intention of using His supernatural powers to bail John out. That’s more than a little discouraging after John has spent his adulthood paving the way for Jesus’ public ministry. Now as he sits in jail feeling forgotten and depressed, John starts second guessing himself about, well, everything. What if Jesus isn’t really Yahweh’s Messiah after all? What if John promoted the wrong Guy? What if John’s whole ministry has been a crock?

Ever feel disillusioned when things suddenly go south in your efforts to serve God? One minute you feel certain of what He wants you to do, and the next minute everything seems like a muddled mess and you wonder if you took a wrong turn somewhere. This is how John is feeling, and he finally gets so desperate that he sends some of his disciples out to find Jesus and ask Him a rather embarrassing question.

John’s two disciples found Jesus and said to Him, “John the Baptist sent us to ask, ‘Are You the Messiah we’ve been expecting, or should we keep looking for someone else?’” (Lk. 7:20)

Have you ever felt the need to privately ask God, “Do You really exist or am I just delusional?” These kinds of questions are a natural part of the journey. God is wild, and He does a lot of things that leave us feeling confused, upset, and overwhelmed by doubt. Depending on how intense the crisis is, we can easily find ourselves doubting the most basic truths, including God’s reality. When these moments come, we often feel too ashamed to let anyone know how much we’re struggling. Yet there is no shame in asking questions. It’s through wrestling with doubts that faith grows stronger.

At that very time, Jesus cured many people of their diseases, illnesses, and evil spirits, and He restored sight to many who were blind. Then He told John’s disciples, “Go back to John and tell him what you have seen and heard—the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor. And tell him, ‘Blessed is the one who does not turn away because of Me.’” (Lk. 7:21-23)

It’s vital to remember the importance of cultural context here. Jesus is essentially saying “You should believe My claims because I’m performing miracles.” Today many false prophets, teachers, and healers make the same claim, and then they manufacture a bunch of convincing “evidence” that God’s miraculous power is flowing through them. So is this really a safe test to use? Should we automatically put our faith in anyone who wows us with supernatural feats? No, we should not. Demons can also perform miracles, and demon led humans can do a pretty convincing job of faking miracles. Instead of being impressed by actions, you should always ask God for His view of what’s happening in the privacy of your own soul.

Now John the Baptist is a Jew and Jewish culture has always been too impressed with miracles. By the time of the New Testament, Jews had become especially obsessed with signs and wonders, and they’d invented a bunch of absurd rules for which kinds of miracles should be considered hard-core proof that Yahweh was involved. Raising someone from the dead, for example, was considered to be the ultimate feat which only the magnificent Yahweh could pull off. Knowing this, Jesus intentionally works in a lot of resurrection miracles, as He just did recently with that widow’s son. Nothing says “I have Yahweh’s approval” to a Jewish audience like raising someone from the dead, because obviously Yahweh would never perform such a miracle through someone He didn’t like.

Now is it really true that God working miracles through someone is proof that He is pleased with them? No. This is another common misconception about God. The important point you need to grasp here is that God always works with people within the context of their own understanding. Cultural influence has a big impact on our spiritual beliefs, and even though many of those beliefs might be wrong, God will still use them to His advantage when working with us. In the Gospels, we find Jesus saying many things that are not meant to be held onto as universal truths. Unfortunately, Christians are taught to feel threatened by the idea of God intentionally misleading people about how things really work or straight up lying to them. Yet when we look to God to guide us in our interpretation of Scriptures, we’ll find that He has some very positive and helpful lessons to teach us in passages where He is telling obvious fibs.

After John’s disciples left, Jesus began talking about him to the crowds. “What kind of man did you go into the wilderness to see? Was he a weak reed, swayed by every breath of wind? Or were you expecting to see a man dressed in expensive clothes? No, people who wear beautiful clothes and live in luxury are found in palaces. Were you looking for a prophet? Yes, and he is more than a prophet. John is the man about whom it is written: ‘Look, I am sending My messenger ahead of You, and he will prepare Your way before You.’ [Mal. 3:1] I tell you, of all who have ever lived, none is greater than John. Yet even the least person in the Kingdom of Yahweh is greater than he is!”

When they heard this, all the people—even the tax collectors—agreed that Yahweh’s way was right, for they had been baptized by John. But the Pharisees and experts in religious law rejected God’s plan for them, for they had refused John’s baptism. (Lk. 7:24-30)

What’s so fun about the Old Testament passage that Jesus uses here is that He is not only misquoting it, He’s also misapplying it. Intentionally, of course. The original passage is Yahweh speaking to a bunch of super rebellious Jews who are whining their faces off and griping at Him because He’s raining hardships down on their defiant little heads. Yes, Yahweh is predicting that a Divine Being is going to be showing up on the heels of some kind of God-appointed messenger. But the Divine Being that He’s referring to is Himself, not Jesus. Here’s a portion of the original passage:

“See, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me. Then the Lord you seek will suddenly come to His Temple, the Messenger of the Covenant you desire—see, He is coming,” says Yahweh of Hosts. But who can endure the day of His coming? And who will be able to stand when He appears? For He will be like a refiner’s fire and like cleansing lye. He will be like a refiner and purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver. Then they will present offerings to Yahweh in righteousness. And the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will please Yahweh as in days of old and years gone by.” (Mal. 3:1-4)

Back in Lesson 41, we learned about some of the shenanigans that were going on in Malachi’s day. We also learned that Yahweh had a particular beef with the Levite priests who were so entirely failing in their God appointed role of being positive spiritual guides for the people. Sure, the bratty commoners were hauling their diseased, wheezing animals into Yahweh’s newly rebuilt Temple to “honor” Him by using His holy house as a dumping ground for their garbage livestock. But it was the priests who were accepting the outrageous “gifts” and presenting them to Yahweh as legitimate sacrifices. Naturally Yahweh took issue with His chosen people treating Him with such contempt, and it’s at the start of Malachi 2 that we find Him threatening to smear animal poop all over the faces of His twerpy priests. In Malachi 3, more threats are made against Jewish priests. Whenever Yahweh starts referring to Himself as a Refiner’s Fire–meaning the super heated fire pits that blacksmiths would use to liquefy solid metal–it’s not a comforting image. You really don’t want Yahweh blasting you with His super heated wrath, and that’s the kind of “refinement” Yahweh is talking about in Malachi 3.

Now just to make things ultra clear, Yahweh then goes on to clarify that the “return” He’s prophesying in Malachi 3 is going to be an angry one.

“I will come to you in judgment, and I will be ready to witness against sorcerers and adulterers; against those who swear falsely; against those who oppress the widow and the fatherless, and cheat the wage earner; and against those who deny justice to the foreigner. They do not fear Me,” says Yahweh of Hosts. (Mal. 3:5)

Don’t follow the really bad example of modern Christian teachers and the New Testament apostles by getting hung up on the specific behaviors that Yahweh mentions here. Focusing on behaviors will always lead you astray, until you start thinking that God automatically hates anyone who cheats, lies, or doesn’t spend their lives helping the poor. To stay on the right track, whenever you find God talking about Divine judgment, always look for references to soul attitudes, because that is what God is really responding to. At the end of the above passage, Yahweh clarifies why He’s so hacked off at certain people. It’s really not because of how they are treating other humans. Instead, it’s their rotten soul response to Him.

“They do not fear Me,” says Yahweh of Hosts.

In the Bible, the term fear is often used to refer to the soul attitude of reverence. This is appropriate, since reverence is a type of fear, but it’s also confusing, because today people are very poorly educated on the difference between reverence and other kinds of fear. God does not want us cowering in a corner afraid to have Him look in our direction. True reverence for God has a very positive effect on the soul.

Okay, so now we’ve learned that Malachi 3 is a passage in which a very angry Yahweh is warning a bunch of defiant brats that He is cooking up some well-deserved punishments for them which they are going to get hammered with very soon if they don’t shape up. What does that have to do with John the Baptist? Or the revelation of Christ? Nothing. Despite what you’ve been taught, many of the “Messianic prophecies” that Christians like to point out in the Old Testament aren’t really about Christ at all. But today Christians are as bad at checking context as the New Testament Jews were. Instead of asking God for guidance or checking the context of a quoted Old Testament passage for themselves, Jews in the New Testament simply believed that anyone who quoted Scriptures in a confident voice was 1) quoting them accurately and 2) applying them correctly. No one sounds more confident than Jesus, and what we find in the New Testament is Jesus intentionally imitating other Jewish Bible teachers of the day by making up a bunch of guff about the Old Testament.

Now I realize this idea is going to make a lot of you squirm uncomfortably, but remember that Jesus is God Almighty, not just another human. So give Him credit for being clever, because the Scripture games Jesus plays in the Gospel books are very clever. Misapplying Scriptures was a fantastic way to combat His adversaries: those pompous Sadducees and Pharisees who were so determined to discredit Him. By the time Jesus was done ripping one liners out of context and claiming He was being referred to in passages where He wasn’t being referred to at all, He swayed the undiscerning masses into believing that the Old Testament really was peppered with references to Him. By getting them to think that, He caused them to be more open to the idea that He really could be as unified with Yahweh as He claimed to be. It was a genius strategy, and one which the Jewish leaders couldn’t find a way to effectively counter.

To combat misapplications of Scripture effectively, you have to actually know the Scriptures yourself. The sad reality was that the much revered pastors of Jewish society didn’t know Scriptures well at all. This is why we find them standing around stumped and speechless when Jesus rips out some line from the Old Testament that has nothing to do with Him, and claims that it does. Instead of immediately countering Jesus by explaining what the original passage really meant, we find the big brains of the day staring at Him in angry silence, forced to admit defeat because they never really bothered to understand the Scriptures they’re always spouting. One of my favorite examples of this was when Jesus makes the ludicrous claim that David was actually recording a vision he was having of Yahweh talking to Jesus when he wrote Psalm 110:

The Lord said to my lord: “Sit at My right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.” (Ps. 110:1)

Today well-meaning Bible translations that still capitalize pronouns for God as a means of communicating respect actually go back and adjust the capitalization of this Old Testament verse to match Jesus’ claim that He is the second “lord” being referred to. But no, Jesus was just messing with people when He quoted this verse. David wasn’t having a vision of Jesus in Psalm 110, and being the dedicated monotheist that he was, he would have rejected the idea that there could be another God as magnificent as Yahweh. If Jewish pastors knew their Scriptures, they could have easily exposed Jesus’ ludicrous misapplication of this verse. But they didn’t know their Scriptures, so they just stood there, stewing, while the crowd was amazed by the idea that one of their favorite historical heroes, King David, referred to Jesus as his “Lord.”

Now to be clear: there are definitely passages in the Old Testament in which Yahweh drops major hints about Christ. But the oldest ones are spoken by the prophet Isaiah, who lived about 700 years before Christ. Today you’re taught that there are clear references to Christ popping up as early as Genesis. Not hardly.

So what’s the best way to respond to the fact that Jesus tells some ludicrous lies about the Old Testament in the Gospel books? You need to start by acknowledging what He’s doing. Don’t sit there reciting the absurd mantra that “God can’t lie” or you’ll end up with all kinds of wrong ideas. You’ll also end up a victim of Paul and the author of Hebrews: two Jewish Bible teachers who carry on the great tradition of the Pharisees by making the Old Testament say whatever they want in order to further their own shady agendas. In the New Testament epistles (and in the narrative sections of the Gospel books) we find Jewish writers putting forth some utterly absurd and sometimes very damaging “applications” of Old Testament passages. If you don’t bother to look up the original passages for yourself and ask God for guidance, you’ll make the colossal mistake of trusting the New Testament authors as safe spiritual guides.

Getting Back to John…

So now that we’ve taken a moment to appreciate Jesus’ deep game, let’s get back to His speech about John.

This language makes it clear that there are a lot of pro-John folks in Jesus’ current audience. Back in his baptizing days, John preached that a Messiah was coming, and he urged people to publicly declare their devotion to Yahweh through baptism. John played an important role in helping sincere Yahweh followers get ready for some surprising theological changes. Why did the Pharisees and experts in Yahweh’s Laws refuse to get baptized by John? Because they were already defying Yahweh in their souls. They were righteous in their own eyes and they had no use for sincere submission to God. Naturally if they didn’t want to follow Yahweh before Christ came, they really had no use for Him now that He was acting so wild by introducing Christ. The Pharisees are focused on turf wars. They want to control Jewish society by controlling Jewish religion, and Jesus is becoming a major thorn in their sides. The only reason they keep following Jesus around is to try to find some way that they can take Him down. We see the same pattern today. All someone has to do is start preaching God’s truth and hecklers will congregate around that person, looking for ways to try and publicly discredit them. Rebellion hates obedience and it wants to stomp it out.

Remember that as God, Jesus can see the soul attitudes of all the people He’s talking to. As He looks around at His current audience, He sees a few souls who care, but a whole lot of rebels who don’t. It’s now the rebels He addresses by saying:

“To what can I compare the people of this generation?” Jesus asked. “How can I describe them? They are like children playing a game in the public square. They complain to their friends, ‘We played wedding songs, and you didn’t dance, so we played funeral songs, and you didn’t weep.’

For John the Baptist didn’t spend his time eating bread or drinking wine, and you say, ‘He’s possessed by a demon.’ The Son of Man, on the other hand, feasts and drinks, and you say, ‘He’s a glutton and a drunkard, and a friend of tax collectors and other sinners!’ But wisdom is shown to be right by the lives of those who follow it.” (Lk. 7:31-35)

Here Jesus compares Himself with His cousin and makes the point that no matter how Yahweh approaches the Jews, they keep refusing to listen to Him. John was an odd loner who didn’t mingle and mix and they rejected him as being demon possessed. Jesus is mixing it up at people’s homes and being far more social than John, yet the Pharisees are accusing Him of hanging out with immoral lowlifes. In both cases, meaningless details are being used as excuses for why no one should have to take Yahweh’s messages seriously. It’s all just a game. No matter what method Yahweh uses to reach out to these people, they come up with some excuse for why they don’t have to listen to Him. We need to avoid falling into similar traps today.

Cursing Cities

Now we come to a very interesting passage. Jesus has been concentrating on one particular geographical region for quite some time. Instead of traveling far and wide, He’s been reaching out to the same crowds in the same cities over and over again. Certainly people are traveling long distances to see Him, but Jesus Himself keeps traveling to the same handful of cities to do His preaching. This means that there are certain cities which have received quite a generous dose of spiritual illumination. What happens when God gives us an extra helping of Divine teaching? We become more accountable to Him for how we respond to those insights. Hearing rumors about some Miracle Worker roaming around is one thing. Having Jesus show up and preach in your hometown is another.

Then Jesus began to denounce the cities where He had done so many of His miracles, because they hadn’t repented of their sins and turned to Yahweh.

“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you Bethsaida! For if the miracles I did in you had been done in wicked Tyre and Sidon, their people would have repented of their sins long ago, clothing themselves in burlap and throwing ashes on their heads to show their remorse. I tell you, Tyre and Sidon will be better off on judgment day than you.

And you people of Capernaum, will you be honored in Heaven? No, you will go down to the place of the dead! For if the miracles I did for you had been done in wicked Sodom, it would still be here today. I tell you, even Sodom will be better off on judgment day than you!” (Matt. 11:21-24)

Here Jesus is saying that the kinds of consequences we can expect in the next life are going to be directly linked to our soul choices. The more insights God gives you, the more opportunities you have to reject Him. The more times you reject Him, the more anguish you’ll be in when He dishes out His judgment of you in the next life.

What does all of this mean for Israelites who have received reams of direct illumination from Yahweh, yet they’ve spurned it? They’re going to be in for a much worse punishment in eternity than folks who were not given as much illumination. You see, being “chosen” by God is not just some pretty badge of honor that you can wave in the faces of others to make them feel left out and envious. When God “chooses” or “calls” someone, He directly interacts with them. It’s impossible to remain neutral once God interacts with your soul in any way. You will choose a response, and that response will either be positive or negative. You’ll then have to deal with the consequences of your decision.

The people in these three cities that Jesus has spent so much extra time with have all rejected Him. Even the people in His home base of Capernaum are responding terribly. But what about the huge multitudes who have been following Jesus about and looking oh so devoted to Him? It turns out the majority of them are rebels as well. They aren’t really interested in God—they’re just interested in His power. How can Jesus make their lives more comfortable? How many of their problems can He instantly fix? How much can He entertain them with His amazing feats? This is yet another disturbing truth that Jesus reveals: people can put on a very good act of being interested in God when they’re really not.

We now come to a real shocker. According to Jesus, God sometimes withholds illumination from those who He knows would respond well to it. Jesus makes this clear by saying:

“For if the miracles I did for you had been done in wicked Sodom, it would still be here today.” (Matt. 11:21-24)

Sodom was a city that Yahweh wiped off the map in a torrent of fire and brimstone because He was fed up with their rebellion.

Of course being an eternal God, Jesus was there at the time and also quite involved in Sodom’s destruction. And yet if Jesus and Yahweh knew that the wicked people of Sodom would have repented if they’d been wowed with some miraculous signs back in their day, why didn’t Jesus and Yahweh provide those signs? Well, why should They? To say that God was wrong to withhold miracles from Sodom is to assume that saving people ought to be God’s top priority and that He owes us a certain number of chances before He passes judgment. But, no, He really doesn’t.

There’s no way to predict how much patience God will have with any particular individual, but one thing is clear: the amounts vary. By now you’ve noticed that humans die at very different ages in this world. Or, to be more accurate, God is killing us all off at very different ages. He takes some of us as infants, some as children, some as young adults, some in midlife, some in the later years of life. How long God is going to wait before killing you is a question which only He knows the answer to. As far as you know, He could kill you off any time, and the moment He does, you will have to answer for how you responded to Him while you were in this world. This means that the popular mentality of “I’ll have plenty of time to get serious about God later on” is a dangerous gamble. No one knows how long they will live. No one knows when God will suddenly transfer their souls on to a whole other kind of existence.

The Sodomites gambled with God and lost. They rebelled so much for so long that God decided not to give them anymore chances. Even though He knew that He could persuade them with miracles, as He did with the people of Nineveh, He decided, “Why should I? I’ve given them enough chances as it is. I’m God, I don’t have to put up with this attitude.”

God owes us nothing. It is vital that we cherish the illumination He is giving us today, and not treat His convictions like trivial things. In this passage, Jesus reminds us of how real our option to choose is, and what a massive impact our choices will have on our futures. If the Sodomites had responded differently to Yahweh way back in Abraham’s day, Sodom would still be on the map. But they didn’t, so Sodom was obliterated. “Where would I be today if I had obeyed God?” isn’t a question you want to be stuck asking in your own next chapter.

Looking Ahead

As the word of Jesus’ miraculous powers spreads, the crowds around Him continue to grow. Traveling through the region of Galilee, Jesus is starting to gather a crowd of female followers around Him, some of whom are wealthy and voluntarily paying His way. This aggravates the Pharisees even more, and they are desperately looking for some way to take Jesus down, but every time they publicly rebuke Him, He answers with some zinger that makes them look stupid. Meanwhile, Jesus is busy preaching in parables—parables that endlessly confuse people. Even Jesus’ own disciples don’t understand what He’s talking about most of the time, and when they ask for clarification, Jesus is more than a little crisp with them. Then comes a time when they’re caught in a storm and Jesus demonstrates His control over the weather by instantly causing the storm to cease. That was certainly impressive. Then there are endless healings. More people are being raised from the dead, more demons are being cast out, more scary diseases are being instantly cured, and yet still the people in Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth reject Him. At last Jesus decides that it’s time to send His disciples out on their first mission trip without Him. This is big stuff, and Jesus’ pre-mission pep talk makes it clear that being chosen by God to be His messenger to the masses is no picnic. There are a lot of useful principles about serving God that we can learn from studying this speech, and we’ll start unpacking those principles in our next lesson.