Father Stephen De Young:

Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come,

So we’ve got the Pharisees popping up again. And so they ask him, “when is the kingdom of God going to come?” Now, that may sound like just sort of a question of curiosity. We know that the Jewish people, particularly the Pharisees, this is their hope, right? This is their hope for salvation. As St. Luke is going to put it later in his Gospel, God is going to restore the kingdom to Israel. They’re going to have a kingdom, they’re going to get rid of the Romans, they’re going to have their own kingdom again. They’re going to be ruled by a king descended from King David, the Messiah. He’s going to come and establish God’s kingdom on earth. There’s going to be justice, we’re going to get rid of all these Gentiles, then everything will be wonderful.

And so, especially since, as we’ve already seen, there are people talking about Jesus being the Messiah, you think, “Oh, that’s a logical question then, right? When is the kingdom of God going to come?” And we also talked about when we were reading the Book of Daniel, Daniel had… they had done the math, Daniel had said roughly how many years it was going to be before the Messiah came. And it puts you sort of smack in the middle of the first century.

This is part of why, as we’ve said before, there were a whole bunch of people showing up throughout the first century claiming to be the Messiah, who ended up getting executed by the Romans. It’s because they’d done the math and the prophecies, the whole Hal Lindsay thing, picking a date that’s not new, that started all the way back then. Try to read the Bible and figure out exactly when.

So, you say, “Well, they’re just curious, right? This is a discussion people are having, when is this going to happen? Maybe Jesus is a teacher, maybe he’s the Messiah.” But it’s not quite so innocent when you think about the fact that once again, what they’re expecting the Messiah to do, is come and overthrow the Romans. He’s going to come and he’s going to raise an army. He’s going overthrow the Romans and set himself up as king.

So, if Jesus had answered them and said, “Oh, soon I’m on my way to Jerusalem to do just that”, where do you think they would have gone? Do you think they would have said, “Oh, great, we’re on board for that, we don’t like the Romans?” Or do you think they would have gone running to Pilate and said, hey, guess what? We got this guy Jesus saying he’s on his way to Jerusalem to overthrow the Roman government. So make no mistake, this is the Pharisees setting a trap, because we’ve already seen they don’t believe he’s a messiah. They don’t even believe he’s a good man or a qualified teacher. So, they’re trying to get something on him they can use as we’re going to see as we go forward, but this is already starting now.

He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.”

And the way this has it translated is “for indeed the kingdom of God is within you.” And it’s not the best translation of that phrase, but so first thing he says is, the kingdom of God doesn’t come with observation. Like, we’re going to sit here and we’re going to read the news. They didn’t have newspapers, but read the newspaper, look for… read the signs of the times. Right? Jack van Impe, go through the news of the stories of the week to tell us how close we are to Jesus returning.

That’s not how it works. That’s not how it works. Then he says what? He says the kingdom of God is, and more literally says in the Greek is “the kingdom of God is among you”, or “the kingdom of God is in the midst of you,” referring to what? Himself. Right.

And what are we talking about when we’re talking about the kingdom of God? Part of the problem with the English word “kingdom” is it’s a noun, we think of it as a thing. You think of a kingdom, you think of what? A castle? You think of Camelot or the castle at Disneyland or the magic kingdom? So we tend to think of it in terms of like, the kingdom of God is going to come like this castle is going to come out of the sky and land on the ground. Sort of a weird variation of the New Jerusalem at the end of Revelation.

But that’s not what we’re talking about. The word here that’s translated as “kingdom” might be better translated as “reign” or “rule” or “dominion”. When Jesus says all authority in heaven and on Earth has been given to me, this is what he’s talking about, that he is now the king of this kingdom. And so, when Christ is talking about the kingdom of God coming, he’s not talking about establishing a monarchy in Israel, in Palestine, that he’s going to rule over. He’s talking about God’s reign, God’s rule being established on Earth. And you say, “Well doesn’t God rule everything, already?”

Well, as we’ve seen, and we’ll continue to see reading the Gospels as we read back in Genesis 3, there’s a usurper who’s become involved. There’s someone who’s you serve control through human sin, through human wickedness, right? There’s someone else. In the Gospel of John, he’s referred to as the prince of this world. We saw Jesus last time talking about the strong man who’s taken possession of what belongs to God. And so that person needs to be cast out. This is what we pray in the Lord’s Prayer. “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Heaven is not another place. Heaven is the invisible creation. So God’s rule is already established in heaven. We’re looking forward to that day when heaven and earth become one and God’s rule is extended over the earth. And that means God’s justice will be reflected not only in heaven, where Satan has already been cast out, but on earth when he’s thrown into the lake of fire.

So, this is what we’re talking about when Jesus talks about the kingdom. And so when he says the kingdom of God is among you or the kingdom of God is in the midst of you, he’s saying this is already happening. What Jesus is doing is establishing God’s, reigning God’s dominion. That’s why after his resurrection, he says, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” Because in his death and resurrection, he defeats Satan, defeats the power of evil. He defeats sin, he defeats death, and frees us.

So, he’s trying by his answer, number one, he eludes their little trap of trying to get him for treason against Rome. But he’s also trying to reorient their thinking of what it means for God’s rule to come and be established on earth. That doesn’t mean politics, right? That doesn’t mean a political… I know we celebrate St. Constantine today, but that didn’t mean the emperor becoming a Christian. That’s not the kingdom of God being established on earth. And the hymns, especially the ones of Vespers last night, were actually very clear about that, repeatedly talked about how Jesus is the king of kings and the Lord of lords and how he did great things through Constantine, his servant. They made very clear who the real king and who the real emperor of the world is, and it is Christ.

But so this is what he’s getting at. This is his response to the Pharisees, which, of course, they probably just walked away saying, “Dang it, he got out of it again.” But if they’d actually listened, they could have begun to understand who Jesus was, that Jesus was the Messiah, just they were looking for the wrong kind of Messiah. They were looking for the wrong thing. And what it means, what the kingdom of God really means. And it was something far bigger and far greater than what they were looking for, because what good does having a king on a throne in Jerusalem do you when you’re dead, when you die in your sins? Not a whole lot, right? You pay him taxes instead of paying Caesar taxes, six of one, half a dozen of the other.

So Jesus is trying to tell you that not only are they wrong, but the reality of who God is, who Christ is, what the kingdom is, is far greater than the little things that they are so concerned about. As we’ve seen before, Jesus will interact with the Pharisees and then he’ll talk to his disciples. Because even though the disciples aren’t really getting much of this, they’re at least listening quietly, as opposed to the Pharisees, who don’t even want to hear it. So:

Then He said to the disciples, “The days will come when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it”.

What is that, “One of the days of the Son of Man?” One of the days while Jesus was alive. What he’s saying to them is, the day is going to come when I’m gone, when you’re going to wish you were back to today. Meaning things are going to get worse in your lifetime before they get better.

And they will say to you, ‘Look here!’ or ‘Look there!’

What does that mean? Well, what did Jesus just say? We have to take it in context, remember? So the kingdom of God does not come with observation, nor will they say, see here or see there. So he’s saying they’re not going to get what I just told them, right? When things get bad, when things get bad, once I’m gone, there are going to be all these people saying, “look here, look there”. “Oh, this guy’s the Messiah. This is the guy who’s going to lead us to defeat the Romans.” “No, this guy.” “No, this guy.” “No, Bar Kokhba.” Because they’re going to think they have it figured out. He says,

Do not go after them or follow them.

You know better, why? Because Christ Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Messiah. Don’t get involved. This is going to start, of course, in the 60s AD. In the early 60s the way this played out was a lovely fellow named Caligula. Sorry, the 40s, it starts actually back in the 40s, Caligula was the Roman emperor. Caligula, without going into the gross details, was one of the most horrific human beings that’s ever lived. He was probably mentally ill by our modern standards.

He was the first of the Roman emperors to go around calling himself a god while he was still alive. They mostly waited until they were dead and said the previous one was a god. You know, now that he was dead, he went up into the heavens and became a god. He would go and stand and bang on an anvil when there was a thunderstorm and claim he was communicating with Zeus. He made his horse a senator at one point. He went around sleeping with the wives of Roman senators. He went around sleeping with Roman senators. Completely debauched, had all these illegitimate children would show up at public events dressed as a woman, just completely bizarre, completely bizarre behavior from top to bottom.

Eventually, he would have to give a password for the day to his guards, to his private guard, and it was always profanity or crude sexual references, just all this kind of thing.

And so, finally, his own guard, the Praetorian Guard, their whole job is just to guard the Emperor and protect his life, was so fed up with it, they murdered him. And they not only murdered him, they murdered his entire family. And they went and found his illegitimate children and killed all of them, too, just to make sure no one from his family would ever be Emperor again and they wouldn’t have to deal with this again.

And so his Uncle Claudius ended up becoming emperor after. But one of the crazy things that our friend Caligula did is he decided he didn’t like the Jews not worshipping the Roman gods. And so his solution to this was, well, “OK, they don’t want to worship the Roman gods, they can worship me.” And so he gave orders for a statue of himself to be put in the Holy of Holies of the Temple in Jerusalem.

This caused a big issue, as you would imagine, among the Judean people, and they were ramping up toward a revolution at that point. And then Caligula got murdered before he could follow through. But this planted seeds. This changed it from… I mean, already there are zealots and that kind of thing in the time when we’re reading in the New Testament who want to overthrow Rome. But there hasn’t sort of been an incident. There hasn’t been something to sort of galvanize everybody to say, “We need to go, we need to go do something about this.” So, like, in the American Revolution before the Boston Massacre, nobody really liked paying taxes to England, but when a bunch of British soldiers shot a bunch of colonists who are throwing snowballs at them, or rocks, depending on who you ask, but when they shot them, this sort of galvanized everybody, it was the Boston Massacre, we need to do something.

Or, you look at more recent American history, 9/11, they were lobbing cruise missiles at Osama bin Laden for about ten years before, right? Everybody is sort of like, “Why are we doing that? Why are we wasting money on these cruise missiles? What are we doing?” September 11 happened. All of a sudden, everybody was ready to go into Afghanistan and find Osama bin Laden because this horrible thing happened.

This is the equivalent for the Jews in the ancient world that Caligula was going to do this. All of a sudden, they’re like, “Okay, we didn’t like the paying taxes. This can’t stand. If he goes through with this, we’re going to have to fight back, right? This is it.”

So, when it didn’t happen, the revolt didn’t happen, but it had already sowed the seeds. And so in the early 60s, another would-be Messiah shows up, gathers a group of people, and says, Look, we can’t do this anymore. It’s only a matter of time before they try to do what Caligula did. Just a matter of time before we get another emperor like that.” Nero was emperor at the time, who was number two after Caligula in the history of crazy Roman emperors, right?

So this is going to happen again. Now is the time they started their revolt. The emperor sent Titus, the General Titus, who later became emperor, who came and destroyed the temple in Jerusalem, leveled it to the ground in 70 AD. This is what Jesus is talking about here, beforehand. He takes this question from the Pharisees, where the Pharisees are trying to trap him into talking about overthrowing Rome. And he says to the disciples, they’re going to go through with this. Once I’m gone, things are going to get real dark. They’re going to go through with this. You, my followers, have no part of this.

And this happened. The Christians all fled from Jerusalem before this all happened. None of them participated. So you will sometimes hear people say that this and the corresponding passage in Matthew 23, “Oh, those had to be written later after the temple was destroyed. And they’re going back and putting words in Jesus’s mouth because, of course, Jesus couldn’t predict the future.” Well, if that’s the case, then why did all the Christians flee Jerusalem right before it happened? Makes more sense to me that there were people teaching in the Christian communities saying, “This is going to happen. Don’t be a part of it.”

So, we have historical evidence that this is what was being preached before it happened. And Jesus telling the disciples, “You have no part of it.”

“For as the lightning that flashes out of one part under heaven shines to the other part under heaven, so also the Son of Man will be in His day.”

What’s he saying there? He’s saying that when there’s a lightning storm. You don’t have to guess as to whether there’s a lightning storm, right. You’re not standing out there going, “Well, I don’t know. What are the signs of a lightning storm? Let’s see. Well, we got that…” There’s lightning in the sky. There’s big flashes of thunder. Okay. There’s a thunderstorm, there’s lightning. You saying that’s how the coming Christ is saying, when I return, when I actually return, you’ll know. You’ll know. Everyone will know.

Interlocutor: Even if you don’t have television?

Fr. Stephen: [Laughter] Yes, because they didn’t when he said this. Everyone will know. There will be no doubt. So if someone says, “Oh, hey, this is….” Ignore it. You’ll know.

But first He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.

“He” being the Son of Man. Jesus is referring to himself. He says, “Before any of this happens, I’m going to suffer many things, and I’m going to be rejected by this generation.” Remember the word that’s translated “generation” here doesn’t mean like baby boomers, like this generation. It’s genos in Greek. It means this people, what we call ethnicity today. This people, the people who we’re talking to right now, the people I’m preaching to, the people I’m healing, they’re going to reject me.

Why does he bring that up here? They’re asking about the kingdom of God coming to earth, right? They think the Messiah is going to do that. The first time he comes. He’s trying to make clear to them, “No, no, no, here’s what’s coming up in Jerusalem. I’m going to suffer many things and I’m going to be rejected by this generation. After I’m gone, these other things are going to happen. And then at some point after that and you’ll know when it happens, I’m going to return.”

So, Jesus is laying out what’s going to happen here. This is important because you will often hear, I’m going to talk about the National Geographic Channel now, not the History Channel. The History Channel now is all reality shows. It’s the National Geographic Channel that’s showing the crazy Jesus documentaries. So you watch the National Geographic Channel, they will say all the time that the apostles, that Jesus’s disciples all thought Jesus was coming back in their lifetime. They all thought, “Oh, Jesus is going to come back,” And then when he didn’t, they were sort of disappointed. And then they started setting up all these church structures and all this kind of stuff and organized religion and yada, yada, yada. And they said, “Oh, well, no, this is going to be way off in the future.”

Well, if you actually read here, Luke wrote this in the first century. What do we have here? What is Jesus saying is going to happen? He’s going to die and rise again. He’s going to depart. After he departs, a bunch of things are going to happen. And then later, after that, he’s going to return. So this is right here in the first century Gospel of St. Luke, written by a close associate of Saint Paul. They understood that there’s going to be this period of time, we’re going to see this when we get into the Book of Revelation in a few years, that there’s this period of time which St. John describes as a thousand years. So he says it’s going to be a really long time before Jesus comes back. Not a couple of weeks, not a couple of years, but a long time. So this is laid out here already by Jesus.

And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man:  They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.

This is Lot who was living in Sodom at the time when Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed.

Just in case it wasn’t clear before when he said to the Pharisees that it doesn’t come by observation. You’re not going to read the newspaper and figure it out. You’re not going to read tea leaves and figure it out. You’re not going to read obscure passages of Ezekiel, Daniel and Revelation and figure out when it’s going to happen. Jesus again reiterates here. He reiterates here. The days of Noah, the day before the water started falling, people got married, people had children, people conceived children, people bought land, they took new jobs. But then one day. Boom! that was it. Sodom and Gomorrah, same thing. It was business as usual. They’re selling stuff in the marketplace. Boom! It was over.

He’s saying the same thing is going to be true about his return. Remember, this is his return. This is after the resurrection, after he departs for a period of time when he returns, people are just going to be going about their business. They’re not going to know. They’re not going to know.

So, if your plan is, I’m going to do whatever I want, then 30 seconds before Jesus returns or 30 seconds before I die, I’m going to repent of everything. I get the best of both worlds. Christ is telling you, you’re probably not going to see it coming. You’re not necessarily going to see it coming. What does that mean? That means you have to be prepared for it to happen at any point.

Because the reason Lot got out of there and nobody else did, is why? Because the way Lot was already living his life before it happened, which wasn’t great, but it was better than the rest of Sodom and Gomorrah. But it was the way he was living his life already. It’s not that somebody showed up there and said, like Jonah in Nineveh said, “Hey, a week from now God’s going to destroy the city with fire, so you better repent.” And Lot was the only one who took him up on it. It’s how a Lot was already living his life compared to how they were living their lives.

Why was Noah… why did God come to Noah and tell him to build the ark? According to Genesis 6, it’s because Noah was righteous in his generation, his genos, among his people, because God had already looked down at the earth and said, every thought of the heart of all these people is always evil all the time. That’s gotten pretty bad. When you never have a thought, even when you’re asleep and you’re dreaming, that isn’t wicked somehow, that isn’t twisted, that isn’t evil. Out of all of them, Noah was different. Noah was righteous. Noah was living his life in a different way. Already. That’s why he gets the warning. And so this is what Christ is saying. What happens in terms of our eternal state when Christ returns or when we die, if we die before that and stand before him, is going to be determined by how we were living our life up to that moment. Whenever it comes. And we may very well not see it coming. And so it’s important that we be living our life that way at all times.

“In that day, he who is on the housetop, and his goods are in the house, let him not come down to take them away. And likewise the one who is in the field, let him not turn back.”

What day is he talking about here? Because he’s shifted again. He’s now gone back to talking about what’s going to happen after he’s departed. He’s talking about when they’re coming to you and saying, “look here, look there”.

You’re going to know that’s not the day when I’m returning, because here’s what the day when I return is going to be like. But now back to that. In that day when you see these things happening, when they’re saying, over here, over there, when this insurrection starts, right? If you’re up on top of your house, because the tops of the house were flat, and when you’re living in a very hot climate, you can go and sit up there, it’s a little bit cooler, especially in the evening. If you’re up there in the cool of the evening and you realize you hear this is starting, don’t run down into the house and try and get your stuff. Gotta save your stuff, right? Just get out of there. Just flee.

If you’re out in the field and you’re harvesting crops and you hear, this is starting, don’t try and run back to your house and get your stuff. Just go. He says:

“Remember Lotís wife.”

That’s the whole verse. “Remember Lot’s wife”, right? Why? What happened? They’re on the way out of Sodom and what happened? She turned back. She’s like, “But what about my stuff? All my stuff’s in Sodom! Can’t live without my stuff!”

Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it. I tell you, in that night there will be two men in one bed:

That’s not what he’s referring to. Some of you just came to a different conclusion… It was not uncommon, you’ve got to remember this idea where kids have their own rooms, right? Where we have these houses, where everybody has their own space, did not exist at this time in history. If you’re even wealthy enough to have a home, it was one big room. It was one big room. And usually, the whole extended family was in there. Grandma, Grandpa. Uncle Bob. Uncle Pete. They’re all in there in that one room. And so you’d have people curled up on the floor. You might have a bed for the parents maybe. You might be taking turns with the bed. But so people just sort of curled up together. All the kids would be sort of curled up together over here… so, this is not anything sexual. This is maybe Uncle Bob and Uncle Peter just sort of over there in the corner sleeping and it gets cold at night, so they sleep next to each other.

“I tell you, in that night there will be two men in one bed:  the one will be taken and the other will be left. Two women will be grinding together: the one will be taken and the other left. Two men will be in the field: the one will be taken and the other left.”

Now some of our Protestant friends, not all of them, but some of them have taken these last couple verses a bit out of context, and developed this into the idea of the rapture, that Jesus returning is going to be sort of this two-part thing, right? Not two comings of Jesus, but his second coming is also going to be a two-part thing where Jesus comes back sort of part way and then all of the believing Christians go up into heaven, depending on your dramatic reenactment of this in various movies, sometimes leaving their clothes. You got the piles of clothes, right? You got the airplanes crashing because the pilot just disappeared. You got the cars on the freeway all swerving into each other with the bumper sticker “In case of rapture, this vehicle will be unmanned.” You got this idea.

A couple of problems with that… and then after that, after that some long period of time, well usually have seven years after that, then Jesus comes to earth, and he becomes King of Jerusalem and rules over the Jewish people there. And then that’s for 1000 years and then everybody’s raised from the dead and the Christians and everybody come back. After that, after all that. So there’s sort of this two stage thing.

There are a couple of problems with that. The rapture is usually referred to as the secret rapture because nobody knows where these people went because the people who are left aren’t Christians, so they don’t know anything about the rapture. So they just think all these people disappear. If we go back just a few verses, what did Jesus say it was going to be like in his second coming? Like the lightning flashing of the sky, right? Not really secret, right? It’s not really what I would call a secret. You got a big trumpet blowing and everybody sees Jesus in the sky. They probably figure out where all the Christians went. If that’s what we were talking about.

But more importantly, Jesus clarifies here in the next couple of verses. what he’s talking about when he says one is taken and the other is left. Okay.

And they answered and said to Him, “Where, Lord?”

What do you mean, where? Taken where? One’s taken and the other one’s left. Where are they taken? The Disneyland? No, where are they taken? Now, if what Jesus is teaching here is the rapture, then the answer would be what? Heaven. They’re taken to heaven. Is that what he says?

So He said to them, “Wherever the body is, there the eagles will be gathered together.”

It’s actually vultures. So his answer to where they take it is “Well, you know how you know where a corpse is? You see a bunch of vultures around it.” So what does “taken” mean here? Means killed. That’s what he’s saying. That’s what he’s saying. He’s saying when this insurrection happens, as it happened at 70 AD and then happened again in 128, this insurrection happens, a whole lot of people are going to get killed. Everybody who stays here is going to get killed by the Romans. So when you see it happening, do not pass go. Do not collect $200, right? Do not stop and get your stuff. Because everyone who’s here is going to get killed and there’s going to be vultures eating the bodies.

Interlocutor: Why do you say it was vultures, not eagles?

Fr. Stephen: Just the Greek word is referring to carrion birds, vultures or buzzards or some other carrion bird. Eagles aren’t really carryon birds. They eat live animals. So you don’t really see eagles clustered around a corpse.

Interlocutor: The footnote is interesting, “the body refers to Christ while the eagle refers to the angels and the saints.”

Fr. Stephen: That’s interesting. Okay, those are not inspired. But yes, that’s what he’s saying. He’s saying they’re going to be killed. You don’t want to be killed, right? Lots wife didn’t go to heaven to be with the angels and the saints, correct? So, yes, this is very clearly, if you read the whole passage, not talking about any kind of secret anything and not talking about the rapture.

Then He spoke a parable to them,

Now, notice, and this is important. There’s not a disjunction here. This isn’t now another separate story. Jesus tells them this. He answers the pharisees. He tells them this about what’s going to happen after his ascension and about his return. Then he immediately tells them this parable, who’s the theme? His disciples. He’s still talking to his disciples:

Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart, saying: “There was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man.”

What does that mean? This judge isn’t afraid of anybody, doesn’t care about anybody’s opinion, right? He’s a hard man. He does what he thinks is right, and that’s it. You’re not going to come to him and try and say, “Oh, doesn’t the Bible say… doesn’t the Torah say? shouldn’t you, in the name of God, have mercy on us?” It’s not going to work, not going to get you anywhere. He also doesn’t fear men. You’re not going to show up and say, I’m friends with Herod…. no, he’s not doing any favors for anybody. Doesn’t care if you’re rich, right? This judge just calls it down the line. Yeah, it doesn’t matter. He calls it right down the line.

“Now there was a widow in that city; and she came to him, saying, ‘Get justice for me from my adversary.’ And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within himself, ‘Though I do not fear God nor regard man, yet because this widow troubles me I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.’”

So every day she’s showing up, “I demand justice. This person has wronged me. I want you to avenge me.” So finally, he’s like, “You know what? I don’t really care. But just so she’ll stop bothering me, right? Just so I don’t have to see her anymore, I’ll do it.”

Now, why is it the word “avenge”? Well, women didn’t have any… as a woman, she couldn’t bring a lawsuit, right? She couldn’t formally approach the court. So she’s showing up every day and doing this, and the judge is like, “You don’t have any status, right? You can’t do this, right?” Because she’s just a woman.

And so, if someone wrongs her, someone steals from her, right? Someone assaults her, someone rapes her, whatever they do to her, the only way she can have any kind of justice is if the court steps in and says… which is what the court is supposed to do, is why we have judges in the Torah, remember? Orphans, widows, right? These people who can’t defend themselves, right? These judges are supposed to step in and defend them. So this is what she’s asking for. Someone has wronged her. She wants the judge to take vengeance for her, and he finally just says, “Okay, I’ll do it. Just buzz off”, right?

Then the Lord said,

Who’s the Lord here? Jesus? This is another little subtle, right? He’s already referring to Jesus as the Lord, which is the Greek form of the kyrios, which is what’s used to translate God’s name in the Old Testament.

Then the Lord said, “Hear what the unjust judge said.” And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them? I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?”

So note he’s still talking about vengeance. He’s still talking about justice. This is not, if I just ask God 20 times a day for a pony, eventually he’ll give me a pony. This is sometimes misapplied, right? “I need to just keep asking God for a million dollars, and eventually he’ll give me my million dollars as long as I’m persistent.” That’s not what this is saying. He’s referring to a specific case. Shall not God avenge his own elect, who cry out to him day and night to him, though he bears long with them? This is talking about God taking vengeance. Why? Well, what’s St. Paul’s going to say in Romans? “‘Vengeance is mine’, says the Lord.” Not vengeance is nobody’s, not “God’s just so nice, He’s going to let everybody get away with everything.” He says, “Vengeance is mine, it’s not yours”. We are not to take vengeance. We are not to go out and try and avenge ourselves. Why? Because God is promising us that he will settle it. He will settle it.

Now, what’s he talking about in context? What was he just talking about? He was just talking about Rome, right? They were saying, when these insurrections start, don’t be part of it. Why? Because God’s on Rome’s side? No, because God doesn’t care about what Caligula, Nero, Titus, what these Romans are doing? No, because God is going to take care of Caligula. God is going to deal with Nero. God is going to deal with Titus. God is going to deal with everyone.

So what he’s saying is, instead of becoming a zealot, instead of participating in these political movements, this isn’t your hope. Your hope is the return of Christ. Your hope is in Christ’s kingdom when he returns. Your hope is not in this political kingdom. And so trust God that he will deal with Rome the way he dealt with Babylon, the way he dealt with the Assyrians, the way he dealt with… he’ll deal with Rome, he’ll deal with the people who are oppressing you.

And going forward in history, Rome did a lot more than just this to Christ’s people. For 300 years, Rome was murdering Christians. Thousands of martyrs were tortured and killed for their faith.

Notice, why doesn’t it happen right now? Why do we have to trust God to do it in the future? Well, it says he bears long with them. What does that really mean? What it’s really saying? He’s patient with them. Why? Because as we’ve already seen in the Gospel, God is not a God who, to quote Isaiah, “delights in the death of the wicked, but that they would turn and live.”

God gives everyone, even Caligula, even Nero, even Hitler, even Stalin, just like the ungrateful lepers, he gives them this life on this earth. He gives them all these blessings. He gives them the opportunity to repent. He gives them the opportunity to change their ways, but with the promise that if they do not, if we do not, that there will be justice. There will be justice. Nobody is going to get away with anything. Repentance is not a get out of jail free card. “Oh, I said I’m sorry. I’m off the hook.” That’s not what repentance is. Repentance is change and transformation of our life.

So if a person who is wicked becomes righteous, then the reason they’re not punished is because they’re righteous, they have changed. And so now they’re treated as a righteous person. And this is the opportunity they have. If they don’t take that opportunity, if you remain wicked, then you will receive a portion with the wicked. And that’s a promise.

And so, we don’t have to take these things into our own hands, we don’t have to take these things into our own hands, because God has promised that he will settle them. And so we can have our faith and our confidence in God to do these things. Why does he end it with when the Son of Man comes, will he really find faith on the earth? Because this doesn’t just apply to the Romans. Again, what we just had with the lepers and the grateful one being the Samarit, it’s not just, oh, those Romans are going to get theirs, I’m going to get mine. Each of us. The promise doesn’t just apply to our enemies, it applies to us too. The person who wronged me, yes, God has promised they’ll get theirs if they do not repent. But I will get mine for all the people I’ve wronged if I do not repent.

So he’s talking to his disciples and he says to them, by the time I return, will there be anybody left? Or is it just going to be vengeance for everyone? Remember, one of those disciples is Judas.

Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others:

So again, this is the same context. Jesus is still talking. Keep in mind, the Pharisees who asked the first question are still there.

“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.”

They may have perked up a little with this, “Ooh, this is about us!”

“The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other menóextortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’”

“Thanks for making me such a great guy. Let me list for you a few of the great things I do, I fast, I tithe. I’m not one of these no good bums who does this and that and the other. I’m not even like that tax collector over there.”

“And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

And here’s why it’s so important that we take this in context where St. Luke puts this parable. Because what has Jesus been talking about? He’s been talking about his return in the final judgment. So when he uses the term “justified” here, justified means, when there’s a lawsuit. There’s a lawsuit. I say, “Bob owes me money.” Bob says, “I don’t owe him any money. He’s trying to extort money from me, that I don’t owe him.” And I say, “No, he owes me this money. He’s trying to cheat me.” We go to court. The judge decides one of us is telling the truth, one of us is lying. Either he owes me the money or he doesn’t. And the one who’s found to be in the right is the one who is declared righteous. He’s declared to be in the right. He’s the one who’s justified. “No, you do owe him the money.” In that case, I’m the one who’s justified. Or, “No, he doesn’t owe you the money, in which case he’s the one who’s justified.” Okay? So he’s got these two men.

If before he told the story, he had said, the Son of Man returns and God is taking his vengeance, who’s the one who’s going to receive vengeance and who’s the one who’s going to be righteous and welcomed by God into his kingdom? It would seem pretty obvious, right? Well, the Pharisee, he’s the religious guy, he tithes, he passed. He does all the right things. He prays all the right prayers. He’s a good guy. And there’s a no-good tax collector who’s been what? It’s not an accident what sin he committed. He’s collaborating with the Romans, who we were just talking about, this Jew. He’s worse than a Roman because he’s a Jew who’s collaborating with the Romans. So he’s a traitor to his people to boot, right? That guy he’s going to get it, right? The guy comes back to his people. Guy like that, straight to hell. He could rot there. No good traitor. That’s it. That’s it. Obvious. Obvious what’s going to happen.

But what Jesus is pointing out in this story is that there’s another difference between these two men. And what is it? The Pharisee is proud and believes he is sinless and believes he doesn’t need to repent. Since he doesn’t think he needs to repent, he doesn’t repent. And so is he actually righteous? Whereas this tax collector knows he’s a sinner. And so he approaches God with repentance. Approaches with repentance. And so it’s him. It’s him who is welcome to God’s kingdom. It’s the Pharisee who is on the receiving end of vengeance.

So after Jesus has made this point, you don’t need to be part of this movement because God will avenge. You don’t need to try and do this yourself. You don’t need to go and attack the Romans yourself. He wants to reiterate. “Now, don’t be so sure. When I talk about God’s elects people crying out for vengeance against those who oppress them, that you’re one of the elect people and you’re not one of the oppressors, because you think this tax collector is one of the oppressors and that this pharisee is one of God’s elect people. The reality is just the opposite.”

And so, what this is saying is. If you want to be one of God’s elect people. If you want to be a follower of Christ. That is living a life of repentance. Not living a life of perfectly following a set of rules that make you a good person.

That it’s not being a good person. Being a good Christian. Being a religious person. But it is living a life of repentance, that acknowledgement of sin.

Keep in mind who St. Luke’s audience is. St. Luke’s writing this not primarily to Jews and especially not to Jews in Judea. He’s writing this to an audience that’s mainly Gentiles who have converted to Christianity under St. Paul. He wants to make very clear here, that when I talk about the elect people of God and the Romans, I’m not talking about these really good pious Jews who were descended from Abraham and Judea. They’re the good people. These Romans are bad. And maybe, as we see was the problem in the book of Galatians, in the book of Romans that we’ll get to later here, but maybe they’ll let you in as sort of a second-class citizen into the church, right? Christ is really there. Jesus is really their Messiah, he’s really their Savior. But if you guys are good and follow the rules, some of you Gentiles can come in here, but you better follow their rules.

What St. Luke is again showing rather than telling, St. Paul tells, he shows, is that those former pagans who spent their lives in idolatry and all kinds of sexual immorality, all kinds of things, there were violations of God’s law, but who have now repented and now changed their lives and now become followers of Christ, those people are God’s elect people, not somebody who happens to be descended from Abraham just because they’re arrogant and proud of their genealogy and their ethnicity and the outward rules that they follow. That’s not what is going to count, when it counts on the day of Judgment, when Christ returns to judge the heaven and the earth, what’s going to count is not what ethnicity you are. It’s not going to be how much you followed the religious rules. It’s going to be how deeply you repented of your sinfulness and how you turn to God.

So this is another break in the text and timewise. It’s probably a good place to finish for tonight, so Lord willing, next week we will pick up here in chapter 18, verse 15.