Jump Start # 2996

Luke 12:4 “Now I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do.”

These words are shocking to us. Death is often perceived as the worst thing that could happen. When the medical tests reveal that a person has “Stage 4” or that it is necessary to call Hospice, gloom and doom seem to fill the atmosphere. What possibly could be worse? That’s a thought.

Jesus was reminding His followers that this journey they were on wasn’t a trip to the theme park. Persecution, abuse, ridicule, abandonment, and even death is what follows those that follow Jesus. The life of the apostles illustrated this. But what the Lord was telling the disciples was even the worst isn’t that bad. There is no greater weapon than death. Someone can end your life here, but they can’t touch your soul. Your life can end here, but your life never ends. You simply move to the next room where the Lord is.

So, what possibly could be worse than death?

First, living a life without God. This is where many are today. They hide behind smiles and empty pleasures and sin that they believe satisfies. But without realizing it, they ware living without hope. They walk this world as enemies of God. They are on their own and a time will come when no one will be able to help them. They have gotten themselves into situations in which only the Lord can change, but they don’t realize this. Life without God is what Hell will be like.

Second, living a life of constant criticism and negativism. Nothing is ever right for such a person. One is never pleased. Always unhappy. Always upset. Always focusing upon what’s wrong and never counting the blessings in life. Sour. Miserable. Raining on everyone else’s happy day. No joys. No positive footprints left for others. Rather than being thankful, helpful and appreciative of the blessings and joys of God, this one is living as if they were already dead. What a waste to miss the beauties of the Lord.

Third, a life without any friends. Some would rather be friends with their TV and tablets and have people at a distance. God made us to fellowship. We need connections and interactions. We benefit from one another. We help each other. We gain accountability when we are connected to others. We encourage and serve when we are with others. God said it was not good for man to be alone. Alone in a crowded world. Alone in a crowded church building. Alone in a crowded house. Alone, because one has chosen to be that way. Alone, with nothing to share. Alone, with no one to discuss things with. Alone invites discouragement, depression and unhealthy thoughts. What’s worse than death? Walking through life without a friend.

Fourth, living a life worrying about death. Some are so focused upon death that they can’t see anything else. It’s more than trying to be healthy, it’s a fear of death. That fear leads to one chasing every fad imagined to keep one alive. What’s missing in this person’s life is faith. Because of Jesus, the fear of death has been conquered. God gives us the victory through Jesus Christ. What likely happens is that a person who fears death will invite death by worrying so much about it. Live freely in Jesus. God has this. You’ll be ok in Jesus. Death is merely a door into the next room in God’s house. To get to that room, you must go through the door. But it’s only a door. It’s not the end. Faith, hope and a good knowledge of Scriptures will push that worry out of a person. It will help them to see what really matters.

Fifth, living a fake life of hypocrisy. That’s worse than death. One tries to fool others. One isn’t tries to please everyone except the Lord. No one really knows who this person is, because he is always wearing masks. Is he worldly? Is he righteous? He doesn’t know. And, this doubled minded person is miserable. He has too much of the world in him to be righteous. He has just enough of the Bible in him to make him feel guilty for being worldly. Not content. Not joyous. He tries to serve two masters at the same time and the Lord has said no one can do that. The sad thing about the hypocrite is that he has fooled everyone, including himself, but he has never once fooled the Lord. God knows the heart. God sees our motives. The hypocrite is trying to gain advantage by fooling others. Usually it catches up with him and he is exposed. Then his house of cards will come tumbling down upon him.

Death isn’t the worse thing that can happen. Paul described some worldly minded as “Being dead while they lived.” They were dead in purpose, motives, faith and heart. What’s worse than death? A failure to live.

For the Christian, the call of death is nothing more than the bell ringing for us to come home. Home, it’s where we need to be. Home is where we belong. Death isn’t the worst…not by a long shot.

Roger

Jump Start # 2598

Luke 12:4 “I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that have no more they can do.”

“Aren’t you afraid,” that was asked of me recently. The country is starting to open up. People are returning to stores, restaurants and houses of worship. Some are going boldly. Some are skeptical. Some are tired of staying home, and some are afraid to leave their home. Mixed emotions. Mixed feelings. Mixed messages found on Facebook and even from the experts.

Years ago, in religious debates about baptism, the question was raised, “What if someone was on the way to the creek to get baptized and a tree branch fell and killed him. Would he be saved?” And around and around the debaters would go on that topic. Later, the same argument shifted to the church building. What would happen if a ceiling tile fell and killed a guy on the way to being baptized on a Sunday morning? But you know what was missing in those arguments? Any proof. In all the church history, restoration documents, old periodicals and old books that I have read for decades, I have NEVER, NEVER read of someone being killed who was trying to obey God. I’ve even seen in India, when I was there, people being baptized in rivers. There would be a man upstream and a man downstream, hitting the river water with boards. They did this to keep the alligators away. Never heard of a man getting eaten by a croc while trying to be baptized. There were reports of people being killed in the same river doing laundry or bathing. But not being baptized.

What was missing from these debates was a trust and faith in God. The God-factor was left out. It seems to me if God is running the universe, like we say He is, then God will protect a man who is trying to obey Him in faith.

Now, in our verse, Jesus tells us four principles.

First, He calls us “friends.” That word means relationship. That word involves feelings, love and comfort. Not everyone is our friend. We have business contacts. We have people we know. And, then there are our friends. We have a hymn that begins, “What a friend we have in Jesus.” Friends do things for each other. Friends help each other. We are more than followers of Jesus. We are more than disciples of Jesus. We are the friends of Jesus. This puts us in the same place as Abraham, God’s friend. Putting this in our world today, if the Lord had a cell phone, your picture and number would be listed. If He was on Facebook, you would be one of His friends. The Lord likes you.

Second, do not be afraid. Fear not, that expression is found more than 300 times in the Bible. Fear and trust do not dwell together well. The more we fear, the less we trust. The more we trust, the less we fear. There are many things that can scare us, including this coronavirus. In the context, Jesus reveals the ultimate scare. Do not fear those who kill the body. That seems easy to say. That’s about the worst thing that could happen. He’s not talking about an accident or, a medical procedure that didn’t work. He’s talking about murder. In religious settings it’s called persecution. Those that would kill have eyes full of hatred and anger. They did when they killed Jesus. They did when they killed Stephen.

How scary to be surrounded by a group that is shouting angrily at you. Threats, insults, accusations, hatred, prejudice, foul language fills the air. Their faces show that they mean business. They don’t want to talk, discuss nor debate. They want you dead. They are beyond reason. They are not thinking about the consequences, getting caught or the trouble that may follow. It’s all about the moment. They want you dead because you are one of “them.” You are a follower of Jesus. They hold sharp rocks in their hands. Their eyes are set on you. And, here, our Lord says, “Do not be afraid.” In the second and third centuries, this story would be played out in the Roman Coliseum. There, professional soldiers would kill innocent, unarmed Christians. There is one story about a young Christian woman who was brought to be executed. The Roman soldier was nervous about killing a woman. She guided his hand with the sword to her throat. She feared not.

Third, Jesus says that they will kill the body. They will be successful in their hatred and violence. God is not sending ten thousand angels to rescue you. You may die. God is not promising to put a shelter over you. How great that would make us feel if the Lord said, “do not fear, they cannot hurt you.” No, death is real. Death is final. Death can happen. And, here is where faith comes in. For the believer, death is only a passage way, a door. It’s not the end. It’s not the worst thing that can happen. It frees us from this world and this body to be with the Lord. Believers know that. Believers don’t fear death. This is hard for us. Jesus is telling us do not be afraid. Yet, we give ourselves a pass on this command. We think it’s ok to be afraid, because someone is trying to kill us. Jesus says, “Don’t.” Don’t be afraid, even if you die.

Fourth, after death, they, the killers, can do no more. They have freed you from the physical bonds of this life. You will be safe in the arms of Jesus. The following verse tells us who to fear. It is the One who can send the soul to hell. That’s God. God can do things beyond death. I think sometimes we are just too earth bound. That citizenship in Heaven thing is more of an idea than a reality. We don’t fit in here. We long to be with God.

So, when someone asks, “Aren’t you afraid?” My answer is “No.” I believe God will help those who are trying to obey Him. And, if for some reason we die, isn’t that where we want to be anyway? Now, we can be careful and make adjustments, but fear shouldn’t enter into this. We walk by faith.

Don’t be afraid. Trust God. He is good.

Roger

Jump Start # 2303

Luke 12:4 “And I say to you my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do.”

Our verse today is encouraging. It shows that there are limits to what can happen to us. The death of the outside does not mean the end of the inside. Although it is not written this way, one can nearly read a spirit of taunting in this passage. The heavy hand of oppression and oppression can seem to cripple the righteous. In ways, it seems that the enemy wins. Righteous ones die. The righteous are removed from the earth. The wicked rejoices. They dance in celebration. They mock, ridicule and believe that they are triumphant. But they are not. All they have been able to do is kill the body. They can do no more than that. You can almost hear the righteous declaring, “Is that all you got?” “Is that your best shot?” “I’m still around.” “You’ve killed the body, but you haven’t killed me.”

Consider what the enemy cannot do:

First, they cannot stop faith. Even though the righteous are killed, their example, their influence and their voice remains in the land. Hebrews tells us that Abel, though he is dead, still speaks. That is true of the example of the righteous. The fires of persecution did not destroy the kingdom. In many ways, those very fires encouraged others to stand and remain true to the Lord.

Second, faith, hope and love cannot be touched by death. Paul asked, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” He listed tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril and sword. None of those things can touch, stop or destroy faith, hope and love. The inside is stronger than the outside. The inside will endure through eternity. Where ought we to pour our efforts and our attention? Obviously, into our faith, our heart and our soul.

Third, in the greatest of ironies, the wicked, by killing the righteous, are putting them right where they want to be. We go to the Lord when we die. We long for that. We groan for that. That is the best thing that can happen to us. So, rather than crushing and defeating the Christian, the wicked has helped fulfill a hope that the Christian has long awaited. He wants to be with the Lord. The killing of his body puts him there. Rather than renouncing the Lord, he has propelled the Christian into the presence of the Lord. The wicked has helped the righteous gain his victory in the Lord.

Fourth, those that want to kill the body are doing nothing more than what we already know is going to happen anyway. God said it is appointed unto man once to die. The death of a Christian is nothing new. It’s not shocking to him. He knew it all along. Death will come. The body will die.

Fifth, the Christian doesn’t fear death. It’s simply a door that he passes through to get to the other side. Death isn’t the end. Death isn’t the worse than that can happen to a person. The Christian, loaded with knowledge from God’s word, understands. He is prepared. Just as birth is a door that takes us from one room to the next, so is death. The door swings one way. But there is no need to get fixated about that door. There is no need to spend so much time concentrating upon that door. It’s the other side that matters. To get there, the Christian must go through the door of death. The wicked, as does Satan, thinks that death is the worst thing that can happen. They believe that a person will deny all, renounce all, and curse God to his face, just to safe his skin. They may believe that, but the Christian doesn’t. What’s there to fear?

There is a story that comes out of the late second century of a noble girl and her servant who were arrested for being Christians. They were taken to the arena to be executed with others. The servant girl was thrust with a sword and died. But when it came to the noble girl, the soldier had second thoughts. His hand was trembling. He was begging the noble girl to renounce Jesus so he wouldn’t have to go through with the orders to kill her. The brave noble girl held the soldiers hand up to her neck, so she could be executed. There was no fear. She knew by faith where she was going. She knew by Scriptures that a resurrection awaited her.

Now, put a twist to this for you and I. It’s not the enemy that may kill our body, but disease. You have cancer. It’s bad. Do not fear the disease that can kill your body and do no more. Do not fear the lingering illness which can kill your body. In many ways, all it will do is release the doors to allow your soul to go to the Lord. Rather than being a prisoner to this world and the pain and sorrow of this world, your death frees it to go and be with the Lord. Away from troubles. Away from those who take life. Away from those who hate the Lord. Away from Satan.

Kill the body! Is that all you can do? You can’t touch our soul. You can’t invade our spiritual heart. You cannot separate us from Christ. You are pitiful in what you can do. We shall live on and on because of Jesus.

Therefore, do not be afraid. Do not be afraid of the one who can kill the body and do no more. Do not be afraid of persecution. Do not be afraid of cancer. Do not be afraid of death. It’s not the end. It’s never the end.

The best is yet to come!

Roger

Jump Start # 2043

Luke 12:4 “I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that have no more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear; fear the One who, after He has killed, has authority to cast into hell; yes, I tell you, fear Him!”

The background of our verse today is very interesting. The chapter begins with Luke telling us that so many thousands had gathered that they were stepping on one another. That’s hard to imagine. Jesus uses the occasion to deliver a series of warnings.

The first warning was about the leaven or influence of the Pharisees. The second warning is our passage today. The final warning is about denying God, and blaspheming the Holy Spirit. Our thoughts surround this second warning.

There are four observations that we make in this passage:

First, Jesus calls the disciples “My friends.” We remember Abraham being called God’s friend. God has friends. The disciples were some of them. Friends help each other. Friends tell each other about dangers. Sometimes, as preachers, we forget that the people in the pews are our friends. That ought to set the tone for what we say. That ought to put fire and love in our hearts as well as in our voices. In the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, when it came time to receive their pay, those that worked all day thought that they would receive more than what had been agreed to. The master’s reply was, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong.” Friend. When you are asked to name your friends, do you ever include the Lord in that list?

Jesus calls His followers “friends.” Do we treat Jesus like a friend? Do we seek to be with Him? Do we talk to Him? Do we do things that disappoints or hurts Him? Do we act like we are His friend? “What a friend we have in Jesus,” is a great old hymn. Friends love, support, defend and are there for each other. Jesus has held up His side of things. Have we held up our side?

Second, fear is a paralyzing emotion. Do not be afraid of the one who can kill the body. Who would kill our body? Evil people. The nightly news reminds us that the world has bad people in it. Some would kill just to steal what you have. Some, as we have witnessed in recent mass shootings, would kill for no other reason than just to shoot innocent people. They are evil, sick and wrong. The thinking of some is that if we took away all the guns then people would get along. They would be nice. No. There are evil people in the world. Why are they evil? They are sick mentally. They have lived without God. They have no reverence for life. They think only of self. They come from broken homes. They have never been disciplined, trained, taught nor made accountable for their thinking or actions. They have filled their heart with hate. They thrive on violence. They have surrounded themselves with worthless people. The reasons why people are evil are numerous. Simply passing out more pills or taking away guns are only band-aides to a deeper, spiritual problem.

It’s hard not to be afraid when someone wants to harm you. Fear causes panic. No one wants to be the victim of senseless killing. This passage is showing who we really ought to fear.

Third, the most that an evil person can do is kill the body. That’s huge. That’s the end of life. Yet, in the eyes of an eternal God, death isn’t the end. Death isn’t the worse thing that can happen to us. Death is simply leaving this room and moving into the next room. Nothing really changes, we’ve just switched rooms. We certainly do not see death the way God does. For those families in Florida, whose child was shot to death, their world has now changed forever. They may never recover from this. To tell a parent who lost a child, “it’s not so bad,” it is. This is not the way things are supposed to be. A child is supposed to grow up and eventually bury the parent, not the other way around. The child who goes to school is supposed to come home from school that same day.

The expression, “no more that they can do,” limits the extent of harm that can be done. It can only be done here. It can’t touch us in the next room. It can’t take away our eternity. It can’t invade our soul. The body stops, but not the soul. The body is going to stop someday. That’s the result of sin in the world. Man is limited in the harm that he can do. Don’t fear that, is what Jesus is saying. The body is killed, but the soul remains.

Fourth, the one we ought to fear is God. God can not only kill the body but He can crush the soul. There are multiple examples in the Bible of God killing the body. When Uzzah touched the ark of the covenant, he was struck dead. When Ananias and Sapphira lied, they were struck dead. The plagues, the closing of the Red Sea, the flood, Goliath, pages and pages of people who were struck dead by God. But this isn’t the worst.

The worst comes when God sends someone to Hell. Nothing is worse than that. Separation from God forever. No mercy. No hope. No future. No comfort. The rich man tasted that when he was in torment in Hades. His pleas for help were not answered. No water was brought to him. No word was sent back to his brothers. Every request was refused. His life didn’t end at death. His misery had no end in sight.

Jesus is telling the disciples to fear God. Fear God is in contrast to fearing the one who can kill the body and do no more. This is not respect as Solomon used that word. He said, “Fear God and keep the commandments.” We do that. But the fear Jesus is using comes from understanding who God is and what He can do. This fear will lead us to obeying Him. This fear will keep us from challenging Him. This fear will stop any desire to change what He has said. The contemporary world has driven the fear of God out of our theology. God’s our buddy. God’s on our side. God likes us no matter what. Yet, Hebrews says, “It’s a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” Terrifying. Hebrews also says that God is a “consuming fire.”

Maybe if we had some good ole’ fear of God in us, we’d be more cautious with our words and our ways. Maybe we’d be more evangelistic with our friends and family. Maybe we’d stop playing church and become more engaged and more serious with what we are doing.

I will warn you whom to fear. Jesus didn’t say, “Don’t be afraid of anyone.” No, there is one that we need to fear. He has the position, the power and the right to send us to Hell. The wrath of God is something that is rarely preached these days. We’ve not mentioned Hell in sermons in a long time. We can leave the impression that everyone is going to Heaven, no matter what you do and no matter what you believe.

God’s mercy and God’s justice. Grace and judgment. Love and fear. Trust and obey. Those are not choices on a menu that we pick out. They go together. One doesn’t cancel out the other. God loves, but God is just. God has mercy but God will judge. Our attitude, our choices, our relationship with Him has much to do with all of this. Believe Him or be condemned by Him. Follow Him or be cast away from Him. Seek Him or be alone without Him. These are not decided by God, but by us. He wants us to want Him. He wants us to be saved. He wants us to trust Him. But, He won’t force us. He won’t make us. He’ll allow us to be fools if we want. He will allow us to be evil if we want. He will allow us to be lost if we want. We can be what we want, but there is a cost. There are consequences.

I will warn you whom to fear…serious words for a world that has not thought seriously about God.

Roger

Jump Start # 821

Luke 12:4 “I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that have no more that they can do, but I will warn you whom to fear; fear the One who, after He has killed, has authority to cast into hell; yes, I tell you, fear Him!”

In this section of Scripture, Jesus is stressing the power, authority and realm of God. God is the one to be obeyed and feared. I have heard some say that ‘we shouldn’t fear God because He loves us.’ God does love us. In Hebrews it reminds us that “it is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

Let’s consider two thoughts:

1. “after that have no more that they can do” – there is a limit to what man can do. Recently, in a neighborhood not far from where I live, a man was shot and killed by a couple of teenagers who were trying to burglarize the place in the middle of the day. They thought no one was home. They killed the home owner. That was shocking and tragic to the community. Yet, there was no more that they could do. The enemies of this country continue to try to harm us. They have killed some. Yet after that, there is no more that they can do.

A person does not become “deader” than what they are. Once the soul has left the body, death takes place. The body can be honored in a funeral or disgraced by mutilation yet “there is no more that they can do.” Death is the end of the road to what harm one person can do to another. There is a limit to what damage can be done. No one can send you to Hell. They can end your life, but only God can do that.

Expanding that thought, there is a limit to what people can do. There is a limit in our knowledge. There is a limit in our ability. Doctors are limited. Once death happens, they can do no more. There is a limit to what people can do spiritually. They can show us, teach us, remind us, encourage us, but only God can save. When someone has hurt me, I can forgive him for that, but my forgiveness does not mean God has forgiven him. Nor, does my forgiveness, take care of all of their sins. There is a limit. There is a point where I can do no more. Some things only God can do.

2. God is capable, able and in the position to do much more than we can. God, according to this passage, can do more harm than we can. We can take life and that’s it. God can do more. God can take life and then God can send to Hell. God’s authority is not limited. It is not limited to life, nor this world, nor this time.

This passage reminds us that death is not the worst thing that can happen to us. Beyond death, there is God. Beyond death, there is a comfort or there this a pain that we can not fully understand nor grasp. Beyond death, there is God. In desperation or in sadness, some take their own lives. Suicide. The thought is that the suffering will end. The pain will end. The misery of the soul will end. Take your life and end the suffering. However, it won’t end. Death is not the end of the journey. Beyond death, is God.

In a similar way, when a person suffers with cancer and finally passes away, someone will say, “at least they are no longer suffering.” Is that true? It is for the faithful of God. It is for those who have chosen to walk with God. Is it true for all people? For those who denied that God exists? For those who lived in open rebellion to God all of their lives? What about the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16? After the rich man died, he was in torment. So miserable was he that he begged for Lazarus to bring one drop of water to him. At the rich man’s funeral, some may have said, “At least he is no longer suffering?” That wasn’t true. He was still suffering. His suffering was worse. Death is not the end. Death is not the worst thing that can happen to us.

There is no limit to what God can do to forgive us. Jesus told Peter to forgive up to seventy times. God does that. God does more than that. He forgave Paul when he was abusing and harassing the early church. God forgave Peter when he was a hypocrite. God forgave Peter after he denied Jesus. This is important to know. Sometimes our sins have done a lot of damage. Sometimes we have torn our families apart. Sometimes there is lasting reminders of our poor choices. A marriage ends…the kids only see dad every other weekend. A constant reminder to a sin. A job ends…fired for cheating. At the next job interview, it surfaces again. A reminder of poor choices. Failing health caused by long habits of drinking or drugs…a reminder of sin. The reminders of our sin can be with us for a lifetime. Our sins can be so great that we think no one will ever forgive us. God can. God can do what man cannot. God can do what man will not. God is greater than we are. There is a limit to what we can do.

Should we fear God? Yes. That’s what this passage says. Fear in such a way that we tremble, don’t want to talk to Him and try to hide from Him? No. Fear in such a way that we realize that He is upon the throne and has the power and the right to throw us into Hell. That fear will make us reverent. That fear will help us close our mouths and not say dumb nor arrogant things. That fear will lead us to obedience.

Some have had the opportunity to visit the White House. I have. I did not get to the second floor where the Oval Office is. That’s off limits. Even if I did, I would not be allowed to sit at the President’s desk. That’s off limits. Even if I could do that, I would not be allowed to put my feet up on his desk. I do that to my desk. Not the President’s desk. That’s disrespectful. That’s acting like a big shot. That’s implying that I am bigger and better than the President.

How do I act toward God? His word? His will? His ways? Do I obey if I want? Do I play the game of picking out what I want to believe and do and leaving the things that I don’t? Do I say, ‘I like it,’ therefore that must mean that ‘God likes it.’ Those attitudes do not reflect the respect, honor nor fear toward God.

Fear God. Love God. Obey God. Praise God. Follow God. Know God. Tell God’s story. Those all flow together. Those are all connected to each other. It’s not one without the others. It’s not picking out the nice ones and leaving the others. It’s all of them. Awesome is our God!

Roger