Luke 10:8-12

Luke chapter 10 verses 8 to 12 for our text and study this morning. Into whatsoever city ye enter and they receive you, eat such things as are set before you. Heal the sick that are therein and say unto them the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you. But into whatsoever city ye enter and they receive you not. go your way out into the streets of the same and say even the very dust of your city which cleaveth on us we do wipe off against you notwithstanding be you sure of this that the kingdom of God has come nigh unto you but I say unto you that it shall be more tolerable in the day for Sodom that day for Sodom than for that city. God blessed to us is sacred and holy word this morning. The same sun affects various things in our world in different ways. The heat of the sun will soften and melt wax so that it becomes very pliable. The heat of the sun will also harden clay so that it becomes almost like cement. It’s the same heat that’s being radiated by the sun, but two vastly different reactions to the rays of the sun. In a similar manner, there are two different responses to the gospel of Jesus Christ. The same gospel message is received by some, well, at the same time is rejected by others. who hear it. Some people are softened and melted by the gospel and brought to repentance in faith. Others are hardened by the preaching of the gospel and refuse to accept any of what God has said. Our text is part of the charge, you recall, of Christ’s sent. out the 70 to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. And the lessons taught here are specifically for ministers, of course, but there are, I think, some very practical implications and certain truths that could be broadened out and be useful to all the people of God. I want to talk to talk. this morning about the reception and rejection of the gospel. And I’ll begin by saying this. Let’s talk about in places where your gospel is received first. In verses 8 and 9, we read these words. And into whatsoever city you enter and they receive you, eat such things as are set before you. And heal the sick that are the sick that are therein and say unto them the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you. Now the first thing that Jesus seems to be indicating here is that you should not hinder your gospel message by mixing it in with any human tradition. The disciples were to cheerfully and thankfully eat and drink whatever was set before them in the place where they stay. Whatever their hosts provided, they were to go ahead and eat. Now in this command, Christ tells you that certainly we as the people of God are not to be acting like the Pharisees and the scribes did who were very critical of any food that was set before them. They had so many regulations and traditions that we, no matter how you prepare the food, what you set before them, they were going to be a complaint about it. If you didn’t prepare it exactly the way they wanted it and so forth. Because they were based, you know, on tradition. Everything was tradition to them. And so the Jewish religious, teachers would be quite different. They had all sorts of complicated rules. Respecting meats and drinks, you could hardly feed them without being criticized in some manner. But these stringent rules they had were not found in the law of God. These were all based on tradition of the elders, passed down from generation to generation and new ones added and so forth. solely of human design. To follow these human traditions then would be to mix it and confuse it with the gospel message which comes from the scriptures. You preach a gospel based solely upon scripture, upon revelation about the Messiah or the Christ. Why then are you following? human traditions created by men that are not found in the scriptures. And thus, there would be a conflict in what you were doing. Christ directed his preachers here, these 70, to disregard all these human regulations and simply eat what was set before them. Don’t be critical. Don’t be fussy about it. Paul follows, you remember Christ’s example in his epistle, to the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 1027. If any of you are invited to a feast and you be disposed to go, whatever is set before you eat, asking no questions for conscience sake. So this is the observation I want to make here. Your life is to be governed by Scripture and not by Scripture. human tradition. Your evangelistic efforts must be based upon the Word of God. Do not mix it with some type of human tradition. Jesus plainly taught that the traditions of men undermine the scriptures and eventually and ultimately lead to the rejection of the Word of God. Look with me at the Book of Mark. if you would, chapter 7, verse 7 to 9. Mark chapter 7 and verses 7 to 9. How being in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men? For laying aside the commandment of God, Ehold the tradition of men as the washing of pots and cups and cups and many others such-like things you do. And he said, under them full well, you reject the commandment of God that you may keep your own traditions. And then verse 13 as well. Making the word of God of none of fact through your tradition, which ye have delivered, and many such like things do ye. Now, friends, I mention this because we should recognize that the Roman Catholic Church declares this very clearly. Our worship and our beliefs in their entirety depend upon tradition. And they all say, say this. We ought to receive with obedience of faith many things which are not written in Scripture. We say, according to what the Bible says, we cannot accept any of these things because they’re not found in Scripture. Something that is based upon tradition. tradition is very vague, it’s very uncertain. We just have oral words. We have nothing written down any book in which all these so-called traditions have been recorded for us or something of this nature. It’s all where to mount. The great Reformation was founded upon the important principle, Sola Scriptora, the Scriptures alone. for our faith, our life, and our practice. And that is what we would adhere to. Let your evangelism that be based upon not human tradition, not the schemes of men, but upon thus saith the Lord. Here’s what the scripture say, and try to emphasize that. There is no magic formula when it comes to evangelizing. That you can just follow this procedure and it always leads to somebody being saved. I grew up with such a situation where if you just got the person to pray a certain prayer while you counted them as being saved. My friends, it doesn’t work like that. God works in the heart and must change the heart. And we can’t just outwardly move people. through the hoops, so to speak, and then say they’re converted. And any type of mixed message we give confuses those who will hear us if we add some kind of human tradition or human ideas with it. How can God bless that? Let us do what God has commanded us. So don’t hinder your message by mixing it with human tradition. The second thing, you should have compassion upon the sick. tells us this here in verse 9, and heal the sick that are therein. Heal the sick. Now, evidently, Christ gave power to the 70, the same as he gave power to his 12th disciples to heal the sick, to enable them to be better. We don’t have that today, but it was a thing. sign at that time of the Messianic age validated their message of the gospel. And people could see that divine power rested upon these 70 men who were preaching the gospel to them. Healing as sick, the sick was a sign of their goodness and compassion for those who were suffering. A sign that God was concerned about the body as well as the soul. soul of men. And we have to admit, and if we study scripture carefully, that some sickness is directly related to a person’s sin. And so once we see that, it’s, it can be interconnected. The infirm man that Jesus healed in John 5, we read this, Jesus after healing him said, Behold thou art made whole, sin no more. lest a worse thing come upon thee. As if he had sinned at first and look what happened to him. And if you continue on in this path, look what’s going to happen to you. Something worse. Now, obviously, you and I do not have the miraculous power to heal anyone. We don’t have this power. We can’t heal all manner of sickness and disease. But Christ’s power, but Christ’s power. is still revealed through your prayers for the sick to be healed. The prayer of faith shall save the sick. And the Lord shall raise him up. James 515. So you and I are sort of like Moses. You remember when his sister Miriam became leprous, as white as snow, he had no miraculous power to heal her. So what did he do? He resorted to prayer. He turned to the Lord. Moses cried unto the Lord saying, heal her now, oh God, I beseeched me. God says, I will wait one week. There’s a chastening of her for what she has said against you. And then I will heal her. And he did after one week. But Moses’ prayer was effectual, and it healed the sick. Another example of this we see in the case of Abraham in Scripture. When Abraham was in Gerard, he had the fact that Sarah was his wife. He said that she was his sister. And being an attractive woman, we find that the king of Gerard decided he would take Sarah for his wife to be one of his wives. God came to abimelech in a dream and said thou art but a dead man for you’ve taken another man’s wife. God told abimelech that abraham is a prophet and he shall pray for thee and thou shalt live. And so Abraham prayed unto God and God healed Abimelech and he healed his wife and his maidservants who were not able to bear any children. For some reason God also stopped their child bear. at that point. But here Abraham’s prayers prevented Abimelech from dying and opened the wombs of these women. Abraham’s prayer was also effectual. So while you and I cannot lay hands on the sick and immediately heal them, we do have the power of Christ when we seek in prayer for the healing of the sick. Let us pray in faith. Let us pray in faith. believing that Christ is still on the throne still has this power to heal those for whom we pray. Now mostly remember that one of my mother’s friends, Grace, had breast cancer. And she was battling for a number of years. She was on our prayer list for a number of years because of the cancer. And my mother told Grace that she had put her on the church prayer list and that we were praying. for her. Well, behold, after a few years, she goes back to the doctor, gets retested, and the cancer is gone. She was now cancer-free, she was told. And it was interesting, she rightly gave credit to the prayers of the church for healing her of cancer. Then she was much more interested in the gospel that my mother and my sister were trying to talk to her about because of this. This is a good example of showing compassion and being concerned for a person’s whole being, and we see how that can be effective even when we witness, because we’re praying for their souls, and we’re praying and witnessing them about their salvation, but we also are concerned about how they’re doing physically. You should have compassion upon the sick. The third thing we see here is you are to proclaim a simple gospel message. In verse 9, the second part of it, we read these words, the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you. You are to proclaim a simple gospel message. The words, the kingdom of God has come nigh unto you, was the main thrust of the message of the 70. Not that these were the only words that the only words that they were the only words that they spoke. They declared like the apostles the same thing. The preaching of the kingdom of God involved, as we saw in chapter 9 also later on in the verse in that chapter, the preaching of the gospel. Just a few verses later, he calls it the preaching of the gospel. So those two are intertwined. They were to preach the kingdom of the Messiah was nigh under them. The Messiah is here. Christ and his apostles both declared that the kingdom of God is at hand, or the kingdom of heaven, as Matthew puts it, is at hand. And this meant that the kingdom of God was brought near unto men. For the righteousness and peace and joy of the Holy Spirit is proclaimed to everyone who in a sense of need shall embrace Christ. Romans 1417 tells us this is what the kingdom of God consists of. So you are told of your sinfulness that you are a violator of God’s law and how you stand condemned before God and how hell awaits you. And you are told of Christ’s righteousness by which all believers in the Savior are clothed, that Christ’s death provides cleansing of sin. and his perfect righteousness grants you acceptance before God. And you are now given peace with God. God’s wrath has been appeased. And your conscience has been cleansed of sin. Finally, the joy produced by the Holy Spirit permeates your heart. This is the simple gospel that we proclaim to sinners. When the simple gospel is proclaimed, the kingdom of God is brought in eye unto you. You must seek the Lord while he may be found and call upon him while he is near in the preaching of the gospel of Christ. Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child by simple faith in Christ shall in no wise enter therein. Luke 18. And thus when we hear the Word of God proclaimed, there is a message from God saying, repent and believe. It’s not just a minister, but God himself speaks through his word telling men to repent and believe in Christ and not to harden their hearts. The message of salvation then, when it is proclaimed through the gospel, is nigh unto sinners. They are brought to the point. where they hear the message of how their souls can be saved. And who’s going to save? They should take advantage of that when they hear it. Today is the day of salvation. You’re not given tomorrow. But while you hear the message of the gospel, believe it. Sadly, many churches today are not plainly and boldly declaring this gospel message. Remember that passage I read. He that is of God, hears God’s Word. Those who are God’s elect are going to hear the word when it is proclaimed and they will be brought to salvation. Luther had an interesting comment about his preaching. He said once, he said, when I preach, I regard neither doctors nor magistrates, though he had some 40 of them in his congregation. He said, I have all my eyes on this. the maid servants and the children. And if the learned men are not well pleased with what they hear, well, the door is open. He’s going to make it simple. He’s going to lay it out for people so that they can believe the truth of the simple message of the gospel of Christ. You know, sermons can be brilliant but useless if they lack this simple gospel. of our Savior, Jesus Christ. So in place, this is, we talked about here, in places where your gospel message is received. Don’t hinder the message, don’t mix it with any human tradition, have compassion on the sick, and proclaim a simple gospel message to. Secondly, let’s talk about in places where your message is rejected in verses 10 to 12. I’ll start with verses 10 and 11. You are to pronounce the judge, judgment of God against them. Versus 10 and 11. But into whatsoever city ye enter, and they receive you not, go your ways out into the streets of the same, and say, even the very dust of your city, which cleaveth on us, we do white off against you. Notwithstanding, be ye sure of this, that the kingdom of God has come nighed. unto you. Now, as they were leaving the city after being rejected, they were warning the city that you’re going to bring ruin upon yourself. And they would wipe off the very dust of that place from their person as a condemnation against them. Now, the Jews looked on all other lands as being unholysmable. holy, if you would, contaminate it, unclean, inhabited by heathen. So whenever they would travel to foreign lands and they came back to Israel, they would shake the dust off before they stepped into the land of Israel because they didn’t want to contaminate the holy land. Now, the Jews that would not receive the 70, and their gospel message, this wiping off of the dust, had to stun them. Because it was a symbolic way of declaring to the Jews here. One, you’re not a true Israelite, and two, you’re an unclean heathen. This was a powerful witness against these people, that they were not the people of God, they were not the sons of Abraham. The basic teaching here is that anyone who claims to be a Christian, let us say, who claims to be a follower of God, Christ and rejects the gospel must be declared a heathen and an unbeliever. Thus, under divine condemnation and wrath, and sure the parish in their sins in hellfire. Now, we considered this in a previous study in verse 5 of chapter 9, so I’m not going to go into this any further, but to reiterate this point. Paul and Barnabas practiced this symbolic gesture whenever they encountered Jews in a city, and they often went there to the synagogue first, and they would preach the gospel there. Whenever they were rejected and obstinately opposed, they shook the dust off their garments as a condemnation of those people. Friends, regardless of what people claim, if they don’t embrace the authentic gospel declared unto us by Christ and by the apostles, they are not saved. They are not Christians. They are not the people of God. All they may believe in a Jesus, but as Paul talks about, it’s another Jesus, not the one that we find in Scripture, as he says in 2 Corinthians 114, for if he that cometh, preacheth another Jesus whom we have not preached, he says, you know, you’ll receive him. He condemns them for that. They may believe in a gospel, but it’s another gospel, a perversion of the true gospel, as Galatians 1-6 indicates. Galatians 1-8 says, But though we or an angel of God from heaven preach any other gospel unto you, you than that ye have received, let them be accursed. The probably the most common perversion of the gospel is to claim that you’re saved by faith in Christ, plus some other personal acts of righteousness on your part. Sort of Christ plus whatever you do. Put it simply. Those who hold to the Roman Catholic religion, those who believe in the new perspective on Paul or the Federal Vision, hold to this, that faith alone doesn’t save you. It’s faith plus some type of work that you do. My friends, they cannot be genuine believers. They’re lost and still in their sins because they’re adding something they do to Christ’s work. In other words, his work isn’t enough. they reject the authentic gospel. We must proclaim God’s judgment against such people. If they preach a different gospel, let them be a curse for that. So you’re to pronounce the judgment of God against them. You were to warn them of the final judgment to come. Now notice verse 12 when he says this, but I say unto you that it shall be more tolerable in that that day, for Sodom than for that city. That day is a phrase that’s used in Scripture many times to refer to the great judgment. The last judgment that’s mentioned in Scripture, the Great Throne Judgment of Revelation 20, the judgment of Matthew chapter 25 that we read about in Scripture. Scripture says this, that God hath appointed a day in which, he will judge the world in righteousness by that man, meaning the Lord Jesus Christ, whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, and that he hath raised him from the dead. This is the final judgment. All men will stand before this judgment, and they will give an account. Now notice chapter 10 in verse 14. If this clarifference, a little bit more, but it shall be more tolerable for Tyran Sidon at the judgment than for you. You see how that helps explain that day earlier in this text. Also, you remember that passage in Matthew chapter 7, verses 21 to 23. When Christ talks about all those people who come and say, Lord, Lord, have we not done this or that or the other? Says, I never knew you. It was on that day. Use the same phrase, that day. to refer to the final judgment that is going to be made. We have to remember that all men are going to stand before the divine judge, the Lord Jesus Christ. They’re going to have to give an account of their works, and there’s a book of works that keeps track of all our behavior, so to speak, all that we do. We know that the small and great are going to be there, the righteous and the wicked, the sheep of the goats, as Matthew 25 puts it. So no one’s going to be excluded. Even that previously dead are going to be raised to stand before the judgment seat of Christ, as Revelation 20, verses 12 and 13 tell us. And they’re going to be judged according to their works. Now, the righteous, thankfully, have their names written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. There’s another book there in which those that Christ represents His people are written in the book, the ones he has redeemed, and their sins are forgiven, and they will not be condemned. Although we have plenty to be condemned for, but because of Christ’s death and his pardoning of our sins, we are forgiven. The wicked, not being in the book of life, not having the Savior, not believing the gospel, are condemned by their sins and cast into the lake of fire. Revelation 20, 15. Now, friends, you can’t escape this final judgment. You will be there. You will be confronted by your sins. And Jesus indicates you should not take this day lightly. We ought to fear him. It has the power to cast body and soul into hell, as the scriptures revealed to us. Now notice he connects your circumstances here to Sodom. in this passage. He says here, it’ll be more tolerable in that day for Sodom than for that city that’s rejected the gospel that has been proclaimed by the 70s. Now, Jesus here verifies the account that is given in the book of Genesis of Sodom, that this is a real city, it is history, it was truly destroyed, by fire and brimstone, sent down by God. Sodom was a very wicked city. And the Lord destroyed it, because if it’s wickedness, he judged it. The smoke of that country, the Bible says, went up as the smoke of a furnace, and this was a type of hellfire. Here’s what the book of Jude, verse 7, says. The Sodom and Gomorrah are set forth for an example suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Now, they had some witness for lot, the righteous lot, dwell among them, but not the kind of witness that the 70 were given them about the gospel and the way of salvation and so forth. They didn’t have that kind of witness, but God purpose to make these cities an example of his purpose to punish evildoers. that he will bring judgment against them. So you should pay attention to the account of Sodom. It’s a forewarning of God’s intention to punish all who live wickedly. Now, there are degrees of punishment in hell. It’ll be more tolerable for Sodom, he says here. We’ll take this up more next week, Lord willing. But be aware of this key fact. The more spiritual light you are granted, the more guilty you are when you stand before God when you reject the gospel of Jesus Christ. And therefore, your punishment may be much greater in hell than that of others who end up in hell. There are degrees of punishment in hell. Well, let me close this morning by saying this. which softens wax, hardens clay. In like manner, the same gospel message that softens the hearts of some so that they are brought to repentance and faith, hardens the hearts of others so that they are stubborn and resistant and will not believe. Therefore, they will perish in their sins. Let me ask you as we close, how has the gospel affected you? In what camp do you? you fall this morning. Are you someone who has heard the gospel and believed it? Are you still stubbornly resisting the message that has been given to us in the Word of God? Let us close.