Luke 12:8 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

Navigator

Luke 12:8

Comments

Here is one reason for condemnation, for deserving the judgment of God. If God is dismissed, denied, or disregarded by us, then we must understand that these are massive things to do. God is the Creator, not only of the entire cosmos, but he has made each one of us, and he sees us and marks our character and our ways. Compared to him we are just transient specks on this earth. We are so small by God's standards, with minute minds, intellects, understanding. We are so fallible and weak before him, the omnipotent God. For us to disregard him or reject him is an enormous insult! What an incredibly proud act for being who owe all to him and are dependent on him to disobey him! It is that for this kind of reason that the wrath of God is poured out. The valid indignation of the holy, righteous, and perfect God is justified against us. And yet even from childhood, we may have denied him, dismissed him, ignored him. The Bible teaches that the Lord Jesus Christ, the second person of the Godhead, the eternal Son of God who was incarnate and came to earth to be our Saviour; he actually mentioned hell more times than he mentioned heaven. To dismiss hell is to dismiss Christ and to dismiss the Christian faith altogether. What is hell? It is everlasting punishment of God; it is his just response to sin. It is not only found in the Bible; it is in all ancient religions. Are we saying that those other religions are valid? No, they are not at all valid. They are a mixture of contradiction and human ideas, and they get us nowhere. They have no Saviour, and they are just what you would expect from a counterfeit religion invented by the human mind. And yet they all have hell. They all have punishment. What does that suggest? That it is a basic human instinct. It's not only something we learn of in God's book the Bible, but it's something which is deep rooted in the human mind. Anybody in past decades and centuries who wanted to create religious ideas would immediately think about heaven and hell. That might be an odd way to validate the concept, but it's there and always has been. That is where our fear of death comes from. In sophisticated days, we might suppress the idea of hell, but at the same time, there remains the fear of death in us. Why is there that fear of death? One of the reasons is the instinct, not only for eternity, but for a day of judgment, a righteous punishment, and the separation of people on that day. The justice of God necessitates that there will be a day of judgment and punishment. God is just and holy, and he is pledged to punish sin. He must do so, because he cannot go against his nature. He is a God of love, and it is his love that has ever motivated him to devise the way of salvation by which we can be forgiven and reconciled with him. But he is also a God of judgment. Job speaks a great deal about judgment and about hell. ‘God distributeth sorrows in his anger’, he says (Job 21:17), and that is at the end of life. He says of unbelievers and people who are against God, that they shall ‘drink of the wrath of the Almighty’ (Job 21:20).

Application

Have you rejected God? Have you rejected your Maker? Are you rejecting him now, day by day? That is, in the sight of God, a monumental act of pride and an outrage. Where did you come from? Who made you? Do you really believe that you came about just by sheer accident, that there is no designer, that there is no God, no Creator? Your basic instinct tells you otherwise. Job defines the rejecter: ‘They say unto God, Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways’ (Job 21:14). We don't want to know God or his ways; we don't want to know about him. We want this life for ourselves, so that we can be our own masters. We are going to direct our own steps. We don't want this man to rule over us, as Christ expresses it in one parable. That is one of the reasons why we come under judgment, the rejection of God: the denial of his ownership of us.

In addition we do things constantly which are deeply offensive to the sensitivities and to the mind and tastes of Almighty God. That will bring us under judgment. We reject his standards, his ways, his commands. We come under judgment. We behave like the prodigal son who effectively said to his father, ‘You are nothing. I don't want you. I don't want to be anywhere near you. I don't want to know you. I just want the things that I can get from you, and go as far away as I possibly can. That will bring us under judgment. We have no gratitude to God, no sense of debt, no consciousness of what we owe him. We seize and steal our lives, our powers, our memories. All that will bring us under judgment.

Apart from anything else we are so proud that we convince ourselves that we can do much better in life without God. We don't need him; we have no need of him whatsoever. We can do better by ourselves. For that pride, we shall come under judgment. If we are hostile to him, slander him, join in the chorus of atheism and turn others against him, that will bring us into judgment in the last day.

Questions

Outline

Purpose

Introduction

Luke 12:8 Commentary and Bible Study