Deo Gloria
Sermon for March 24, 2019
Pastor Martin Bentz
Text: Luke 13:1-9
Theme: Repent or Perish!
- Pay attention to the warning signs.
- Don’t wait until it’s too late.
We hear about them all the time, don’t we: tragedies, catastrophes, natural disasters of various kinds? Back in November, for example, we saw the pictures of the wild fires that wiped out the town of Paradise, CA, destroying thousands of homes and businesses and leaving 88 people dead. Last month we saw the pictures of that massive pile up on I-41 near Neenah, WI, involving 131 vehicles, claiming the life of a science teacher and leaving many others injured or hospitalized. And then just three weeks ago we saw the pictures of destruction and devastation caused by that EF-4 tornado in Alabama, where hundreds of homes and businesses were destroyed and 23 people were killed.
So how do we respond? How do we respond when we hear of such tragic events? Do we breathe a sigh of relief and thank God that it wasn’t us or one of our relatives? Are we saddened by such news and feel sympathy for the people involved or for the families of the victims? Or are there times when we simply turn the TV off or put the paper down because it’s all so depressing? If that’s the way we respond, then we have totally missed the message. Yes, it’s good to be thankful that we or the members of our family were spared from such tragic events. Yes, it’s good that our hearts are touched and are moved to sympathy for the victims and their families. Yes, the abundance of such news can be rather depressing at times. But there’s another message to be found in these tragic, unsettling events, an important message for you and me and every other person in the world. And that message comes across loud and clear in the verses of our text: Repent or perish!
Jesus was on his way up to Jerusalem for the Passover celebration. Along the way Luke tells us that some people came up to him and told him about a terrible tragedy that had taken place in Jerusalem. We don’t know all the details. Apparently some people from Galilee had gone up to Jerusalem and were offering sacrifices at the temple when a disturbance broke out. Who knows? Maybe they were even involved in the disturbance. Galileans had a reputation for stirring up revolts, you know. At any rate the Roman governor Pilate was not going to take any chances and allow this disturbance to get out of hand. He immediately sent in his soldiers to put an end to this disorder. The soldiers, of course, used force. And some people were killed. It was a terrible tragedy, but that’s what happens when you live under Roman rule. The Romans ruled with an iron fist and they had no time for people who stirred up trouble.
No doubt the people were shocked and saddened by such an event, but they had another reaction as well. They didn’t come right out and say what they were thinking, but Jesus knew. They thought that these Galileans must have been really bad sinners for something like this to happen to them. “Sorry, wrong conclusion,” Jesus says. “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent you too will all perish”(v. 3).
Jesus then proceeded to bring up another well-known calamity. “Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem?”(v. 4) The tower in Siloam was located in the southeast corner of Jerusalem, near the pool of Siloam. For some reason it collapsed and 18 people died. Again, the conclusion that these people had drawn was that the people who had died were exceptionally bad sinners. “Sorry, wrong conclusion,” says Jesus. “I tell you, no! But unless you repent you too will all perish”(v. 5).
Sometimes there is a connection between sin and calamity or sin and misfortune. When a bank robber is being pursued by police in a high speed chase and as he goes around a corner, he loses control of his car and his car slams into the guardrail and flips end over end and he is killed, there is a connection. Or when a person goes to the bar and gets drunk and on the way home he runs off the road, hits a telephone pole and is seriously injured, yes, then there is a connection. And when there is clear evidence supporting such a connection between sin and some tragic event, then it is appropriate for us to come to that conclusion. But how often do we know that to be the case? Chances are very few.
So what conclusion should we make when we see or hear about tragic events? Jesus states it loud and clear: “Unless you repent, you too will all perish.” You see, tragic events like these are warning signs. When we hear about an earthquake that took place in Alaska or Peru, it’s a warning. When we hear about some 30 car pile up on the freeway or some tragic accident between a van and a semi, it’s a warning. When we hear about hurricanes in Florida or tornadoes in Alabama, it’s a warning—a warning to you and me and everyone else. The day is coming when we too will die. It may be in a tragic accident or it may be from a sudden heart attack or it may be from old age, but the day is coming. The day is coming when our life in this world will come to an end and we will have to stand before the mighty Maker of heaven and earth. And we had better be ready.
Are you ready? Are you ready to stand before the judgment seat of God? Are you ready to stand before the holy and righteous God of heaven? You’re a sinner, someone who has broken God’s commandments, someone who has violated God’s holy will. God says you shall not love anything or anyone more than him, and you have. God says you shall not curse and swear or misuse his name, and you have. God says you shall not gossip about your neighbor, and you have. God says you shall not hate other people, because hatred is murder; and you have. In fact, is there any commandment you have not broken?
And what are you going to say to God when you stand before his throne? “Ah, I didn’t mean it.” “Ah, well, it was an accident. I let it slip.” “Well, God, what did you expect? Nobody’s perfect.” God hates it when we do things like that. God hates it when we ignore his holy will and what he tells us in his Word. God hates it when we break his commandments and do what is wrong and evil. And he says that those who do such things deserve to die. They don’t deserve to live with him in heaven. They deserve to spend eternity in hell.
We need to listen to Jesus’ words of warning. We need to repent. We need to confess our sins to God. We need to admit that we lied about what we were doing with our friends the other night. We need to admit that we gossiped about our neighbors. We need to admit that we said evil and hurtful things and thought things that were even worse. Stop playing games with your sins. Stop trying to excuse them and ignore them and pretend they’re not really that bad. You need to confess them. You need to repent and look to Jesus for forgiveness.
Yes, God has provided a way, a way for us to escape the punishment you and I deserve on account of our sins. Because of his great love for us, he sent his own Son to take our place, to be our Savior. As our Savior Jesus took our sins upon himself—all our sins: the lies, the foul language, the gossip, the hatred. He took them all and carried them to the cross, where he died. He suffered the punishment we deserved. And because of his perfect sacrifice offered for the sins of the world, you and I are forgiven. Our sins are completely and totally erased. Before God our record is clean. We are holy and blameless.
Yes, it’s time to repent, time to pay attention to the warning signs and repent of your sins and look to Jesus Christ for forgiveness, while there still is time.
Some people like to procrastinate. They like to wait to the last minute to do things they know they ought to do. College students often have a research paper assigned to them at the beginning of the semester, sometimes on the very first day of class. And yet, some choose to wait. They wait until the very last minute, until the night before, before they start working on their paper. Some people procrastinate when it comes to doing their taxes. They wait until the very last day, April 15th. And then they’re in panic mode, scrambling to get their taxes filed before the midnight deadline.
In verses 6-9 Jesus tells a little story to warn against that kind of thinking.
Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree, planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’
‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘Leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’”
The point of the parable is simply this: Jesus gives us time to repent. As the Bible says, “He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance”(2 Peter 3:9). God doesn’t want people to perish. He doesn’t want to them to end up in hell. He wants them to repent. He wants them to confess their sins and to trust in Jesus for forgiveness. So he is patient with them. He gives them time—time to hear his word, time to repent, time to believe.
But we better be careful. We better be careful not to test God’s patience and put off repenting. We better not think, “Oh, I’ll always have time to repent. I’m still young. I’ll worry about getting right with God when I’m older, when I’m 60 or 70.” Who knows if you’ll live to be 60 or 70? Who knows if you won’t die in a tragic accident tomorrow? Or “Yeah, I know sleeping with my boyfriend or girlfriend isn’t really right, but you know, everybody does it. And besides, I can always ask for forgiveness later.” Really? How do you know you will have a chance to later? How do you know your life won’t end tonight and it will be too late to repent?
Don’t wait until it’s too late. The time to repent is now—not tomorrow, not next week, not next month, not next year. True, God is patient. He gives us time to repent. Look how much time he has given you already—20 years, 30 years, maybe 60 or 70 years. But the time will come when God says, “Enough. Cut it down. His time of grace is over.” And you and I don’t know when that time will be. The time to repent is now. Repent or perish.
I’d like to conclude this morning with a story, a true story that took place back in 1960. On May 22nd an earthquake took place down in Chile, triggering a massive tsunami with 25-foot waves. Many coastal towns were severely damaged, and the waves traveled westward and hit many Pacific islands as well. Little warning was sent to the South Pacific, so many people were completely unprepared when great walls of water swept over places like New Guinea, Okinawa, and the Philippines. The same can not be said for Hawaii, however. The people there were warned. An hour and a half after the initial earthquake, sirens sounded throughout the island. At 9 p.m., waves 4 feet higher than normal struck the island. At 12:40 a.m., a 9-foot-high wave came crashing ashore. And at 1:04 a.m., a 20-foot-high wall of water came crashing over the seawall and inundated downtown Hilo. 230 buildings were destroyed and 61 people perished. A survey of the survivors found that most people had heard the warnings, but only 33 people evacuated—only 33. In fact, most of the victims not only ignored the warnings, they had gone down to the beach because they wanted to see the big waves.
Friends, the warning signs are all around us. When we see disasters take place or hear about it in the news, it’s so easy to say, like the people in our text, “Look what happened to them.” But Jesus says there’s something else we ought to be concerned about. And that’s what is going to happen to us. Yes, God is patient, so very, very patient. And he gives people time to repent, but let’s not test his patience either. The time to repent is now. Listen to our Savior’s words of warning and take his warning to heart: Repent or perish! Amen.