In the midst of life

The sermon begins by putting the passage into context. In the previous chapter our Lord had told the story of the evil servants and the surprise return of the master. After hearing this story of judgment, the audience brought up the case of the Galileans who had recently been slaughtered by Pilate. The sermon continues. . .

Now our Lord is taking up and dealing with something that is very common among us human beings. I suppose there is no more exact way of discovering where every one of us really stands in our relationship to God and what our true position is than in our reaction to the things that happen round and about us.

By our reactions we betray what we are and how we think. Our Lord made this point many times. When he speaks at the end of Matthew 12 about men having to give account for every idle word, he says: 'What really shows what you are is what you say'. In other words, when we hear of something, a calamity like this terrible earthquake that has happened in the last week in North Africa or anything similar, our reaction proclaims exactly what we are. Our response to such an event really makes a proclamation as to our whole position, our whole view of life, our whole and total attitude towards God.

This is, of course, because of the effect of sin upon us. Sin is the most devastating thing that has ever entered into the world. The effect of an atom bomb or even an earthquake is nothing compared with the devastating effect of sin. The whole world is as it is today entirely as the result of sin. The world was made perfect; God looked at it and saw it was good. It was paradise. Why then is it as it is? It is because of the Fall, because of sin.

But, in particular, the most terrible thing that sin has done to the human race is what it has done to our minds, to our thinking. That is what the Bible emphasises from beginning to end. It says that the trouble ultimately with the sinner is that he is a foolish man who does not know how to think, how to reason, who is not logical. 'The fool has said in his heart there is no God.' The Bible is full of that sort of thing. There is nothing so devastating as what sin has done to our minds and thinking.

Sin and our minds

The first thing sin does is produce a general paralysis of the mind. Sin seems to damage our mind at its very root. This manifests itself in a most extraordinary manner. The minds which we all have by nature are minds which may be very good indeed in some realms, but the moment you come to the spiritual realm they cease to function. Did you notice what our Lord said to the people at the end of Luke 12: 'When you see a cloud rise out of the west, straightaway you say, there comes a shower and so it is.' You are quite right. 'You know', said our Lord, 'it is a very remarkable thing about you, you've obviously got minds, got brains, got understanding, because you can see these signs and your interpretation of them is correct. When the wind is in the west or the south you are able to make prophecies. But what is the matter with you? You can discern the face of the sky and the earth; but how is it you do not discern this time?'
Isn't that the trouble with mankind? Man is brilliant in many spheres. There is a man wonderful in his judgment. People are ready to listen to him. But you'll sometimes find that the same man in his own life is a fool. He can give a profound judgment from the bench. Yet all the time he can be guilty of the same thing himself and not see it. He is like David. You remember his terrible sin with Uriah's wife? Nathan the prophet went to him and worked up a story, describing exactly what David had done in other terms. David could make a right judgment about that. He could not see it in himself, but he could see it in the other. What explains that? What has gone wrong with the mind of man? There is only one answer. That's what sin has done. Able men, intelligent men, logical men, men of understanding, put this before them, they are like babes, they are like fools. The most brilliant men in the land perhaps, who are deniers of the gospel, are doing exactly the same thing as the biggest ignoramus on the street corner who equally denies it. Here are men at both extremes as regards intelligence, but when you put this before them there's no difference at all. They say exactly the same. They scoff at it, they laugh, they make jokes, exactly the same. What is the reason? It's sin paralysing the mind.

But the thing that I want to emphasise particularly is this. The result of this paralysis and prejudice of the mind is that when we are confronted by something, we have a genius for missing the real point and going off at a tangent after something that is comparatively unimportant. Here is a thing confronting us, what do we see? Do we see the big central principle? No! We miss the big things and we pay great attention to the little thing. I am doing nothing but summarising our Lord's castigation of the Pharisees when he said: 'You tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs but you have missed the weightier matters of the law, of righteousness and the love of God'. When the case is set before you, you don't see the heart, you see the circumference. Now that's all the result of sin on the human mind. And that is the whole tragedy that's unfolded in the gospels. Here is the Son of God in the flesh, standing before the human race, speaking and teaching and working miracles, giving demonstrations of his power and his authority. What did they see in him? They concentrated on some trumpery things, asked their clever questions, made their irrelevant comments and remarks, and eventually crucified him and buried him.

In this incident we've one of the most perfect examples of this. Our Lord had been speaking and these people said, those people whom Pontius Pilate murdered the other day, did that happen to them because they were greater sinners than anyone else? 'Dear me', said our Lord, 'why will you miss the point?' 'I tell you, nay: but except you repent, you shall all likewise perish'. You see, they were missing the point, and that's how they were in the time when our Lord was here in this world, jumping to conclusions, not deducing things properly, not applying the message.

Isn't the world still the same? What's your reaction to the earthquake in North Africa? What have you said, what have you thought about it? By whatever you have thought, or said, you have been proclaiming exactly where you are, whether you are a Christian or not. Let's test ourselves. Let me try to summarise his teaching under three principles. There is a wrong way of looking at these things. There is a right way and there is a message to be gathered that can prove salvation to us.

The wrong way

The wrong way is typified by these people who put their question about the Galileans to the Lord. What we want to know is did it happen because they were exceptionally great sinners? And our Lord points out to them how terribly and tragically wrong their reaction is.

Now I am concerned with the same thing as it manifests itself today.

How does that show itself? Here's one way. By not thinking at all. The news comes about this terrible tragedy. What about it? It's disturbing, shrug it off, have a drink, don't be morbid, don't dwell on it. Don't stop to think, whatever else you do don't think. You'll only make yourself miserable if you think.

Another reaction is this one: 'Why does God allow these things to happen?' If God is God he would not allow these things therefore there isn't a God.

Now I don't want to stop with these things except to say that this is a very great and profound question. Someone says, what I want to know is this, what do you say about this particular case, and the answer is, I don't know. And I'll go further. I don't think I am meant to know. What matters is this. That this is God's world, that he is still God over all, that he can send calamities, he may or he may not, but of this I am certain, that there is to be an end of history and a final calamity. Disasters are but pale adumbrations of what is going to happen when God comes in judgment.

The right way

There is a right way of looking at these calamities about which there is no doubt. How should we face them? Well, he says, you should face them like this. Not those people but myself. YOU, not other men. Not the theoretical questions about God that cannot be answered finally, not my prejudice, but myself. Dismiss all the other questions but let these things turn upon you as a searchlight and make you examine yourself.

This calamity happened suddenly and dramatically, it was a matter of seconds. How do I react? I react by saying, I'm living in a world where that sort of thing can happen, that's life. In this world, we are here today and gone tomorrow.

Then you go on to the most vital question of all, which is this. What would my position be if that actually did happen to me?

Have you ever contemplated that position? You know this is really the purpose of preaching the gospel. It is to remind men and women who are doing everything they can in this world not to think about death, to think about death. What about you? says Christ. What if this happens to you?

The message

There is a further vital question. Why am I still alive? There is only one answer that our Lord puts pictorially in the wonderful parable that follows. When the owner of the vineyard says cut down the fruitless vine, the dresser of the vineyard asks for it to be given another chance. Wait, he says, let the gospel have a chance. It is nothing but the grace and kindness and love and longsuffering of God that allows us to go on living. Why? So that we may have another opportunity. My dear friends, we are given another opportunity to repent. If you don't believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and go after him and bear fruit, you remain as you are, barren and fruitless. Christ's action and that alone stands between us and hell, but thank God, believing in it opens to us the door into heaven and everlasting bliss. I say to you - with all your questions and theories and arguments and debates and interest in the world - 'No! except you repent you shall all likewise perish.'

An edited version of a sermon based on Luke 13.1-9

Sin and our minds

The wrong way

The right way

The message

Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones

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