Leading The Way

Announcer: Welcome to Leading the Way with Bible teacher and often called upon international culture expert Dr. Michael Youssef. Get ready for perspective shifting message called "Jesus Divides", unpacking the stark differences between those who love and worship Jesus and those who reject Jesus. To allow just as much time as possible for Dr. Youssef to unpack this critical content, listen with me now as he begins.

Dr. Michael Youssef: For 2000 years, the gospel of Jesus Christ has divided humanity into two categories, no third, two categories: those who are saved and those who are lost, those who are redeemed and those who are unredeemed, those who will spend eternity in heaven with Jesus and those who will spend eternity in hell with Satan. Two divisions.

This division is by individual choice. This division is created by men's volition. When Jesus said in Luke 12:49, "I have come," he is describing his mission that brought him from heaven. For I tell you that he came directly from heaven. Those who say Jesus is just a founder of another religion, he is just a leader of another religion, are absolutely wrong. Jesus came from heaven because he co-existed with God the Father before all worlds.

In Matthew, Jesus said the Son of Man has come. He came from heaven to seek and save that which was lost. In John 5:43, Jesus said, "I have come in my Father's name and you do not receive me." In John 10:10, when he is talking about himself as the good shepherd, he said the Son of Man has come that his sheep may have life and then have it more abundantly.

While his mission from heaven is to save that which was lost, his mission is also to bring judgment, God's judgment. Jesus has a dual mission. Those who have rejected him and chose not to be saved will therefore spend eternity in judgment in hell, and those who have received him and escaped that judgment. The Bible often speaks, in both the Old Testament and New Testament, of judgment as fire. Just as fire has a dual purpose, so is the coming of Jesus.

The Jewish hearers who were listening to Jesus at that time understood the Old Testament passages about the fire of judgment. But they believed that that fire of judgment was going to only hit the Gentiles and never going to hit them as Jews. He is trying to wake them up from their stupor. Just as fire has a dual purpose, so is the coming of Jesus Christ.

What is the dual purpose of fire? On the one hand fire consumes what is combustible, but on the other hand fire does not consume that which is not combustible. Fire burns hay so fast and so quickly, but it purifies gold. This is the dual role of the fire. The gospel fire either purges or purifies. Take your pick. The apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians 2:16, "It is to one the aroma of death to death and to the other the aroma of life to life."

First of all, this fire Jesus said will take place on the cross. I am going to explain that to you because it is very important. That is why this passage is a vitally important passage to understand. It is the gospel in ten verses. He is referring to that fire of the baptism that he has to undertake: the cross. Don't miss this, it is very important.

The instruction that Jesus is giving to his disciples and is giving to all of us is this: Before judging unbelievers for their sins of unbelief, Jesus himself has to take their judgment and the judgment of everyone who believe in him on himself. He is going to take the judgment of sin of every repentant sinner on that cross. That fire of judgment is going to hit him first. What Jesus did on the cross is that he took the place of the believers' death. He became the curse of the believer. He took the punishment of the believer. He received the penalties of the believers on that cross.

Who are the believers? Everyone who acknowledges that they are a sinner heading for hell and that Jesus took their judgment on that cross. Look with me at verses 49 and 50. "I have come to cast fire upon the earth. How I wish it were kindled." He is talking about the cross. He said, "I have a baptism that I have to undergo and how distressed I am until it happens." Jesus carried that burden all of his life until he went to that cross. There he hung, stretching his hands and bleeding love and mercy, and said, "It is finished. It is done. It's accomplished." He took the sin, the judgment, and the punishment of everyone who believes in him.

John the Baptist said, "I baptize with water, but he who comes after me is going to baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire." The fire of the Holy Spirit purifies, cleanses, and sanctifies the believer. It seals the believer for the day of Christ. Verses 52 and 53 are some of the most misunderstood, misinterpreted, and misapplied verses in the whole of the gospel. I want you to listen carefully.

God haters say that the Bible is full of hate speech. The Bible hates sin and it hates unrighteousness. Sure it does. The Bible hates bloodshed. If Jesus wanted to shock his disciples into attention, he has succeeded here. He has succeeded because the Bible tells us that Jesus is the only Prince of Peace, the only author of peace, and the only giver of peace. You say, "How then does he say I did not come to bring peace?" How come the one who said, "My peace I give to you, my peace I leave with you, not as the world gives peace do I give peace," says this? His peace does not make sense to the world; it passes all understanding.

Jesus wanted the disciples who already received the peace of God and already had peace with God to understand that the very mention of his name will bring them trouble, hatred, and persecution, and not peace. That is what he is trying to tell them and warn them. The very act of identifying with Jesus and the name of Jesus will create a division between them and those who hate his name.

Never before have we seen such hostility towards Christian family members from their non-believing families, not in my lifetime at least. Tragically, the name of Jesus Christ always produces some sort of painful division. That was what Jesus was talking about and preparing them for here. But there is more. Division is only half the story.

Here Jesus is quoting from the Old Testament, the book of Micah. Write it down: Micah chapter 7, beginning at verse 6. Jesus is quoting from the book of Micah because Micah prophesied hundreds of years before Christ that one of the ways to recognize the Messianic age and recognize the Messiah when he comes is that the gospel is going to create a division. There will be those who believe and those who don't, a division between those who have accepted the Messiah and those who have rejected him. That is the division.

So much for the modern preaching of getting unhitched from the Old Testament. Jesus quoted the Old Testament over and over again and used it as a testimony to him. Jesus is saying that the true disciple of Christ must be willing to pay any price. I know that is an anathema to our culture. People want easy believism and easy Christianity.

In Luke chapter 9, Jesus tells us about two would-be disciples who did not become disciples because they were unwilling to sacrifice anything, especially family relationships. One wanted to wait until he got his inheritance, then follow Jesus. The other wanted to delay obedience to Jesus until he had settled everything in his family. To this half-hearted commitment, Jesus said no one, after putting his hand on the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.

I wish you could meet the people that I meet when I travel. I wish you knew the people that I have the privilege and the honor of fellowshipping with who literally sign their death warrant the moment they come to Jesus. They know it, but the joy on their faces is indescribable. They talk about death, not by strangers, but by members of their family.

We are commanded, we are not given an option, we are commanded not only to love those who spitefully use us but to pray for them. Can I get an amen? Pray for the day that they discover the fallacy of their rejection of the true peace-giver, the Lord Jesus Christ. Pray that when they repent, we should be prepared to embrace them and love them with the love of Christ. Pray that whenever they give up their enmity to Christ, we would be ready to embrace them.

Don't ever forget that the gospel that brings us inner peace even in the midst of turmoil and in the middle of difficult circumstances will also be the cause for believers to be misunderstood, maligned, and mistreated by those who don't believe, often by those who are closest to us. The nearest and the dearest. The most heart-rending divisions are always among the dear and the near. There is no greater or deeper feeling of hurt and pain. Yet part of the cost of our discipleship as believers is to love even the family members who are non-believers with self-sacrificing love.

John Bunyan wrote his book, "Pilgrim's Progress", in prison. But what you might not know about John Bunyan is that he went to prison because he refused to stop preaching the gospel. They said he wouldn't have to go to prison if he stopped preaching, and he said he couldn't. He knew that if he went to prison, his wife and children were going to be left destitute. They already had little food and even less clothing to wear while their father was still free, let alone being imprisoned.

Yet he knew that he must preach the gospel because that was what God called him to do. He must preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, and so he was imprisoned. From prison he wrote the following, though it's not in his book. Listen carefully, especially those of you who are experiencing the pain of separation from non-Christian family members. He wrote, "The parting with my wife and poor children has often been to me in this place as pulling flesh from my bone. All the thought of the hardship I thought my blind son might go under would break my heart to pieces. Yet throughout I must do it. I must do it. I must do it."

Finally, in this passage, our Lord Jesus Christ comments on those who refuse to be discerning. He talks about the danger to those religious leaders in verses 54 through 59. In fact, what Jesus does here is give us two illustrations as a warning. This is a warning to us today as it was to the disciples. It is a warning to those who lack discernment, which may put them in danger of missing out on salvation altogether. Two parables.

They have seen the numerous array of supernatural miracles. They have seen the dead rise, the blind see, the lame walk, and the deaf ears opened. In the face of this irrefutable evidence of his Messiahship, they failed to comprehend that he's the one. He's the one for whom at least 300 prophecies said he was coming. There was the description of the birth, the suffering, the miracles, and the resurrection.

These two illustrations Jesus gives were a double-edged rebuke. The first illustration was to rebuke their lack of discernment because they failed to discern the times. I plead with you, discern the times in which we live. Secondly, he is rebuking them for not discerning the threat and the danger that is about to engulf them. They failed to discern who Jesus was.

Back then they did not have modern tools that meteorologists have today, such as satellite photos, Doppler radar, and sophisticated computer models. Yet simple observation of the weather, by repeated weather patterns, helped them to discern the short-term forecast. Look at verse 54: "When you see the clouds rising in the west, immediately you say a shower is on its way, and so it happens." Jesus said to them, "You hypocrites!" So much for the weak and mild Jesus who didn't want to hurt their feelings. I am very happy to hurt anyone's feelings if I can save them from hell.

You hypocrites! You know how to analyze the appearances of the earth and the sky, but you cannot recognize the time of your visitation from heaven. Why did he call them hypocrites? Because their spirituality was a false spirituality. Because their allegiance to God was a sham. Because their virtue was only for show. Because their religion was only external and because their hearts were evil.

You might ask what the prediction of the weather and hypocrisy have to do with each other. They could draw a conclusion on weather patterns with far less evidence than what they saw with their own eyes: an impeccable life, a sinless life, and supernatural miracles. All this evidence was conclusive of his Messiahship. That's hypocrisy.

I hear people say all the time that if we had miracles like in the first century, they would believe. But I can tell you no one saw more miracles, signs, and wonders than Judas Iscariot. The Jews in the time of Jesus did not reject him because they looked at the evidence and rejected him based on that. They rejected him because he was not the military leader whom they wanted to come and liberate them from their enemies. That is what they were looking for; they were looking for the wrong one. They wanted an earthly king and an earthly kingdom, and they failed to recognize Jesus who said, "My kingdom is not of this world." They failed to recognize the times.

They failed to recognize the times and, secondly, the second illustration or rebuke is because they failed to recognize the danger and the threat. Verse 57, make the right judgment, he said. Picture this: you have an altercation with someone and get into a dispute, and you go to the magistrate. The magistrate or the judge is going to decide who's guilty and who's not and what the punishment is.

Basically Jesus is saying that a guilty person knows he's guilty. Don't wait to go to the court; settle out of court. Confess, say I'm sorry, and pay the penalty, whatever it is. Get it done before you get to the court and before you face the judge. Jesus is saying to them, spiritually speaking, to do that. Recognize that you need salvation. Recognize that you need repentance. Picture yourself standing before the great judge of the universe at the White Throne Judgment, where you will be found guilty and the judgment will be not a few years in prison, but eternity in suffering and torment. Picture that. Jesus is urging everyone at the sound of my voice to consider carefully the humungous threat.