The Gospel of Luke 9:46-62 Inviting, Challenging & 'Weeding out' disciples

Good morning. We're going to be moving into this passage here, Luke 9, 46 through 62. This will wrap up chapter 9. We'll move on next Sunday to chapter 10. And one of the things we've summarized here, it's come to this. As we begin this passage, Dr. Luke is actually going to be changing some of his approach.

He's going to be focusing less on geographical detail in general, in chronology, with a couple of particular exceptions. Shifting from going about Galilee, about 80% of Jesus' ministry was in the Galilee, to heading towards Jerusalem. Jerusalem is going to now be the focus, either there or heading that direction is going to be where Dr. Luke's focus is shifting to here. Looking more towards the time of the triumphal entry, Christ's crucifixion, His burial resurrection, and the time of His ascension, looking ahead to that about two-month period of time from the triumphal entry to His ascension.

Dr. Luke is also going to be presenting in the chapters ahead of us here some unique material. For example, the account of the Good Samaritan is only in the Gospel of Luke, and that's ahead for us here. Looking also at Lazarus and the rich man. This is not Lazarus, the one that Jesus resurrected. but Lazarus and the rich man, where Lazarus is poor. So that's going to be some of the unique material we're going to see in Dr. Luke's Gospel here, just in the chapters ahead of us. Another point we made a couple of weeks ago is this, and it's an important one for us to observe today and actually for some weeks to come.

The word for disciples that is used in the Gospels is in the land of Israel. And it's with many traditions about rabbis and their disciples, traditions about the way rabbis said things, traditions about what the rabbis could ask of their disciples, things of that sort. And the rabbis were always centered on the law of Moses. A lot of times we will think that somehow Jesus says something about discipleship that is unique. In fact, many of the things that Jesus said about discipleship were in common with what other rabbis would say. Example, Jesus says, you know, take my yoke upon you. That figure of speech of a yoke was something other rabbis often said, and what they meant by it was the law.

Here, for instance, this is quoting or referring to Gamaliel in Acts 5.34. You also have that on your handout on page one. But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law respected by all the people, stood up in the council and gave orders to put the men outside for a short time. So there, Gamaliel is preparing to speak.

And then in Acts 22.3 Paul says that I am a Jew born of Tarsus of Cilicia but brought up to this city educated under Gamaliel. So he was one of Gamaliel's disciples. It turns out that we have other information about this guy Gamaliel. He is the grandson of Hillel the son of Simeon a line of rabbis Okay, so this guy is is of a line of rabbis.

That's part one Gamaliel it turns out had about a thousand disciples so in terms of numbers he was more successful than Jesus was and he was in fact very well regarded respected by all the people is a correct statement and Having been out of several generations of rabbis, he was very well regarded.

Now, it was tradition among the rabbis that a rabbi get married. Gamaliel didn't get married until later, and so people would ask him, how come you're not married? You're supposed to get married if you're a rabbi, right? And of course, Jesus was an exception to that. Well, Gamaliel gave us a reason why he didn't get married until later.

He said, it's because I'm so in love with the law. So there was a great tradition of rabbis and disciples. Jesus, as we point out, did some things like the other rabbis did and did some things that were very different. We also observed that saints, believers, in the book of Acts were called disciples, but differently than in the Gospels, in which the same word is used very differently, whereas Jesus would call some of the Jews to be disciples, and he would challenge them, and as we'll see, he would even invite some of the Jews to be his disciples, In the book of Acts, if you became a believer in Christ, you were immediately called a disciple, and there was no law placed on you, and there were no rabbis.

So it's the same word in the book of Acts, it's used very differently. One of the reasons why we point out this difference is when you read about disciples, In the Gospels, it is important not to just look at it and say, oh, that's for me. It isn't necessarily for you.

We'll make application from it. But we should not fall into the rabbi and disciple traditions that were there for the Jews. Some of them Jesus rejected. Some of them Jesus rejected. So we need to be careful about what we apply to ourselves. After The Book of Acts, the word disciple or disciples is never ever used once again. Completely drops off. Very interesting. What is also interesting though is that the verb form for disciples is used from the Gospels all the way to later on in the Bible. The verb form. So action, not titles.

So Jesus will be inviting, challenging, and weeding out disciples in this passage here. He's already chosen the 12, so any additional invitations are not to join the 12, but to also be disciples in addition to the 12. He did have other disciples. We're going to see that he sent out 70 of them, two by two, so others as well. As other rabbis did with their disciples, Jesus continued to invite other people to be his disciples. There was a continuous pattern of inviting and challenging and weeding out disciples. Along with those invitations, Jesus is going to challenge his disciples too, and he's going to set the bar high.

One of the things that we see is almost shocking statements from Jesus regarding discipleship. But it's Jewish disciples in the land of Israel where they're under the law. It's very important to get that distinction. In some cases, disciple candidates would be turned away. Somebody would come up asking or promising to be a disciple and he would put a condition, a challenge to that.

One advantage that Jesus had as a rabbi, rabbi just means teacher, right? One of the advantages that Jesus had is he knew what was in men's hearts. So when someone came up to him and said, hey, I'll be your disciple, he knew what the issue was that was still outstanding. And he would bring that up. So let's start with Luke 9, 46.

An argument started among them as to which of them might be the greatest. Oh, that's so great. And then, here are the disciples, get this, I decided to put this as a slide in your handout, right before Jesus went to the gardens of Gethsemane, look at Luke 22, 24 says, and there arose also a dispute among them as to which one of them was regarded to be the greatest. Isn't that amazing? Here Jesus is going to go in there, He's within hours of being crucified, and they're arguing over which one of them is the greatest. I bet Peter was in the argument too, and it would be ours, and he would deny that he knew Christ. Oh boy, isn't that great? Alright, the disciples don't get it. Which of them was the greatest? What? Striving for who was the greatest means that these guys don't get it at all, at least not at this point. That Luke 22, 24 passage means they really don't understand.

They didn't understand all the way up to Christ's arrest. They didn't understand all the way up to Christ's crucifixion. As a matter of fact, they didn't understand all the way up to Christ's resurrection. All the way up to the minutes before Jesus took them to the Garden of Gethsemane, where he asked them to pray, they're arguing over which one's the greatest. They had not made any progress at all on this issue. They had not learned anything from what Jesus is about to say regarding which one's the greatest.

Peter eventually, I'm glad to be able to tell you, did get it. He did get it. Here's Peter, one of the apostles, and he writes this to elders. He says, therefore I exhort the elders among you. These are elders who are leaders within each church. Does he say as an apostle? He says, humbly as your fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ and a partaker of the glory that is to be revealed. Shepherd. Now this is a command to shepherd the flock of God. What's very interesting is this is another instance where there's the verb form and a noun form.

The noun as a title, pastor, is never used of any man in the entire New Testament. Not once. As a matter of fact, aside from Jesus' half-brother, James, we don't know for sure the name of any elder in the entire New Testament. There is a tendency in our modern culture to say, oh, this guy is the pastor at that church. Sometimes we'll even know the name of a fellow who is some high-profile guy leading the church and not know the name of the church. But that's not the New Testament pattern. The New Testament pattern was that the elders actually held a low position. He says, shepherd the flock of God. What was the view in the culture of shepherds? Were shepherds held in high regard?

The answer is no. And hold your nose. Right? Shepherds hung out with the sheep. So this is not an exalted position, but a humble position. But he tells those who are elders, shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight. And by the way, that word oversight is also used sometimes of slaves. not under compulsion but voluntarily according to the will of God not for sordid gain not for trying to gain financially but with eagerness yet nor yet is lording it over those allotted to your charge and that is trying to see if you can exert your authority right but proving to be examples to the flock again using the flock and shepherd word picture and when the chief shepherd appears and by the way this is the only place The only way in which that word shepherd is used as a title, and Christ gets it. No human being gets it. That's why if I send an email to Mike and Roger, I'll address it, fellow under-shepherds. Fellow under-shepherds.

And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. Peter learned humility. He communicated humility. He was done arguing over who's the greatest. There's no question. Christ is the greatest. The rest of us have no place to argue over it.

So here's Luke 9, 47 and 48. But Jesus, knowing what they were thinking in their heart, took a child and stood him by his side. And he said to them, whoever receives this child in my name receives me. Whoever receives me Receives him who sent me for the one who is least among all of you.

This is the one who is great Which really baffled and confused them I'm sure There's a cultural insight here in the Jewish culture of the day a child was ranked the least very low which was generally the case in the Greco-Roman culture that is the Greek and Roman culture and as well. So both Jewish and then the Greek and Roman culture, all of them would have looked at a child as being low-ranked. The Greco-Roman culture even looked upon humility as a character defect.

And serving others was something rather to be avoided. Avoided as much as possible. Status and rank were important factors in the culture of the day, but humility and lovingly serving one another were not. This is one of the reasons why the Apostle Paul often had to address humility and serving one another and emphasizing that because the general culture did not convey that that was anything valuable.

It was a problem in their view. Ever notice a lot of the paintings from several centuries back? show people sometimes with these huge collars, large in diameter and sometimes even like this one with depth. It turns out that this idea of rank and establishing your rank among people is something in the old world was quite common among different cultures. Some years back Nancy and I went to Rotenburg And they had a criminal museum there in Rothenburg. Very interesting.

We found there that there were seven legally defined dimensions of colors. And depending on your socioeconomic status, you got a particular color size. And if you were not wearing a collar of the appropriate collar size for your socioeconomic status, the police were authorized to come and tear your collar off in public. Now we go, wow, that's pretty strange. And we don't worry about collars so much these days.

It is possible in other cultures where this ranking thing, and what are the symbols of ranking, end up being a very big deal. And it apparently was to these guys, and they had to learn differently from the culture. And that is where I think we need to look at this.

Beware looking to the culture for values, morals, ethics, and identity. Our culture will easily mislead us. Again and again, as we examine the Old and the New Testaments, both places, looking to the pagan and even the corrupt Jewish culture to establish values, morals, ethics, or identity is really a serious problem.

The book of Revelation, in chapters 2 and 3, has messages to seven churches. Those seven churches were warned about things in the culture. That's what a lot of the cautions and warnings are about, is simply absorbing the values and ethics and morals and identity of the culture.

Here's a, for instance, in New Testament times, Jesus in dealing with women. The men had established, the rabbis had established, that women were of low value. And they even were imbalanced to the point that they brought a woman in adultery to Jesus for him to make some kind of judgment, thinking that they'd somehow trap him. Problem! They only brought the woman, but the law of Moses says bring both of them, the man and the woman. And the corrupt Jewish culture said, nah, just the woman's good enough. We'll punish her.

Another instance, Jesus, contrary to all the other rabbis, actually taught women. He would teach women. All the other rabbis refused to teach women. They wouldn't talk to them. Mary and Martha called Jesus the teacher because he would teach them when the other rabbis would not. And the Jews were said to have two or three witnesses, that's out of the Law of Moses, about any legal matter. But women were not allowed to testify. Their testimony was considered unreliable. So who did God have come to the empty tomb first? Women. Who was the first one to see Jesus bodily resurrected? Mary Magdalene.

Jesus, God, went contrary to the corrupt Jewish culture. And we need to do the same. We need to examine very carefully what's biblical and not just what does our culture say. Because we'll find increasingly our culture is going off track. Our culture is going faster and farther, wildly off track. We need to measure everything by the Word of God and not by the culture. The everybody else is doing it and everybody else is saying it standard won't work anymore.

Here's Luke 9.49, and John answered and said, Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow along with us.

What's really interesting and curious about this account is it appears that the one who was casting out demons in Jesus' name was actually being successful at it. He was actually casting out demons in Jesus' name, not just trying, but doing it. That's the appearance as you read the account. The disciples report that they, get the word, tried to prevent him from casting out the demons, but they somehow couldn't, and that he actually was successful in spite of their efforts to stop him. Now, this similar kind of thing happened in the book of Acts, and what I would say is it's a self-solving problem. Yeah? What do I mean by that? Here's Acts 19, 13 through 16.

But also some of the Jewish exorcists who went from place to place attempted to name over those who had the evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, I adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preaches, seven sons of one Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, and by the way, there was no officially Jewish chief priest by that name, so this guy was a phony. They were doing this, going around trying to cast out demons by the Jesus whom Paul preaches. So, and the evil spirit answered and said to them, I recognize Jesus, and that's something we've seen, the demons know who Jesus is, and I know about Paul, but who are you?

Who the blankety-blank are you? That's what he's saying. And the man in whom was the evil spirit leapt on them and subdued all of them and overpowered them so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. It's a self-solving problem. Either they're going to cast out demons in Jesus' name, or they're going to try to unsuccessfully, and they'll get cured of it. So it's a self-solving problem.

Sometimes we can overstep our bounds as Christians. It's important for Christians to carefully assess what we have a valid responsibility to manage and control, and where we can have a good influence or not. But not to overstep our bounds. These disciples were overstepping their bounds. Believers have a place to take on responsibilities that are biblically theirs to the full. We ought to take responsibility for things that are genuinely our responsibility. But we should also step away from things that are not ours to take, based on God's Word.

Here's Luke 9.50, but Jesus said to him, do not hinder him, for he who is not against you is for you. So Jesus actually said, you must not. It's an imperative. You must not hinder him. If the man was actually casting out these demons in Jesus' name, then even if he didn't run with this Jesus group, the same group, his 12 disciples, that's OK. That's fine.

As believers, we need to carefully evaluate where we ought to be involved in direct things and influence things, and whether or not we can, and where we shouldn't step into that role at all. It's important for us to evaluate that just as the disciples here should have.

So Luke 9, 51 and 52, when the days were approaching for his ascension, he was determined to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers on ahead of him, and they went and entered a village of the Samaritans to make arrangements for him." Notice here, he mentions his ascension. In other words, he's very much, at this point in time, looking toward that time when he will have accomplished the things that he was set out to accomplish, and his ascension will be a huge transition point. Dr. Luke is going to end this book with the ascension, and he's going to start the book of Acts, the next book that he wrote, with the ascension.

So it's a pivotal event. The end of one and the beginning of another. So while Christ's death and burial and resurrection are very important, and they're absolutely essential, we're not going to get saved without them, Christ's ascension was pivotal for what was going to come next. One of the things that Jesus would tell them at the Last Supper, it is to your advantage that I go away.

His going away is that ascension. Now one of the things to point out here, the believer is in Christ in these five events. The Bible teaches that we're in Christ in his crucifixion and subsequent death, his burial, his resurrection, his ascension and in his seating in the heavenlies. So this ascension looks past those first three to that time when he departs this earth, having been resurrected and completed his earthly ministry.

And notice he was determined to go to Jerusalem. He is seeing Jerusalem as not just a place to go visit once in a while, but there are things to be accomplished there. He's already got that in his perspective. There in Jerusalem, Christ would be arrested.

Interrogated by the leaders of the Jews, by Annas and Caiaphas, according to the plan of God and according to the plan of the Jews. Caiaphas was the one who cooked up this plan. That's in John chapter 11. Caiaphas was the one who cooked up the plan to kill Jesus. And it was consistent with God's plan, too. Christ was to die according to the plan of God and according to the plan of the Jews, given from Caiaphas. But Christ was to be raised and ascended only according to the plan of God. Christ's resurrection and his ascension was not anything that Caiaphas had planned. That wasn't in Caiaphas' plan.

He was probably wondering, where did we go wrong? Now, Jesus sent messengers ahead to a Samaritan village. Jesus had sent these messengers ahead, and ahead of the rest of the group too, to make arrangements for all of them to stay in this particular Samaritan village up ahead. The trip from Galilee to Jerusalem was about three days if you went through Samaria, and it was about four or five days if you went down the Jordan River Valley and then back up. So you could save some time by going through Samaria. Many Jews often just go through the Jordan River Valley, but it was quicker if you went through Samaria, if you could stand it.

So Luke 9.53, but they did not receive him because he was traveling toward Jerusalem. Here is Jerusalem on the map, just kind of matches up with the top of the Dead Sea.

And then here's Samaria, where the Samaritans have their temple, because the Samaritans actually had a temple on Mount Gerizim. They had the Samaritan Torah, that is the first five books of the Book of Moses, doctored a little bit so they could worship in a different place. and also not use the same tribal names and groups. Though the trip was shorter going through Samaria, there were some hazards and problems, at least potential problems, and they were running into one of those. The Jews despised the Samaritans and the Samaritans felt the same way about the Jews. Even today the Samaritans gather together, they've got their own temple complex, they have their own Torah. So here are modern Samaritans beholding the Torah, looking at that. But the two groups despised one another and to have some accommodation was something that sometimes happened and sometimes didn't.

This verse, however, isn't about rejecting Jesus as the Messiah. It's racial. It's about rejecting Him and His disciples because they're Jews. You guys, instead of heading towards Mount Gerizim, are headed to Jerusalem. And it means you're Jews, and we don't like you, and you don't like us, and so that's a problem. So the Jews were happy and the Samaritans were happy because neither of them liked each other. So here you have them finally being rejected, sent off. Nope, we won't accommodate you here.

The issue of where the Jews worshipped and then where the Samaritans worshipped was an issue. Even the Samaritan woman at Jacob's Well, this is John chapter 4, brought this up. We worship here and you guys worship there. And that was a big distinction. And so she brought that issue up with them. Because this wasn't any minor issue between the fact that Jesus was traveling towards Jerusalem was enough for the Samaritans to refuse Hospitality to them at all. It didn't matter who Jesus was or anything else to them.

You're heading to Jerusalem It means you're a Jew and we're not going to accommodate that So, oh Boy, some of these disciples are ticked Luke 9.54, when his disciples James and John, these are the same ones that went up on the mountain with Peter to see Jesus during the transfiguration. And they also then saw Moses and Elijah.

So when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them? Woo, this is an intense reaction. Now, fire had come down out of heaven under Elijah, and of course they'd just seen Elijah talking with Jesus. Elijah had fire come down out of heaven on two groups of 50 men, who by the way were coming as military men, threatening Elijah.

Okay, different circumstance here. That's recorded in 2 Kings chapter 1, verses 10 and 12, each of the groups. Some had even said that Jesus was Elijah come back. We saw that earlier in the Gospel of Luke. And James and John had recently seen Elijah with Jesus. So that's why this kind of Elijah mindset had started to sink in.

So here, but because this was not a threat aimed at Jesus and the disciples, it was an I don't like the Jews issue, not a you're not the Messiah or we don't like you. It was not rejecting Jesus as the Messiah. Even at that, if you think about it, did Jesus go around burning people up because they rejected him as the Messiah? No, he did not. We have no instance of that.

So these guys were way overreacting. Luke 9, 55, and 56, but he turned and rebuked them. Now, I want to make a comment. There are some brackets here, and it turns out you'll find various places in the Bible where a text is disputed. It turns out a lot of those, after a close examination, I don't abide by. But this is one that looks like it was added later.

Having said that, I don't see anything contrary to Bible doctrine. erroneous about this so I'll go ahead and read it and then the bracket and said you do not know what kind of spirit you are of for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives but to save them is that true that's true so it's it may not be in the original text but it's also something you'd look at it and say well it's still a biblical teaching and they went on to another village and so taking that out you would end up with a much more brief statement here So James and John had actually mischaracterized the problem.

They'd also misjudged the issue of safety that motivated Elijah to call fire down from heaven. Just rejecting Jesus and his disciples for some overnight hospitalities was not a safety issue. They could find another village where maybe they could stay. Rather than taking the lives of the Samaritans, which still wouldn't give them a place to stay, In retaliation, all that Jesus and his disciples had to do was to try another village.

And they would see if they would be received there. Instead of going in this extreme retaliation. It would be kind of like the cop pulls you over for going a little too fast down Holly Street and he says, would you like to be shot or hung? Right? It's a little bit over much. Okay.

Luke 9.57. And as they were going along the road, someone said to him, I will follow you wherever you go. Right? The intentions of the man seemed genuine enough at the surface. Notice, however, that this man was making a promise. I will follow you wherever you go. Is it a promise he can keep? Hmm. Jesus was able to see into the hearts of men, and as we note, women, and what he says in response to the man's promise reveals that there's a price to be paid that the man had perhaps not fully considered.

And Jesus said to him, this is Luke 9.58, the foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. Now, you may recall that I said Jesus moved from Nazareth, the Capernaum, to a house. So, how is it here that he says he has nowhere to lay his head?

In Matthew 4.13, Jesus settled in a house in the city of Capernaum. That's what the word means. But by this time Jesus had set his mind on the events about to take place in Jerusalem. You see that? He's mentally focused towards Jerusalem. And also in the next chapter, this chapter 10, we will find where Luke records that Jesus pronounced some serious judgments against Capernaum, the place where he previously had a house.

So things have turned, or are beginning to turn, in his ministry where he was focused on Galilee and spent eighty percent of his ministry time there now he is shortly to get to a place where he says I'm writing these people off they're not responding and so Capernaum and Chorazin and Bethsaida all receive pronouncement of judgment by Christ and what's very interesting is all three of those sites that we went to earlier this year have nobody living there. No one is living at Capernaum. No one is living at Chorazin. Nobody is living at Bethsaida. They're archaeological sites, but not places to live. It appears at this point in time from Jesus' statement, He no longer has a house in Capernaum. And in the next chapter, He's going to write them off.

So had the man counted the cost here? Did he really understand this? Apparently Jesus knew that this man made the promise not realizing that he'd be an itinerant disciple. Do you realize? I keep moving and you're going to keep moving with me. There's no place to lay your head here. I'm done back at Capernaum and I'm just going to be moving on until we get to Jerusalem. We're not told the outcome of how this man decided when Jesus told him that. But like Jesus, he would always be itinerant. But the implication is that once he knew that, he may have decided to back out.

Here's Luke 9.59, and he said to another, follow me. But he, the one he said follow me to, said, Lord, permit me to first go and bury my father. at the surface of it sounds like a reasonable thing to do. Let's take a look at it.

We need to look at some Jewish burial laws and customs. Deuteronomy 21-23 said that the burial had to take place on the day of death. So the Jews count that within 24 hours unless there's a Sabbath or Mosaic feast day that says it has to happen sooner. That was the case with Christ, right? Because roughly mid-afternoon he died, gave up his spirit, and then He had to be buried before the Sabbath started at sundown that day, so the burial had to be quick. There were Jewish customs about wrapping the body using cloth and aloes and spices, placing the body in one of the niches in a tomb with a disc-shaped stone, a round stone, rolled over the opening.

It was usually a small opening, even if the stone was large. Here we have a tomb at Nazareth that shows a niche. They would oftentimes have multiple niches inside of a tomb. And there you see the only picture I've ever seen of Nancy walking out of a tomb, right? But here is the round stone, and again, a small opening. One of the things we notice, you've got to lean way over to get into that tomb. So even if you had a larger stone, and some were small and some were larger, even if you had a larger stone, and the one over Jesus' tomb was said to be large, You would still have often a small opening, and then these multiple niches.

Now we've got more burial laws and customs. The Jews also had customs about the time of mourning, how one was to mourn. You're supposed to weep with those who weep, not comfort them. And you're also not supposed to hold back. Express full-on grief. If you need help doing that, you even hire other people to weep with you.

In Luke 8, 40-56, here's the raising of Jairus' daughter. And they contradicted several different Jewish laws by going into Jairus' daughter the way they did. And when Jesus said, no, she's only sleeping, they laughed. Probably because they were hired.

Then, after a year had passed, many Jews in the middle of the first century, and this was not true earlier, but in the middle of the first century, they took the bones of the dead and placed them in a box called an ossuary. And we found there were a great number of these ossuaries that had been placed on the Mount of Olives. And the reason being the Jews figured that the Messiah is going to come back to the Mount of Olives, right? Or is going to come to the Mount of Olives. So the Messiah will come to the Mount of Olives and he'll raise the dead and of course all the Jews want a front row seat when the Messiah raises the dead, right? So they would want to bury them on the Mount of Olives. A great many of these ossuaries have actually been found Hundreds of them, maybe even thousands, including the one for Caiaphas. The one for Caiaphas has Caiaphas' name on it. He would have been a higher-up person, so there's fancy engravings on the side.

His granddaughter, Miriam, James, half-brother of Jesus, that ossuary has been found. Nancy and I and Courtney and Ingrid were right across the street from where it was found when we were at the Pool of Siloam. and possibly, I would say even likely, the son of Simon of Cyrene. So there's a lot of biblical connections in a lot of these boxes. Here's the ossuary of Joseph Caiaphas, the one who interrogated Jesus and asked him, even though he didn't believe in the Messiah, he asked him, are you the Christ? Here's the ossuary of Mariam, granddaughter of Caiaphas. Here's the ossuary of James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus, which is what it says on the side of the box. Here's the ossuary of Alexander, likely the son of Simon of Cyrene.

So there are biblical connections with a lot of these burial customs. Performing all of the burial customs was considered the last fulfillment of the commandment to honor your father and mother. So you've got to do them all and do them with great care. So these were all taken very seriously.

But they were in great part all additions to the Law of Moses. A great many of the burial customs were not in the Law of Moses. They were added like all the rest of the accumulated laws that were added to the Law of Moses. And Jesus very often openly rejected those additions to the Law of Moses.

Here's the inside of Lazarus' tomb in Bethany. Again, multiple niches. And there are other niches, by the way, around the room. So that'd be kind of the pattern and the burial customs. They would have rolled away the opening to this tomb in order to let Lazarus out.

So here's Luke 9.60, but he, Jesus, said to him, allow the dead to bury their own dead, but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God.

So Jesus may sound to us at this like he's being really hard-hearted with this man. However, Jesus was likely referring to those who made up all the extra traditions. What did he mean by that? The ones who made up all these extra traditions, rather than being extremely holy, were actually spiritually dead. That's what Jesus is saying.

As Jesus told the Jewish leaders in John 8.24, you guys who follow all the extra laws, unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins. And that's not good. Unless you believe that I am He, you'll die in your sins, and all your extra laws that you add to the Law of Moses won't help one bit. So here's Luke 9, 61 and 62.

Another also said, I will follow you, Lord, but first permit me to say goodbye to those at home. But Jesus said to him, No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God. He doesn't mention Elijah and Elisha here, but we'll take a look at that in a minute. When he says the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven, that refers to the millennial kingdom, and the kingdom of God and kingdom of heaven are synonyms. A thousand year reign of Christ, yet future. Perhaps as soon as seven years from now. Here is the passage in 1 Kings that refers to Elisha and Elijah.

So he departed there and found Elisha, the son of Shaphat, while he was plowing with twelve pairs of oxen before him. By the way, you don't need to name any of your kids Shaphat, that's okay. And he was the twelve, and Elijah passed over to him and threw his mantle on him.

He left the oxen and ran after Elijah and said, please let me kiss my father and mother and then I'll follow you. Very similar kinds of words. And he said to him, go back again for what have I done to you? So he returned from following him and took the pair of oxen and sacrificed them and boiled their flesh with the implements of the oxen and gave it to the people and they ate. Then he arose and followed Elijah and ministered to him. So it seems that this man was asking for similar privileges to what Elijah gave Elisha here. But Jesus doesn't respond well to it.

It's a good idea not to drive by staring at your rearview mirror. If you're driving in a car, keep a focus on what's in front of you and where you are, being aware of what's there, but not by staring at your rearview mirror. In the same way, life gets lived best by following in fellowship with the Lord right now, with a look at the past, but not living in or glued to the past.

The future is constantly becoming now. Have you noticed that? The future is constantly becoming now. And believers have a wonderful future. The Lord is going to take us out of here at some point. And by the way, whether you are alive when the Lord takes the church, or whether the Lord takes you first, Asleep in the Lord you're going to be raptured you won't if you're a believer today. You will not miss the rapture, okay? You won't miss the rapture either way.

You'll be raptured and taken up to be with the Lord in First Thessalonians 4 17 then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them those who have gone before In the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so we shall always be with the Lord Ephesians 2.7, so that in the ages to come, He might show the surpassing riches of His grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.

We have a wonderful future ahead of us. We don't need to be glued to the past. We can look forward to all the Lord has, and you know, He wants us to. He wants us to look forward for all that He has for us. And it's a great forever. It's a wonderful forever. He assures it. He promises it. Let's thank Him. Lord, we do thank You for the hope that we do have. We thank You that we have a wonderful future. You have an eternity where You will be showing, demonstrating visibly Your grace, and we will be awestruck. Thank You for that hope. Thank You for Your amazing grace. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.