Luke 12:54-59 :
He said to the multitudes also, “When you see a cloud rising from the west, immediately you say, ‘A shower is coming,’ and so it happens. When a south wind blows, you say, ‘There will be a scorching heat,’ and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky, but how is it that you don’t interpret this time? Why don’t you judge for yourselves what is right? For when you are going with your adversary before the magistrate, try diligently on the way to be released from him, lest perhaps he drag you to the judge, and the judge deliver you to the officer, and the officer throw you into prison. I tell you, you will by no means get out of there, until you have paid the very last penny.”
Jesus has been talking about difficult things in the verses we have been studying. It is important that we remain humble and teachable as we go through them. It is for our good that our Lord points out the unhealthy areas of our spiritual lives. Without the knowledge of a disease, it is difficult to know how to get healthy again, but learning about a disease is not an enjoyable experience. As a physician, Dr. Luke was probably used to this kind of thinking.
The problem that Jesus expresses in these verses is quite common in our world today. Jesus points out that these people were willing to interpret the weather very carefully, but were unwilling to use their powers of logic and sensitivity to judge more important issue regarding the times in which they lived. These Jews had been entrusted with the very words of God and were more interested in interpreting the weather. This is not just a problem with the Jews as I will discuss in a moment.
Also, notice that Jesus gives what I believe is a mini-parable about an adversary and making amends before going to court. I believe that this shows that Jesus wanted these Pharisees and crowds to repent to Him before they were forced to confess in front of the Judge and be sentenced. I believe that by this parable, Jesus was warning them that the time of their judgment was here but they were willingly ignoring the warnings and were, instead, taking a very serious risk with their lives.
Today, mankind is doing the same thing. As Christians we are telling the world that Jesus has offered salvation by His death on the cross and if people don’t believe in Him they will have to face the Judge. The signs of God’s wrath are still with us today. In the United States we have a famous place called “The Grand Canyon” It was a very deep canyon carved into the rock and is a popular place to visit. A short study reveals that this was evidently carved out as a result of the events of the great flood of Noah’s day and it warns us that God judges the world. Many, many people died at that judgment, but today we willingly ignore the signs and try to believe concepts like evolution, no matter how poorly they fit with the evidence, to avoid the clear historic record of the Bible.
II Peter 3:3-7 :
knowing this first, that in the last days mockers will come, walking after their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? For, from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.” For this they willfully forget, that there were heavens from of old, and an earth formed out of water and amid water, by the word of God; by which means the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished. But the heavens that now are, and the earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.