God’s Kingdom and Enduring Word (Luke 16:14-17)

1. God’s Kingdom and Enduring Word(Luke 16:14-17)

2. Luke 16:14-18 Context: Love and serve God by using your unrighteous wealth for His purposes – specifically, for winning people to eternal dwellings (16:1-13) • Pharisees ridicule Christ (v. 14) • Jesus responds (vv. 15-18)

3. Principles from Luke 16:15-17 • The Danger of Seeking the Approval of Men • The Omniscience of God • The Contrast of Values (e.g., divorce; v. 18) • The amazing kingdom of God has come in the person of Jesus Christ.

4. A Transition in God’s Program (16:16) “since that time the gospel of the kingdom of God has been preached” --------------------------------- Period of the Kingdom of God “The Law and the Prophets were until John” ---------------------------------- Period of the Law (of Moses)

5. Luke 16:16  “kingdom of God” = God’s reign in redemptive love over His people  Literally, “the kingdom of God is preached as Good News (Gospel)” • “everyone forces his way into it.” Why? It is liberating, satisfying and marvelous!

6. “At the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics – in physical laws – every action is met by an equal or an opposite one. And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that… Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I’ve done a lot of stupid stuff… It doesn’t excuse my mistakes, but I’m holding out for Grace. I’m holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don’t have to depend on my own religiosity.” 

7. Principles from Luke 16:15-17 • The Danger of Seeking the Approval of Men • The Omniscience of God • The Contrast of Values (e.g., divorce; v. 18) • The amazing kingdom of God has come in the person of Jesus Christ. • The Endurance of God’s Word

8. The (OT) Law is not void • It still reveals my sin. (Romans 7:7-13) • It still points to Christ. “So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.” (Gal. 3:24-25)

9. 1 Corinthians 9: 19-23  “not being myself under the (Mosaic) Law” (v. 20)  “not outside the Law of God” (v. 21)  “but under the Law of Christ” (v. 21) Conclusion: In the New Covenant, I am not under the Mosaic Law as a way of life. But I am not without divine law; being under the Law of Christ, which is His commandments as recorded in the gospels and amplified in the New Testament epistles.

10. One dot / smallest stroke (“little horn”) (resh) ד ר(dalet) (bet)בכ(koph)

11. Does God’s Word endure forever? All flesh is like grass, And all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls off, But the Word of the Lord endures forever."

12. “In the year 1861 the French Academy of Science published a list of fifty-one so-called scientific facts, each of which, it was alleged, disproved some statement in the Bible. Today, the Bible remains as it was then, but not one of those fifty-one so-called facts is held by men of science.” Loraine Boettner, Studies in Theology, 35

13. Francois Marie Arouet1694-1778 “It took centuries to build up Christianity, but I’ll show how one Frenchman can destroy it within 50 years.” Then, as one author wrote, "He took his pen, dipped it into the ink of unbelief and wrote against God." In his later years he purchased an estate called "Ferney" near the French-Swiss border where he lived and wrote his anti-God, anti-Christ, anti-Scripture material.

14. Francois Marie Arouet1694-1778 “Another century and there will not be a Bible on earth!” Was he correct? No! Twenty years after his death a Bible Society bought his former home and used it for distributing Bibles. One hundred years after his death, the Bible had a greater presence on earth than ever before. It was Voltaire who was no longer on the face of the earth! Critics come, and critics go, but “the Word of the Lord endures forever.”

15. God’s Enduring Word “A thousand times over, the death knell of the Bible has been sounded, the funeral procession formed, the inscription cut on the tombstone, and the committal read. But somehow the corpse never stays put.” … Bernard Ramm

16. “After more than two centuries of facing the heaviest scientific guns that could be brought to bear, the Bible has survived – and is perhaps the better for the siege. Even on the critics’ own terms – historical fact – the Scriptures seem more acceptable now than they did when the rationalists began the attack.” …. Time Magazine, Dec. 30, 1974

17. Dr. Michael Jursa recently discovered this tablet among the nearly 130,000 Assyrian cuneiform tablets of the British Museum. Dated to 595 BC, or the 10th year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, it records the financial record of Nebo-Sarsekim’s gift of gold given to the Temple of Esangila, which was located in the fabled Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Jeremiah 39:1-3 identifies Nebo-Sarsekim as a chief officer of Nebuchadnezzar.

18. "The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone presses his way into it. But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the Law to become void.”