Woe To You

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We're so blessed with me, Robbie Gilmore, who of all the times I dragged him in here to do this show, we're talking about everyone's favorite topic. You hear about it every Sunday at church, right? You've read dozens and dozens of books on the topic of hell. We use the word more profanely and more jokingly and more in speech as a pejorative and more condemning people than we ever do in sermons or in books, so I was kidding with that. But it's fascinating that Jesus comes right out with it. It's more about hell and the judgment than he does about love in the gospels, if you read, and it's really interesting.

But he gives a really hard indictment on these cities, Robbie, that he's been ministering in. Read the passage again, and then we'll probably pick up here on that question, because we've got to talk about Tyre and Sidon and Sodom. But read the text of Scripture, Luke 10, 11-16. The very dust of your city, which clings to us, we wipe off against you. Nevertheless, know this, that the kingdom of God has come near to you. But I say to you that it will be more tolerable in that day for Sodom than for that city. Woe to you, Corazin!

Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works were done in you that had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, will be brought down to Hades. He who hears you hears me.

He who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me. Wow. So we'll have that on the screen for those that are watching this. We're videotaping this. We've got all these questions. We'll have these questions, Duane.

We can put these up, too. Last week, contextually, we talked about how these mighty works could be met with such rejection. I mean, you think you walk in the hospital and heal everyone sick there, that everyone's going to follow Jesus.

That didn't happen. In fact, not only does that not happen, but Jesus cast this judgmental condemnation upon these cities, which we talked about last week, the triangle of evangelicalism. This was, as it were, the Bible belt of the Middle East. Jesus did more miracles in Bethsaida, Corazin, and Capernaum, which are three specific towns, but they also represent that region.

There's a lot of bunch of little villages he didn't mention here. This is where he fed the 5,000. You think about all the miracles Jesus did.

This is where they were. He walks into Capernaum, heals Peter's mother-in-law, right? Miracle in and of itself, right?

And then you have him going to that church, casting out that demon. And so all these miracles he does there, and yet they rejected him. So Robbie, last week we talked about these cities of Tyre, Sidon, and Solomon.

Read that question again to get us caught up, and then we're going to try to move a little quicker through these questions. What advantage did these cities have over ancient Tyre, Sidon, Phoenicia, and Sodom? Yeah, so Sodom is a no-brainer. We know about Sodom and Gomorrah. We know about these evil men trying to rape angels and the perversity of that. God judged them with fire and brimstone, and yet it's more tolerable for them in the day of judgment than all these people in these cities where Jesus did all these mighty works. We talked about how Jesus didn't do mighty works and didn't show up in Sodom.

So the condemnation will be greater on those that had more light. Now, Tyre and Sidon, if you read Scripture, if you read these passages here, Amos chapter 1, Joel chapter 3, if you read Isaiah 23, if you read Ezekiel, which isn't listed here on this sheet, I believe it's chapter right in about 38 or so, there's a stern condemnation from the prophets on Tyre and Sidon. These were the Phoenician areas, right, where they had great shipping and great commerce, great capitalism, excessive entrepreneurialism, and they made a ton of money. But what they did in that is they were idolatrous. They did evil deeds in the sight of God. The prophets bring that out and they condemn Tyre and Sidon. Furthermore, they sold Jews into slavery to the Greeks. So you think these prophets, when they were speaking for God to these cities, they were very upset.

These were evil people. Yet, it'll be better for them in the day of judgment, Robbie. It's like he's saying it's going to be better for Las Vegas.

Yeah, city! And then it is for North Carolina. That's exactly right. So you think, and how often as believers even do you, and this was definitely me before Christ, and even since, God has to constantly, the Holy Spirit convicts me of my self-righteousness. I'm talking to someone and thinking, man, thank you, God, I'm not like them. Remember the two men went to the temple to pray? This righteous, self-righteous Pharisee says, Lord, thank you, I'm not like that despicable sinner.

But it says only one man came out justified. And how often are we like that Pharisee? And however, like, oh man, thank you, I'm not like Tyre and Sidon. Well, Corazon, these cities where Jesus did all these miracles, he went on this just absolute miracle, you know, rampage all throughout there, everywhere. It's a miracle tour.

Miracle tour, that's right. And these were real. These were not, you know, people were storing lepers. They lost their nose, their ears, their extremities from leprosy, a horrible disease. Really the AIDS of that day that attacked the immunity of your skin, you know, deep inside.

Jesus would touch them and all of a sudden their whole body's restored. See, he was bringing shalom. Yeah, peace. Now one of the words of that means healing. Wow. And so for your soul to be healed, obviously you need shalom, but he's showing them something that was pointing to something much bigger. Wow. There's something bigger here, and Jesus, who is the prince of shalom, and with healing in his wings, right?

So there's a lot of power. And you know, it's funny you say that because he uses shalom earlier, and you brought this out, I think, because you actually were there with Joe Knop and some others at our Bible study. The guy that was the executive producer of I Can Only Imagine was at Wednesday in the Word at Dariel. Yeah, how cool was that?

You know, last week you were there. But Jesus says, you know, he says, say to the house, peace be to this house. Right. And he said, you know, peace, if they receive you, peace will rest on this house.

If they don't, the peace will come right back to you. And then he tells them to heal. Yeah, that's right. Go heal the sick.

Right. So he's bringing, you know, the kingdom is what he's bringing, and that healing that comes with it, he's giving them a picture. And it's just horrible to think that they tasted God and they spit him out. And they outright rejected them. And it's really interesting, I heard John MacArthur saying in a sermon recently, he said, on this passage, he said, if you walked in this church and you are stiff-arming or thumbing your nose at Almighty God and not receiving the revelation you're hearing, he says you are in a very dangerous spot.

You need to get out of here quick. Because the more light you receive from God, the more light of God's fire you hear that comes into you, the more fire of his judgment will be upon you if you reject it, when the judgment day comes. I think there's something that's really cool there. Yeah. That part of his judgment, you take the story of Miriam, right? Now there was the first prophetess that we have in the Bible, and she obviously had a wonderful relationship with God.

And the Jews credited her with all sorts of things, including Miriam's well and all those things. But when she takes off on her brother for marrying the Cushite women, what happens? Yeah. God puts leprosy on her, which looks really horrible.

Oh, yeah. But Moses cries out and says, Heal her. And so he sends her outside the camp for seven days. But the reason for that is not just to get her away from her people. The reason is that he's saying, Miriam, come back to me in intimacy. Right. And for those seven days, Miriam got a chance to reconnect with the one that put her in the role of prophetess. Yeah.

And the role that she had there. Yeah. And so part of the purpose for judgment here on earth is for us to see, oh, wow, man, I'm on the outside looking.

I need to get back to the one who really is sustaining my life and that kind of thing. And that's the message of the gospel. Right. And that's the message, and it's interesting, that we talked about last week when Jesus sends the 70 out. Or actually the prior week when the two disciples wanted to call fire down. They were like, let's bring fire right now. I mean, Elijah called fire down. Right.

Yeah. And in 2 Kings chapter 1, you know, God called fire down on Sodom and Gomorrah. Let's bring it down, Lord.

This Samaritan village, they didn't want you, and you're the king of kings. Let's bring fire down. And Jesus says, stop it, guys. You're in the wrong spirit.

You're of a wrong spirit. He says, the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. So Christ is here on a mission of mercy. And Christ of all people is speaking this woe upon these three cities, this triangle of evangelicals, this kind of Bible Belt area, because they had seen so much of him. He's speaking these woes, because his heart's broken, because here he's offering them salvation, and they're spurning it.

But you're praying that later some would come to him. We know that some did. I mean, half the disciples are from this area. His own brothers. His own brothers, yep.

And they would come. James is half brother. So it's really fascinating. Now, look, read this next question. We've already answered it a bit, but this starts with the why question right there.

This is a heavy one. Why are the levels of punishment in hell based on the levels of light and revelation? Okay, and this is a very important question. It's very important that we don't go beyond Scripture. I think Luther said, he said, look, where the Scripture is loud and clear, then I'm clear. But where the Scripture is silent, that's where we need to be silent, too. That's a rough paraphrase. So we know from this verse and other verses that there are levels of judgment based on unrighteous works, based on light. The more light you have, the more accountable you are for that light.

It's a fairly sobering thought. We don't know exactly a la Dante from our last week's message. We talked about him a little bit.

He had these levels. We don't know that. That's extra biblical. Probably some truths in that, you know, nuanced in there somewhere that, you know, evil is evil, right?

I think we put levels of evil and sin, like we're quick to cast this person out for adultery, right? But then we're never going to challenge someone on coveting and on my addiction, which is a food addiction. See, I've been condemning all these different addictions and having hosts on, but I have an addiction to food, okay? I'll come right out with it.

And I carry a little extra round with me. But you think about that. That's why fasting is so important. Remind us what we're really hungry for, by the way, you know, being hungry for Him. But you think about the sins and how we put levels, but they're all important.

God's eyes. And we desperately need the gospel. And the gospel is powerful enough to heal the greatest sin, right?

There's no greater sin. The greatest sinner in his own minds was Paul, who killed, murdered, you know. Imagine living your life today and going to bed at night with images of Christians that you slaughtered yourself, that you ordered them to be executed right in front of you, like Stephen, the saintly man.

Acts chapter 6 and 7 and 8. Imagine a picture of Stephen. How many times did Paul go to bed thinking about Stephen, you know? So the sin that haunts you, God forgave. And Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15, he said, I'm the chief of sinners, right? First of all, I didn't even know Paul was an Indian. How about that, you know?

He played for Kansas City, the Chiefs, right? But how about that? He said, I'm the chief of sinners. But he said, nevertheless, I am what I am by the grace of God. So there's a powerful grace that God comes in.

But until you realize your need for him to cleanse you from either your unrighteousness or your self-righteousness, then you're lost. So there's levels of hell based on light and revelation. We don't know exactly what they are, but we've got to get this next question. In fact, we've got to wrap this segment up. We're going to come back next week and finish the last three questions.

I promise we'll move quicker. We're going to talk about how serious is this doctrine of hell and why we should never, ever, ever wish upon our worst enemies to go there. In fact, there's an atheist out there who's a well-known atheist who has a YouTube video that will shock you. We'll talk about that next time on Experience Truth. Will you tell someone about this program? Please, wherever you are. You may be listening on 91.7 FM, The Truth in Jacksonville, Florida, 91.3, 91.9 in St. Augustine, or AM 660, 95.3, 95.9 FM in the upstate of Greenville, Spartanburg, South Carolina, all kinds of affiliates everywhere. Tell someone about this program, Truth Talk Weekend and Experience Truth. Learn more at TruthNetwork.com or at my website, StuEpperson.com. We've got some cool videos there, too, and some really cool books coming up for Christmas. You'll definitely want to check one of those out. We'll be back next week, next time, on Experience Truth.