Take your Bibles with me and turn to Luke 12. Luke 12. We are going to finish up Luke 12 today and actually get into Luke 13 a bit.

As you are turning there, let me talk about something nerdy for a second. Have you ever heard of bitcoin? Bitcoin is a digital currency. It has no gold or government backing. It launched kind of quietly in 2009.

Now back then, bitcoin was worth nothing. It was almost a joke. In fact, the first commercial transaction for bitcoin was a guy bought two pizzas from Papa Johns for 10,000 bitcoin.

But today, each bitcoin is worth $70,000. So those pizzas - those pizza cost someone around a billion dollars.

I have a former coworker that had a bunch of bitcoin, which he sold way too early, and he would be a multi-millionaire if he had held onto that bitcoin.

But the problem is, very few people could see where that was going. If you knew what we all know now - you would have bought a few thousand bitcoin back when it was a joke for $20 and held onto it at all costs. But almost no one did - because they couldn't see what time it was.

In our text today, Jesus confronts people with the same problem: they can't see what time it is spiritually, and it's going to cost them far more than a billion-dollar pizza.

Are you in Luke 12? Let's read our text.

[!bible] Luke 12:54-59 - KJV 54. And he said also to the people, When ye see a cloud rise out of the west, straightway ye say, There cometh a shower; and so it is. 55. And when ye see the south wind blow, ye say, There will be heat; and it cometh to pass. 56. Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky and of the earth; but how is it that ye do not discern this time? 57. Yea, and why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right? 58. When thou goest with thine adversary to the magistrate, as thou art in the way, give diligence that thou mayest be delivered from him; lest he hale thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and the officer cast thee into prison. 59. I tell thee, thou shalt not depart thence, till thou hast paid the very last mite.

And I'm going to read the first four verses of chapter 13 too.

[!bible] Luke 13:1-4 - KJV

1. There were present at that season some that told him of the Galilaeans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.
2. And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they suffered such things?
3. I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
4. Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem?

At the time Jesus said this, this was late in His earthly ministry - about three years into His three-and-a-half year public ministry, with His mind already on the cross.

And I believe Jesus knew that time was running out for these people He was speaking to, and so what we are reading here is really kind of Jesus invitation, Jesus plea to the people to repent and believe while they still had a chance to.

In the verses we read, Jesus makes three pleas to the people He has been preaching to:

• You need to judge the times.
• You need to settle up.
• You need to repent.

This morning we are going to walk through each of these pleas, but before we do, let's pray.

Pray

Jesus makes three urgent pleas to help them see what time it is. The first is...

1. You need to judge the times.

In verses 54-55 Jesus talks about the weather. Even in Bible times, even without modern science, the jewish people had a pretty good handle on weather patterns.

They knew, for instance, that rain always came out of the west - by the Mediterranean sea. So if they saw some clouds forming in the west, they knew it was going to rain.

It's interesting, a few weeks ago we looked on Wednesday night at the story of Elijah and King Ahab. When Elijah told Ahab the three year drought was over, he and his servant kept looking to the west for a cloud. There is a reason they were looking to the west - because to a jew, that is where rain clouds come from.

Another weather patterns they have in Israel are these hot winds that come out of the south, that come out of the Arabian desert. Those winds dry everything out. So they knew if they feel that wind, or they look up at the flag and it is blowing straight north - they have hot dry weather coming.

Several commentators said that it still that way in Israel today.

And so even in Bible times, they knew how to predict the weather, and Jesus said - you are right. You say these things and it is so. It's like Jesus is saying: congrats jewish people, you have figured out the weather, but if you can figure out the weather, you should be able to figure out what time it is spiritually.

You see, these jewish people Jesus was preaching too - many of them were still undecided about Jesus. Like all of us who just laughed about Bitcoin the first time we heard it instead of buying $30 worth - these jewish people had all the signs right in front of them - much clearer than clouds in the west or winds from the south - but they still were missing Jesus.

Think about it - they had prophecy. Everything in the Old Testament is pointing to Jesus. Everything. The temple. The prophets. They knew Messiah was coming and they had enough to know what He would be like.

They had John the Baptist - this nationally popular preacher who had been telling everyone "get ready, the Messiah is coming" and then "Behold the lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world."

They had the miracles of Christ. Feeding 5,000 people. Raising the dead. Going to town after town and healing all of the sick people in miraculous, completely unexplainable ways.

How many times have you seen a miracle like that in your lifetime - but Jesus was doing these things every day.

Then they had the teaching of Christ. No one could teach like Jesus could teach. He spoke to them with an authority they had never heard before.

All of this should have been way more clear than clouds in the west and winds from the south - but they were still missing out on Jesus. They were still sitting on the proverbial fence.

So Jesus said:

[!bible] Luke 12:56-57 - KJV 56. Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky and of the earth; but how is it that ye do not discern this time? 57. Yea, and why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right?

It was like Jesus was saying - you have this judgment, you have this ability to discern things - why aren't you using it to figure out what is right and wrong here? Why aren't you applying this judgment to your own situation?

And I want to challenge you this morning: think about what time it is.

Can I tell you something, life is short. I heard a preacher say that there are three periods in everyone's life:

The first period is what we call gestation. When you are in the womb. You are preparing for life. That period only lasts nine months and when its over, it's terrible for us. We went from this warm comfortable place to this cold world. Some doctor spanks us. It's no wonder newborns cry. But we spent that nine months preparing for the next phase.

And that phase is what we think of as life. We don't know how long it's going to last - but it almost never lasts more than 90 years. For most of us it lasts around 75 years.

I went to a viewing yesterday of a friend who died in a car wreck. He was fifty. His kids were the same age as Molly and Noah. I had a really good friend and soul winning partner in college who didn't make it to 30.

So we are all in this second phase. But do you know what - the last phase of life is what happens when we die and it is by far the longest phase. Shouldn't you be preparing for that? Shouldn't you be getting ready for eternity?

"We don't know when our 'life phase' will end - could be 90 years, could be 50, could be tomorrow - but we know it will end, and we know what comes after: we will stand before God.

And that brings us to Jesus' second plea to these people.

In the first plea Jesus said you need to judge the times, in the second plea Jesus said

2. You need to settle up.

Look at verse 58 again:

[!bible] Luke 12:58 - KJV 58. When thou goest with thine adversary to the magistrate, as thou art in the way, give diligence that thou mayest be delivered from him; lest he hale thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and the officer cast thee into prison.

So Jesus is using a little parable here that everyone at the time would understand.

The magistrate was like a lower judge. So he says, imagine you are being sued because you owe someone something and you are walking with him to the magistrate for arbitration.

If you get there, that magistrate might find in your opponents favor and pass you up to the judge, and that judge might declare you guilty and in those days - that meant prison until you could pay the whole debt off.

So Jesus was saying "if you owe something, you better do everything you can to settle up before you face the judge."

Notice a couple of things about this little story:

First, notice that guilt is assumed. The man in this story is guilty. He does owe something and the magistrate and judge will see that.

Second, notice that the punishment is severe. Prison is a pretty severe punishment. It wouldn't be a short sentence either because Jesus said in the next verse that you'll stay there until you have paid off the very last mite.
So you are guilty, you are facing this long prison sentence. What do you do? You do anything you can to settle up with the plaintiff before you get before the judge. You make things right before it is too late.

Now, it doesn't take too much imagination to understand what Jesus was getting at here:

All of us are guilty before God. Every single one of us has a sin debt that we owe a Holy God. The punishment for that sin debt isn't prison - it is Hell. It is eternal torment. It is the lake of fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

But right now, we are on the way to see the judge and we have this opportunity, this season in life to settle up with God before we get there.

You need to figure out a way to take care of your sin debt before you meet the judge.

And do you know what? It just so happens that God has provided a way to do just that - and that way is Jesus Christ.

Christ came to be our substitute and to pay our debt.

As Peter would put it...

[!bible] 1 Peter 2:24 - KJV 24. Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.

Or as Isaiah said in the Old Testament...

[!bible] Isaiah 53:5-6 - KJV 5. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. 6. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

God has made a way for us to settle up on our sins, and that way is Christ. Jesus paid it all. Jesus paid our sin debt.

And we have this opportunity before we meet the judge to trust Christ and settle our debt. But Jesus wanted them to know that there were consequences if they didn't - they were headed to the judge and to justice. So they needed to settle up.

So two pleas so far:

• judge the times
• settle up

The third plea Jesus made comes from the first few verses of chapter 3, and it is:

3. Repent

Apparently, there were people in this crowd who had told Jesus about a recent tragedy. Pilate had massacred a group of Galileans in the temple while they were doing their sacrifices.

This would have been front page news. This would have been the talk of the town.

Now in Jewish thought at the time, they assumed that if something terrible happened to you - it was because you were a sinner.

Another thing happened recently that Jesus brought up. It wasn't Galileans - it was residents of Jerusalem. A tower had fallen over, crushing and killing eighteen people. Just a senseless tragedy. Horrific stuff.

But again, the jewish thought at the time was "those eighteen people must have done some really bad stuff."

And Jesus had the same thing to say about both of these situations: "This didn't happen because they were worse than everyone else, in fact, if you don't repent, you are going to perish too."

Now Jesus wasn't saying that they would die in senseless tragedy like these men had. He was saying that unless they repented, they were going to perish eternally. They were going to face God and eternal judgment and be sentenced to death and Hell.

The irony here is that these people were speculating about the sins of the Galileans and the 18 the tower fell on and how it caused their tragedy, while not even thinking about the fact that they had sins which were going to lead to their tragedy.

So Jesus had a one word instruction for them. The word is "repent."

The greek word for it is metanoeō . It is literally two words: "noeo" means to think, "meta" means after or again. So it means to think again.

The best definition I have heard of repentance is this: it is a change of mind that produces a change of direction.

And often in the scriptures, repent is kind of used as a one word sermon.

So what did they need to repent of? What did they need to change their mind about?

Let me give you four things (and by the way, these are four things we all need to repent about too.)

First, they needed to change their mind about their sinful condition.

These men were sinners who were headed to the judge. And they needed to see that.

Many people don't think they are sinners. They don't understand that they have this bent in them that disobey's God and rebels against Him. And they need to see that they are a sinner.

So often, I'll talk to people and they'll say the silliest thing. They'll say "I'm a good person. I keep the ten commandments."

Which is an outright lie. They do not keep the ten commandments. What they usually mean is they keep the last six.

• They honor their father and mother. Really, you never disobeyed your parents? You never talked back? You never failed to step in and help them?
• They don't commit adultery. But Jesus said we can do that in our heart with lust before we ever commit the act. Are you going to tell me you've never entertained a lustful thought?
• They don't steal. You've never stolen? Not a piece of candy from the grocery as a child? You've never taken your employers time by failing to work like you were paid to?
• They don't bear false witness. So you've never lied? You've been perfectly honest?
• They don't kill. Phew. Easy one. But Jesus said we can be guilty of this one just with sinful anger. You've never given over to anger in your life?
• They don't covet. But you do. Every one of you do.

That's just the last six. The first four are way harder:

• Have no other gods before God.
• Don't make any graven images.
• Don't take the name of the Lord in vain.
• Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy.

I can guarantee you've been guilty of those too. So you don't keep the ten commandments. You are a sinner! Just like all of the rest of us.

And you need to change your mind about that.

Second, they needed to change their mind about their own righteousness or ability to save themselves.

These jewish people thought if they just kept up the sacrifices at the temple and did the laws, they could be saved. They thought they had figured out their own righteousness and that they could save themselves.

And they needed to repent of that, all of us need to repent of the idea that we can save ourselves.

So often, people think "Ok, I'm a sinner, but I know what I'll do, I'll just be good for the rest of my life."

But that isn't how it works. You don't go to the bank and say "I know I owe you a million dollars, but here is what I'm going to do, I won't borrow another penny for the rest of my life." No! You still owe them that money. You need a plan for paying off the debt.

And as humans, we have nothing. We have no way in and of ourselves that we can settle up with God. Our best attempts at righteousness are what God calls "filthy rags."

We have to repent and see ourselves as a sinner and repent and understand we can't save ourselves.

Third, they needed to change their mind about who Jesus is and what He came to do.

At this point, the jewish people Jesus was preaching to were on the fence about Jesus. But even if they weren't they probably had bad ideas about who He was.

They grabbed onto the political Jesus. But they didn't think through the prophecies that "the iniquity of us all was laid on Him."

People today have all kinds of interesting views about Jesus. They either see Him as some political person, or some moral teacher, or some poor figure that got caught in the gears of history.

But the Bible teaches us something totally different about Jesus. He was the son of God - sent here by God the Father to be the sacrifice for our sin. That Jesus going to the cross wasn't an accident - but that it was God's plan from the foundation of the world.

And that Jesus didn't stay dead, He rose from the grave and He is coming back some day. That He is seated on the right hand of God and that He is the King of kings and Lord of Lords.

These people needed to change their mind about who Jesus is and you do too. You will either bow before Him now or bow before Him in eternity.

And that brings me to the last major thing they needed to repent of...

Fourth, they needed to change their mind about following Christ.

This is just the natural outflow of repenting of our sin, our ability to save ourselves and who Jesus is. If you change your mind, truly change your mind about those things, then you are going to follow Christ with your life.

If you say "I've believed Christ, I've trusted Him as my Savior" but your life shows no difference - then you probably have not truly believed.

You see, a lot of people get tripped on this word "repent" but I believe repenting and believing are two sides of the same coin. You cannot truly believe without changing your mind, and you cannot change your mind without believing - and if you do change your mind about your sin, and your ability to save yourself and on who Christ is - then that is going to change how you live your life too.

I'm not saying you become perfect. But there will be evidence. A desire to obey that wasn't there before. A hatred of sin you didn't have before. A love for God's Word. A hunger to be around God's people.

Now if you're sitting there thinking 'But I still struggle with sin, does that mean I haven't really believed?' - listen, struggling with sin is different than living in sin. If sin bothers you now when it didn't before, that's evidence of genuine conversion.

So have you repented? Have you changed your mind about these four things and trusted Christ? If you have, your life will show it - not perfectly, but genuinely. If you haven't, what are you waiting for?

Conclusion

Listen, life is short. You are on the way to the judge. You have guilt and you will perish if you do not settle up and repent.

Have you done that? Has there ever been a time in your life when you understood you were a sinner and you changed your mind about sin, when you understood you couldn't save yourself and when you changed your mind and believed in Jesus?

If you haven't - why not today?

In a moment we'll have a song of invitation and I want to encourage you - if you have never trusted Christ take care of it today. As we sing, just slip out to the back and a counselor can help you know for sure you are going to heaven when you die.

Come on brother Hedrick and lead us in a song.