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Luke 13 - Devotion · The Five Minute Bible Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome to Five Minute Bible in our journey through the New
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  Testament. In each episode, we take just a
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  few minutes to focus on one chapter of the New Testament,
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  exploring the truths God is teaching us through His Word and
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  expanding our view of who He is. Before you listen, make sure
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  you've gone straight to the source, either by reading
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  today's chapter of the Bible yourself or listening to today's
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  read along episode in this podcast feed.
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  If you haven't done that yet, feel free to pause and do that
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  now. When you're ready, let's dive
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  into God's Word together. Tragedy strikes swiftly and
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  suddenly in the connected world in which we find ourselves.
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  We do not have to look far to see calamity.
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  What should our response be when we observe the next family
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  ripped apart by an untimely death?
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  The next city ravaged by a storm.
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  The next nation laid to waste by a cruel leader.
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  Or a famine. Or a virus.
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  I remember when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans.
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  In the aftermath, it was not uncommon to hear a fellow church
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  member comment on God's judgement of the evil that took
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  place in that city, or to hear that the hurricane represented
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  God's wrath on a nation in moral decline.
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  In either case, God was judging evil, and the evil ones were
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  being destroyed. But in Luke 13, one through 5,
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  that's not quite the explanation Jesus gives for tragedy.
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  Listen to this passage. Now on that very occasion there
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  were some present who reported to him about the Galileans whose
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  blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices.
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  And Jesus responded and said to them, Do you think that these
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  Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans
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  just because they have suffered this fate?
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  No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise
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  perish. Or do you think that those 18 on
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  whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them were worse
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  offenders than all the other people who live in Jerusalem?
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  No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise
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  perish. We see here people coming to
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  Jesus, wondering how he would interpret the sudden death of a
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  group of Galileans. In Jesus reply you can hear what
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  they expected him to say. They were awaiting a good
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  riddance, or these were evil men who had it coming.
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  Jesus doesn't go there. In fact, the only comment he
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  makes about the slain Galileans is that they were no worse than
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  any other Galileans. They were no more separated from
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  God than any other Sinner. Jesus goes on.
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  No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise
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  perish. Jesus makes the same point in
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  reminding the group of another tragedy with which they were
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  familiar, a tower falling and killing eighteen people.
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  He uses the tragedy to remind his listeners that time is short
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  and judgement is coming, so they should repent.
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  Listen, the next tragedy, local, national, global is coming.
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  We live in a broken world where calamity is inevitable.
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  We must respond not with worldly wisdom or with Pharisaical, I
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  told you so. Respond as Christ exhorts us to
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  repent. Allow these terrible events to
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  move us to repentance, to remind us that life is short and
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  eternity is long. And in the same way, call others
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  to repentance. Preach the gospel boldly and
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  without fear. God has numbered the days of
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  each of our lives. It wasn't your life that was
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  snuffed out in the most recent catastrophe.
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  Praise God. But there is coming a day when
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  each one of us will be called to account for our lives.
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  Do not wait until it's too late to repent.
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  Do not waste your fleeting life on what's passing away.
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  Live for the eternal. Allow the brokenness of this
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  world to draw you nearer to the perfect Savior.