[Note: This sermon expounds Luke 21:28 and begins Luke 21:34–36, focusing on the meaning of redemption, the personal experience of being set free, and the progression of loving God with heart, soul, mind, and strength. Delivered 30 August 1981, Montreal.]
We continue in Luke chapter 21. Last time we read through verses 25 to 27 and studied the signs in the heavens before the Lord's coming. Today we look at verse 28, and then if time permits we will touch briefly on verses 34 to 36. Luke 21:28: "Now when these things begin to take place, look up and raise your head, because your redemption is drawing near." Verses 34 to 36 read: "But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a snare. For it will come upon all who dwell upon the face of the whole earth. But watch at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man." The word "stand" there means to stand acquitted, vindicated, forgiven, righteous before the Son of Man. For those who have recently come to the Lord and those about to be baptized, it is very important to understand redemption, because in Scripture redemption is virtually a synonym for salvation.
Luke chapter 1 shows this equivalence clearly. In Zechariah's prophecy at verse 68: "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people, and has raised up a horn of salvation in the house of his servant David... to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life." Redemption, salvation, deliverance — these terms are used interchangeably, each explaining the other. What is redemption? As the word was used in the ancient world, it meant freeing a slave from bondage. A ransom was paid to the slave's master to set the slave free — the slave then belonged to whoever paid the price. Many kind people would redeem a slave and simply let him go free. And sometimes, out of gratitude, the freed slave would say: I do not wish to leave — I have never met anyone kind enough to set me free simply out of kindness; I would like to remain with you. In such cases the new master would often adopt the freed slave as a member of his own family, treating him no longer as a slave but as a son or daughter. That is the beautiful picture in Scripture: God sets us free from sin with a price — the blood of Jesus — makes us his own, and then instead of treating us as slaves treats us as his children. Paul links redemption and adoption of sons immediately together.
What I was before I came to the Lord: my ambition and egoism were so strong that you would never have detected them on the surface. I was too skilled at concealing my real motives. The height of psychology is to get the other person to do what you want him to do without his realizing that is what you want — to exploit people so skillfully that they believe they are acting from their own free will when in fact you have engineered the whole thing. The most dangerous people are those who appear moral and unselfish, because they are simply too sophisticated to let their real motives show. My heroes were Napoleon, Julius Caesar, Zhuge Liang — always number one, always commanding. If it was a boys' gang, I would end up as the gang leader; if a ball team, the captain. And even with all my military ambitions — I designed weapons, planned campaigns, dreamed of conquest — there was an inner emptiness. I asked myself: even if I succeed, what will I gain? Alexander the Great had the world at his feet by age thirty-three and then died of a fever. His dream of a unified Hellenistic empire fell apart within years of his death; his generals carved up his kingdom and fought each other for decades. And then there is Mao Zedong and the Long March, millions dying for a revolution — and today even Mao is pushed to one side. Nothing in this world lasts. I will die only for my Lord.
That is what redemption is: being set free from oneself, set free from consuming ambitions. When I came to the Lord I turned my back on all of those things and was left with nothing, like a little child — and happy I am to be as a little child. My armies were gone, my ambitions of the world were gone, and suddenly God became my God. Many of us experienced this at the summer camp. We felt free. The tears could wash some of the bondage away. That is redemption. And redemption once experienced must be consolidated, or it will simply drift away — a wonderful experience that fades into the distance. Redemption is too precious to lose. And the way to consolidate it is given by the Lord Jesus himself in Mark chapter 12, verses 29 to 31: "The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength." Notice the progression: heart, soul, mind, strength.
When God begins his work of redemption, the first thing he does is touch the heart. The heart in Scripture has to do with the whole person, but particularly the emotions. This is why I never dare to manipulate people's emotions in preaching. All of us with the ministry of communication know the techniques, but we must refrain from producing emotional movement by human means rather than by God — no soft music, no special lighting, no massed choirs. When God works, you do not need any of that. John Wesley used to read his message straight through from a piece of paper, and before he finished, people were on the floor kneeling and weeping before the Lord. That is God at work. I confess that I was for years a hard, unemotional person — deliberately so, through training myself to watch surgical films without flinching, to become emotionally detached. I looked at the Lord Jesus weeping and thought he disappointed me. Paul weeping? Another softie. I was the fool. God could not reach my heart. I had to learn to weep. I had to say: Lord, my heart is so hard — how can you set my heart on fire in a person like this? And now I learn to give thanks for it, though I confess I still fight back.
After the heart, God works into the soul — the soul in Scripture meaning the whole personality, the whole life, the whole character. If we stop at the heart, what we have experienced becomes merely a passing emotion. We have seen it in many Christians: they have a wonderful experience and the temperature drops steadily year by year until they disappear from church entirely. God must go deeper from the heart into the whole soul, into the whole person, affecting the character. And you see this happen visibly — when a person truly comes to the Lord, somehow their whole expression changes; there is an inner beauty that begins to appear outwardly. Then thirdly — and this is very important — it must affect the mind. The Greek word is dianoia, and it carries three distinct aspects of meaning.
The first aspect of dianoia is intelligence and insight — the understanding is affected, the blindfold is taken off the mind. A non-Christian can be very intelligent about physics or mathematics but completely blind to spiritual things; there is a faculty missing entirely. I used to argue with Christians and make mincemeat of their arguments, not because I was right, but because they could not explain what they saw. A blind man can beat any sighted person in argument about whether red exists — just say there is no such thing as red, and the sighted person cannot prove it to him. The blind man wins the argument. But he is the poor one. When God opened my eyes, I suddenly could see things I could not see before. I entered a new dimension of understanding. You do not have to spend all day proving the color red to someone whose eyes have just been opened. The second aspect of dianoia is disposition — the mind develops a characteristic way of thinking, an attitude. You notice in a truly spiritual person that there is something different about how they think and carry themselves; that is this renewed disposition. The third aspect of dianoia is purpose and plan — a fixed direction and goal.
This third aspect is what I mean by consolidation. The camp will have been lost to us if we have no plan going forward. I have seen what the church can be and what it ought to be; I have experienced it and the Scripture has taught it. Now the mind must say: I am going to have a plan. First, implement it in my own life. Then in my Bible study group. Then in the whole church. That is consolidation in spiritual warfare — you take ground, you dig in, you harden your positions, so that when the enemy counterattacks he cannot throw you back. Paul was a spiritual giant precisely because he let God work fully in his heart, through his whole soul, and into his mind, putting his mind fully at the service of righteousness and truth. He says in 1 Corinthians 14:15: "I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the mind also. I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the mind also." And in 1 Corinthians 1:10, he calls for Christians to be united not only in the same love but in the same mind — because dissension enters when some have not yet seen deeply enough into what God is doing together with others. We have no time today to go on to verses 34 to 36, and we shall look at them next time. Those verses warn about dissipation and drunkenness, which cloud the mind and make the Christian inattentive. Do not get spiritually drunk. Be watchful. Be alert. Be quiet before God.
[Continues in Part B]
# Redemption — Luke 21:28, 34–36 (Part B) — Struggling to Come to God; Spiritual versus Intellectual Understanding; Paul as Spiritual Giant
[Note: This is Part B of the sermon on Luke 21:28, 34–36, continuing directly from Part A. Delivered 30 August 1981, Montreal.]
I had to work everything through, and it was a long and bitter struggle to become a Christian. That is why when a dear sister came to me apologizing that it took her so long to come to the Lord, I said: do not apologize — there is no need. It was the same with me. I had to be thoroughly convinced. I had to analyze every aspect with my mind: why is this the word of God? How do we know this is the word of God? Why should I accept it? I reasoned and struggled. And I think this is important — that we ask ourselves what has happened. What did God do in my heart? What happened at that camp? Indeed, it was God at work — we had no soft music, we had no soft lighting. I love our brother Don for this, because he is so straightforward; he has no hidden agenda, no psychology. Whenever I see him I feel ashamed of myself — I am still too sophisticated. I must learn to be more like him: straight, honest, true. That is why I stressed when speaking with the Bible study group at the camp: it must be a clean break with the past. We can be so ensnared in our own cleverness. I used to be able, simply by applying my mind, to prove almost anything I wanted to prove, and that frightened me — because in our cleverness we might end up in error simply because we are too smart.
So the mind is only a tool. When we let the tool become the boss, we are in serious trouble. The mind is like eyes that look in order to see more clearly — but you cannot conclude that what your eyes cannot see does not exist, or that you can see everything and have missed nothing. Here is the most important thing about the first aspect of dianoia: a non-Christian can be very intelligent and still be completely blind to spiritual things. He understands physics, chemistry, mathematics — but when you speak of spiritual things, blank. Finished. The mind without God cannot see the things of the spirit. It is like trying to convince a blind man that there is such a thing as the color red. You can argue all day — I see no red, there is no red — and he is right from his perspective, because he cannot see it. No amount of argument will help. But when his eyes are opened, he sees it immediately and you do not have to spend all day explaining. I used to argue with Christians and tie their arguments in knots — and I was the fool. A blind man can beat a sighted person in argument any day by simply denying what the sighted person sees. But the blind man is the poor one. When God opened my eyes, I suddenly could see things I had never been able to see before, entering a new dimension of insight. That is why I say again and again: start with the heart, not the intellect. If you crush a non-Christian intellectually, he feels humiliated; if you win him intellectually, you get only an intellectual Christian. We want God to work in the heart.
The second aspect of dianoia is disposition — a way of thinking, an attitude of mind. As you study a spiritual person you notice a certain characteristic in how they think; that disposition is part of this renewed mind. The third aspect is purpose and plan: a fixed direction. The mind always expresses itself ultimately in a definite purpose and goal. When you come to the Lord and have been redeemed, you begin to live according to a new plan, a new direction, a new goal. Since I see what the church can be — I have experienced it — and what it ought to be — the Scripture has taught it — now I am going to have a plan: first implement it in my life, then in my group, then in the whole church. How do I ensure this experience does not fade? I study the dangers and pitfalls, I work out a plan of consolidation. That is what I mean by the strategic use of the mind.
This is precisely Paul's secret. Paul was no man who simply worked by emotion. His mind functioned spiritually, clearly, effectively, systematically, orderly, with purpose and direction. And that is why he says in 1 Corinthians 14:14–15: "If I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful" — and he finds that unsatisfactory. "What am I to do? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the mind also. I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the mind also." There is his depth, his anchor, his direction. You cannot anchor experience without the mind engaging what has happened. And this is why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:10 that we should be united in the same mind — because dissension enters when some have experienced something but not yet understood it deeply enough to share the same vision. United not only in the same love but in the same mind.
And so we come back to Luke 21:34–36, which we must briefly touch on: "Take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a snare." What happens with dissipation and drunkenness? The mind becomes blurred; you cannot think clearly anymore. The Lord wants your mind crystal clear. He says: do not get drunk, do not get spiritually drunk. Be aware. Be watchful. Be alert. We need to consolidate what God has given us; we need to press forward. Let each of us in our quiet time before the Lord ask: what did you do in my heart? What did you do in the hearts of these brothers and sisters? In what way can others experience this? How can the whole church come together in this common vision? That is the question to take before him. Be quiet before God in prayer.