Transcript

Luke 18 as we continue going through the New Testament Gospel of Luke. The Lord is getting closer and closer to the pinnacle of his purpose for becoming man and the climax of his earthly ministry and that is the cross so he begins to prepare his followers, particularly his innermost circle, the 12 disciples or apostles, you could call them, and we have a narrative describing some of what happens or happened as he did this. Luke 18, beginning in verse 31

31 Then He took the twelve aside and said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things which are written through the prophets about the Son of Man will be accomplished. 32 For He will be handed over to the Gentiles, and will be mocked and mistreated and spit upon, 33 and after they have scourged Him, they will kill Him; and the third day He will rise again.” 34 But the disciples understood none of these things, and the meaning of this statement was hidden from them, and they did not comprehend the things that were said.

“Pressing Toward the Cross” is what I have entitled this and that’s exactly what’s happening. The Lord is exactly, perfectly on the divine timetable the heavenly Father set for him in his earthly ministry. He is pressing on toward that foundation stone of all that he is about and all that the Father’s purposes are about and that is that he go to Jerusalem and there he would be crucified for the sin of the world.

Notice as the text shows us as he is pressing toward the cross, first of all, he gives a special revelation to the 12. A special revelation to the 12. We see it very clearly there in verse 31, “He took the 12 aside.” Now, that’s interesting because he is often teaching the masses, including his enemies, the Pharisees, the religious authorities of the Jews of the day, but on this occasion as he has done many times and more numerous times as he gets to the end of his earthly ministry, he pulls the 12 apostles aside and teaches them. On some occasions, he would teach parables to everyone and then he would pull his 12 aside and explain more thoroughly things to them. Now, there are some of the Arminian stripe who want to make Jesus and God so fair in their definition of fairness, they would almost suggest that, “Well, wait a minute now. If Jesus is going to pull some guys aside and teach them some things, it ought to be offered to everybody and then whoever comes can come. It ought to be just a universal offer to everybody.” But he doesn’t do that. Jesus does not submit to your feelings or your understanding of fairness. He chose 12 men to pull aside and more thoroughly disciple, train or equip than the rest of the folks. He didn’t call for a vote. He didn’t call for a nomination or anything else. The Scripture says he, in fact, prayed all night and then chose 12 men.

So, first of all, I want you to note that these men are pulled aside because this is a special training method for leadership and we see that throughout the Scriptures. The Old and New Testament shows us that among the body of God’s people, there are times when those that God has given a special gifting or a special burden or you might even say a special calling for leadership, they need to be pulled aside and trained more thoroughly. Now in this pulling aside, he gives them more truth, if you will, or you might say a more thorough understanding or exhortation concerning the truth but make no mistake about it, this is a selective group he selected to give the impartation of more deeper truth to.

These guys are the disciples. They are certainly true believers. In one sense, we can broaden this out to understand that those who make up the church, and I mean the true church, those who are genuinely converted, are enabled by God’s Spirit to grasp and see things the rest of the world are not enabled to grasp and see. 1 Corinthians 2:14, “But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he,” note, “cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.” Unless God grants the Spirit to enable you to see, you can’t see. I’m sorry, but the gray matter between your ears is not competent to comprehend the things of God. You must have the Spirit’s assistance. John 3, Jesus talking to Nicodemus says, “Nicodemus, unless you are born again,” here’s the phrase, “you cannot see the kingdom of God.” You just won’t see it. You won’t have the understanding. Matthew 11:27,