Luke 9:57

The Bible says in Luke 9:57-58, “And it came to pass that as they went in the way, a certain man said unto him, Lord, I will follow thee wherever you go. And Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has not where to lay his head.” What this man said to Jesus sounded very good. It certainly is an important thing that everyone should say to God. He said, “Lord, I will follow you wherever you go.” You cannot serve God unless you are willing to follow Him. But what is equally important to notice is that the Lord did not accept His statement right away.

Instead of congratulating the man and instead of inviting the man to start following him, Jesus did something else. Jesus told the man to make sure that he has properly counted the cost before he claims to want to follow Jesus on the dusty roads of Galilee. The Lord wants us to make decisions that we can stick to. The Lord doesn’t want people to start following Him in some endeavor and then stop. He doesn’t want people to make a good start without also making a good finish. That was certainly the desire of the Apostle Paul. He said at the end of his life in Second Timothy 4:7, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.”

In order for people to finish well, they must know what they are getting into. They must be prepared for what lies ahead. There are a lot of people who started out in the Christian life, but when things got difficult, they fell along the wayside. If you look at life and if you look at human nature, you will see that many people start something, but not near as many finish it. That’s why in any college or university there are a lot more freshmen than there are seniors. People tend to start with a certain amount of enthusiasm, but for some of them things happen that make them stop. What could have helped these people to continue? What is one of the most important things that could have assisted them in finishing what they started? If only all of those who quit and all of those who stopped had understood this principle that Jesus was teaching here.

Jesus was not telling this man that he had to sacrifice in order to be a follower of Christ. In the first century many people became followers of the teachings of Christ, but only a few were a part of the twelve who actually traveled with Jesus on the roads of Palestine. In a way you could say that this man was volunteering to become one of the twelve apostles. That was probably also one of the problems here. No one should become a preacher of the gospel because the idea originates with him. The gifts and the calling come from God. There are preachers in this world who have become preachers for the wrong reasons. Someone might become a preacher because they compared being a preacher to being a doctor or a lawyer or a truck driver, and they like the salary and the retirement benefits of being a preacher better than other occupations. Such a person is not wise concerning where the greater material rewards would come from, and also such a person would be in danger of making a very big mistake concerning the direction of his life.

There is only one reason that anyone should ever become a preacher of the gospel. You must be gifted and you must be called by God in order to become a preacher of the gospel. Someone might ask, “How will I know if I am called?” You will know. If you do not know, then you are not called. In Luke 9:59-60 we are told of a man who was called, and we are told about his response. The Bible says, “And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father. Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but you go and preach the kingdom of God.”

You must be called. “Many are called, but few are chosen.” You become one of the chosen when you respond in the right way to the call. The person who was called by Christ in Luke 9:59 did not respond in the right way. He was called, but instead of surrendering to the call, there was something else of greater importance to him. He claimed that he wanted to follow Christ, but he wanted to do something else first. If you wait until it’s convenient for you to do what God wants you to do, you may very well find that you never end up doing the will of the Lord. Following Christ has to become the most important thing to you in all the world. If it is not, then you will not follow Him.

This man said that he wanted to go and bury his father before he could start following Christ. Perhaps his father was not yet dead, and he wanted to wait until his father died. We do not know for sure, but one thing we do know. When Christ calls you to do something, you must do it. There are times when you should prayerfully wait upon the leading of God. But there are other times such as in the life of this man that God wants you to make a decision now. If God is calling you to make a decision now about a change in your life, then you must let nothing keep you from making the right decision. Once you know for sure what He wants you to do, nothing is more important than doing just that, not even the closest of family relationships. How many people in the history of humans have lost their souls because of too strong of an allegiance to man that kept them from giving an allegiance to Christ and to God? How many people never became Christians because they thought they needed to remain loyal to their family traditions? Sometimes it is not so bad to be an orphan after all.

Another person reluctant to follow Christ because of family ties is found in Luke 9:61-62. The Bible says, “And another also said, Lord, I will follow you; but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house. And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” What did Jesus mean about “looking back?” In what way does “looking back” make one unfit for the kingdom of God? Of course, we remember Lot’s wife. Lot was delivered by God from the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. In order to avoid the destruction Lot and his wife had to leave the wicked city immediately. While they were leaving, Genesis 19:26 says, “But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.” Evidently, she looked back because of a desire to stay in the wicked city of Sodom. She had an attraction to the wicked city of Sodom that she could not let go of. If you are going to be successful in following the Lord in this world, you must have a single purpose. You must be determined, resolved, and committed to turn from your old life and to turn to the new. That’s what repentance is all about. When you repent, you change your mind. You turn from one thing to something else. If you do not acquire such a singleness of purpose in going God’s way, then you will never really go God’s way. “A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.”

The Lord spent a fair amount of time, just like He does today, giving invitations to those who turned out to be reluctant to go His way. At the beginning of Luke chapter 10 Jesus turns to those who have accepted His invitation and who have surrendered to Him to give them some important instruction about the work that He has for them to do in this world. The Bible says in Luke 10:1, “After these things the Lord appointed other seventy also, and sent them two and two before His face into every city and place, where he himself would come.” We know that the Lord had three years when He Himself walked the dusty roads of Galilee with a message of good news. He brought forgiveness to the sinner, healing to the sick, and hope to those who had lost all hope. What a great ministry and work that Jesus had. He visited the lost, He preached His sermons, and He taught His many wonderful lessons that are now preserved for us in the Bible. But we see very clearly that not only did Jesus have His own work to do and His own ministry to fulfill, but Jesus was also very involved in sending others and helping others to have their own ministry. You will have your greatest influence on the world if you influence others and train others to do the same things that you are doing.

The Bible says that “the Lord appointed seventy other also.” The word that is translated “appointed” refers to lifting up someone and making it known publicly that someone has been chosen for an important and official task. Of course, the important task is the preaching of the gospel. Every believer has a gift of some kind, and one gift that only some people have is the gift to preach the gospel. When Jesus ascended into heaven, He gave gifts unto men, and one of the gifts that He gave was that of pastors and teachers. When Jesus sent these seventy out, He sent them out by twos. Two heads are better than one, and two words of witness are better than one.

Notice that Jesus told the seventy to go into every city and place. The gospel is offered by God to everyone. The Lord sends His servants into every part of the world with the message of salvation because God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. The Lord told the seventy that where He was sending them, He Himself would come. This shows how witnessing works in the world. The believers take the message to the lost people of the world. The believers sow the seed, and then later Jesus Himself visits those who have been witnessed to. If someone gets saved, it must be Jesus who saves them.

In the Bible verses that follow, Jesus had much to say to the seventy in order to prepare them for the work of spreading the gospel. The Bible says in Luke 10:2, “Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few: pray you therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth laborers into his harvest.” The harvest is great because we are talking about the whole world. Jesus died for the whole world. The entire world lies in darkness and sin. God loves the world and everyone in the world. It is a very great harvest, and there is a lot of work to do to bring in the sheaves and to bring in the harvest. In order to accomplish this work, there must be laborers.

What can be done in order to get more laborers? The first thing that Jesus said to do is to pray. If you know of a place that needs laborers, then pray for them. If you know of a place that needs a preacher, then pray for a preacher. Everything that is important in the Christian life should start with prayer and should end with prayer, and this is especially true concerning someone being called and sent to preach the gospel. Prayer changes things. It is a privilege to work with God in this great work. Paul said, “We are laborers together with God.” According to Jesus in Luke 10:2, it is His harvest, and He calls us to work with Him in it.

Concerning going into the world with the good news of the gospel of Christ, Jesus said in Luke 10:3, “Go your ways: behold, I send you forth as lambs among wolves.” For those who are called and for those who are willing to go, the first thing that Jesus gives them is a warning about the opposition. There will be opposition to the preaching of the gospel. You will be bringing the world the wonderful truth of the gospel of Christ in which they can find eternal life, but you will not always be treated well for doing it. You will have a good heart with good intentions and a good message to bless the hearers. But the opposition will be like a wolf among lambs. When the gospel is received, those who believe become part of the church, which is God’s flock of lambs. Sometimes the wolves are false teachers who come in among the lambs to devour them. The lambs are devoured when their faith is ruined by false teachers. Understand what Jesus said. If you are one of God’s lambs, you need to be on guard because there are wolves who want to harm your faith with their false teachings. Be on guard against the wolves.

In Luke 10:4 Jesus said, “Carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor shoes: and salute no man by the way.” Jesus is not saying that His believers cannot possess material things. He was not talking to the seventy about their entire lives. He was talking to them about this short trip they were going on to spread the gospel. It was evidently a trip of just a couple of days because in a few more verses they return from the trip to talk to Jesus about what they experienced. The point that Jesus is making in Luke 10:4 is that when someone goes out on an evangelistic tour to spread the gospel, they must be focused on delivering their message. That is the purpose of where they are going. The things that Jesus mentioned for the seventy to not take with them, were the things that people would normally take with them on a journey. A purse refers to extra money, and a scrip was a carrying case for food and other things. When Jesus told them to “salute no man by the way,” Jesus was telling them to avoid conversation that would distract them and get them off message.

The most important message in the world is the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. One of the reasons that the message of the gospel is not effectively spread by very many people is because not enough believers have put into practice the warnings and teachings that Jesus gave here in Luke Chapter 10. Do not get distracted. Have a singleness of purpose. Go with the Gospel.

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