7/11/2022 – Day 134 – Luke 3 – 4 / 2 of 2 // “Perfect love drives out fear.” 1 John 4:18
For 2 of 2, I am using my William Barclay – “The Gospel of Luke” commentary:
John’s Summons to Repentance – Luke 3: 7-18:
“… Here we have the message of John to the people. Nowhere does the difference between John and Jesus stand out so clarly because, whatever the message of John was, it was not a gospel. It was not good news; it was news of terror.
John had lived in the desert. The face of the desert was covered with stubble and brushwood, as dry as timber. Somtimes a spark set the face of the desert alight and out fom their crannies came the vipers, scurrying in terror from the menacing flames. It was to them John likened the people who came to be baptized.
The Jews had not the slightest doubt that in God’s economy there was a favored nation’s clause. They held that God would judge other nations with one standard but the Jews with another . They, in fact, held that a man was safe from judgment simply in virtue of the fact that he was a Jew. A son of Abraham was exempt from judgment. John told them that racial privilege meant nothing; that life not lineage was God’s standard of judgment.”
John’s Martyrdom – Luke 3: 19 – 20 :
It is always dangerous to speak the truth, and yet although the man who allies himself with the truth may end in goal or on the scaffold, in the final count he is the victor. Once the Earl of Morton, who was regent of Scotland, threatened Andrew Melville, the reformer. “There will never,” he said menacingly, “be quietness in this country till half a dozen of you be hanged or banished.” Melville answered him, “Tush! sir, threaten not your courtiers in that fashion. It is the same to me whether I rot in the air or in the ground… God be glorified, it will not lie in your power to hang nor exile his truth.”
In our present day, fear is a virus that is far worse than Covid. The Word says: Perfect love drives out fear!