Christ brings Peace or Division?

Luke 12:49-53

Luke 12:49-53.

This kind of message is reinforced at the Christmas season because people are reminded that a Child is born, a Son is given and He's going to be called the Prince of Peace.

The angels announced to the shepherds that He would bring peace on earth. Even the Jews had this expectation that when the Messiah came, peace would come with Him. But Jesus absolutely shattered that expectation. That's a shattering statement to Jewish expectation.

Psalm 72:7, In His days the righteous shall flourish, And abundance of peace, Until the moon is no more. Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, proclaimed that upon the coming of Messiah.

Luke 1:78-79, Through the tender mercy of our God, With which the Dayspring from on high has visited us; ⁷⁹ To give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, To guide our feet into the way of peace.”

Luke 7:50, Then He said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”

John 14:27, Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

John 16:33, These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

The apostle Paul borrowing words from Isaiah 57.

Ephesians 2:17, And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near.

Colossians 1:20, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.

Acts 10:36, The word which God sent to the children of Israel, preaching peace through Jesus Christ—He is Lord of all— Shouldn't we expect then that He came to bring peace?

Isaiah 9:6, For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Isaiah 55, and ⁶⁶ which said He would come to bring peace, and Ezekiel 34, the promise of the New Covenant was a promise of peace.

Ezekiel 37:24-28, “David My servant shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd; they shall also walk in My judgments and observe My statutes, and do them. ²⁵ Then they shall dwell in the land that I have given to Jacob My servant, where your fathers dwelt; and they shall dwell there, they, their children, and their children’s children, forever; and My servant David shall be their prince forever. ²⁶ Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them, and it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; I will establish them and multiply them, and I will set My sanctuary in their midst forevermore. ²⁷ My tabernacle also shall be with them; indeed I will be their God, and they shall be My people. ²⁸ The nations also will know that I, the Lord, sanctify Israel, when My sanctuary is in their midst forevermore.” ’ ” Certainly, there was every reason to anticipate that the arrival of Messiah would produce a time of peace.

They looked at it as a national peace.

Luke 1:74,"To grant us that we being delivered from the hand of our enemies might serve God without fear."

They saw that the Messiah is going to bring a kingdom that would bring national peace in all the threats from the many enemies that Israel had.

• They expected the Messiah to repel Roman enemy that occupied their country during the time of Jesus.
• They expected to be delivered from political oppression.
• They expected to be delivered from military threat.
• They expected a political, social kind of national peace, consummate with the kingdom of blessing that had been promised through the prophets.

John came preaching the kingdom of peace. Jesus came preaching the kingdom of peace. Truly He was and is the Prince of Peace and truly He will bring peace, but there's a condition. There cannot be world peace, there cannot even be Jewish peace, there can be no kingdom at all on this earth until He reigns in the individuals'hearts. There will be no national peace until there's personal peace and by now, we're toward the end of the ministry of Jesus, into the third year of His ministry, and it only lasted three years.

Jesus headed toward the cross. The unbelief and rejection of Israel is fixed. The religious leaders have rejected Him and already are plotting His death. The people will join in screaming for His blood, for they have already been convinced for the most part that He does what He does by the power of Satan because that is what they have been told by their leaders, and so they are forfeiting their monumental opportunity for peace.

V 51, Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth? I tell you, not at all, but rather division. Based upon all those Old Testament promises, and His response in the Greek starts with the word "no"!

• The promised peace was taken away.
• They had rejected the Prince of Peace.
• They had therefore forfeited the kingdom of peace.

It could only come through individuals putting faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as Messiah Saviour and if there was no peace between the sinner and God, there would be no peace among the people. There will be no kingdom of peace until salvation comes to the heart, so in place of peace comes division.

Matthew 10:34-36, “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. ³⁵ For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in- law’; ³⁶ and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’

Only on that occasion, He said He came not to bring peace but a sword. Jesus, who came as the Prince of Peace, becomes the great divider, becomes the source of disunity and separation. Background of Luke chapter 12. V 1, tells us that Jesus was speaking to many thousands of people. The mass of these people already had made up their mind to reject Jesus, but He was still the greatest curiosity in existence and the most profound teacher who ever lived and attracted massive crowds, but most of them stood with their leaders.

They had imbibed what their leaders had been giving them to drink in terms of Jesus being satanic, but there were still some who could be classified as disciples. The word is mathētēs and learners. It means that they were still open to what He was saying. Some of them were apostles.

They had come all the way to faith and been called to ministry. Some of them were the seventy who also had been sent out to minister for Him because they were true believers. Some of them had become believers and there were some who were just still open and the end of verse 1 says He was really talking to them.

The nature of this message is that it's a call to salvation.

It's a call to come to Him, to come into the kingdom of salvation, to receive the forgiveness and redemption that He brings. This is an evangelistic invitation. It starts in verse 1 and it runs all the way Luke 13:9. There are a couple of interruptions for questions but, in the midst of long discourse. It is an invitation. It is a call by our Lord to the crowd and those in the crowd who were still open and still learning and still listening to receive His claims, embrace Him as Messiah, and come into the kingdom of salvation and receive forgiveness of sin and eternal life. Then Jesus delineates what they must do.

Jesus says, ✓ You have to turn from the dominating influence of the false teachers in your false religion. ✓ You have got to get away from the liars and the deceivers. ✓ You have to stop fearing men, stop fearing the retribution that comes from men when you step out of your religious environment, and fear God who can destroy your soul and body in hell.

✓ You must also confess Jesus before men as your Lord and Saviour. ✓ You must trust your life into the hands of the Holy Spirit because you will be facing persecution.

✓ You must reject the love of material things. ✓ You must turn away from preoccupation with the world and you must pursue with all your heart the kingdom of God through faith in Jesus Christ. ✓ You must do it with urgency.

Luke 12:40, Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” You don't know how long you have.

This is very strong and direct, but the die is cast for most. Israel has no love for her Messiah.

John 1:11, He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. Israel has no desire for His kingdom.

• They have no interest for His salvation.
• They have no longing for His grace.
• They have no desire for the forgiveness He offers.

The blindness of their minds through their own ignorance, satanic blindness, and the deception of their false leaders, has manipulated them sufficiently into a state of rejection that they will unite in murdering their own Messiah.

So, Jesus says He is come now to bring division. Instead of uniting people in His kingdom of blessing, He divides them both in time and eternity. This is a very important point in Luke's history. This is a turning point here in this 12th chapter, and from now on the warnings begin to dominate.

The urgency is intensified.

Luke 12:56, Hypocrites! You can discern the face of the sky and of the earth, but how is it you do not discern this time? You are better weathermen than you are theologians.

Luke 12:59, I tell you, you shall not depart from there till you have paid the very last mite.” A promise of judgment based upon accountability for every violation of the law of God.

Luke 13:3, I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.

Luke 13:9, And if it bears fruit, well. But if not, after that you can cut it down.’ ”

Luke 13:24, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able.

There will not always be an opportunity.

Genesis 6:3, And the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.”

Luke 13:35, See! Your house is left to you desolate; and assuredly, I say to you, you shall not see Me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ”

The invited men in the story were the Israelites, the Jews. None of you are going to be in on the messianic banquet.

Luke 14:26-27, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. ²⁷ And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. You have to calculate the cost as a man would building a tower, as a man would going to war.

Luke 14:33, So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple.

This tone of judgment and warning continues!

Luke 19:41-42, Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, ⁴² saying, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. You missed it! That is one serious condition. When peace is offered, and you reject it and then it's not offered.

Luke 19:43-44, For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, ⁴⁴ and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”

The opportunity for peace. Jesus was talking about there is the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were massacred. Eventually, nearly 1,000 towns in Israel were sacked by the Romans. The temple was destroyed. It was the end of Judaism. There's never been a sacrifice offered since then. They thought He was bringing peace.

As it turned out, because they rejected Him as the Prince of Peace, He brought destruction.

Luke 19:42, saying, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. That's the pensive, tearful statement of Jesus. I brought you peace and you didn't want it on My terms. So, the warnings escalate, and they escalate until finally, it's now hidden. There is a time. There is an opportunity, but God has the right to shut it down whenever He wants, as He did in history, as He does in the life of every individual who rejects that warning. Jesus, the great divider! 1. Dividing event. V 49-50, “I came to send fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 50 But I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how distressed I am till it is accomplished! Jesus is looking at the one event that is the dividing event for all humanity, one event that divides people into two categories. Not just in eternity but in time also, one event that separates everyone into two categories. "I have come."

When it comes out of the mouth of Jesus, you would be astonished how important this is. He introduces His mission.

John 10:10, The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

Matthew 5:17, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfil.

Luke 19:10, for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

But if you don't accept the things I offer, I have come to cast fire upon the earth.

John 12:46-48, I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness. ⁴⁷ And if anyone hears My words and does not [g]believe, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. ⁴⁸ He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him—the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day. So, the word either saves or it condemns. "I have come to cast fire on the earth."

Fire is a picture of judgment. Same in the Old Testament as well as the New Testament. Fire is the first thing, and this is prophesied in the Old Testament.

Isaiah 66:15, For behold, the Lord will come with fire And with His chariots, like a whirlwind, To render His anger with fury, And His rebuke with flames of fire.

Joel 2:30, “And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth: Blood and fire and pillars of smoke.

Amos 1:7, But I will send a fire upon the wall of Gaza, Which shall devour its palaces.

Amos 2:14, Therefore flight shall perish from the swift, The strong shall not strengthen his power, Nor shall the mighty deliver himself; As the Old Testament closes in Malachi Chapter 3, talks about

God coming in fiery judgment, but the Jews believed that the fire would fall on the Gentiles and that the peace would come to them. They never expected that the Messiah would come, and the fire of judgment would fall on them, and it is the fire of judgment.

John 9:39, And Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind.” His judgment is two-way.

It is a judgment that ➢ saves, and ➢ condemns. It's two-sided.

Luke 3:9, And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

Luke 3:16-17, John answered, saying to all, “I indeed baptize you with water; but One mightier than I is coming, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹⁷ His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather the wheat into His barn; but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire.” So, there is the fire of judgment, the fire of destruction that is unleashed.

But it's not only a fire of judgment but also a fire of purging. In the gospel’s fire that either purifies or punishes.

Paul said it's life to life or death to death. John 3, Jesus said, "If you believe, you have eternal life. If you don't believe, your unbelief puts you under judgment." Fire consumes what is combustible and does not consume what is non-combustible. It purifies the non-combustible and it destroys the combustible and so the coming of Jesus is a fire.

It's a fire cast to the earth. To those who believe, it purifies. To those who reject, it consumes. "I have come as fire and how I wish it were already kindled." He came for fire, but the fire is not started yet. The fire hasn't been kindled yet.

What does He mean by that? Jesus is talking about starting the fire. Kindling is used to start the fire.

What is going to kindle the fire? Jesus is looking at His death! V 50, But I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how distressed I am till it is accomplished!

The kindling that started the fire was Jesus. He was judged by God. Before Jesus judges, He must Himself be judged. Jesus was looking at His cross. The kindling of the fire of judgment is the cross, His death, which is a fire of judgment that God puts on Him. God literally consumes Him in wrath, the just for the unjust.

Jesus was punished for our sins. He wishes it were over. Do you think the only time He ever suffered the agonies of His death was in Gethsemane? Do you understand that Jesus lived a perpetual Gethsemane? There was never a time in His life, in His conscious life, when He wasn't aware of where He was going.

What He suffered in sweating great drops of blood as His capillaries disintegrated under the stress of the garden just before the cross was only the culmination of a whole life of suffering the anticipation of having to be the kindling burned up by the judgment of God so that He could render a judgment both to purify and punish on others.

He wishes it was already over. There was ever a conscious moment that He didn't think about what was coming. Divine

judgment would fall on Him from His own Father before it would fall on people. V 50, But I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how distressed I am till it is accomplished! A “baptism” was a word the Greeks liked to use to speak about being immersed in something and we use it that way. It is used in Greek literature to refer to death.

Jesus used it as being,

• immersed in pain,
• immersed in suffering,
• immersed in judgment,
• immersed divine wrath, and
• immersed in death.

Jesus knows that's a baptism that He must undergo. He understands that this is necessary because He must bear the judgment for all who will believe.

Mark 10:38, But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” You want prominence in the kingdom.

Can you suffer what I am going to suffer? I have a baptism to undergo. I have an immersion into divine wrath and how distressed I am until it's accomplished. The word "distressed,"synechomai. The verb simply means to seize. I'm seized. It's used for being gripped with fear.

It's used for being pressed.

Philippians 1:23, For I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. I think it is, being hard-pressed from two directions.

It was an incessant squeezing, just a relentless pressure, until it was finally accomplished. So here He's saying that I wish it was over. Our Lord here is anticipating the dividing event. He is pressed between the suffering and the purpose, between the anticipation of the pain and the plan, between His own will and the Father's will, but He never wavered when He said in the garden, "Father, if it's your will, let this cup pass from Me."

That will be the dividing point. That is where all men are divided. All men are divided at the cross, both in eternity and in time.

2. Divided for eternity!

Jesus told a story. He said there was a master who left. This illustrates the Lord, and he is coming, and you don't know when he is coming, and he has given his servants responsibility.

Luke 12:42-44, And the Lord said, “Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his master will make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of food in due season? 43 Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. ⁴⁴ Truly, I say to you that he will make him ruler over all that he has.

This is a picture of somebody who is ready when Jesus comes. This is a picture of somebody who obeys the gospel. God is the sovereign of every life. All men are accountable to Him.

Our Lord is describing a person

• who does what the Lord tells him to do,
• who is obedient to the gospel?
• who makes the most of gospel opportunity?
• Who is ready when the Lord comes, and
• He is blessed and will be rewarded eternally.

This is one who believes in Jesus Christ.

This is one on this side of the cross and the resurrection who believes in His death and His resurrection, who confesses Jesus is Lord, who believes in his heart that God raised Him from the dead. These are the faithful.

But Jesus'coming was for the fall of some, Simeon said in Luke 2:34, and rising of some. So, there are those who rise, and they are the faithful and those who fall, the unfaithful.

Luke 12:45-48, But if that servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ and begins to beat the male and female servants, and to eat and drink and be drunk, ⁴⁶ the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the unbelievers. 47 And that servant who knew his master’s will, and did not prepare himself or do according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. ⁴⁸ But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving of stripes, shall be beaten with few. For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more. Another kind of person who has little interest in the return of his master. Picturing the coming of the Lord as facing judgment. He lives a life in defiant rejection of what his master expects. Commands and beats the slaves instead of providing for them,

both men and women, indiscriminately evil. He becomes gluttonous and drunken. This is a picture of an unfaithful person. When the master comes back, there's a judgment rendered on the faithful and that judgment is the judgment that leads to blessing and reward.

There is a judgment rendered on the unfaithful. The metaphor jumps into theology. The one who knew his master's won’t get ready or act in accord with his will and receives many lashes. Jesus describes one who didn't even know his master's will and committed deeds worthy of a flogging who receives but a few.

Notice, the cross is a dividing point. If you put your trust in Jesus Christ, if you believe in Him as the crucified and risen Saviour, you are among the faithful. You have exercised your stewardship, your gospel stewardship, appropriately toward God and when you face God, you will be blessed and rewarded eternally.

On the other hand, if you do not do that, you fall among the unbelievers, but they are divided into three groups.

Group 1

Defiant unbelievers. They are just the opposite of what they are told to do. They were told to do one thing, but they did the opposite. Told to use the resources to help others and they drank and ate for themselves. They were told to take care of others and they were destructive and abusive to others. This is defiant disobedience, and this particular slave is hacked to pieces.

This is that wilful sin the Old Testament talks about.

Leviticus 26:27-28, And after all this, if you do not obey Me, but talk contrary to Me, 28 then I also will walk contrary to you in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins. If you know what I expect, if you know My Word, if you know My gospel and you know My command and you defy it and you act hostile against that command, I will multiply your punishment seven times.

Numbers 15:30, ‘But the person who does anything presumptuously, whether he is native-born or a stranger, that one brings reproach on the Lord, and he shall be cut off from among his people.

Death penalty.

What if you have committed unintentionally?

Numbers 15:29, You shall have one law for him who sins unintentionally, for him who is native-born among the children of Israel and for the stranger who dwells among them.

The more flagrant your sin against knowledge the worse your eternal punishment. That's why hell will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah, more tolerable for Nineveh, more tolerable for those to whom Jonah preached, more tolerable for the queen of the south than it will be for Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum.

They are going to have a hotter hell, those people, because they knew the truth and rejected it. They were defiant against the Messiah and His gospel, defiant disobedience. The severest punishment depicted as hacking someone in pieces.

Jesus would put the scribes and the Pharisees in group one; hate, hate against Him, violent hostility leading to murder.

Group 2

Distracted unbelievers. V 47, And that servant who knew his master’s will, and did not prepare himself or do according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. The slave who knew his master's will and didn't get ready or act in accord with his will shall receive many lashes.

Just distracted, indifferent, never got around to it, negligent. Many lashes in the story is better than being hacked to pieces, signifying a lesser punishment. Are you saying that hell is going to be different? Everybody's hell is his own hell.

If you don't suffer collectively and individually. Those who defied the truth they knew received the greatest punishment. Those who were just distracted and indifferent and negligent, a lesser punishment.

Group 3

Darkened unbelievers. V 48, the one who didn't know. There are people in the world who didn't know.

They don't know what God wants. They never heard the gospel. People who never heard the gospel are going to go to heaven. God somehow is going to overlook their ignorance and they are going to end up in heaven. God's going to be kind and gracious and if they lived up to whatever religion they were involved with that's going to be enough and God's going to let them into heaven.

V48, "The one who did not know." He didn't know what his master wanted, didn't know what he was commanded to do, had no information, still committed deeds worthy of flogging. Even though they are ignorant and sinful. Will receive a few blows. There will be a less severe punishment for that one, but it certainly doesn't say he is going to be blessed. It certainly doesn't say he is going to be counted with the faithful.

It certainly doesn't say he's going to enter into the possessions of the Lord that the faithful servant is going to receive. No, ignorance doesn't get you heaven and it just diminishes hell. The cross divides everybody. You are either with the faithful or the unfaithful.

You are either in heaven or hell. Hell will always be punishment! Always cut off from the life of God, always void of peace and joy and satisfaction and fulfilment, to whatever degree it's experienced. This is such an important text for people who think that those who are ignorant of the Gospel are going to somehow go to heaven. They are not. The cross is the dividing point of all humanity. What you do with Jesus Christ on the cross in His death and resurrection determines your eternal destiny.

3. Divided in the present. Not just in eternity but in the present! V 52, "For from now on..." That's another little sort of phrase that Jesus liked to use.

Luke 5:10, and so also were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid. From now on you will catch men.”

Luke 22:69, Hereafter the Son of Man will sit on the right hand of the power of God.”

V 52-53, For from now on five in one house will be divided: three against two, and two against three. ⁵³ Father will be divided against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in- law.”

We know that the gospel divides! It divides in eternity, but it was in the time of Jesus Christ and even now.

John 7:43, "And there arose a division in the crowd because of Him."

John 9:16, "There was a division among them."

John 10:19, Therefore there was a division again among the Jews because of these sayings. Jesus divided everywhere He went. Not just in eternity are these people divided, but in time they are divided. The gospel is a serious problem to people who reject it and those who believe it are outcasts. In the time of Jesus, they were un-synagogued.

They were thrown out of the synagogue, social outcasts, and it goes all the way down to the most intimate point of human unity, the family. Jesus could have illustrated it by talking about a town or a community or a neighbourhood, but He takes it all the way down to the place where the most natural kind of unity exists.

It might be one against four or four against one. The gospel is divisive.

Why should Jesus Christ be so divisive? But He is. Because those who will not embrace the gospel hate the Gospel because it condemns them as sinners, condemns them to hell. V 52 there are five members in a household and then they are sorted out in 53.

• A father,
• A son,
• Mother,
• Daughter,
• Mother-in-law,
• Daughter-in-law.

That's six.

But remember, the mother-in-law is also the mother of the son who has the wife, not that that's a big issue but the Bible is very precise. The point is that there is going to be division in the family and sometimes that division can be so severe that it can end up even in death.

Matthew 10:21-23, “Now brother will deliver up brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. ²² And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved. ²³ When they persecute you in this city, flee to another. For assuredly, I say to you, you will not have gone through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes.

The gospel that we believe, and I preach, cuts me off from people. The Gospel it indicts them. The Gospel condemns them by virtue of its message. It is divisive!

Conclusion

Jesus in verse 53, He borrowed from the prophet Micah.

Micah 7:6, For son dishonours father, Daughter rises against her mother, Daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; A man’s enemies are the men of his own household. So, they would know that Jesus was speaking of something that was biblical. It was from the Old Testament.

The cross is the great dividing event and at that point, we are divided. We are divided for eternity. He calls for sinners to choose blessing and reward in heaven rather than cursing and punishment in hell. He calls for you to make the break no matter what the breach might be in this life and if it's some consolation, and indeed it should be, I have some good news for you.

Matthew 19:27-29, Then Peter answered and said to Him, “See, we have left all and followed You. Therefore what shall we have?” ²⁸ So Jesus said to them, “Assuredly I say to you, that in the regeneration, when the Son of Man sits on the throne of His glory, you who have followed Me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. ²⁹ And everyone who has left

houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life. That is good news! It's worth the forsaking because you get eternal life.

Not only that, even here you get the body of Christ. You get many brothers, many sisters, many fathers, many mothers, many children, and you get many resources that are supplied by the family of God. Jesus the Great Divider.

If you embrace Him, He will be to you the Prince of Peace. There will be some division in this life, but you will enjoy a peace that passes understanding. There will be in the future a revival, a great revival, when Israel will come to salvation and people from every tongue and tribe and nation will come to salvation and then the kingdom of peace will come.

For the one who embraces Christ, that peace comes now, and it comes forever.