If you try to read in to a kind of man that would talk like this, this is somebody.

This is the son of God talking.

And what he's about to bring through his death is a movement in the world that is going to elicit great opposition, a lot of fire and smoke,

a lot of division. And in the end, I think since that's all God's will, there's going to be judgment.

The New Testament is clear. Jesus didn't come to preserve peace at any cost.

He came to bring peace with God, even if, in many cases, it causes division.

I'm Dan Kroover.

In this episode of Light and Truth, John Piper opens Luke 12 to help us feel the weight of Jesus' words about fire and judgment so that we will feel the urgency of aligning our lives fully with him.

This message was originally delivered at Bethlehem Baptist Church on Sunday evening, April 24, 1983.

Let's turn together to Luke, Chapter 12.

I came to cast fire on the earth. This is Jesus talking now. And I think here he's talking to his disciples because right here it says he also said to the multitude. So he's still talking to those to whom he spoke those parables about getting ready for his second coming in the preceding verses. I came to cast fire on the earth and would that it were already kindled.

I have a baptism to be baptized with and how I am constrained until it is accomplished.

Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth?

No, I tell you, but rather division.

For henceforth in one house there will be five divided,

three against two and two against three.

They will be divided father against son and son against father,

mother against daughter and daughter against mother,

mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law

and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.

Now, we have really three distinct things here.

I came to cast fire on the earth.

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