Words in italic type have been added for clarity. They are not found in the original Hebrew or Aramaic.

Luke 17

• About the title: Only the non-Jewish man returned to thank and worship Jesus for healing him. A non-Jewish person is called a foreigner, an alien (A Gentile).

Jesus Warns of Offenses

Luke 17:¹ Then He said to the disciples, “It is impossible that no offenses (stumbling blocks) should come, but woe to him through whom they do come!

Luke 17:² It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, than that he should offend (cause one of these little ones to stumble) one of these little ones.

Luke 17:³ Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him.

Luke 17:⁴ And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, ‘I repent,’ you shall forgive him.”

Faith and Duty

Luke 17:⁵ And the apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.”

Luke 17:⁶ So the Lord said, “If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.

• How large is a mustard seed? Locally, it was the smallest among seeds.
  

• She was diagnosed with an aneurysm in the artery going to her legs. She had to have severe surgery; they would go through her stomach to get to that artery. They would have to move the stomach, etc., set organs aside from the front to get to the back, then put them back and sew her up. Mentally, she believed she would die and prepared herself for that outcome. The surgery was scheduled around Thanksgiving ~1983.
  
  She had her surgery, and then they placed her in a semicircle with four other beds in a large ICU room. One nurse’s station was placed at the core center of the beds.
  
  At that time, her daughter worked as an engineering draftsman. On Fridays, every desk and all drafting tables had to be clean and locked up for the weekend to ensure confidentiality.
  
  It was on a Friday when she and her husband planned to go to the hospital to visit her mother after the surgery.
  
  She recounts, “My husband picked me up in front of the engineering building. We didn’t have time to eat after work, so we quickly ran into a local store and bought some Twinkies just to fill us up. I wrote a check, tearing it out while leaving the carbon copy in the checkbook.
  
  When we arrived at the hospital, we made our way to the ICU (Intensive Care Unit) where mom was, which had a very small visiting preparation room with a small, two-person sitting sofa and three doors, one we came through from the interior of the hospital to the waiting room, one went directly outside, and one would take us into the ICU room. I removed my coat, left it beside my purse on the sofa, and went in to see my mother.
  
  It seemed like forever just walking across the room to her bed from the door. The room was large and seemed to echo my footsteps. Silence filled every crack and crevice. There were no chairs. Not only my mother but every patient was “out of it”, hooked up to tubes, wires, and IVs. I slowly took her hand and held it, not knowing what else to do. It was uncomfortable. My husband and I looked at each other and could see this “visit” wasn’t going to be a visit, so we left, retreating back into the little sitting room where I retrieved my coat, then reached for my wallet-sized purse – WHICH WASN’T THERE!
  
  I panicked. I had been saving for Christmas that year and had a sizable amount of money in my purse. Six hundred dollars in 1983 was a small fortune.
  
  A nurse heard my panic as I thrust my hands into my coat pockets, hoping the purse would miraculously appear, which it didn’t.
  
  Tears filled my eyes. It was obviously stolen.
  
  The nurse said she wished she had warned us; drug addicts hung around hospitals where everyone was under duress and distracted. (1983 was the beginning of the impact that drug addiction would ultimately have on America, but we were still naive)
  
  As I listened to her, I suddenly grabbed her hand and my husband’s hand. I just started praying out loud that if a drug addict took my purse, I prayed God would pluck it out of His hand and put it in my hand.
  
  Did I really believe that? At least it was calming. I dried my eyes and we left the hospital to undergo a miserable weekend.
  
  I went back to work on Monday morning somewhat early. The doors had just been unlocked. I went up the stairs to the engineering department with its rows of drafting tables and desks in twos, side by side, and it just so happened the person next to my table had come in early too. We were the only two people in the room.
  
  That’s when I spotted my purse, right there on top of my desk, lying alone with nothing surrounding it. I could hardly breathe.
  
  I turned to my co-worker beside me and asked if he had brought it in. He looked at me strangely and replied, “No”. “Was it here when you came in?” and again he answered “No”. “Did you see anyone else in here?” He answered, “No”, wondering at my strange questions.
  
  I snatched my purse up, opened it, and there was the money, ALL of it. Nothing was disturbed.
  
  Oh yes, just like you, I came to the conclusion that I must have left it behind on Friday.
  
  Then it struck me! We stopped and bought Twinkies in the store when I wrote a check from my purse on the way to the hospital.
  
  I quickly opened my checkbook. Sure enough, there was the carbon copy for the payment of the Twinkies.
  
  It was a miracle!
  
  My prayer was only the size of a mustard seed. Just enough to take the time to pray. That’s all I had and all I could do. God answered my prayer in the way I just described.
  
  We had a great Christmas with my mother, who survived the surgery and was released from the hospital…just in time.”
  
  That prayer had only enough faith to speak it. That prayer was my mustard seed.

Luke 17:⁷ And which of you, having a servant plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and sit down to eat’?

Luke 17:⁸ But will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare something for my supper, and gird yourself and serve me till I have eaten and drunk, and afterward you will eat and drink’?

Luke 17:⁹ Does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I think not.

Luke 17:¹⁰ So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.’ ”

• Matthew 7:21
  “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.

Ten Lepers Cleansed

Luke 17:¹¹ Now it happened as He went to Jerusalem that He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee.

Luke 17:¹² Then as He entered a certain village, there met Him ten men who were lepers, who stood afar off.

• Symbolically Ten means “A Whole, To Be Made Whole”

Luke 17:¹³ And they lifted up their voices and said, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”

Luke 17:¹⁴ So when He saw them, He said to them, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed.

Luke 17:¹⁵ And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God,

Luke 17:¹⁶ and fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks. And he was a Samaritan.

Luke 17:¹⁷ So Jesus answered and said, “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine?

• Only One Returned Again
  Only One Who Worshiped Him.

Luke 17:¹⁸ Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?”

• Only One – an Alien
  Made a “You” Turn,
  Began Again.

• Jesus Too, an Alien
  Came from Heaven
  To return Again.

Luke 17:¹⁹ And He said to him, “Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well.”

• A Tenth, A Tithe
  Not just cleansed but purified,
  but not the Jewish nine.

The Coming of the Kingdom

Luke 17:²⁰ Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation;

Luke 17:²¹ nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you (in your midst) .”

• The kingdom of God includes the kingdom of heaven on earth, when Jesus will reign for 1,000 years.
  

Luke 17:²² Then He said to the disciples, “The days will come when you (the Jews) will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it.

• The Tribulation: Hosea 5:15 I will return again to My place (in 31 AD Jesus ascended to heaven) Till (until) they acknowledge their offense. Then they will seek My face; In their affliction, they will earnestly seek Me.”

Luke 17:²³ And they will say to you, ‘Look here!’ or ‘Look there!’ Do not go after them or follow them.

Luke 17:²⁴ For as the lightning that flashes out of one part under heaven shines to the other part under heaven, so also the Son of Man will be in His day (aka “The Day of the Lord”).

• “Barak/Baraq” is the Hebrew word for lightning. Jesus is Lightning, and the mimic messiah, the Antichrist, who is indwelt by Satan, is also called lightning, “I saw Satan, like lightning, fall from the heights ‘bama/bamah’.” Luke 10:18

Luke 17:²⁵ But first He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.

Luke 17:²⁶ And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man:

Luke 17:²⁷ They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.

• A day like any other day in a person’s life, until…

• Genesis 7:11 GREAT WORLD WIDE FLOOD In the 600th year of Noah’s life
  In the 600th year of Noah’s life, in the 2nd month, the 17th day of the month, …all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
  
• A DAY OF TORRENTIAL RAIN.

Luke 17:²⁸ Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built;

Luke 17:²⁹ but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all.

• A DAY OF FIERY RAIN.

Luke 17:³⁰ Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.

                NOTE: The Jewish Messiah is revealed on the Day of His Return.

• A DAY WHEN THE RAIN COMES DOWN FROM HEAVEN.
  Hosea 6:3 Let us know, Let us pursue the knowledge of the Lord. His going forth is established as the morning; He will come to us like the rain, Like the latter and former rain to the earth.
  Joel 2:23 Be glad then, you children of Zion, And rejoice in the Lord your God; For He has given you the former rain faithfully, And He will cause the rain to come down for you— The former rain, And the latter rain in the first (resurrection?).
  Genesis 9:16 The rain (Messiah’s) bow (covenant) shall be in the cloud, and I will look on it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”

Luke 17:³¹ “In that day (v.30 when the Son of Man is revealed), he who is on the housetop, and his (possessions) goods are in the house, let him not come down to take them away. And likewise the one who is in the field, let him not turn back.

• Ref: Matthew Chapter 24

Luke 17:³² Remember Lot’s wife.

• It rained down fire, and she looked back.

Luke 17:³³ Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.

• During the Tribulation, one can either live for the world or die to the world. The first dies eternally, and the second lives eternally.

Luke 17:³⁴ I tell you, in that night (v.30 when the Son of Man is revealed) there will be two men (Or people) in one bed: the one will be taken and the other will be left.

Luke 17:³⁵ Two women will be grinding together: the one will be taken and the other left.

Luke 17:³⁶ Two men will be in the field: the one will be taken and the other left.”

Luke 17:³⁷ And they answered and said to Him, “Where, Lord?”

So He said to them, “Wherever the (dead?) body is (Jerusalem), there the eagles (vultures) will be gathered together.”

• It appears these verses refer to Jesus’ return.
  
• At the end of the Tribulation, a rapture/resurrection for the Tribulation Saints would cover the final harvest, “The Gleanings”. This is the 3rd of the three orders of resurrections for the believers, all of which are called the “first resurrection”. (First Fruits: Jesus & saints whose tombs were opened), (The Main Harvest of the church age-the Bride of Christ), and (The Gleanings – The Tribulation believers) are all part of the first harvest for God’s faithful.)
• (The 2nd resurrection is only for those whose names are NOT written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. (The 2nd resurrection is for the weeds/tares that are gathered/judged and thrown into a burning oven.)
  
• Jude 1:14 Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these (evil) men (called “weeds”) also, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints and angels (at His return).
  
  • All those from the harvests, including those beheaded during the tribulation. All those who are still alive, to join them when His foot touches Mt. Olives.
    
  • Zechariah 14:4
    And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two, from east to west, Making a very large valley; Half of the mountain shall move toward the north and half of it toward the south.
    
  • Jesus treads the grapes of His wrath alone (in Jerusalem). (Isaiah 63)
  • He chases the Antichrist indwelt by Satan (Isaiah 27:1)
  • As His army fights at Armageddon (?)