Luke 13:30

These remarks from our Lord Jesus were revolutionary to the hearer’s of His day. As physical descendants of Abraham, the Jews naturally assumed that they would be privy to entrance into the promised kingdom. His words in the verses just prior to our verse for today not only indicate that the Gentiles would be added to the kingdom but that they would replace those of Jewish descent who chose not to believe in Jesus as their only means of salvation and their only access to a holy God:

28 "There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out. 29 People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God. Luke 13:28-29 (NIV)

I am reminded of the verses in John that supports this point:

10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-- 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. John 1:10-13 (NIV)

The failure to recognize Jesus both then and now is not due to His nature being somehow “masked” but rather due to human ignorance and blindness caused by folly and sin. John later tells us:

37 Even after Jesus had done all these miraculous signs in their presence, they still would not believe in him. John 12:37 (NIV)

The prophets of old testified to this also. We find in Isaiah:

1 Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? 2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Isaiah 53:1-3 (NIV)

The prophet Isaiah spoke of the Jewish remnant lamenting over the fact that so few of their people believe the message about the Servant. In fact, they speak of His having nothing that would attract Him to them – a Man of sorrows, familiar with suffering, despised and not esteemed. Certainly Jesus was not the royal king they were anticipating. Many people today fall into a similar category. They buy into the false idea that in following Christ they will experience a life of ease and comfort. Disillusioned over their discovery of trials and tribulations in this fallen world, they often become confused and fall away from following hard after Christ. This is why it is so necessary to know firsthand the Truth of the Scriptures – in its entirety. It never serves one well to pick and choose and build a faith on a few verses alone. God desires to use our trials and our pain for His purposes. I recently read a wonderful quote regarding this point:

"Somehow in the wonder-working providence of God, our worst problems become our best pulpits. God turns our tragedies into testimonies and our emergencies into evangelism. Our testimonies are forged and crafted in the trials of life, our pain has an evangelistic purpose, our problems become His pulpits, and the things that happen to us turn out for the furtherance of the gospel." Robert J. Morgan

We must never seek to put God in a box or assume that we know and understand all of His ways. He is far above anything we can imagine. Scripture tells us:

8 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD.
9 "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:8-9 (NIV)

“The wicked are commanded to seek and call on the Lord, and to do so while He may be found, because when His judgment comes it will be too late. Such seeking and calling means that an individual will turn from his former evil way and thoughts. Turning to the Lord one receives mercy and pardon. In every dispensation the Lord has required the same thing for salvation: trust in Him. Israelites, though God’s covenant people, were saved only by believing in the Lord. God’s compassion on those who turn to Him comes because His thoughts and ways are far superior to human thoughts and ways, which in fact are evil. God’s plan is something people would have never dreamed of.” Bible Knowledge Commentary