Luke 17:1-10

Jesus said to his disciples, "It is impossible that snares to sin should not arise; but woe to him through whom they do arise! It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea rather than that he should cause one of these little ones to trip up.

"Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. Even if he sins against you seven times in the day, and if seven times he turns to you, saying, 'I repent,' you must forgive him."

The apostles said to the Lord, "Give us also faith!" The Lord said, "If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you would say to this sycamine tree, 'Be rooted up and be planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.

"If any of you has a slave ploughing or watching the flock, and the slave comes in from the field, will he say to him, 'Come at once and take your place at table'; or rather, will he not say to him, 'Get ready my evening meal, and gird yourself and serve me, until I eat and drink, and after that you shall eat and drink yourself'? Does he thank a servant because he has done what he was ordered to do? Even so, you too, when you have done everything you were ordered to do, say, 'We are unworthy servants. We have done what it was our duty to do.'"

This passage falls into four definite and disconnected sections.

(i) Luke 17:1-2 condemn the man who teaches others to sin. The Revised Standard Version talks in these verses about temptations to sin. The Greek word (skandalon, G4625) is exactly the same word as the English scandal. It has two meanings.

(a) It originally meant the bait-stick in a trap.

(b) It then came to mean any stumbling-block placed in a man's way to trip him up. Jesus said that it was impossible to construct a world with no temptations; but woe to that man who taught another to sin or who took away another's innocence.

Every one must be given his first invitation to sin, his first push along the wrong way. Kennedy Williamson tells of an old man who was dying. Something was obviously worrying him. He told them at last what it was. "When I was a lad," he said, "I often played on a wide common. Near its centre two roads met and crossed, and, standing at the cross-roads, was an old rickety sign-post. I remember one day twisting it round in its socket, thus altering the arms and making them point in the wrong direction; and I've been wondering ever since how many travellers I sent on the wrong road."

God will not hold the man guiltless, who, on the road of life, sends a younger or a weaker brother on the wrong way.

(ii) Luke 17:3-4 speak of the necessity of forgiveness in the Christian life. It tells us to forgive seven times. The Rabbis had a saying that if one forgave another three times, one was a perfect man. The Christian standard takes the Rabbinic standard, doubles it and adds one; but it is not a matter of calculation. It simply means that the Christian standard of forgiveness must immeasurably exceed the best the world can achieve.

(iii) Luke 17:5-6 tell us that faith is the greatest force in the world. We must again remember that it was the eastern custom to use language in the most vivid possible way. This saying means that even that which looks completely impossible becomes possible, if it is approached with faith. We have only to think of the number of scientific marvels, of the number of surgical operations, of the feats of endurance which today have been achieved and which less than fifty years ago would have been regarded as utterly impossible. If we approach a thing saying, "It can't be done, it will not; if we approach it saying, "It must be done, the chances are that it will. We must always remember that we approach no task alone, but that with us there is God and all his power.

(iv) Luke 17:7-10 tell us that we can never put God in our debt and can never have any claim on him. When we have done our best, we have done only our duty; and a man who has done his duty has done only what, in any event, he could be compelled to do.

Were the whole realm of Nature mine,

That were an offering far too small;

Love so amazing, so divine,

Demands my soul, my life, my all.

It may be possible to satisfy the claims of law; but every lover knows that nothing can ever satisfy the claims of love.

THE RARITY OF GRATITUDE (Luke 17:11-19)