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repent or be destroyed

Luke 13:1-5 (JDV).

Luke 13:1 Now there were some present at that time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices.
Luke 13:2 He responded to them, “Do you think those Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered these things?
Luke 13:3 No, I tell you! But unless you repent, you will all be destroyed as well!
Luke 13:4 Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower in Siloam fell on them, do you think they were worse violators than all the others who live in Jerusalem?
Luke 13:5 No, I tell you! But unless you repent you will all be destroyed as well!”

repent or be destroyed

Luke records a time when Jesus was talking to some people about two horrible events: a massacre by Pilate of some Galileans and a disaster in Jerusalem when a tower fell on some bystanders.

If you are ever in a disaster situation like that, it makes you think. You naturally begin to question why it happened. You might even wonder about the victims. You might wonder what they had done to deserve such a tragedy happening to them. But Jesus urged his listeners to think about something else. He urged them to realize that we all deserve that fate.

Repentance and faith in the gospel is our only way out of a similar fate.
Our history might lead us to bring up some other disaster, like 9-1-1, a plane crash, or COVID-19. But Jesus was teaching us that no one escapes the big one. The big one is the second death – destruction in Gehenna. That is the big disaster still looming in the future for everyone… everyone who does not repent. The torpedo is slicing through the sea surface as I speak. No one on board will be safe when it hits. That is why the news about the lifeboat is good news.

The Bible says that “this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16). Those are the two options. Either repent and believe in Christ or perish in the big one when it comes.
I want to share a quote here from a very old book. The author is John Oswald Jackson.

“This is for you, if unsaved, THE great question; all others fall beside it into the shade. Compared with this, all domestic, commercial, political questions are as the small dust of the balance; they are but as drops to the ocean; in a word, they are for time, this for ETERNITY!! And let me in fidelity say, that if you are conscious that you have not yet experienced this repentance, you are in the most perilous condition imaginable. However amiable and learned; however rich and refined; or however poor and despised; what ever may be your inward disposition or outward character; your internal feelings or external circumstances; still, unless you have repented, the God of truth and tenderness declares solemnly you must perish!”

(John Oswald Jackson, Repentance: or The Change of Mind Necessary to Salvation Considered. 1845, p. 7.)