Being Alert Of The Present Times

Speaker: Archbishop Loren Thomas Hines

August 19, 2025

in Spritual Growth

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Hebrews 12: 1-7, 11-14
Luke 12:49-56

10th Sunday of Ordinary Time 2025 Homily

The Jews were looking for a Christ, who was to be their Messiah, who would come to conquer and usher in the Golden Age. But when Christ spoke to the Jews that He did not come to bring peace but fire to the earth, it sounded contradicting because He was a man of peace. But what the scriptures really mean is that “fire” here does not lead to destruction but was for cleansing. Christ was teaching us that He was going to restore humanity back to its original intention. And it would not be smooth and easy but was needed for cleansing to remove the toxins and impurities. Psalm 66:12 “You let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance.”

The biblical story of the three Hebrew children in the fiery furnace, tells of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who defied King Nebuchadnezzar’s command to worship a golden statue. They were subsequently thrown into a blazing furnace, but miraculously survived, unharmed, along with a fourth figure believed to be an angel or even God. 1 Corinthians 10:2-4 They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.

We go through baptism because the water saves us from sin. The earth was evil and fighting against God, so He had to cleanse it from all the filth. And when it had been cleansed, there would be peace. Therefore, when He came, there were the divisions and discord due to differences in opinion of people, and this is why there is the necessity to choose that which is good in order to receive the unity and peace that God has intended for is. We make the choices. “Choose you this day whom you will serve.” God does not force us. The choice is ours. The church is to be the ambassadors to bring peace. Like Christ, we are to restore the unity. We’ve lost the understanding that we have been empowered to do the task Christ has assigned us. We expect God to do things for us when we have been equipped to do it ourselves. Christ was literally saying, “I’m not here to make things easy for you. I’ve given you the ability to do the work on My behalf.”

Christ was confronting the Jews by saying, “you know how to analyze many things, but you don’t know how to analyze the times.” Do we understand where we are? With all the things happening around us, the divisions, the earthquakes, storms and floods, the wars, we’ve got to understand the times we are in. We are not to be consumed by the things of the world. We are to be alert. Do we know the present times? Are we prepared? The unrest of nature is so evident that we should be aware of the signs. God has empowered us with His very breath, His very life. We need to give Him all the glory and honor by living His life on earth