Luke 10:1-12--Jesus Sends Out the Seventy-Two

Luke 10:1-12
English Standard Version
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Jesus Sends Out the Seventy-Two
10 After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go. 2 And he said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. 3 Go your way; behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. 4 Carry no moneybag, no knapsack, no sandals, and greet no one on the road. 5 Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace be to this house!’ 6 And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him. But if not, it will return to you. 7 And remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide, for the laborer deserves his wages. Do not go from house to house. 8 Whenever you enter a town and they receive you, eat what is set before you. 9 Heal the sick in it and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ 10 But whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you, go into its streets and say, 11 ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet we wipe off against you. Nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near.’ 12 I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town.

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Jesus is now sending 72 ambassadors of His kingdom out ahead of Him.  There is much work to be done in a very short period of time, and Jesus needs to allow others to help Him reap the harvest and get things ready for Him so that He can come into the towns and villages and have people know He's coming, only staying for short time and quickly moving onto the next town or village.  However, Jesus warns those that He's sending out that there are now going to be enemies that come against them.  They will be like lambs among wolves, which is not comforting for these seventy-two that are being sent out.

They are still among the Jews and are to rely on their charity and hospitality, so they are to take no provisions with them and they are not to stop for anything or anyone.  Time is of the essence here--there is no time to pack and no time to stop and talk to anyone along the way.

When they get to their destination, they are to greet the people that live there with the standard greeting that wishes peace to come on the person's house.  If the person owning the house does not return the greeting back to them then they know they are not welcome there and they are to move on, and God will not bring peace to such a man or his house if that man rejects the Lord by rejecting His messengers.

They are to stay with the same household for their entire stay (which was probably not going to be very long) and eat whatever the host family gave them to eat.  Remember they had nothing of their own that they brought with them, they were to depend totally on the LORD sending them to the right families that would take care of them.

The seventy-two that were sent out were sent out with the ability to perform miracles to go along with their message to validate that the message was from the LORD.  It was common for Jews to ask for a sign like this, but they were also prone to use this as a stall and delay tactic to keep asking for more signs, bigger signs, and refusing to believe if their demands of what the signs were supposed to look like were not met.  These seventy-two that were sent out (I believe it would be safe to call them apostles by the strictest of definitions of the word "apostle") were to keep the focus on God and His kingdom when performing these healings and other signs as they would say "The kingdom of God is near you" (and it was because the kingdom of God was there in the person of Jesus).

However, not every town would be willing to accept them or Jesus.  We've already seen this a couple of times and Jesus is specifically going to call out some of the cities that would reject Him when He pronounces condemnation and judgment on them in the next passage we are to read (cross-reference this with Matthew 11, starting in verse 20).  These that rejected Jesus didn't do so because of lack of having someone sent to them or lack of evidence.  We try to make these arguments today, but those arguments are specious.  Show me that person who you know has never had the gospel preached to them and I'll preach the gospel to them and we no longer have an issue.  Even the issue of language is not an issue there as we see in the book of Acts as the Holy Spirit can cause me to speak in a language I do not know or cause them to hear me as if I were speaking a language I do not know.  So then the hearts of those in these unrepentant cities are revealed to be in rebellion against the LORD and against His Christ.  Jesus said to not even let any of the dust that stuck to their clothes or their feet stay on them if the people did not accept them--a sign of the totality of the judgment coming upon them that you wouldn't even want to have a piece of dirt from that city stuck on you in fear that God might someone sweep you up in His judgment against those cities.

The kingdom of God being near to some meant healing, salvation, and restoration.  For others, the kingdom of God being near was something to fear and meant condemnation and judgment. because they were living in open rebellion.  They did not want the Christ to come, because they wanted to continue to live the way they wanted to live.  Jesus said that those who rejected Him and His messengers with all the evidence they had seen and heard here would have a harsher judgment than Sodom and Gomorrah, the worst cities we know of among the Canaanites which you can read about in the book of Genesis.  Those cities experienced a little bit of what we might think of as "hell on earth" as God allowed them to be judged by fire and brimstone as a sign of the judgment that is to come, but that will be "soft" compared to the judgment in hell that awaits these unrepentant cities and all those who look in the face of the evidence and the truth and choose to continue in rebellion because they love the darkness and hate the light (John 3 tells us about this condemnation and the verdict that has already been passed on them).