Not long ago, you could not turn on a phone or open a news feed or step outside without seeing the smoke. The Highway 82 fire began on April 20th, 2026, sparked, of all things, by a foil balloon striking a power line. Within days it had grown to over thirty square miles. Eighty homes destroyed. Whole neighborhoods evacuated. A lifetime of memories reduced to ash, and a charred cinderblock standing where a home used to be.
And somewhere in your mind, you have asked the question. Why them? Why that house? Why that family?
Then the more dangerous version. Why not me?
That question, asked the right way, is the most important question you will ever ask. Asked the wrong way, it is the most dangerous. Jesus answered it once, in five short verses, and what He said is the reason this article is in front of you.
Now at that same time there were some present who were reporting to Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. And Jesus answered and said to them, "Do you think that these Galileans were greater sinners than all other Galileans because they suffered these things? I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or do you think that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them were worse offenders than all the men who live in Jerusalem? I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish." Luke 13:1–5 (LSB)
Two tragedies. One a human atrocity, where a brutal Roman governor cut down worshipers in the act of offering sacrifice. The other a sudden providential disaster, a tower collapsing on eighteen men who were just walking past it. The crowd brought up the first. Jesus brought up the second. And to both He gave the same warning, in the same words, twice: unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.
That word unless is the door this article is going to ask you to walk through.
The Wrong Question
The crowd that day was doing what we still do. They were using other people's suffering as a measuring stick for other people's guilt. The Galileans must have done something to deserve it. Pilate would not have struck them down for nothing. The men at Siloam must have had it coming. Towers do not collapse on innocent people.
We do this all the time. We do not ask the question out loud, but it is humming underneath. Someone gets cancer, and we wonder, quietly, what they did to deserve it. A marriage falls apart, and we look for the hidden sin. A man dies young, and we calculate the moral arithmetic in our heads. A neighborhood burns, and we wonder, in the back of our minds, what was so different about those families.
Jesus refused that question. He refused it twice. He did not say the victims were innocent. He did not say tragedy is meaningless. He said something much harder. He said the question itself is the wrong question, and the people asking it had completely missed the point.
Look at the words carefully. He did not say those Galileans were not sinners. He said they were not greater sinners than the others. He did not say the men of Siloam had no offenses. He said they were not worse offenders than the rest of Jerusalem. He has not let anyone off the hook. He has put everyone on it.
The crowd was looking at the dead and trying to figure out what was wrong with them. Jesus turned the question around and aimed it at the living.
The Right Question
The right question is not, "What did they do to deserve that?" The right question is, "What if that had been my house? What if that had been my last day?"
Hear me carefully. This is not morbid. This is mercy. The reason Jesus brings up tragedies is not to depress you. It is to wake you. He pulls back the curtain on death, not to terrify you into despair, but to drive you to the only Refuge there is. A doctor who tells you the test came back positive is not being cruel. He is being honest, because honesty is the road to treatment.
The Bible is being honest with you. You are mortal. You are a sinner. And the time is short.
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, Romans 3:23 (LSB)
And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment, Hebrews 9:27 (LSB)
That is the verdict. Every funeral procession you have ever watched is a sermon on it. Every cemetery in this county preaches it. Every news report preaches it. Death came into the world because sin came into the world, and every death is a witness to the justice of God. The collapse of a tower in Siloam two thousand years ago and the burning of homes in Brantley County are pointing at the same truth. We are under the sentence of death because we are under the sentence of sin.
The Galileans assumed there was more time. They were offering sacrifices when Pilate's sword fell. The men of Siloam assumed there was more time. They were walking past a tower when it collapsed on them. The families along Highway 82 assumed there was more time. The fire took a foil balloon, a power line, a south wind, and one afternoon to do its work.
You may not have tomorrow.
The Only Escape
Now feel the shape of what Jesus said. He said, "Unless you repent." That little word unless is a door. A door of mercy in a wall of judgment.
He could have said, "You will all perish." Period. End of sentence. He would have been just to say it. We deserve nothing less. But He did not say that. He said, "Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish." Which means, by the necessary implication of His own words, if you repent, you will not perish.
That is the gospel hiding in this warning. That is grace shining through the storm clouds.
For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. John 3:17 (LSB)
The One who calls you to repent is the very One who, just months after this conversation in Luke 13, would Himself be led outside the city, where another Roman governor would shed innocent blood. Pilate had mingled the blood of Galileans with their sacrifices. But the Lord Jesus Himself would become the sacrifice. His blood would be shed. And His blood, unlike the blood of those poor Galileans, would not testify to human cruelty. It would testify to divine love. He would die in the place of sinners, so that sinners who repent and believe might live.
That is why the call to repent is not a cruel call. It is the most loving call ever uttered. The Lord is not standing over you with a club. He is standing in front of you with open arms, and He is saying, "Turn. Turn now. Come to Me. Do not perish."
What It Means to Repent
The Greek word behind repent means a change of mind. But not a change of mind about a recipe or a route home. It is a change of mind about God, a change of mind about self, and a change of mind about sin. That change of mind always produces a change of direction. To repent is to turn. To turn from sin and to turn to God in faith.
Let me be plain about what repentance is not. Repentance is not feeling bad about sin. Judas felt bad. Judas hanged himself. That is remorse, not repentance, and remorse without Christ is the pit. Repentance is not promising to do better. Many a man has promised to do better and walked right back into the same sin a week later. Repentance is not a religious ritual or a particular emotional experience. Repentance is a Spirit-wrought turning of the whole soul, away from sin and self, and toward God in Christ.
Repentance and faith are the twin graces of conversion. They are inseparable. You cannot turn from sin without turning to Christ, and you cannot truly turn to Christ without turning from sin.
The Fire Is Coming
Imagine standing in the Brantley County evacuation zone that week, and a deputy pulls up in your driveway. He rolls down the window. He says, "Sir, ma'am, the fire is coming. You need to leave now. The wind is shifting. We cannot promise the road will be open in an hour."
What would you do? Would you say, "Officer, I appreciate your concern, but I have things to do today. Maybe I will think about it next week"? Would you ask him to come back at a more convenient time? Of course not. You would leave. You would grab what you could and you would go, because the warning was real, and the danger was certain, and the time was short.
That is what the gospel is doing right now. The Lord Jesus, through this article, through the preaching of His Word, through every tragedy and every news report and every funeral you have ever attended, has pulled into your driveway. He is rolling down the window. He is saying, "Repent. The fire is coming. The day of judgment is real. You will perish unless you turn. There is a Refuge, and it is Me. Come."
The fact that you woke up this morning is a mercy. The fact that you are reading this right now is a mercy. The fact that the gospel is being preached to you in your own language, in your own city, on your own day is a mercy. Do not despise that kindness. Do not waste it. Do not assume it will always be there.
Behold, now is "the acceptable time," behold, now is "the day of salvation" 2 Corinthians 6:2b (LSB)
Will You Come?
I have to ask you the question this whole article has been building toward. Have you repented? Not, did you walk an aisle once. Not, were you raised in church. Not, do your parents pray for you. Have you, personally, before God, turned from your sin and trusted in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior?
If you have not, this article is a fire alarm in your soul. The Lord Jesus, who is full of grace and truth, is telling you plainly that without repentance there is no escape. The fire that consumed those homes in Brantley County is a faint shadow of the fire that awaits every unrepentant soul. Just as those families had to flee, leaving everything behind, you too must flee. Not from a forest fire. From the wrath to come. There is only one Refuge. His name is Jesus.
Repent and believe the gospel. Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. But if you repent, if you flee to Christ, you will not perish. You will be received. You will be forgiven. You will be saved. And on the day when fire finally consumes the heavens and the earth, you will stand, not in the ashes, but in the courts of the Lamb, clothed in His righteousness, safe forever.
COME.