So we're continuing in our series of messages from the gospel according to Matthew, and this morning we are actually going to be sort of transitioning between chapter 23 into chapter 24 with the text that we'll be looking at this morning, Matthew chapter 23 verses 37. I'm moving on through chapter 24 verse 2, and I think you should find that on page 985 of your Pew Bibles if you're using those to follow along. I encourage you to always have God's Word open before you as he is speaking to us in it. If you're able, would you stand with me out of reverence and respect for the reading of God's inerrant, infallible, and inspired Word? Oh, Jerusalem! Jerusalem! the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it. How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing. See, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Jesus left the temple and was going away when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. But he answered them, you see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down. This is the reading of God's word. May he bless it to our hearts this morning. Please be seated. So as I said, this text really overlaps two chapters. And remember, the chapter divisions are artificial things we've inserted into that. but it overlaps it because it's transitional in nature. Jesus has concluded his great confrontation and teaching with the leaders and the people in the precincts of the temple, and he's preparing to go out to the Mount of Olives and to give another great teaching discourse with his disciples there. This has been and in a sense, even today, continues to be his last public address to the people of Jerusalem, the people of Israel. Through parables and fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, he has shown the leaders and the people that he is truly their Christ, that he is even the son of God, that he is even their and David's Lord. even the Lord of the temple. He's warned them against the teaching and the lies of those leaders and he has pronounced prophetic woes, doom upon them. He's declared that those teachers are not even in the kingdom of heaven and that they are charged by him as being blind guides, blind fools that are actually leading people away from God and his kingdom instead of leading them toward him and into it. And even though those woes were specifically declared against the scribes and Pharisees in that last passage, because he told them that they are following in their father's footsteps and killing God's faithful messengers, and that they are by doing that bringing God's final and ultimate judgment upon themselves, for Jesus said all the righteous blood shed from Abel to Zechariah, from the beginning of redemptive history up to the present time, Even though that was pronounced directly toward the scribes and Pharisees, notice how Jesus ended verse 36. Truly, I tell you, all of these things will come upon who? This generation. All of Israel. All of what were supposed to have been God's people. Now, I said last week that a biblical woe isn't just doom in the sense of being anger and judgment being expressed. but that a true biblical woe also includes true grief, lamenting over the results of people's sinful conduct. And that is exactly what we find set before us today in verses 37 to 39 of chapter 3. Jesus is apparently still in the temple precincts, and likely he is looking upon the temple itself even as he speaks these words. The text we're looking at today, again, divides into two chapters. It naturally divides into two sections. In verses 37 to 39, Jesus speaks to his people about a house that is left desolate, that is abandoned. And then in the first two verses of chapter 24, he speaks to his disciples about a house that is destroyed. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem. That double repetition of the name of the city is meant to emphasize this cry of lament. The fact that if you would have heard Jesus make this lament, you would have felt the extreme grief and sorrow in his heart over what he was saying here today. Yes, in that previous text, Jesus had accused the scribes and Pharisees of being complicit in shedding the blood of righteous messengers of God. But notice here in this lament, he broadens that responsibility out. It's not just the scribes and Pharisees. It is, in fact, the city of Jerusalem. because they have been following these leaders away from God and ignoring God and His will. And in a real sense, since Jerusalem is actually the center, the heart of Israel, this lament by Jesus is actually a lament over all of the covenant nation. Again, verse 36, upon this entire generation. These people have followed their leaders in disbelief in God and unfaithfulness to Him, just as they will continue to follow them in unbelief in Christ. He knows that. He understands what's waiting for him at the end of this road. Now, in the Old Testament, God's loving, protective care for his people is repeatedly pictured for us as, in Psalm 91, verse 4, that we looked at in our call to worship this morning, as hiding under the shadow of his wings. Or if you were to go to other passages, you would find in Psalm 17, verse 4, the idea of a bird fluttering, hovering over its young with its wings. Deuteronomy chapter 32, verse 11, God himself says that he, like an eagle, hovers over his young with his wings. This is a picture of how God cares for and about his people. But notice in this lament, it isn't at least stated explicitly as God who is the one doing this. You notice it's Jesus. How often I would have gathered your young together under my wings, but you would not. You see, once again, Jesus is being placed in the position of God. The one under whose wings his people can find safety and comfort and protection. Salvation. How often? How often suggests a couple of things. On the one hand, it suggests that there have been more visits to Jerusalem, more ministry on the part of Jesus to Jerusalem than just this one visit that Matthew tells us about in his gospel. John, in fact, tells us about other times when he and the disciples have been to Jerusalem. And so often he has come to speak to the people here and to demonstrate the promises of God and the fulfillment of prophecy. But also I think there is another sense in which that how often I would have gathered you together speaks to him taking again the place of God as the one under whose wings you find refuge. How often as God over the ages have I wanted and longed for and tried to have you gather together under my wings? You see, it helps us see as we hear this lament by Jesus that God and Jesus, of course, neither one take any pleasure in the punishment and death of the wicked. In fact, Ezekiel chapter 33, verse 11, God says to the prophets, say to them, as I live, declared the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that, or but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel? You see, there is a real sense in which Jesus is taking the same role that God called on Ezekiel to take, pleading with the people not to make him destroy them, pleading them to turn away from their evil ways and return to him in repentance and faith. And yet what is his final statement on that as he talks to them here? How often I would have done it, but you were not willing. Wasn't a mistake. Wasn't an oversight. Often I've come to you and every time you have not been willing. In a real sense, this statement by Jesus emphasizes the teaching of scripture all the way through about salvation. God is absolutely sovereign in salvation. And yet every person must answer and be responsible and accountable for their own personal response to the grace that is offered to them by God. And these who were not willing are going to see God's judgment. Notice that Jesus says next, see. The word is edu in the Greek. It's a word that means to pay attention. I'm going to say something important here. You don't want to miss this, but it's also a word that carries the idea with it of not only see it or hear it, but perceive it, understand. This is important for you. And it's as if Jesus is saying here, on the basis of your unwillingness to come to me in repentance and faith, Pay careful attention to this important thing that I'm about to tell you. Your house is left to you desolate. What is it that Jesus is saying in this brief but apparently meant to be powerful statement? Well, first and foremost, in talking about the house, given where he's standing and making this statement, I think we obviously have to consider that the house, at least in one sense, refers maybe even primarily to the temple. He's likely looking at the temple at that point. He may even be pointing to it when he says, your house is left to you desolate. Do you remember back in chapter 21, verse 13, when Jesus symbolically cleansed the temple over turning the tables and driving out those who were trading and so on in the temple, and he quoted then from Isaiah chapter 56 verse 7 where God referred to the temple as what? My house. My house shall be a house of prayer, but you're making it a den of robbers, thieves. It's interesting, even back with the tabernacle, the word tabernacle meant a tent. or dwelling, a place where you would stay, where you would live. I think if we want to understand what Jesus is saying here, we kind of need to go back to the beginning in terms of this house that was God's house. If you go back to Exodus chapter 40 verses 34 and 35, the very end of Exodus, you find Moses and the people of Israel had finished everything in the preparations for having the tabernacle ready to be set up and used for worshiping God. Everything has been done. And as they have, consecrated it all and they are prepared now to dedicate it, we're told that the glory of the Lord came down and filled the tabernacle to the point that even Moses himself, the man of God, could not enter into the tabernacle. Only God. He filled the place where he was supposed to dwell with his glory. And that's not an isolated thing. When you move on from the tabernacle to the temple that Solomon built, 2 Chronicles 7, the first two verses, Solomon has this great lengthy prayer at the dedication of the temple, asking God to bless it and to bless his people and to use it for their spiritual well-being and for his glory. And as he ends that prayer, we're told that fire came down from heaven and consumed the sacrifices that were being offered. And then God's glory came and filled the temple so that the priests and people could not remain in the temple. God himself and his glory filled his house. You see, those two passages in our common sort of language today could be seen as God moving into his house. The house has been prepared and God moves in and fills them with his presence and with his glory. But notice that Jesus now says, as he points to, or at least addresses this temple standing in Jerusalem, he now says, this is not God's house. Whose house is it? It's your house. It isn't God's house anymore. Why is it not God's house anymore? Well, it is because God has moved out of his house. You see the word desolate means, and we looked at this when Jesus was going away into desolate places to be with his disciples, desolate means empty, uninhabited and or abandoned, left. In Jeremiah chapter 22 verse 5, God swore to his people that if they didn't obey his words, this house, he said, shall become a desolation. A prophecy that is being fulfilled. And actually, In Ezekiel 10, we don't have time to really go into it. It's actually a fascinating passage. But if you go to Ezekiel chapter 10, the prophet Ezekiel is given a vision by God. And in that vision, because of the sin of the people and God's coming judgment upon them, Ezekiel's given a vision of God's glory, which remember in Exodus and in 2 Chronicles, we had seen coming down and filling the temple. What Ezekiel sees instead is God's glory lifting up. and being carried by the cherubim out over the threshold of the temple, out through the east gate of the temple. And then on into chapter 11, verse 23, the prophet Ezekiel sees that glory of God continuing to move outward, not just from the temple, but leaving Jerusalem itself through its east gate and continuing on to a mount that is on the east of Jerusalem, likely the Mount of Olives. You see, God was, as Ezekiel saw it in his vision, moving out and taking his glory away from the temple that was his, abandoning it, leaving it uninhabited. So the temple is now their house because God's abandoning it. He's leaving it. But I want you to notice carefully what Jesus says next in this text. He uses the word for. Pay attention to this because I tell you, notice who's telling them, I'm telling you, it's not God this time. God told Jeremiah and God told Ezekiel in the vision, but this is Christ. I tell you, you, and we should see the word certainly here, you certainly will not see me. Again, not God, not see me. until you, just like those Galilean crowds at my triumphal entry, welcome me as the Messiah calling out, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. You will not see me certainly again until you welcome me with those words from Psalm 118. Again, we need to understand here, Jesus is equating himself again with God. God is the one who's leaving the temple. God is the one who says, you won't see me as your God dwelling among you again until you welcome me in repentance and faith. And yet Jesus is the one telling them that he is the fulfillment of that. These people are going to see Jesus again in this week. This is only Tuesday of this Passover week, his passion week. They're going to see him again physically, but that's not his point. His point is that they will without doubt never see him again spiritually as their God who is dwelling among them until they sincerely welcome him as their Christ, as their Messiah sent from God to save them. Well, the other sense of that you certainly will not see me until could also be that if you don't ever come back to me in faith and repentance, there will be a last day of judgment at which time every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. You will, you will see me then, you will know who I am, and you will say the words, you just won't like it. You see here as we look at this that house, may not just apply to the temple, but may also apply even not just to the city of Jerusalem, but to the whole covenant nation and people of Israel. As Christ says this, again, it sounds like pure judgment, but in a sense, those words of judgment are meant to drive people to repentance. There is a sense in which Christ is giving one last offer, one last plea. Turn to me. and welcome me as the one who comes in the name of the Lord so that you can avoid these things. Same as Ezekiel did, turn back, turn back from your evil ways. Why will you die, O house of Israel? But we will see soon that the people in this city of Jerusalem would rather welcome Jesus Barabbas than to welcome Jesus, their Messiah. And so we've seen a house or the house abandoned. And I believe that that's exactly the point of what Matthew says next about Jesus in that first verse of chapter 24. After he has told the people that God is abandoning his temple, and in that sense, his people, notice in 24 verse one, Matthew says, Jesus left the temple and was going away. Now, He only needed to say one or the other, right? He either left the temple or he was going away from the temple, but for double emphasis, Matthew puts both verbs together there. He's leaving it and going away. It emphasizes he is God leaving the temple. He is fulfilling the prophecy that has been made. By the way, in leaving the temple as he is doing and taking the pathway he's going to take, He will leave the temple through its east gate. He will go on out and leave the city of Jerusalem through its east gate, and he will continue to a mountain east of Jerusalem, the Mount of Olives. Just as Ezekiel saw the glory of the Lord take that very same path, here we see Christ will be doing the very same thing. And now it's exactly at this point, as they're sort of beginning to walk away past all of these temple buildings, that the disciples do something that may at first glance seem kind of odd, or at least a bit out of place. After this solemn statement by Jesus, they begin to point out to Jesus the buildings of the temple. Luke suggests to us that what they're doing is pointing out how magnificent these buildings are and how gloriously they're adorned with special gifts and stones and how beautiful and magnificent the temple and its buildings are. It almost seems as if they're acting like first-time tourists. First time they've ever been to Jerusalem, first time they've ever been to the temple, and they just can't help but notice how beautiful it is. Jesus, wait a minute, don't leave yet. Look how beautiful this place is. In fact, there are some, many, who believe that this is another example of how the disciples so often completely miss the point of what Jesus is saying. He's just announced that God is done with the temple and the unique covenant relationship he has made with the people that temple represented. It's not beautiful to God anymore. But they missed the whole point of that, many believe, and they just begin to gush to Jesus about what a beautiful place and building the temple really is. Almost like they've never seen it before, but of course they have. This is Tuesday. They were just there yesterday. And according to the scriptures, they've been there a number of other times before. Not new to it. And by the way, it was an absolutely beautiful place. Josephus talks repeatedly in his writings, the Jewish historian, about the magnificence and beauty of the temple. Even the rabbis who didn't like Herod at all, who was rebuilding the temple, had to say, if you've not seen Herod's building, you have never seen a magnificent building. And so, People think that the disciples have missed all of what Jesus just had to say, but the truth is I wonder about that. I think it's also quite possible that they heard what Jesus said, and at least to an extent they understood what he was saying, that God was going to abandon his temple, but they just found it absolutely shocking and difficult or impossible to believe. Why would God want to abandon such a beautiful place? built for his glory. And didn't he promise us that he was going to live here forever? Dwell among us forever? The truth is that the reconstruction being done by Herod was still ongoing at this time, and likely some of the buildings were still having one stone being placed upon another as part of the construction to get this completed. Now, the reasons for what the disciples said and did here are not given to us by Matthew. They're open to speculation as to why they said, how much they understood. We can't say for sure. But the answer of Jesus to them, the response of Jesus to their comments and their actions is unmistakably clear and actually shockingly blunt when you look at chapter 24, verse two. Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down." What? See, once again, Jesus is taking on the role of a prophet of God. Just as Jeremiah in his day prophesied the destruction of Solomon's temple, because of the sin of the people and their refusal to submit to him and truly worship him, Jesus now stands here and prophesies the utter destruction of this glorious, beautiful temple complex. You see all these buildings, all of it. And the destruction clearly seems that it will not be done by some kind of natural disaster like an earthquake. He doesn't say the stones are all going to fall down. These great stones of the building, some of which were said to be as much as 12 or more meters in length, they were so huge, these great stones are every single one of them going to be thrown down so that there will not be left one sitting on top of another. It's significant to note that Artie France in his commentary tells us the Roman destruction of the temple was so complete that all that now remains is part of the substructure of the temple precincts out around it, not of the temple buildings themselves. Don't even have the foundations of the temple buildings. It's all gone. Truly I say to you, Jesus said, the language of solemn testimony, shocking for people of that day, for the Jews to hear, staggering for them to hear. And in fact, it is possible, it seems that since they are probably still in the temple grounds as these disciples are pointing out the buildings, and as Jesus is saying, look, you see all these buildings, it seems likely that this prophecy by Jesus may have been overheard by others. Because when Jesus comes to trial before the Sanhedrin, a primary charge laid against him is what? He threatened to destroy the temple. And even as he's hanging on the cross being crucified in his agony, the people who are standing around mocking him are using the very same thing. Oh, you're the one who is going to destroy the temple and rebuild it again in three days. Why don't you save yourself? But why did the temple have to be destroyed? How could the temple be destroyed? Wasn't it part of God's promise in the covenant that he made with his people? He would be their God, and they would be his people, and he would dwell among them? Yes, that's absolutely true. But we often forget that the obligations of a covenant go both ways. You see, God had faithfully kept his covenant promises over all those long years, faithfully dwelling among them, faithfully being their God, faithfully striving to make them his people. But for their part, Israel had utterly failed. They had failed to be faithful to God. They had failed to be faithful to his word. Yes, there was worship going on in that temple, but it wasn't truly or fully worship that was focused on God and being done in obedience to his commands with a sincere understanding of who he was and who they were and what salvation meant. There was a sense in which the temple had become an idol in place of God, and all idols raised against God must be destroyed. By the way, if we stop and pause for a minute and think about it, isn't the same thing true in our day? Do we not have houses of worship where things are going on in there that don't have anything to do with submission to God's word and faithfulness to him, no real understanding of God's greatness and glory, no understanding of his sovereignty and salvation, no understanding of what it means to be a sinner in need of grace. Those places fulfill the same kind of prophetic look that the temple had in Jesus' view at that time. We need to be very careful that our church doesn't devolve into something mirroring this same image. So why does the temple have to be destroyed? Well, it seems like it has possibly become an idol. We also know, because we know the story, that the leaders and the people are going to this week officially reject Jesus as their Messiah, as their Lord. But we see in this passage that Jesus has already rejected them. The house is already left to them by God, empty, uninhabited, abandoned. You see, the whole purpose of the temple's existence was to be a place where God would dwell and where he would be truly and sincerely worshiped. But since God has left the temple, and since the worship there is not really directed to him, there's no longer any reason for its existence to continue. There's no purpose for it anymore. So that gives us another reason why it could, should be destroyed. But there's actually another very necessary reason for the destruction of this temple. You see, that temple represented the old covenant that God had made with the covenant nation and people of Israel. A covenant which Israel had utterly broken and which God had now finally said, enough is enough. The sins of the people have filled up the measure of the cup. I'm breaking the covenant officially with this nation and people. But you see, God's promise to dwell among his people, to be their God and to make them his people still stands because God's word never falls to the ground, but it stands for the true people of God, the faithful, the remnant from that old covenant age. And so the old covenant that represented the old temple, which represented the old covenant, has to be removed to make way for the new temple, which will and must take its place. Because, you see, Jesus is the fulfillment of what the temple pointed to. The temple was never intended to be a permanent earthly structure. It was a type. It was a foreshadowing of Christ himself. It is in Christ that God finally and fully and perfectly dwells among his people and brings them salvation. It is in him, as the scriptures say, that all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily, within him. And that's why John, in the prologue to his gospel, tells us that the Word, God the Son, the Word became flesh and did what? dwelt, tabernacled, dwelt among us. But then remember what he said next. And we have seen his glory, glory as of the only son from the father, full of grace and truth. They saw him as Jesus, but they also saw him as the true son of God. both God and man. You see, he is, Jesus Christ is the chief, the chosen, the precious cornerstone of the true and final temple that God is building that will last for all eternity to bring glory and praise to his name. A temple of which we are blessed to be a part. Peter tells us about it in 1 Peter 2.5. Remember when he says that you are all being brought together as living stones, being built up on one another to build a spiritual house in which you will offer real spiritual sacrifices of praise and worship to God. Paul also talks about this same thing in a number of places, actually. 1 Corinthians 3.9, Paul literally says, we are the temple of God. But more pointedly to this passage we're looking at in 2nd Corinthians 6.16, he actually says it, and he quotes that basic foundational covenant promise of God connected to it. He says, for we are the temple of the living God. As God said, I will make my dwelling among them, and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people. Do you hear what Paul is saying? We, the church, with Christ as the cornerstone, all being built together, as Peter says, are going to be for all eternity a place where God's glory is going to be proclaimed and reflected. We are the temple. And in this temple, God has finally fulfilled, not thrown away, not cast to the ground. He has fulfilled his most basic foundational covenant promise. I will be your God. You will be my people. I will walk among you. Did Christ walk among us? Is he among us now? Is his spirit indwelling us? You see, Jesus Christ, remember back in chapter 12, verse six, disputing with the Pharisees about purification things on the Sabbath and so on, and he looked at them and said, something greater than the temple has come. You know what that is? It's Jesus Christ. He is the something that is greater than the temple. God's glory dwells here in him and by his grace through us as his spirit indwells and empowers us to live for him. Let's pray. Father, how we thank you for your goodness and grace to us in Christ. How we thank you, unworthy people that we are, that you show us what can't be anything other than pure grace. that you promise to us and then you fulfill those promises in Christ to make us your people and to cause you to be our God, to dwell among us. And the promise Christ has made to us is that he goes away because he's preparing a place for us so that when he comes again, he'll take us to be with him where he is, where we will dwell with him among us for all eternity. We see that as the closing chapters and verses of the book of Revelation. We pray, O God, that you would bless us for Christ's sake and that you would cause praise to come out of our hearts and mouths for your glory. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.