All right, family, let me encourage everybody to turn back to Luke chapter 19. We've come, as you can see there, to verse 41 this morning. This is that scene where Jesus laments over Jerusalem, particularly over their rebellion and consequent destruction as a result of that rebellion. As far as I can tell, Luke is the only gospel writer to record this particular lamentation from our Lord. But its message, the principle of its message, if you will, shows up many places throughout the gospels. And again, the essence of what's going on here shows up all over the Bible, frankly. While the message here is only particularly applicable to people that lived halfway around the world 2,000 years ago, I think the essence of it, yet again, is something that's going to be always applicable to any people living anywhere and at any time. It warns us, I believe, of the greatest of all possible dangers and the gravest of all possible consequences as a result of falling into that danger. And that would simply be, those things would be the rejection of Jesus Christ and the judgment that comes, that's deserved as a result of that. So let me say, Up front, everybody hear me? This is not going to be an easy text. The topics here are deep and foreboding. There are many different ways that this could cause scandal and offense. I don't take any particular delight in that. This too is the word of God, just like every other verse that we've gone through all these years now in Luke's gospel. And we can't pass it up just because it's inconvenient or hard. Amen? I hope you all agree with that. All right, let's read it together, and then we'll go to the Lord in prayer. Luke 19, beginning in verse 41. And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace, but now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word as always, even today. We pray that you would plant it in our minds truly, that you would write it on our hearts truly, that you would bless us with it, That you would help us to grow, increase our fear of you, bring us to repentance and faith. Whatever is needed, Lord. We just look to you and we ask for help. Guide us into truth. Give us power to respond appropriately. Help us, Lord. We need you. We ask in Jesus name. Amen. All right, well, let's remember where we're at in the broader scope of events for just a minute. In the previous section, we saw, remember, Jesus making his way across the Mount of Olives to the city of Jerusalem, finally. And remember how we were reminded in the children's sermon, so this is probably superfluous at this point, but remember how John had told us that Jesus was received. John 12, 13 says the people took branches of palm trees went out to meet him, crying out, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel, right? Quoting that Psalm 118. And with the exception of that, what we saw, that interjection in verse 39, at that point, it looked like all was gonna be well between Jesus and the Jewish people, right? At that point. But remember, let's be reminded of some of the things that Jesus had been saying kind of cryptic, kind of foreboding along the way. Remember back in chapter 18, he had said that when he arrived at Jerusalem, that he was going to be delivered over by the Jewish people to the Gentiles, to the Romans, that he was going to be mocked, shamefully treated, spit on, flogged, and killed in verse 33. And also remember, as was again intimated before in the parable of the minas, that Jesus had kind of given this foreshadowing, this hint that all may not go well between him, particularly in the Jewish religious leadership. Remember he had said that the nobleman had gone away to receive that kingdom, but verse 14, that his citizens hated him and sent a delegation after him saying, we don't want this man to reign over us, indicating that his rule, the establishment of his kingdom, was going to be resisted by those who were naturally under it. And remember this from, let's see, sorry I didn't put that up there. Remember this from last week. Again, we saw the reception where as Jesus was coming down the Mount of Olives, verse 37, the whole multitude of the disciples, remember, going before, coming after the big thronging crowds, they were singing those hosannas, quoting the psalm, the Messianic psalm, but then in verse 39, remember, The Pharisees, the Jewish religious leaders in the crowd, some of them came up to him and scolded him for that, telling him that he needed to rebuke his disciples for saying that, for calling him the Messiah, for praising him as the Messianic king. So in spite of all the grand and glorious affirmation that we see in that parade, that messianic parade, if you will, there's a lot, remember, going on behind the scenes that then when we come to verse 41 makes it not quite so surprising. So look at that with me. It's enough review. We'll jump in. So Luke sets this up like this, when he drew near and saw the city. So remember, the Mount of Olives sits higher than the city Jerusalem. You have to crest it in order to see the city. So now Luke's saying, as all this is going on in the background, remember the triumphal entry, the grand parade, the crowds rejoicing. the clamor, right, the praises, the clothing being laid down in front of him and all that great rejoicing by the people. And Luke says as all that's going on and Jesus is coming over and beholding the city for himself, this is what he does. He says he wept over it. We're going to deal with that a lot. But this important statement, I think, for a number of different reasons. And I don't want to pass them up. The first is it reminds us of Jesus' real humanity. I think what we see here is an expression of real human emotion. That's something our generation takes for granted. But in previous generations, it's something that's been fought against, that Jesus was actually really fully human as well as fully divine. This is the second time we've seen such an emotion from Jesus, or the second time it's happened, at least, that we know of it. The first time was, of course, at the tomb of Lazarus, right? Remember that encounter? John 11, 33. Notice the language of causation and response. When Jesus saw Mary weeping, Lazarus's sister, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, John tells us, under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that Jesus was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled in his spirit. And they Verse 34, Jesus asks where Lazarus is, they take him and show him, and remember John tells us simply that in response to beholding that, that Jesus wept. The word there means literally to tear up. It's got the idea of sort of like a quiet, a deep but quiet expression of grief, like tears welling up in your eye, but you're kind of internalizing it, but there's deep sorrow. Now, some people there would say, well, he's not really crying over the death of Lazarus because he knows he's going to raise him. This is just him crying over the unbelief of the people. Maybe, I don't know, but I know this. Verse 36, right? We see that, we see the way it was perceived by those people who were looking, who were watching him. And to them, it appeared to be just real human grief over the loss of someone that you loved, right? The Jews said, see how he loved him, right? And then John, again, in verse 38, this important stuff. says Jesus, under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, says Jesus deeply moved again, came to the tomb, and we know what he did there, right? So again, what's my point? It's just we see real human love and affection, real human pain, loss, and grief, like we experience in Jesus' real humanity, and that's very important. Now, look back at verse 41 with that in mind. I'll show you one way that it's elaborated and distinct here. Remember, he drew near and saw the city. So before, we see this real human emotion springing up in response to his dead friend whom he loved. Here, we see it in response to his beholding the rebellious city of Jerusalem. Luke says, when he saw that, he responds by weeping over it. Everybody see the causation in that, right? Now, Luke describes this as a very passionate response. Let me show you why I say that. It's a different word in the original than what John uses with a subtle but important distinction. I think we need to get a hold of it. The word would be pronounced in its lexical form there, dictionary form, clio, if anyone cares about that sort of thing. But it refers specifically, notice, to any loud expression of pain or sorrow, weeping, lamentation, especially it tends to happen for the dead. So what's the difference here between what we see with Lazarus and what we see at Jerusalem, in response to Jerusalem? Here he seems to be sobbing. It seems like it's audible, right? There's a very heavy and genuine grief here, a very heavy and real lamentation from his heart as he beholds the city that's laden with iniquity. I love what Philip Rikens says here, which should be of no surprise to anybody. So important. And then we'll move on from this thematically. He says, Jesus Christ was a man of perfect passion. Okay, that's important. What's the difference? It's not showing us that he's weepy or sentimental as though this is born in weakness or effeminacy or some sort of sinful frailty as it often is the case in us. He says, that's not the way we should take this, but we should understand that he did cry about things that broke his loving heart. He was fully man, real humanity. He also says, and we'll see this next week, God willing, he was not moody or bad-tempered, right? He was a man of perfect passion, but he was angry about hypocrisy and injustice. In the intensity of his emotions, like we're seeing here, the great audible lamentation, he says, we see the true and perfect humanity of Jesus Christ. That's so important for us to not glance over those things. The folks in the first century Greco-Roman world struggled more with Jesus' real humanity than with his deity. We have the opposite problem. But those clues are all in Scripture. Now, here's a second thing that this text reminds, or that this, not just this text, but this particular verse of Jesus weeping, verse 41, reminds us of that's very important. It's something about Jesus' divine nature, okay? And I think it's stated well in Ezekiel 33, 11, as well as other places. Say to them, remember, as I live, see it's an oath, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked. But that the wicked, okay, if that's not what brings him pleasure, what does? That the wicked turn from his way and live. that he repent and be saved. And he pleads, turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel? You see the connection of statements like this to our text today? They're all over the place. Now, let me be clear. God is holy, okay? God is just. Because God is holy and just, he is going to punish the wicked. Okay? He is going to prosecute the terms of the covenant. Right? That's important for today. And let me say, I had to be challenged myself in studying this out. There's a sense in which the Bible affirms that God does take pleasure in the righteous administration of his justice. Okay? That's in there. Look it up. Look into that. So what's the point here? Why do these two things not contradict? The point is he's not sadistic in that like men are. He doesn't get pleasure from watching people suffer under his power. He doesn't get some sort of proud, sordid gratification by watching men melt beneath him. He doesn't delight in men's suffering. He prefers, if you will, that they repent and be saved. Okay, that's my premise there. I'll try to defend it later. Watch this, watch how closely that sentiment from the Old Testament echoes our text here as we read on. So we'll read verse 41 again, going to verse 42. When he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it with audible lamentation, saying, And the ESV can be a little misleading here, but there's a reason why they translate it this way. It's actually good, but the Greek is more like, if then, rather than the way it's expressed here. Saying, would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace. Why does he say it like that? Would that you, even you, Well, I can't be 100%, but I think when we compare it to other texts, it's very similar to what we saw before, right, where the emphasis was this rebellious nation, right, where Jesus said, even now, when he's charging up in Capernaum, when he's charging those indictments against unbelieving Israel, and he says, even now, or maybe in the book of Joel, where he says, even now, turn and be saved. Even now on the precipice of judgment, turn and be saved. Here's this nation who for centuries, millennia, have been in that cycle that we've seen about in Sunday school for years now of apostasy, rebellion, God showing them grace. And then them, oh, repenting, apparently repenting, and then a generation later, falling again. Right? And Jesus, this is showing us his divine human heart, where he says, would that you, even you, you troubled, Frustrated that's the way I would look at him. I'm not God though. It's like ah Stop, but see even you I would that you even had known on this day the day of the triumphal entry the day that the Son of Man arrives to Jerusalem to Establish his kingdom and accomplish salvation had known the things that make for peace Yes, remember from last week. What's that reference the things that make for peace? I What's multi? It's manifold, right? First of all, Jesus is entering Jerusalem. There's a lot of irony here. What's Jerusalem mean? The city of peace, right? He's riding on a donkey as he enters Jerusalem instead of a war horse. Right? Which indicates peace and humility. Right? And remember the prophecy that Josh read before that Jesus was fulfilling and doing that. Zechariah 9.9, your King is coming to you, righteous and having salvation, mounted on a donkey. And remember verse 10, what that was going to produce? It was all about peace. He said he's gonna cut off the chariot from Ephraim, the Northern kingdom, the war horse from Jerusalem, the Southern kingdom, the battle bow, et cetera. And he's gonna speak, make a proclamation of peace to the Gentiles, to the nations. And his rules going to be replete, indicating absolute peace. See in all that, there's the language of the way of peace, not to mention, a plethora, a litany of Old Testament passages that promised the eschatological peace of Jerusalem, right? All those promises, all those threads coming into view here, and Jesus is saying, would that you, even you, rebellious nation, had known this day the things that make for peace. Secondly, remember how the crowd had responded by not only rejoicing and praising God, but themselves quoting the Psalm, Psalm 118, blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord, and saying, What? Peace in heaven and glory in the highest. You see the irony here, how the irony is building and building and building about the way of peace. So what's Jesus saying here? I think with great irony and judgment, judgment that pains him in a way, in his humanity. What's the point of his lamentation? He's saying, you're saying all these things, you're quoting these passages, you're even recognizing the truth in some ways, that the king of peace is here, the way of peace has come, but you really don't know what you're talking about. You're giving lip service, doing it. You're saying the right things. You're even doing the right motions, laying the sheets out on the ground, but you don't understand really what's going on. The way of peace is here, absolutely. Physically and visibly in the person of the king. They can see him. Think about the irony here. They can behold the way of peace with their physical eyes and the eyes of their hearts. are blind to it. And that is the thing, this is so important, that's the thing, I believe, that grieves the heart of our Lord so deeply. Are there convicting lessons in that for us? Amen, amen. Now, watch this. Watch how the sentiment of heart here echoes the heart of God that we see in the Old Testament in other ways. Watch this. Remember at the first, let's see, I've lost my place. Here we go. I think we're good here. Remember at the first covenant renewal, the first time the nation had already apostatized, had already broken the law, and the covenant's having to be renewed, and God graciously agrees to do so, and He gives Moses the law again, and the people through their elders say, We'll do it, right? We agree to the terms. Thank you for the grace you've already shown us. Do you remember how the Lord revealed his heart after that? Of course you do. It's on the screen now, right? Deuteronomy 25, 29. Look at the language of longing there. Oh, that they had such a heart as this always. This is what he wishes for them, if you will. Now guys, does he know they're not going to? Yes, he knows all things, right? We can't deny. Of course he knows. He says in Deuteronomy like 874 times, you're gonna break this commandment because you're stubborn and stiff-necked and evil. But yet we see his heart, right? We see his will of desire. He says, oh, that they had such a heart as this always to fear me and keep all my commandments. Why? Look. It's altruistic. Says that it might go well with them, right? See what he wants for them? That it might go well with their descendants forever. See that? See the language of longing? Notice the language of longing in Psalms, or in passages like this, Psalm 81, 13. Notice, oh, that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways. He knows the future, and yet, He longs for this, for them. Isaiah 48, 18's an important one for today. Oh, that you had paid attention to my commandments. Why? Because that would have been good for you, right? Then your peace would have been like a river. What does that mean? The river never stops. It's constant. It's ever flowing. It's ever coming. The peace of Israel was intermittent. in the Old Testament era, why? Because of their sin, because of their transgression and the judgment of God. He says, if you had just obeyed, your peace would have been like a river. Your righteousness would have been as constant as the waves of the sea. Do they ever stop? They never stop. Almost annoyingly so sometimes. Constant barraging of the banks. And he says, not only that, Your offspring then would have been like the sand, your descendants like its grains. Their name would never be cut off or destroyed from before me. He says, oh, that that would be the case. See that? That's his desire. That's his longing. Now let me qualify that. God does destroy the wicked when he needs to destroy the wicked. Okay? And He's good when He does it. You hear me? Think about it. We don't tend to think this way, but when God destroys the wicked, does He not restrain evil on the earth? Is that not a moral good? Does He not protect the innocent from the wicked? Is that not a moral good? It is if you're the one being oppressed by those wicked people, right? If you're the one whose maybe children are getting kidnapped and sold into slavery and God destroys those kidnappers, you say what? Praise the Lord for His goodness, right? God does destroy the wicked. He promotes the common good when He does it. He protects His own glory. He promotes the good of His people. A million other benevolent things the Lord is doing when He destroys the wicked. And in that sense, I think the Bible makes it clear that it pleases Him to do so in that sense. But what we see here is that He longs for, not necessarily for men to be destroyed, but for men to repent, believe, obey, and in turn be blessed. You see the difference? I've not got everybody convinced. Okay, maybe I will eventually. Now, let me qualify my qualifier. Maybe this will help. That doesn't mean that God is the way that people tend to portray him today. There's an imbalance to that too. We tend to portray God like some desperate young lover. who's, we'll say he's a male, whose female counterpart has rejected him and gone off with someone else, and yet he sits there desperately, longingly, just waiting for her to get done sowing her wild oats and come back to him. Guys, no, why does that not work? Why is that a wrong view of God? For one thing, why does the young man, why does the young man do that? For himself, right? He didn't do that because he loves her. If he loved her, he'd say, go be happy. Okay, don't read into that. He does that because he, it won't make her happy. Right? I'm saying he does it because he thinks he needs her. For him to be happy. For him to be fulfilled. That's why he acts like a sick puppy dog. Just desperately longing, I'll be here when you get done abusing me. Right? Guys, does God need that? Does he need self-affirmation? Does he need anything? Has he ever needed anything? Is he lonely? No, right? So guys, we got to be careful here. God's often portrayed that way from our society from texts like verse 41, verse 42, but that's not an accurate portrayal of who he is. And I'll try to prove that at the end of verse 42. Look at it with me. So God in human flesh, the incarnation, Remember, he's saying this with great sorrow, pain, lament. He says this, would that you, even you, rebellious nation, had known on this day the things that make for peace, but watch. He says, but now, when was now? 2,000 years ago when he spoke this, Notice the tense of the verb. They will be hidden from your eyes? No, they are. They are. It's an aorist tense in the Greek. It doesn't necessarily mean past tense, but it means that the action has definite parameters. It means it's begun and ended. The whole thing's already completed. They are hidden from your eyes. So what's he saying? He's saying, this is my heart for you. This is my desire for you. but it's too late. It's already too late. As a nation, not necessarily individually, all his first disciples were Jewish people, but corporately, as a nation, he's saying it's too late. The line has already been crossed. You've had centuries, millennia here. The judgment has already fallen. You can't go back from this. The prosecution of the covenant, has already begun, and that's going to be an important theme for us to understand as we move forward in Luke's gospel. He's telling them you should have known, you could have known, you could have had peace, but you refused. You didn't know, you didn't see, and now it's too late for you. Let me say, I think it's a good place to interject this, though I am seeing that I'm going to be woefully over and I apologize for this. There's just so much in this. This is the way judicial hardening works, in my opinion. Men reject God and pursue other masters because they want to. God, eventually, if they persist long enough, gives them over to their own desires. That's what it means, in my opinion, for God to harden your heart. It doesn't mean that God causes you to sin when you're not wanting to. It's God removing the restraint of your sin that he's graciously provided before and leaving you to your own devices. And without the interference of the grace and power of God, our fallen hearts sweep us away in a flood of iniquity and debauchery until we perish under it. doing exactly what we want to do. We see that illustrated in his judgment against the nation here. That's the general principle. Now, specifically, I think this is what's happening in our text. Remember what Isaiah said 700 years before, he warned the people, Isaiah 6, 9, keep on hearing, but do not understand. Keep on seeing, but do not perceive. What's he saying? They keep rejecting God's messengers. The light of God's self-revelation keeps coming to them centuries and centuries and centuries and centuries. And what do they do? They push it away. They suppress it in unrighteousness for centuries and centuries and centuries and centuries. And God warns them through Isaiah. Here's the judgment now for that. Gonna give you more of what you already like. Gonna give you more of what you already do. I'm gonna give you over to it. Now I'm gonna make it where you can't even understand it. Right? Notice, make the heart of this people dull, not receptive. Make the ears of this people heavy. Make the eyes of this people blind. Why? Lest they now do what I wanted for them all along, but they refused. What? See, and hear, and understand, and repent, and be healed. Guys, there's a line that you and I can cross. Don't play with that line. Now, how do I know that this is what's happening in our text? Well, thank you for asking. Because John, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, says so. What? John 12, 35, Jesus said to them, the light is among you for a little while longer, talking about himself, his presence on the earth. He says, walk while you have the light. Why? Because once the light's gone, the darkness will overtake you. He says, while you have the light, you're not always going to have it, believe in the light. To what end? That you may become sons of light. It's for your good. Yet John says, though they had, I'm sorry, though he had done so many things before them, they still did not believe in him. And he says that was so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah, here's Isaiah 53, might be fulfilled. Lord who has believed what he heard from us, to whom is the arm of the Lord been revealed? I wish I had time to elaborate, I don't. But John says under inspiration, therefore they now could not believe. For again, Isaiah said, now he quotes Isaiah nine, that we just read, or Isaiah six, what we just read. He has blinded their eyes, hardened their hearts, lest they see with their eyes, understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them. And John says, tying it all together, he said, Isaiah said all these things because Isaiah saw Jesus' glory. Remember his vision, the throne of heaven, the cherubim? Isaiah says that was Jesus Christ, by the way, for the deity of Christ. He said he saw his glory and spoke of him. Don't get too excited here, we're not done, but what's the lesson in that for us? I think it's Isaiah 55, six. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Don't presume that you're always going to have that opportunity. Call upon the Lord while He is near. Don't presume that you're always going to have that opportunity. Now, look at verse 43. We'll move forward, finally. Jesus foretells an event here that's gonna symbolize this judgment of Ichabod. Remember, Ichabod means the glory departs, the glory leaves, the presence of God is gone. This event's gonna symbolize that, I think, symbolize that judgment of Ichabod that he just declared against them. Look at it with me and remember, remember the pain with which he's saying this, okay? But the righteousness with which he presses forward anyway. He says, verse 43, not with hubris, guys, not with arrogant condescension, what with brokenhearted sorrow, but yet with holiness and righteousness, he says, for the days might come upon you, Conditional, maybe? No, it's already determined at this point. The line's already crossed. It says, the days will come upon you. It's too late for them. As a nation, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side. And look at the language, tear you down to the ground. What's he describing? A siege, right? A siege by an army. A siege that's gonna result in their desolation, right? Their annihilation. He says, look, and look, this isn't just a benign siege for practical, pragmatic purposes of the growth of another nation. This one's personal. These people are angry. These people are malicious that are going to tear them down. Watch. He says, they're gonna level you to the ground You don't just destroy the whole city if you want to take it over for political purposes. That infrastructure is helpful to you, right? The buildings, you reclaim those. You only destroy what you have to. No, this is personal, okay? They're going to tear you down to the ground. Look, you and your children within you, not just the warriors, the men, the women, the children, they're going to try to wipe you off, your whole people group off the face of the earth. and they will not leave one stone upon another in you. See how personal that is? See the angst behind that? Guys, this is a siege that they had been warned about for many centuries. This is a siege that signaled the prosecution, the adjudication, if you will, of the terms of the Old Covenant. I want you to think about this. Remember, after God had promised those great, gratuitous, over-the-top blessings for the covenant keeper, He then turned and said, If you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do his commandments, et cetera, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you. And remember, that's one of those very long chapters of the Old Testament that lay those out. Two chapters, I think. And then he says this. Think about the imagery here. The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away from the ends of the earth, swooping down like the eagle. Is that a reference to Rome? Probably not, but I like it. A hard-faced nation who shall not respect the old or show mercy to the young. See the lack of morality in that? They're not going to care. Your children, you and your children within you, see the correlations? They shall besiege you in all your towns until your high and fortified walls, here's the problem, in which you trusted, come down. What ought to have been their trust? The Lord, right? Yahweh, Christ. Why? Why this great judgment on the holy people? if you are not careful, verse 58, to do all the words of this law that are written in the book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, the Lord your God." That was the promise, guys, for disobedience. We tend to make a lot about the promises for obedience and say, hey, God's faithful to His promises. Is God faithful to His promises? You better believe it. Is He faithful to His promises to destroy for disobedience? Yes, you can't sell coffee cups and t-shirts with that. But guys, he's faithful all the way around. And that's what we see in this event. I think what Jesus is saying, you be good Bereans, I think the message he's saying here is that that final adjudication of the covenant has now been decreed. And I'll show you. A day or two later, I forget the chronology, up on the Mount of Olives, remember he would tell his disciples this. Luke 21, 20, notice the similarities to both of the texts before. When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has arrived, has come near. Then let those who are in Judea, he warns the Christians, hey, don't trust in those high fortified walls, because God is the protector. Not those things. Those temporal, physical things mean nothing in the end. He says, hey, don't trust in that. Don't flee to the city for protection. He says, believe, depart, the mountains are safer. Right? He says, flee to the mountains. Let those who are inside the city depart. It's safer out there. Let those who are in the country not go into the city for protection. Why? The city can't be saved. Why? Because God is destroying the city. What walls can save you from the judgment of God? He says, for these, verse 22, are days of vengeance. Whose vengeance? God's vengeance. To fulfill all that's written. We've looked at some of that. He says, verse 23, for there will be great distress upon the earth and wrath. Whose wrath? God's wrath and roams as the instrument of God's wrath against this people. And he says, they will fall. They will fall by the edge of the sword, not they might, they will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive among all nations. And Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by pagans, by Gentiles, by Romans. until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. And we're gonna talk about that later. That would bog us down. Here's what happened, okay? That's what was predicted. That's what Jesus promised. Here's what happened. Should it surprise us that all these words came true? No, right? Heaven and earth will pass away, Jesus says in that same discourse, but my words won't. With perfect foreknowledge, the Son of God was prophesying what would happen when Jerusalem was conquered by the Romans in AD 70. The city was surrounded as the General Titus set up giant siege works around its walls. The stones of the city were torn down. The temple was destroyed. The streets ran red with even the blood of women and children. Caesar wanted to make it impossible for anyone to believe that Jerusalem had ever been inhabited. The fomenting of rebellion had gone on for so long it was personal now. To that end, I'm talking about from the Roman heart, from the heart of Caesar. To that end, Titus the general tore everything down except for three large towers. Therefore, or I'm sorry, these he left standing to show how great the city had been and thus to prove the superior power of Rome. Now watch this, that's what happened. According to Josephus, this part I had not read before, and I thought it was very vivid, the devastation was so complete. Josephus was a Jewish historian of the time. The devastation was so complete, when the general saw it, who had led it all, he threw his arms heavenward, uttered a groan, and called God to witness that this was not his doing. In other words, he's saying, this is on Caesar. I'm just his servant. I have to do what he says. This ain't my doing. Guys. the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD was, to say the least, horrific, a horrific tragedy. There's a lot of complexity to it. We're gonna have to talk about that when we get to all of that discourse. But the gist of it was, it symbolized and portrayed the reality that they were now Ichabod, that the glory of God had departed. that the presence of God was no longer among them, that they had been abandoned by the God that they had abandoned for a millennia and a half quite regularly. Now, look at the end of verse 44. Here's why, okay? Jesus states it plainly. We don't have to wonder about this. He says, they won't leave one stone upon another in you that this replete Devastating judgment and desolation is going to happen because you did not know the time of your visitation. Yeah, not because you didn't go to the temple enough. Who's visiting, by the way? God, right? You're all right. It's a language of a divine visitation. He's saying God visited you and you ignored it. Right? Because of that, this destruction has fallen upon you. We need to understand something about the nature of divine visitation. It's a concept that's rooted in the Old Testament. Here's one example. Remember Joseph said to his brothers in Genesis 50-24, I'm about to die. but God will visit you. In other words, he can't help them anymore. Joseph, the ruler of Egypt, he's not gonna, but guess what? You're not left forsaken, why? Because God's gonna come down. God's gonna do something on the earth that's gonna bring you deliverance, right? So the idea of a divine visitation is where God visits anthropomorphically, meaning he acts, he does something, shows up to the earth, executes judgment on his enemies, brings deliverance, redemption for his people, that sort of thing. Usually both of those things go hand-in-hand. So let me ask you, what greater divine visitation had there ever been or could there ever be than the incarnation of Jesus Christ? When God the Eternal Son literally enters into creation and literally walks upon the dirt of Jerusalem that He had created. Remember what we saw back in Luke chapter one. You didn't think this was gonna be a Christmas sermon. Guess what it is. And it's not forced. I didn't do that on purpose. But it worked. Remember, Zechariah, John the Baptist's father, under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, said Luke 168, blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited us, redeemed his people. Now that's important. I don't have time to go into it. I don't. I'm going to go on. Look, that divine visitation has done what? It's raised up a horn of salvation for us. It's saved our 71, saved us from our enemies. It's shown the mercy promised to our fathers. It's remembered His holy covenant. He said all that is happening through the incarnation of Jesus Christ in the first century. It's fulfilling the oath, verse 73, that he swore to Abraham, right? It's delivering us from the hand of our enemies. It's allowing us to serve him in fear, in holiness and righteousness all our days. Verse 78, why? Because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise, think of the language of light, shall visit us from on high, and watch how it all comes together, to give light to those who sit in darkness, they did, they didn't think they did, but they did, and in the shadow of death, and to guide our feet, here we go, back full circle, to verse 42, into the way of peace. Who How and through whom did God show them, bring them the way of peace that was promised throughout Isaiah, by the way. All that language of light and peace, it's all Jesus. It's all Jesus. It's all about Jesus. There is no other way that it's fulfilled. It's all about Jesus. The peace of Jerusalem, all of it, it's all through Jesus. And here he was, flesh and blood before them. And by and large, they rejected him. They turned a blind eye to the light that God had provided. And for those who did, like for the nation in general, This is the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back, as we say. There was no greater sin. All the apostasy and idolatry and sexual sin and rebellion and all the great idol worshiping and all the things they'd committed over all those centuries of the past paled in comparison to this sin that was before them there in the rejection of Jesus Christ. They couldn't sin to a greater degree. Therefore, the judgment that was deserved couldn't be any greater. As the incarnation of Christ is the greatest light that's ever shown on fallen men, period. And here's how that's applicable to us. If we turn away from that light, what are we turning to? Darkness was my metaphor, but yeah, darkness that leads to destruction. What's what Jesus goes on to later say? We see this cause and effect. Matthew 23, 37. Notice even the heart here. Sorry, I am almost done. But I know it's long. I think we could have spent a month of Sundays on this, honestly. There's so much in that text. Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, look at the longing, look at the similar heart with which he indicts them here. Sorrowful, but righteous and holy. Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it. Think Isaiah 6, right? It's very similar. Seeing and not seeing, hearing and not hearing, right? How often, look at his longing, would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings? He says, y'all wouldn't have it. This is on you. You were not willing. And he says, as a result, see your house is abandoned. It's left to you empty. Reference to the temple, God's presence of dwelling among them. It's desolate. And watch this, okay? This should give us great hope. He doesn't relax the terms, okay? But he promises this hope for those who repent. He says, for I tell you, you will not see me again. Here's the only terms for that, until you say, Psalm 118, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. To contextualize it with our text today, it says, he's saying, you will not see me again until you know the time of your visitation. What's our imperative? Finally, he's at the imperative. I gave you one before, by the way. I think Paul's words here in 2 Corinthians 5 encompass that perfectly. Paul says we, the apostles, the stewards of the gospel, says we're ambassadors for Christ. God sent us out as his ambassadors. To what end? God making his appeal. Think about that. God pleading his desire for us. through the apostolic message. What's the apostolic message? It's the gospel. It's the gospel. And he says, we implore you on behalf of Christ, this is what he wants for you, be reconciled to God. How's that even possible? Substitutionary atonement, right? Very next verse, he says, for our sake, benevolent motivation toward us. For our sake, he made him who knew no sin, Jesus, he imputed to Jesus what Jesus didn't have naturally. What's that? Sin. Jesus was righteous, he had no sin of his own. For our sake, he charged Jesus with sin, made him guilty of that sin that he had not commit. Why? so that in Jesus, through the work of Jesus, we might become or we might be given or imputed what doesn't come naturally to us. What's that? Righteousness. Right? What we don't possess But Jesus did, is imputed to us through faith in Him. What Jesus never possessed is imputed to Him through the powerful working of God the Holy Spirit, and that's the guilt of our sin. Substitutionary atonement. There's no gospel without it. Anywho, here we go. Forgive me, this is long. Working together with Him then. This is God's will. This is what God wants. This is what God desires. Paul says, we appeal to you to not do what the Jewish nation did for 1600 years, if not longer. What? Don't receive the favor of God, same word in the original, grace of God, in vain. Don't spurn that great gift. Don't presume upon his kindness. Don't presume upon the day of opportunity. It's not always going to be there, that's just the reality. I know we don't like to hear that, but it's the reality. For he says, quoting the Old Testament, in a favorable time, a time of grace, a time of favor, I listen to you, and in a day of salvation, I've helped you. And Paul takes that Old Testament passage, don't remember what it is, and he makes interpretation. He says, guys, behold, now is that favorable time. What's he talking about? Really, he's talking about the time between Christ's first and second comings. The age of the gospel, if you will. He says, this is that day of salvation. So again, what's our long overdue imperative? Isaiah 55.6. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon the Lord while he's near. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the grace you've shown us. We don't deserve any of it. Lord, we don't deserve any chances. We confess that we deserve your swift and sudden judgment to not be allowed to draw even the very next breath. You've shown us mercy upon mercy and sparing us up until this very day of giving us the opportunity to see and hear, receive the light of your gospel. Why you would be so kind to us, Lord, is mind-blowing, considering how we've transgressed and rebelled, all of us, every single one of us. Thank you that you're merciful. Thank you that your heart longs for our good, our eternal good. our repentance, our salvation. We thank you that you're a God who delights to save men like us. Lord, please. Help us to know the day of our visitation. Help us to not receive your grace in vain. God, please work in our hearts. Do that within us that's necessary for us to receive the light of Christ. Even in that, we're dependent on you, Lord. We confess that. Help us, please. Pour out your spirit upon us. Please. Be glorified in our midst. Please. Help us. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.