Luke chapter 23, we'll be looking at verses 26 through 32. Luke 23, beginning in verse 26. When they led him away, they seized a man, Simon of Cyrene, coming in from the country, and placed on him the cross to carry behind Jesus. And following him was a large crowd of people, and of women, who were mourning and lamenting him. But Jesus turning to them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, stop weeping for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed. Then they will begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us, and to the hills cover us. For if they do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry? To others also who were criminals were being led away to be put to death with him." I call this the Sermon on the Road to Calvary. We're all aware, and the latter portions of Luke tell us about after Jesus' resurrection, he appears on the Emmaus Road and speaking with some disciples. He's veiled himself from them understanding who exactly he was at the first. And it was marvelous as he unfolded the truth of Scripture to these disciples on the Emmaus Road. But here we have Jesus in his final moments, literally his final breaths before the cross. And he has a little mini-sermon that he gives to these people as he's at first carrying his cross, and then Simon of Cyrene carries the cross behind him. Two things I want to point out. First of all, let's note the setting again, where we are in the narrative. And then I want to look at the sermon. First of all, Roman numeral one, the setting in verses 26 and 27. Let me back up a little bit before this though and remind you that for the last several days, Jesus has entered Jerusalem to begin his final preparation before his crucifixion. In the evenings, he would leave Jerusalem, go about an hour's walk outside of the city gate to a little olive farm. I don't know if he had arrangements with the owners or how that worked, but he and his disciples would find that a respite for themselves, a secluded place, away from the crowd, away from public ministry, and certainly away from his enemies so they could get some rest together before the next day's journey back into Jerusalem for preaching and teaching and ministry. But yesterday was different. When they made it back to the olive farm that evening, The text seems to indicate that Jesus immediately separated himself from the apostles. He went about 50 yards away, a stone's throw away, the text says. And there he falls on his knees in severe anguish and cries out to the Heavenly Father. There the Heavenly Father reveals to him what his will was. That Jesus was indeed to go to a cross. and be the guilt offering, the sin bearer for the children, for his church. And there in that moment of prayer and consultation between God the Father and God the Son, the Father's will was clearly revealed and the Son's intention to honor the Father's will was clearly settled once and for all. Not that he ever had a question about it. But in His humanity, He was bearing His soul before His Father about just exactly, Father, what are we going to do at this point? Jesus arises from prayer there in the olive garden. We call it Gethsemane because Gethsemane means oil press. He was probably in the region of the garden where they had the olive oil press set up. And there, all of a sudden, Judas Iscariot, the betrayer, appears, leading the Jewish authorities to Jesus. He kisses Jesus to identify him in the dim light. Jesus is arrested. He's put in bonds. He's marched into the city. He's held in the Sanhedrin court overnight. And the scriptures record that as he is held overnight, he's brutally beaten and mocked and ridiculed all night long. At daybreak, the trial begins before the Jewish High Court, the Sanhedrin. They, in effect, find him guilty of blasphemy because he very clearly says, I am the Son of God. Lacking authority to execute him themselves, they lead him away to Pilate, the governor of that region of Judea. Before Pilate, again, Jesus asserts his deity. Before Pilate, the Jewish authorities accuse him of blasphemy, and they also try to tag on the charge of treason against Caesar, hoping they'll find some reason for the Romans to execute him. Pilate finds no real fault in Jesus, pronounces, matter of fact, one of three times that he thinks he's innocent. But Pilate finds out that he's from the region of Galilee, and Herod is the Roman governor over Galilee, and Herod's in town. So he sends Jesus over to Herod. Jesus appears now before Herod where he's mocked and ridiculed again. The Bible tells us Herod wanted to see Jesus perform some sort of wondrous sign or miracle or magic act and Jesus wouldn't do it. Herod finds no real issue with Jesus. He sends him back to Pilate. So now Jesus is marched in his chains back to Pilate the second time. Pilate tries quite genuinely, I think, to appease the Jews and cause them to realize this man, Jesus, has done nothing worthy of death. The Jews will hear nothing of it. Pilate says, well, I have a custom to release for you one Jewish prisoner during the Passover every year. And they said, release for us the murderer Barabbas. We'll take him. But as for this Jesus, crucify him. And so the Bible text records that Pilate says for a third time, I find no fault in this man, but because of the press and the public outcry, he delivers him over to be crucified. Now that's where we come to in verse 26. Then you come to verse 26 of chapter 23, when they led him away, they seized a man, Simon of Cyrene, coming in from the country, and they placed on him the cross to carry behind Jesus. Now it was the custom of the day that if you were condemned to execution by crucifixion, you carried your own crossbeam out through the deep via Della Rosa and out to the little mount called Calvary, but Jesus being so brutalized and beaten was unable to do that. And so they pressed this man who'd come in from the country, Simon of Cyrene, into carrying the crossbeam for Jesus. Now it's likely Simon either was or became a believer. The Bible tells us in Mark's Gospel, Mark chapter 15, that he has two sons who are counted among the believers. So it's likely he either was or became a believer. But Simon's carrying this crossbeam because of the agony and the weakness in Jesus' physical body. I think it's important for us to note that Jesus was cast out of earthly Jerusalem in dishonor and in shame that we might enter the new Jerusalem in holy honor and in blamelessness. I think we should know also that Simon bore the cross behind Jesus. Don't want to make too much of this, but it causes me to think about that, how we bear the cross in this world because we boldly and gladly claim the doctrines of the cross in a world that wants to have nothing to do with it. And yet, though we bear his cross in this world in the sense that we bear the truth of his crucifixion as our only hope, At the same time, it is also true that we can't carry his cross because only Jesus could carry that cross. Only Jesus qualified to be the sin bearer and the guilt offering for the sins of the world. But the Bible does make very clear we do carry our own cross. Take up your cross, your cross, not his, your cross, and follow me, Jesus said, on more than one occasion. That means we gladly accept the ridicule, the scorn, the mockery, whatever persecutions the world might bring us for being unashamed in the public arena to be called his disciple, a follower of Jesus Christ. Colossians 124 is an interesting cross reference I want to bring up at this time as we think about what purpose is it if Christ suffered and bled and died and fully paid for our redemption, then why do we have crosses to bear? Because redemption's work is not completed. And Christ is continuing His work of redeeming men's souls through His body. But you and I, the church, are now His body. We're His second body, if you will. In His first body, He fully paid for sins. Redemption's price is settled. But in the working out of redemption, the present second body, the local church, carries its own cross. to make sure others are brought into the kingdom of God. Colossians 124 reads, Paul said, And in my flesh I do my share on behalf of his body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions." In other words, Christ began something and sealed and paid redemption's cost, but in the fulfillment of redeeming all those for whom he died, the church bears a cross in seeing that brought to fruition. That's why we still preach the gospel. That's why we still teach the gospel. That's why we have small groups. That's why we do what we do that we might bring in all of those for whom He paid the redemption price on the cross. But it's not going to be done in ease. It's not going to be done in just rows trimmed paths. There'll be seasons of difficulty, and trial, and rejection, and scorn, and mocking, and ridiculing. That's part of bearing our cross. I don't know if you've noticed lately, but our doctrine and our beliefs are no longer very popular in the public square. There was a time when there was a strong Christian consensus in our country. Even those who do not, or maybe were not generally Christians, had a respect for the doctrines of the cross and of the Christian faith. But that's quickly, quickly passing away. But I think one thing we can remember also is that when we bear His cross, or when we bear our cross, I should say, we're always following Him. He bore His first. He set the standard. He is the example. Can you imagine being the sinless son of God and everybody twisting, putting a spin on everything you say and do to put you in the worst possible life? The ridicule, the rejection, the scorn, the humiliation. So as we go out into the world, never obnoxious, never with a hateful attitude, but yet unflinchingly convicted and convinced of what we are and who we live for and who our Lord is and who our hope is in, whatever that brings, so be it. Our Lord has already paved the way. He went and did it first. He faced the scorn first. He faced the rejection first. He faced the lies. and the twistings of what He was and what He was about. And you and I are going to constantly be put in the kind of light where the truth is going to be twisted so that we're the problem in society, we're the holdback, we're the bigots. That's part of our cross to bear. But God says in standing for the truth and preaching the truth and walking in the truth, we are part of Christ's body continuing the work of bringing souls to salvation. So we gladly bear our cross. Now look at verse 27. And following him was a large crowd of people and of women who were mourning and lamenting him. So that continues the setting. Simon of Cyrene is bearing the cross beam behind Jesus. Now there's this large crowd of people and evidently a large group of women who are very emotionally disrupt as they're watching him walk. And he must have been horrifying to look at, bloodied and beaten to probably almost unidentifiable. So it was a very emotionally stirring event. We don't know exactly who these women are, but they're pointed out in the text. Perhaps they're professional mourners, or maybe some of them are professional mourners. That was very common in this day. People were hired and some people just volunteered to go and mourn when something tragic was happening. I don't completely understand that, but it was a custom of the day. Perhaps some, a few are at least, genuine disciples. But perhaps for the most part, they're what I would just call sentimental sympathizers. They see what this man is going through. They've heard his teaching. They've sensed he's genuine. They know in their hearts he's innocent. They can't imagine that he's doing anything worthy of what's being done to him. So in seeing the awful anguish, torment, mistreatment, brutality being cast upon him, they just sentimentally are just wailing and moaning and crying over the sight before them. But I use the word sentimentality because sentimentality is that which appeals rather to our base, weak emotions. Sentimentality does not rationally weigh substance or truth. Sentimentality just lets the emotions run. I have, I forgot where I was, but it's happened more than once in my life where I was in a setting and not trying to demean the emotions of women because thank God that God's made women with a different emotional makeup than men. We need that. It's a beautiful balance in the harmony of men and women and the way God made us. But there was something going on and it was very touching and a lady was crying and somebody said, why are you crying? She says, I don't know. You ever seen that? I don't know. Well, it's kind of, it touches you to hear that in a way, and I understand that. Well, that would be sentimentalism, and it's not always bad, but listen, when you're dealing with Jesus and the truth of the universe and what he's about, sentimentality's not acceptable. You need to know the truth behind what's happening, not just be moved by the event before your eyes. Are you with me, church? We're not emotionally-led beings as Christians. We are truth-led beings. And we get a hold of the truth until the Spirit of God melds it into our hearts and souls. And then as the truth impacts us, then the emotions follow, but never vice versa. Emotions too often takes the lead. in religious circles today, but truth should always take the lead. So the next verses will point out to us that these ladies and their deep emotions about Christ and what he's going through, they were not spiritual righteous sympathizers, but just common worldly sentimentalities. a sympathy without a real understanding. Let's look at it. That's the setting that we're seeing. Now let's see the sermon he preaches on this road to Calvary. Three things I want to point out. First of all, there is a confrontation where, in effect, he's calling these ladies to repent. There is a prophecy where he's telling these ladies and others what severe judgment is coming upon them. And then there's a question he poses to help them feel the weight of the judgment that is coming. The sermon, a confrontation. This is a confrontation where he's calling them to a repentance. Look at it there in verse 28. but Jesus turning to them. Now let me just pause there for a moment. I mean, you'd almost think Jesus is being rude and unkind. These people are crying, distraught over the injustice and the brutality being placed upon you. And Jesus, the first thing you do is turn and correct them. Don't you love Jesus? He's just who he is. He's not who you think he should be. He's not what the modern consensus thinks he ought to be like. I said something to a person one day about how Jesus would do something based on the scripture, and they said, oh, he wouldn't do that. It's like, that's because in their human sentiment, that's not what they felt like he ought to be like. But here he is confronting these ladies. And it is clearly a confrontation. Daughters of Jerusalem, verse 28, stop weeping for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. The Lord's mercy for these ladies leads to the Lord's rebuke of them. He's actually calling them to repentance. In other words, change what you're thinking. Change how you're viewing this. Stop thinking about it the way you're thinking about it. Think about it from a different perspective. Don't weep for me. Weep for yourselves and for your children. You know, this is the last sermon of any shape, form, or fashion that Jesus will preach before His crucifixion. And Jesus' first sermon he preached was loaded also with repentance. And all through his ministry his sermons were filled with repentance. Let me at this moment pause and give you a brief theology lesson on repentance. I've never read this in any systematic theology. I've never seen it before anywhere. But I believe it's a very accurate way to understand what repentance really is. First of all, there's primary repentance. Primary repentance is when you repent of who you are. When you see who you are and your weakness and your corruption and you cast away any thought or any hope of you yourself saving yourself. That's primary repentance. You look at yourself and you see that there is absolutely nothing in me whereby I could possibly save myself. And all the things that self might come up with whether it's religion or morality or good works. You look at all the things that you could do and all the things that men have devised to make themselves acceptable to God, and you repent of placing any confidence or trust in any of those. That's primary repentance. Now, you have to have biblical truth taught to you before you come to the understanding of knowing that you need to have this primary repentance. Now, secondary repentance is what we often try to get first, and it's not first. Primary repentance is first. Secondary repentance is repenting of specific thoughts, words, or deeds that are sin as God's Spirit shows them to you. I mean, if you spend all your time thinking about this habit, this action, this attitude, this disposition that you're trying to repent of in your life and you hope to get all that repented of so God will save you, you'll never get saved. But when you look and say, I can't save me, there's no means, fashion, effort, approach whereby I can save myself. I repent of putting all my trust in me or the devices of men to save them. That is primary repentance that prepares you to receive Christ as your only hope and Lord and Savior. That's primary. The other specific things are secondary and those come as you live out your life. Jesus says to these ladies, stop weeping for me, repent, change what you're weeping about, change what you're mind about. In effect, he's saying these are not tears on account of your own heart and your own condition and your own need. These were not tears of true repentance over your hopeless state, over your lost condition, over your dreadfully sinful condition before a holy God. That's not what they're doing. That's why he wants them to change. This was only human sentimentality and sympathy. It's what we might call, what the Apostle Paul calls, worldly sorrow. Now, I think God's purpose in giving us the record of the gospel narratives, which give us several details of the brutality and the suffering that he goes through or went through, was not to evoke base human sympathy and sentimentalities. You know, the worldly man can hear the message of Jesus, watch it on a film. You know, we had this very graphic movie a while back, Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, and almost nothing was said of the doctrine or the truth about why he was suffering and dying, but just incredible lengths were gone to to show you the graphicness of his actual suffering. And that's sentimentality outweighing the truth again, and that's what gets us in trouble, and that's where you don't need to be, and that's why these people are being rebuked. A worldly man can watch that or hear that and weep. And at the same time turn on, I think it's a Disney movie, Marley and Me, where the dog dies and weep again. It's basically the same thing. It's just a sad story. With nothing about their own heart in condition before a holy God that they're weeping about. It's just a sad story. They were just stirred in their emotions. Jesus is not impressed that we weep over his suffering, but he is impressed when we weep over our sinful condition. Tears without repentance and faith gain nothing. Many of these very people who were bewailing Jesus as he goes down the road to Calvary died and perished and went to hell, though they wept over the brutality he went through. Weep for yourselves, he says. I'm just a few hours away from unimaginable glory, but your future includes horrible temporal judgment followed by eternal judgment and wrath. Weep for yourselves, he says. Do you see your condition before a holy God? Don't look. A lot of men have been brutally punished and suffered unjustly on the earth, but I'm about something far greater than any other man who's suffered and been punished. See something bigger than just that? Let's go to B. Not only a confrontation where he says, you need to change how you're thinking about this. You need to change what you're weeping about. Weep over your own sinfulness, not my sufferings. Secondly, he gives them a prophecy, and how vivid and cutting this prophecy is. Verse 29, for behold, the days are coming when they will say, blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed. Now again, he's talking about impending judgment. And again, there are two fulfillments to this judgment. First of all, Titus, the Roman general, will lead the legions of Rome into Jerusalem in 70 AD, and the bloodbath and the scourge will be unbelievable, unimaginable. It's going to be such a horrible thing, such a horrible judgment that pregnancy, which is a blessing, in that day will be considered a curse. Childlessness, which is the greatest disappointment a Jewish woman of this day could have experienced, will be considered a grand blessing. Because of the judgment that's coming, Jesus said everything's going to be turned upside down. Women with children are pregnant, and this day will be in a terrible, terrible state of distress and suffering. You know, judgment is no respecter of persons. Let me say that again. Judgment is no respecter of persons. Women and children will suffer severely, Jesus says. Women, again, can be the kindest and most compassionate of beings, yet women also can be the greatest of sinners. Jesus begins by saying, you women are going to suffer greatly under the judgment that's coming. The abortion industry in the modern world is proof of the depravity of women's hearts. I'm going to tell you when the judgment of God comes, there'll finally be true gender equality. Men will be judged and women will be judged equally before God. The second thing here, not only are women gonna suffer severely, he says, men will run and cry to nature to kill them. Verse 30, then they will begin to say to the mountains, fall on us and on the hills cover us. Now again, two aspects here. There's gonna be a more immediate aspect in 70 AD when Rome destroys Jerusalem. Then the ultimate judgment when Jesus returns in the second coming, that's still yet in front of us. Literally, though, historians say the men of this day did just this thing when Titus marched into Jerusalem, that men fled to the countryside. They saw the horrible atrocities, the vileness and the brutality of the Roman soldiers, and they ran and begged the caves and the hills to kill them so they wouldn't have to face them. But there's also going to be another day of judgment that's going to be even worse than that. Revelation 9, 6. In those days, men will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die and death flees from them. You listen to me, Mr. haughty, arrogant captain of your own ship. You can't even die if God doesn't want you to die. You can't say, well, I'll just get away from it. I'll just escape it. You can't. You can't. Revelation 6.16, they said that the mountains and the rocks fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. This is the final and truest fulfillment of this prophecy. So Jesus is saying to these ladies, and I guess the crowd in general, you got to quit looking on the surface and see the spiritual conditions at hand. There is a holy God and you are unholy and fallen and just. Retribution is against you. Weep for yourself. See your own sin and need. There's literally coming a day when Jesus will return with such fiery indignation, retribution and wrath that men will run cry to the mountains and the hills, please crush us so that we don't have to face him. But of course, the mountains and the hills do not obey them. They obey Jesus. They won't be able to cover themselves. Then not only a confrontation, repent, change how you're focusing on this. Change what you're seeing, change what you're weeping over. Not only a prophecy, but it multiplies this thirdly with a question. With a question, look at verse 31 there. For they do these things when the tree is green, or in the green. What will happen when it is dry? Now, there's been a lot of explanations of just what does Jesus mean when he said, if they will do this in the green season, or when the tree is green, then what are they going to do when the tree is dry? Let me just give you some of those, because all of them have some meaning, I think, to what the Lord is saying. First of all, in the Scripture, good men are called green trees. That's a metaphor used for a good man, a godly man. And an evil or an ungodly man is called a barren tree, a dry tree. In this day, an invading army would crash into an opponent city, and they would spare the green living trees, because they would have some usefulness for them, maybe even bear fruit. But they would completely destroy the dry, barren trees. And maybe Jesus is saying, if an invading army is so brutal that they don't even care to spare anything, they cut down and burn the green and the dry alike, then you know how hard that judgment is going to be. I think perhaps the best understanding of this would be that Jesus is saying, you see me? You're weeping over me. You look at the bruises, the blood, the brokenness, the suffering, the brutality I'm enduring, and you're emotionally disrawled about what you're seeing. If they'll do this to the one and only true green tree, I'm the only righteous one there is. If they do this to me, How do you think God's going to unleash wrath on the dry and barren tree? You. If I'm suffering in this way and all I've done is bring light and truth and righteousness to bear on this world, how much more severe will the judgment be to you who deserve judgment and wrath and retribution? He brings the, in a sense, rhetorical question to make them grasp the severity of the judgment that is upon them. In balance, I see hope here. I see real hope. Because in love, Jesus, in his final moments, using his final breath, preaches truth to these sympathizers. He doesn't want to leave them in their sentimentalities. I meant to share this a little earlier. Let me just give you a couple of thoughts on sentimentality. I call this sentimental religion. And that's when in the church, and sometimes well-meaning people, but I think we carelessly get led away into sentimentalities instead of truth. And a good service or a good song or a good sermon or a good ministry is when people's emotions are stirred instead of has the truth come to bear on their hearts. Sentimental religion is when we use the sufferings of Jesus to stir the motions, but we pay little attention to the doctrines behind his suffering. I think this is one of the downfalls of using drama in the worship service. Because when you see things with your eyes and you hear things with your ears, there's a way in which just the storyline can stir your emotions and you don't get a hold of the great doctrine and the truth behind it. Which is exactly what Jesus was talking about. You're just moved by the spectacle. You're not seeing the truth behind it. Music sometimes can be misused to, did it stir us? Did it bless us? The question is, did it tell us the truth? A man one time said to me, I'll tell you what, I get more out of the singing than I get out of the preaching sometimes. To which I would say, and Jesus might say, so? So, just because you heard a song and that's a song granny used to sing when she rocked you and it's got a lot of meaning and value, nothing wrong with that by the way, but just because you got stirred and emotional because of the song didn't mean you were done any good. Our God was pleased. Our goal is not to cause you to leave the worship service with tears running down your face. Oh God, I was so blessed today. Yeah, you may have been blessed with a bunch of sentimental nonsense. The goal is to so pour truth into your hearts about the glories, the majesties, the wonders of God and His gospel and His Son, Jesus Christ, to where that truth is heavy in your mind and real in your hearts, and then the emotions rise up because it's following truth. I think there's been a lot of sentimental religion around what we might call old-time religion. where sometimes some folks are moved about the traditions of their fathers and mothers and not about the true doctrines of scripture. Well, this is the way mama did it. This is the way daddy and them did it. I remember that old song, and that's not all bad. Don't misunderstand what I'm saying. Being balanced here, but we don't worship old time religion. We worship Christ and the truth of the gospel. I was at a service recently, and they had some dancers on the stage. And they weren't immodest in any way, and then they had a lot of different singers going on. And I look back there, and I've never seen this before, and I saw a lady with a paintbrush. I said, heaven helps, they didn't get the props put up. She's painting while the service is going on, while the song was going on. I didn't know that was part of the way it works. And then at the climax, at the end of the song, they put up this big banner that she's been painting, and it had this vivid portrait of, I assume, Jesus on it. And it is kind of stirring to watch that. But in all that effort and all that energy, barely a third of a thimbleful of Bible truth was brought forth. It was just a stirring. Not all bad, not always all evil, but you see how easy it can get to get on that track. And there not be any real substance of truth in it. Matter of fact, God has ordained that the gospel and the truth of God be understood in the mind before it's felt in the heart. That's why I believe God's made it very clear in the Word of God that His primary means is preaching the truth and preaching the gospel because it informs the mind usually before it moves the heart. And that produces a godly sorrow about our wicked, fallen, sinful place and our great need of a Savior. So when Jesus rebukes these who are stirred up about the physical brutality and suffering. He is giving them hope. He's pointing them to the true condition, a condition of their desperate woe before a holy God. And in love, He calls them to repent of seeing His predicament through purely human eyes. They must see, Jesus is saying, more than a man suffering such cruelty. They must instead see themselves. They must instead see their sinful, evil hearts. They must instead see if they've misplaced their trust in worldly things, in worldly religions, in worldly efforts. They must instead see the sinfulness of their own thoughts and words and deeds. And they must instead see and sense the impending wrath that righteously will come against all sinners. They must look in faith to Christ and to His death on the cross for their forgiveness and for their salvation. And that's why he said, don't weep for me. You don't see why I'm dying and you don't see your condition yet. Weep for yourselves and for your children. Kind of a weighty text, isn't it? If your Christianity has this common theme as you wake up in the morning on Monday, as you live your life on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, whatever you do, if there's the continual theme in your heart, oh God, I'm such a worthless wretch before you, the holy God, and my total and absolute and complete confidence is your son, Jesus Christ, then you're on the right track. You're on the right track. But if you're one of those who says, well, I gotta find me a place that gets me stirred up, I gotta find me a place that gets me blessed on Sunday, then you're no different than a heroin addict that needs another hit every week or so. To which Jesus would say, you need to repent and change the way you're viewing this thing. Let's stand together, all right?