The Third Day I Reach My Goal

So we're carrying on in the gospel of Luke chapter 13. This is the last few verses of that chapter. And one of the things that triggers me, you guys all know what triggering is. You get triggered about different things. Normally we consider being triggered as a bad thing. You don't want to trigger people. But what it means is, if you're unfamiliar with the term, it means that you've gotten their attention. All of a sudden, they're like, wait, what did you say? What's going on? They're not oblivious anymore, but they're tracking. And so one of the things that triggers me is death. And if you read in Scripture, there's so much actual death, and then on top of that, there's talk of death. And animals dying, and people dying, and nations dying, and rulers, and all this talk of death, all this talk of bloodshed.

All of it being the result of sin in one form or another. And if you're like me, death is not something that's commonplace to be talked about in our daily lives. It's not something where you're not at the lunch table or the water cooler or wherever talking to someone about death. It's just not normal for us. It's the sort of thing that we understand to be bad or unfortunate or to be an enemy. And so we don't talk about it. And yet scripture is full of death. It's full of people and animals and everything dying. But all of that I can handle. I can understand sinners dying for their sins. I can understand animals being killed as a sacrifice. Have you guys ever seen that? It's a meme of a bunch of different animals and it says, where do you draw the line between pet and food?

Have you guys seen this? On one side it starts out with chickens and pigs and cows and turkeys, and then it moves over into rabbits and squirrels and horses, and then it moves over into dogs and hamsters and cats and that kind of stuff. And they just say, well, where do you draw the line between pet and food? And the reason it's funny is because there's people who would say, I don't think any animal should die. I think they all should live. But at some point we say there's something. wrong with death. There's something we don't like about it. That sort of picture is meant to get our attention, and we look at it and go, I don't know if I like that. I don't know if I want to think about that. I don't want to think about a dog or an animal or a cat being killed and people potentially eating it. But that's not what I have a problem with. That's not the death that bothers me so much. The death, especially in Scripture, the death that strikes me as the most offensive

is Jesus' death. It's very, I think the best word for it, at least for myself to describe it, is emotional. That is the part of Scripture that I absolutely never want to read. I never want to read the account of Jesus being put to death. I don't want to hear it read. I don't want to hear it talked about. I mean, I can handle it if we talk about it theologically. And we talk about, well, he had to die, the righteous for the unrighteous. I can handle that. But the account of him being killed, I just can't handle it. And so we're preaching through the Gospel of Luke, and I know that that's coming. It's not here yet, but it's coming. And it's the sort of thing that just sets my teeth on edge. Because I don't want to read it. I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to preach about it. I wish it had never happened. I wish it hadn't needed to happen. And so our text this morning is Jesus talking about his death. Our text is actually two different times.

places or times when Jesus is talking and Luke puts them together because the topic is the same. The topic is Jesus' death. And so one time he's outside of Jerusalem, he's in Galilee, his homeland, and he's talking about, you know, there comes a death threat to him and he handles it. And then right on the back of that, he begins to talk about Jerusalem, which is the place that he is to die. And he talks about how Jerusalem always is killing people. How that's actually the reputation of the city that's supposed to be holy. That the reputation is not that they're holy, but rather that they're murderers. And that it's the place that he's going to be murdered. And so it's a difficult thing to talk about. It's a hard thing to talk about because of the outworking of what happens when Jesus dies. For those who are not covered by his blood. That's what we're going to be studying this morning.

Jesus' death. And what is it that causes, what has caused Jerusalem to be a place of death for the prophets of God? Would you please stand now for the reading of God's word? From Luke chapter 13, verses 31 through 35. This is the word of the Lord, and it is eternally true. Just at that time, some Pharisees approached, saying to him, go away, leave here, for Herod wants to kill you. And he said to them, go and tell that fox, behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I reach my goal. Nevertheless, I must journey on today and tomorrow and the next day, for it cannot be that a prophet would perish outside of Jerusalem. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, a city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her. How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it.

This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. So Jesus is going on, and he's teaching, and he's in Galilee, where Herod's the ruler. Herod's not the ruler of Jerusalem. He's the ruler of Galilee, which is a little north of Judea, north of Jerusalem. And then another section that borders on the east side. This is Herod's jurisdiction, and that's where Jesus is at. And so the Pharisees come to him, and they say to him, Herod wants to kill you. You need to go away. And we can't tell from the way that they speak whether this is true or a legitimate threat or not.

We can begin to consider it based on how Jesus responds, but first we're just told some Pharisees came up and they said, you need to get out of here because Herod wants to kill you. And this death threat from Herod was believable. Herod had already killed John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus, because John the Baptist was preaching and he says to Herod, you shouldn't have taken your brother's wife. That's adultery and it's against the law of God. And so Herod was... Actually, the scripture tells us Herod liked John the Baptist and he was afraid of John because he knew John was a righteous man. And so he protected him. And the reason he had to protect him is because his wife, the woman he was committing adultery with, his brother's former wife, wanted to kill John. And so Herod protected him. But then came a night where Herodias, his wife, sent her daughter in and petitioned Herod to kill John. And John, out of fear of the people,

Not John, I'm sorry, Herod. Herod had John killed. He had him beheaded and they presented Salome with his head. And so if someone says to you, Herod wants to kill you, it's not the sort of thing that you dismiss as going, well, he doesn't have the guts to do it. He's already killed. And he killed a man he loved, that he liked, that he respected, even that he feared. And so for them to say, he wants to kill you, is not something you go, well... He's just upset or you're lying. It's a very believable threat. And yet it wasn't possible. Jesus, he's sovereign, he's omnipotent, he knows everything. He knows Herod's not going to be the one who kills him. And so he has a knowledge of his future that you and I don't have, of our future. So he knows that when the Pharisees come and they say, Herod wants to kill you, he knows Herod can't kill him.

Because he knows he's to die in Jerusalem and he's to die at the hands of the Pharisees. And so it wasn't to be Herod's hands. And it wasn't to be outside of Jerusalem, Jesus' death. In fact, when Jesus is put to death, when he's in Jerusalem and Pilate has him, Pilate, if you read the account, you know Pilate doesn't want to kill Jesus. The Jews, they're frothing at the mouth and they're crying out for his blood. But Pilate doesn't want to kill him. He's ambivalent. It's not that he wants to save him. He just goes, I haven't found anything in this man worthy of death. And then there's this little phrase where they say something about him being from Galilee. That Jesus is from Galilee and Pilate keys in on it. And here's what he says. It says, when he, Pilate, learned that Jesus belonged to Herod's jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, the one who supposedly wants to kill him. And this is only...

This is not long after this is said. He sends him to Herod, who himself also was in Jerusalem at that time. Now Herod was very glad when he saw Jesus, for he wanted to see him for a long time, because he had been hearing about him and was hoping to see some sign performed by him. Doesn't sound like a death threat, does it? And he questioned him at length, but he, Jesus, answered him nothing. And the chief priests and the scribes were standing there accusing him vehemently. And Herod, with his soldiers, after treating him, Jesus, with contempt and mocking him, dressed him in a gorgeous robe and sent him back to Pilate. And so if Herod wanted Jesus dead, he had opportunity to do it. And yet he didn't. Now, both Pilate and Herod are politicians. And in that context, you also learn that before this interaction between them, they hate each other. And so maybe Herod does want to kill Jesus.

And there's something political going on that supersedes his desire to kill Jesus. And so that's why he sends him back to Pilate. We don't know the inner workings of what's going on there. And so all of that's to say, we don't know if this threat was truthful. We don't know if the Pharisee that brought this message were being honest. But we recognize it could be that they were honest. It could also be that they were being dishonest. That they were telling Jesus, You need to get out of here. You need to go away. And we're left thinking, so do the Pharisees have a reason to say that to Jesus, to try to get him to go away from Galilee? Well, yes, they do have a reason. We know after the fact that the Pharisees are the ones who sought his death. We just read about it when he was before Pilate, when he was before Herod. We know they wanted to see him die. And so it's plausible that the threat may have been a ploy to simply intimidate Jesus.

And to try to intimidate him into seclusion where they could kill him. It could have been a ploy to isolate him so that the Pharisees could see his influence dissipate and they could regain control. They can get the one who's upsetting all of their people and spreading all these strange teachings as they saw it. They could get him to go away so they could gather the people and get them back under control. We don't know what's going on. What we do know is how Jesus responded. He basically dismisses the threat. He says to them, Now what is his goal? His goal is that he would finish the path that was set before him, that he would enter into Jerusalem, and that he would die. That was his goal. He says, that a prophet would perish outside Jerusalem. And so this is the last part of what he says to the Pharisees when he's in Galilee. It could not be that a prophet would perish outside Jerusalem. And then Luke switches into something else that Jesus says about Jerusalem. He expands on this idea that Jerusalem kills prophets. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her.

What was Jerusalem? Jerusalem was to be a holy city. It was the place where God had chosen to dwell. It's the place where the temple was. It's the place where all of his people were to gather together and to worship him. This was a place that represented the God of heaven and earth to his people and to the world. It's meant to be a holy city, a righteous city. And yet Jesus doesn't describe it in those terms. He describes it as a murderous city that kills all of the prophets that are sent to him. So you have to wonder, why does Jerusalem kill all their prophets? Why were the prophets in danger when they went to Jerusalem? Why was their reputation that they would slaughter them? Well, to answer that question, we first have to begin to think, okay, what is a prophet?

So I ask you, what is a prophet? What's their work? What do they do? Teaching? Is that what you said? Yeah. It's all of these things. A prophet is a messenger from God sent to a particular people. Now, Jerusalem wasn't the only people or place that received prophets. But there were many sent to them. And they were sent with a message from God often. It's not exclusively, but almost exclusively, you need to turn from your sin and you need to repent or you're going to be destroyed in some way or another. You're going to be sent into captivity. You're going to lose your land. You're going to lose your families. You're going to lose your food. Something terrible is going to happen because of the sins that you're in. So God was in the habit, off the Old Testament, of raising up men, putting his words in their mouth, sending them to...

his people to rebuke them and to call them away from sin. And if you read the prophets in the Old Testament, the messages that they brought were not flattering messages. They were messages that make the hair stand up on the back of your neck. I was just talking to Vanessa on the way here this morning about the differences between male discourse and female discourse. Just the way that if a group of men get together and talk versus the way a group of women get together, and that both understand that you wouldn't talk that way in mixed company. You follow? There are things men would talk about or ways they would say things or behave, and I'm not talking about being vulgar for vulgar's sake or anything like that. I'm not excusing that. But there's a way that men speak that would be offensive to women, and it's not because it's necessarily wrong. It's just shocking. That's the word, shocking to a woman.

And the same could be said of women and the way that they speak. There are things that you women may talk about when it's just the women, and you know that if a man's even an earshot, you don't talk about that for different reasons. It would be shocking to the man, but for very different reasons than it would be if a woman heard the man speaking. And yet there are these places in the prophets where you have men speaking, and it's enough to make your... make you go, yuck, oh, whoa, no, I don't want to hear that. Whether you're a man, whether you're a woman. And the thing that stood out to me was the way the prophet Ezekiel described the harlotry of Israel. And he describes Israel as worse than a prostitute. I won't go into it all here because we're not preaching through it. But he goes into talking about the sort of harlotry that they gave themselves to as a people.

And that they were worse than prostitutes because at least prostitutes were paid for what they were doing. And yet Israel paid those who came into them. They invited them. They welcomed them. Now, is that how men speak or how women speak generally? Or let me ask you this. Who's more offended by that sort of speech? The men in the room or the women in the room? Are we not sure? It's the women who would be more offended by that. And they're not wrong to go, I can't believe you just said that. I can't believe that that's what came out of your mouth. It's so, yeah, it's so hyperbolic. It's so more than what is necessary. And yet those were God's words to his people sent through a prophet. And that's an extreme example of what the prophets would do, whether it was Jeremiah or Isaiah or Ezekiel or Hosea or Daniel or any of the prophets. They had difficult things to say to the people of God.

And they would go to the place of leadership. They'd go to Jerusalem, and they would prophesy against her, against the city, against the nation. So why were the prophets killed? Because the people hated what was said to them. When I started out saying, you know, we don't talk about death a lot in our culture. It's the sort of thing that we don't give voice to. It's real, and it happens, and we all have experienced it. in some manner or another, more recently or more distantly or more severely, more personally. We all have different experience with it, but it's not the sort of thing that's commonplace for us to talk about. And yet Jesus spends a lot of time talking about death, and here he says, this city that I'm going to, what they're known for is killing God's messengers. This holy city, that's what they do. They kill them. And they kill them because they don't want to hear what God has to say. And so do you know what the...

charge would be against those prophets. They didn't just kill them in a fit of anger. They didn't kill Jesus in a fit of anger. They had a trial, and they would accuse them of something. Do you know what they would accuse them of? Blasphemy, being a false prophet. Yeah, saying things. You said this, but God didn't say it. You're lying about God. You're blaspheming. And the penalty of being a false prophet in Israel was death. That if you claimed to speak on the behalf of God, but you were wrong, you were lying, you were guilty of death. And so they would trump up charges against these prophets, and in the end, for the sake of a trial, so that they could kill him. This is exactly what they did to Jesus. If we skip ahead, when he's out with his disciples and they come to him by night, they grab him, they bring him down, and quick in the morning, They wanted to kill him at night, but there was enough restraint to wait till morning. They gather together the Sanhedrin right as the sun's coming up in the morning. They have a real quick trial. They accuse him of claiming to be something that they say he's not, which is the king of the Jews, and they kill him. You're a false prophet, therefore we're killing you. You lie, you blaspheme. And this was that city's habit. And it culminates in Jesus being killed, but all through...

Their history, all through the Old Testament, this is what they did. They killed those who were sent to her. And so Jesus, when Jerusalem is called to his mind with his death, he says, what you guys are known for is killing those that God sends to you. Because you will not hear, you will not hear what God has to say. How long, how many times have I, like a hen gathers her chicks, longed to gather your children together to protect? That's when hens gather their chicks together. When there's danger, the hen squats down, she fluffs out her feathers and her wings, and all the chicks just run underneath her, and they're quiet. She's there to protect them from danger, from harm. How I've longed, like a hen with her chicks, how I've longed to gather your children together, and then what? You would not have it. And what we learn is that those who will not have the protection of God, who will not have the care of God, who will not have the discipline of God.

will turn against him. And not only against him, but those that bring his message to them. This is what they did with the prophets in the Old Testament. This is what they're preparing to do with Jesus. They're preparing to kill him because he's the final prophet that's sent to them. You remember the parable of the vineyard where the vineyard owner owns the vineyard and he goes away and he sends slaves to check on his vineyard. And what do those who have been left in charge of his vineyard do? They beat the slaves. They harm, they strip them, they shave them, they mock them, they scourge them, they send them away. And eventually, what does the vineyard owner say? He says, surely if I send them my son, they'll listen. What did they do to the vineyard owner's son when they found out he was the son? They killed him. Finally, we can be free from this oppression, free from this yoke, free from the bondage of the owner to do what we want. And that parable was describing

Jesus being sent to the Jews, to Jerusalem, to Israel, to God's people. And it was a foreshadowing, a foretelling of them not turning away from their sin, but doubling down on it and killing him. Jesus knew that Jerusalem was the place of his death. He knew what they were going to do to him, and he knew why. As his ministry grew, as he spoke, and he preached, and he healed, and he cured, And he raised from the dead. As he did his work, the Pharisees' hatred for him and opposition to him grew. And they plotted and they wanted to do away with him, to get rid of him. So if someone came to you and said, you guys always do this thing. Historically, you've always done this thing. It's always what's gone on here. And it's true. It is always what's gone on here. If you were the ones being...

who fit into Jerusalem, they can't deny the truthfulness of Jesus' claim. They've killed the prophets. They can't say, no, we didn't. It's just not true. The tombs of the prophets are there. The tombs of the prophets are there because they've built them and because they honor them and they lay garlands on them. In Luke, we don't get much context for this Jesus statement about Jerusalem, but if we go into Matthew, a parallel account, it comes at the end of all of the woes. And then he comes to them and he says this to them at the end of Matthew 23. He says, And so what is their answer to the accusation, You kill the prophets and you stone those who are sent to you. They say, well, if we were there, it wouldn't have happened. Or put another way, we don't do that anymore. That was the past. It was something that was unfortunate, that was wrong. They're copping to the guilt of it and saying that was a wicked thing that happened here. But if we had been there, we would not have done it. But Jesus goes on and he says, so you testify against yourselves.

That you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up then the measure of the guilt of your fathers. Because he knows what their intention is with him. He knows that they are lying to themselves. They are lying to anyone who will believe them. But their intention is wicked. They purpose to kill him. That's their design. To do exactly what their fathers have done with the prophet of their day. As I was preparing this sermon, there was lots of questions I had. It was difficult for me to prepare for a number of reasons. But one of the things that came up was I said, I wondered, okay, so I don't have chickens. So what's it look like? Why do chickens, why do hens gather their chicks and what does that look like? You know, you have this idea of a shepherd, you know, when he gathers his sheep, he's got the shepherd's hook. And he's not always necessarily nice in the way he does it. He's got this big long stick with a hook and if one of them's getting away, he reaches out and grabs it by its neck and pulls it back. It's not the most gentle.

But if there's a cliff over there, then that's far better than falling off the cliff because you didn't want to be rough with the sheep. And so I thought, well, maybe hens are aggressive or vigorous in the way that they gather their chicks. Maybe it was difficult. And so I looked up. How do hens do this? And it's not. It's very gentle. They're clucking and chirping and stuff, and they sit down and they cluck and chirp, and all the chicks come to them. So Jesus said to them, how often I've wanted to gather you together just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings. You have to ask, if Jesus had a desire to do something, do we believe that he would have acted on it? Or would he just have a latent desire? I wish that you guys would come to me, but I haven't taken any action to that end. Well, no. We think, okay, if Jesus has a desire that these people would come to him, would be gathered to him, we presume...

that he acts to that end. So how did Jesus act to gather Jerusalem? He sent them prophets. He sent them prophets. And the prophets are described as the hens, the hand of God, the kindness and the mercy of God, being sent to his people who have gone astray and who have difficult things, hard things, warnings, curses. In their mouths, from God, for the people of God. And that's described as the hen gathering her chicks, as the kindness of God to them. Because of what lies on the other side. If they won't turn, if they won't repent. And what lays on the other side of it? Jesus says, behold, your house is left to you desolate. Now what is their house? It's the temple.

The temple is left to you. When Jesus went into Jerusalem, when he first shows up, they go, man, check this out. You've got to see this. Look at how glorious. Look at the majesty. Look at the glory. This is where God is. This place is awesome. And what does Jesus say? He says, I can tear down the temple and rebuild it in three days. They've put their hope and their faith and their glory not in God or in his messengers, but in this building. And he says, behold, your house is left to you desolate. What's he saying to them? You don't understand who I am. And because you don't understand who I am, or you won't repent because of who I am, I'm leaving. There was a time when, like a hen gathered her chicks, I would send you prophets, I would send you care, I would send you love. But that time is gone. Why? Because you would not have it. You killed the prophets and stoned those who were sent to you. So behold, your house is left to you.

And what is God saying except that he is going to remove his presence, remove his glory, remove his care from his people, from the Jews at that time. And what was the consequence of it? Not 50 years later, it was laid waste. The Romans who occupied Jerusalem destroyed it. They laid it low. Not one stone left on top of another. They were left with their house. And it was laid waste. It was made desolate. And then he says, you're not going to see me until you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. And you say, when I read it, I went, okay, this is really weird. Because the people that he's talking about are the people who killed the prophets and stoned them. So these are not Christians. People who don't love God. And he says he's removing himself from them. He's giving them over and removing his care and his protection that they had enjoyed.

for centuries. And then at the end, he says, you're not going to see me again until you say, blessed is he who comes in the Lord. And when we understand, blessed is he who comes in the Lord, we say, well, who says that? Well, people who want to see Jesus, people who love Jesus, people who are excited about him. Now, that thing, that phrase, blessed is he who comes in the Lord, was said just a few days later. It was said at the triumphal entry. After they'd gone into the city and they'd gotten the colt and they brought it out and they laid down their cloaks on the ground and on the donkey and they were waving the palm branches, they said, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. And the people are crying out. And do you remember what the Pharisees did? Jesus, tell your people to be quiet. Tell them not to do what they're doing. And what's Jesus' response? If I tell them to be quiet, the rocks will cry out.

But at some point, aren't they all going to say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord? I say yes. In the same way that some will say, Lord, Lord, did we not cast out demons in your name? Did we not visit the poor and care for you? Have we not done everything that you required? And what will his answer be to them? Depart from me, for I never knew you, you who practice lawlessness. When you see them saying, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, we all want it to be a happy ending. Oh, they repent. Oh, it's great. The truth is, they're not going to repent. They're going to be condemned. And when they finally realize who Jesus is and they confess the truth that he's come in the name of the Lord, they'll speak it to their shame, to their death. It'll stand as their own condemnation. It'll be too late.

There was a season for them to turn. There was a season for them to repent. There was a season for them to believe. And they neglected it. They squandered it. They refused. They would not have it. And then when it was too late, they realized. But there was nothing that could be done. So this city was known for killing those that God sent to him, for rejecting the message and the messenger. Matthew Henry says something on this text to the effect of, If they won't believe the message, then they'll be turned, if they won't be turned by the message, they'll be turned against the messenger. And that's, you know, you hear people say things and, you know, the going-ons of normal life, and they say, don't kill me, I'm just the messenger. And what they're trying to do is separate themselves from the message and say, I am different. And is it true? Yeah, it's true. But what are they really separating themselves from?

They're not separating themselves from the message. They're separating themselves from the one who sent them. And they're saying, I'd rather have unity with you than with the one who sent me to do this. So in a workplace, we say, well, yeah, I get it, but okay. And I say, okay, so if God has sent a messenger and the messenger says, it's not me. I'm just here to tell you what he said. It's not me. What am I saying? I'm saying I care more about what you think and what you can do to me. or say about me, or think about me, or whatever, than I do about the one who's sent me. And nowhere in Scripture do you see messengers saying, I'm just the messenger. And so we ought not, as Christians, to say, I'm just the messenger. I'm just God's messenger. I am neutral about the content. It's not me. We dishonor God if we do that.

The messenger is the message. And those who won't hear the message will turn against the messenger. So here's the final thing I want to connect. If you were to ask people, if I were to ask you, what is your disposition towards Jesus? Do you love him? Do you hate him? Are you ambivalent to him? I think most people would want to say, I love him. I'm interested in him. I try to I try to do what he says. We would have a favorable view of him. And I'd say, okay, let's be a little more specific. Let's just move away from the man Jesus. And let's say, okay, what is your disposition toward the things Jesus said? And I think our praise or our contentment would come down a little bit. And we say, well, he said some hard things. Good man, godly man, love him, all that.

He said some difficult things that are really hard. And if we say that, we would only be saying what his followers said about it. When they said, who can bear that? He says something and they go, that's a hard thing. Who can bear it? We'd only be saying what they say. But we would still be disciplined in our answer to realize we can't say, I hate what Jesus has to say. What Christian would say, I hate what he has to say. I don't have any interest in what Jesus has to say. Because we'd just go, well, you're not a Christian then. You can't hate what Jesus says and say you're a Christian. That's not possible. And so I say, okay, Jesus is great and we love him. His words, they're hard. What about his messengers? What's your disposition toward his messengers? And then what I find as I look across Scripture is that the people of God who are in rebellion, they don't have any problem hating his messengers. They don't have any problem being honest and saying, death for you.

We don't like you. You don't speak for God. You can't say that to me. This is the testimony of Scripture. This is why they killed him. Is it different today than it was then? It's not different today than it was then. What does Paul warn Timothy against in the final days? What does he say about the people? He says, beware. In the final days, they're going to accumulate for themselves what? Teachers in accordance with their own desires. Who tickle their ears. Who tell them what they want to hear. But don't you give in to it, Timothy, you man of God. Teach and preach and give yourself to the things that I have taught you. So can you hate God's messenger and love God? You can't. You can't. Sorry, you can't. Unless the one who says he's the messenger of God prophesies falsely.

if he says things that are wicked, things that are unbiblical, things that are blasphemous, then by all means, remove yourself from him. Remove him from you. But if the message that is brought to you comes from the word, and it's clearly biblical, even if it's difficult, you may not reject the messenger. And I say that because every one of us would want to. I would want to. When someone comes to me and has something to say to me that's difficult or hard or offensive, that strikes at my pride and says, no, Dave, you think more highly of yourself than you ought, and you may not. What do I want to do? Get out of my face. Who do you think you are to talk to me like that? Don't you know my struggle? Don't you know what's hard? Don't you know all the context that makes what I'm doing permissible? What would the prophet of God say? No. You know what the truth is?

I don't know all of your circumstances. I don't know all of your particulars. But I do know what God has said. And what he said is that what you're engaged in is wicked. And you have to stop. Now, the mark of Jerusalem was when that message came to them, they killed the messenger. It goes back into the Old Testament. Paul warns Timothy about it in the New Testament. And that sentiment is alive and well today in every one of our hearts. Now, is that the only response that you can have to the message? Of God. To the messenger who brings it. No. That's not the only response you can have. What other response is there? Repentance. Humility. Yeah. You're right. That's going to be difficult. That's going to be hard. I don't want to do that. That's the fight that Christians fight. That's the fight that Paul was describing in Romans 7 in our scripture lesson.

We fight against our sinful desires and our sinful lusts. And you know what? You know who ends up taking it on the chin when something bad happens? At home, you all know the joke. The guy comes home, and he had a bad day, and what does he do? He kicks the dog. The dog's just like, oh, well, you're here, and you're in my way, and so you kick the dog. I don't have dogs anymore, but you understand the sentiment. There has to be some object. To receive my frustration. Well, in Jerusalem, that was the messenger. That was the prophet. The prophet was the one who was killed. He was the dog who got kicked. He's the one who suffered because of their persistent rebellion. My desire is that that would not be true of any one of us. That we would not rebel against the things of God, the word of God, and kill the messengers. Will we be told hard things in our life? Only if we're loved.

Only if we're loved. Those who don't love you, they won't say hard things to you, ever. But those who love you, they'll discipline you for your good. And what's appropriate is to respond to their love with love. So you have to stop up your mouth with your excuses. You can't lie to yourself the way the Pharisees did and said, well, I wouldn't have done that if I was there. You would have. This temptation is common to man. And what we want to be doing is cultivate. cultivating in our own hearts humility before God and before his messengers. And you know what Calvin says about preachers and about the messengers? He could have sent you angels to preach to you. He really could have. He could have made it to where we walked on our pointer fingers if he wanted to. He could have done anything he wanted. But when he set up his church after Jesus' ascension, he assigned sinful men.

To proclaim his message. He could have done something else. And it probably would have been more palatable for most of us if he had. If he didn't have to listen to someone that is obnoxious to us. And I know that from time to time that's how you think of me. It's not surprising. There are times I think you're obnoxious. Because you are sometimes. Just like I am sometimes. Just be honest. We're all sinners here. And yet God has placed a calling. within his church upon certain men to be his messengers. And it's our place to love them and not to kill them. You say, I would never kill them. And I say, yeah, I know you wouldn't kill them. Okay, well, will you obey them? Obey your rulers and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls. And then what? Let them do this with joy and not with sorrow, for that would be unprofitable for you. So make it your business to not be Jerusalem.

to not be those who are known as the intransigent, stubborn, stick-in-the-mud, never pleased, frustrated with somebody about something. Don't be Jerusalem. It's easy to be Jerusalem, but in the end, their house is left to them desolate. And I don't want that for any of us. I don't want that for me, and I don't want that for you. So don't be Jerusalem. Don't be one of the ones who lies to yourself when actually you are in this very moment. plotting to kill Jesus because of your rebellion. You've heard this question where people say, well, if you were there, would you have been among the crowds that followed Jesus or among the crowd that put him to death? And so, you know, we want to think, oh, I would have been with the crowd that loved him. And then we think, oh, but I'm a sinner. I would have been with the crowd that killed him. And I say, you know what? You didn't live 2,000 years ago. You live now. What do you do now? Do your actions today

Are they cause for his death? Are they the fruit of his resurrection? That's the question that's to you. He died because you're a sinner. That's settled. Do you return like a dog to his vomit to your sin? Or do you repent and do you live in the life that he died to secure for you? That's the question. Are you the old Jerusalem or are you the new Jerusalem? Do you love the prophets that God raises up or do you hate them? Do you love the word of God? In all of its sharp edges? Or do you need to be praised and worshipped and thanked and given room to be yourself? I don't need room to be myself. I became a Christian because of who I was. I hope that's true of you as well. You know, I've had enough of me. I know who myself is. Myself is not something that's attractive. I don't need room to be more of that. The last thing I'll say is part of the reason this sermon was hard for me to prepare is because

I'm the messenger that God's given to you if you go to this church. And it's a miserable thing for me to have to think about standing up here and saying this, knowing that how many of you know my sin and have seen it? Which one of us wants to stand up and tell somebody else what they ought to do? And tell them when they're in sin, when they could easily say, let he who is without sin cast the first stone. What can I say to you? God gave me this work and he's going to hold me to a higher account. And so it's I endeavor to be faithful in doing it. And I know that sometimes that's going to be uncomfortable for you, and I don't apologize for that. The elders don't apologize for that. David's not sorry for that. That doesn't mean that we're ambivalent and like, well, whatever, do what you want. If you're not going to listen, just get out of here. That's not our desire. We do not want to see that be the end. But we do have a principle of not tickling your ears because we know that that wouldn't be good for you. And so we expect and look to God to cultivate in you a desire for the truth.

even when it hurts, even when it's difficult, even when it's not what you want to hear. And I ask, as your pastor, that you afford me the same privilege. Some of you think, man, you're a piece of work. And some of you think, man, does he ever sin? He must be a perfect husband. I know none of you ever tell me that, but my life's a fishbowl. Everything I do, you watch. And we implicitly think of our leaders, well, the things they do must be right. Some of us think everything they do is right. Some of us think nothing they do is right. But to those of you who think that everything I do is right, you're wrong.

And yet God calls you to submit to the messengers that he sent to you, to hear his voice. Jesus said, my sheep hear my voice. So the question to you is, do you hear God's voice? Do you hear what he has to say? Have I said something that's out of line with scripture? If I have, tell me. If I haven't, then it's your work to submit to it. I don't like to. Well, that's a part of life. We often are made to do things that in the moment are unpalatable to us. We do them by faith, and in time we see God bless that faith, that obedience, with fruit. And that's our hope. So don't be Jerusalem. Don't be left desolate. Love Jesus and love his messengers and his word. Let's pray.