Good morning. Before we get started, two housekeeping items. Carol has asked if I would remind all the young families from Sunday school that there is a practice right after the service. So do not pass go, do not collect $200, stick around and talk to Mrs. Pollard about that. The other thing is, sign of life is babies, baby bumps, and new weddings. And we had two engagements last weekend. One of those couples is here this morning. So I want to draw attention to Bryson in Alabama and congratulate them on their engagement. Uncles, don't quit praying for your nephews. God answers prayers. We're gonna look this morning at Matthew 23, verses 29 to 39. So turn in your Bibles here, please. Matthew 23, 29 to 39, and once you are there, then I would ask if you would please stand in reverence for God's word. And these are the inerrant words of our Lord. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, saying, if we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with him in the shedding of blood of the prophets. Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up then the measure of your fathers, you serpents, you brood of vipers. How are you to escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town. so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it. How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing. See, your house is left to you desolate, for I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, and may God bless the reading of his word. You may be seated. So we continue on where we left off on Jesus's second Sermon on the Mount at the Temple Mount at the end of his ministry. And we've seen this pattern that the woes that Jesus is announcing on the scribes and the Pharisees of his time is the polar opposite of the beatitudes that he announced, the blessings that he announced on his first Sermon on the Mount. We've seen, and I hope you've really seen the poetry and the beauty and the storytelling nature of our God in this. to see that Jesus is Israel. Jesus's life follows the contours of Israel's history perfectly. Now why is that? Is that because Jesus, as a very astute 12-year-old boy, sat down, read the scriptures, and says, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna live my life in such a way that it mirrors the history of Israel. No. That's backwards. God wrote the history of Israel to go exactly as it did because he had decreed the Messiah would do what he did. Every move, every warp and woof and contour and bend of Israel's history was intentionally designed by God to be a type and a shadow of the Messiah, the one who would come. Israel's history was to get people to internalize the way the Messiah, the way Mashiach, would be. And so we've seen as we've gone through the Gospel of Matthew that Jesus has gone through several chapters of Old Testament history and even the way he ministers mirrors that where he starts as Moses giving law from a mountain and now at the end of his ministry he's in the Jeremiah phase. He is a prophet who weeps over Jerusalem and the destruction that she has begged God to give her through her unbelief. And so Jesus is concluding his series of woes on this city and this lament over Jerusalem. And again, because it is the photo negative, because it is the polar opposite of that first sermon on the mount, we're going to start there. This last woe contrasts with the last blessing in Matthew 5, verses 10 and 11, which says, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you, and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. And so the truth is that this is a theme, this theme of suffering, this theme of persecution, is a theme that we've seen all through the Bible. It's woven in all through the stories of Scripture from Genesis onward, that God's people are often a pilgrim people, often a struggling people, often persecuted, often reviled, often misunderstood, often mistreated. And since it is clear that the Lord's heart is with the persecuted, that the Lord's heart is with the reviled, how then do we think he views the persecutors? How then do we think God looks at those who harm his people, who whip them and flog them? And we see a picture of how God views these persecutors in verses 29 through 31. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, saying, if we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in the shedding the blood of the prophets. Thus you witness against yourselves that you are the sons of those who murdered the prophets. People have always, and it continues down into our day, named things and built monuments and statues after those whom they want to honor. And this was a common practice in the time of Christ for graves to be marked, for monuments to be set up to honor those from the past. We do that today, they did it then. And here, in verse 30, these people who have erected these monuments are even willing to acknowledge that their fathers were the ones who shed the blood of these righteous men. But of course, they believe that they are the heroes of the story. They are better than their fathers, by their own admission. So they acknowledge, yes, our fathers did that, but we're better. We're better. We're different. It's different now. And of course, that echoes down to today, doesn't it? Isn't it a curious thing? Think about this for a minute. Is it not a curious thing that everybody you know Would have been the good guys in 1840s in Maryland when the slave ships showed up? Isn't that curious? Everyone you know would have been on the right side of history. Amazing. Remarkable. Isn't it interesting that everybody you know would have been one of the good guys in Russia in the 1910s? Remarkable. It's a miracle. Everybody you know would have been the good guy in that story. Everybody you know would have been one of the good guys in Germany in the 1930s. It's a miracle, isn't it? Look at how we have evolved. Everyone you know would have been the good guy in this story. Remarkable. Amazing, isn't it? Of course. I'm making fun of that. That's nonsense. Not everyone you know would have been the good guy. Just watch the way they live right now. You'll see that they wouldn't have been the good guy. They say that. It's easy to say that you would have been the good guy, but the way they live their lives now says, no, I'm pretty sure you would have been one of the bad guys in that story. How do I know? Well, because you're one of the bad guys today. That's how I know. It costs nothing to say you would have been on the right side of significant things. Why are they so convinced? Why are we so convinced that we would have been the good guys? Is it because of deeply held sincere biblical convictions? Or is it because in your grade 8 social studies class you were told by a pagan educator what the right opinion was? And you just assume that now. Why? Why would you have been the good guy? How would you have known what the right side and the wrong side was? Because of your social studies teacher or because of actual deep rock-ribbed commitments to the Word of God? How do you know? How do you know? I think we can tell the sides not so much by what people say they would have done, but by the way they are currently living, by the way they currently relate to the cultural demands around them. We see in our own time, and we see with these Pharisees and Sadducees and scribes, that it takes absolutely zero courage to renounce the sins of past ages, especially, especially when everyone in the culture, all the banks, all the corporations, all the media, everything is telling you to say what you say. That takes no courage whatsoever. None. That's not an honorable thing at all. Some practical examples. Our culture has made racism the cardinal sin. And of course, the Bible does say things about partiality and tribalism. It is a sin. But our culture has said, yeah, we can agree with the Bible on that, and they have made it a cardinal sin, a mortal sin, if you will. So, for those of us who are alive today, it really takes no courage and it costs nothing to denounce the slave trade from 200 years ago. Because everyone in your culture tells you, yeah, say that, say that, say that, say that. And of course, as Christians, we know man stealing and selling people like their property was actually a capital crime in the Old Testament, so we can say that. God hated that. God hates stealing other people. God hates treating people like property. Yes, we can say that, but when the whole culture is rallying around and encouraging you to say that, it takes no bravery. So if you're condemning the slave trade today, you're doing so from a place of safety. It costs you nothing. because there's no pressure on you to say the opposite. In fact, the pressure's on you to do that. However, if you're condemning those sins which were popular in other places and in other generations, but you are silent about the sins which are very popular in your own time, I know which side you would have been on back then, too, because your courage tells the story, not what comes out of your mouth. The courage tells the story. If you're announcing sins of another time and making friends with the sins of your own time, you're not courageous, you're a conformist. And you are showing that you would have been on the wrong side back then too. And so again, our own time has amplified sins like man stealing, slave trading, and so forth. But you know what it has done at the same time? It has made a virtue out of other sins. It has taken sexual perversion and not only said this is acceptable, this is good. When the trumpet sounds, all rise and weep tears of joy for sexual perversion. Do you rise and do you obey when the trumpet calls you to stand up? Are you going to weep those tears of joy? That takes courage because now you're actually swimming against the stream of your own culture. If you correctly dislike the fascism and the authoritarianism and the heavy-handedness of the past, of the Russian Revolution or of 1930s Germany, that's good. But what about the same thing that's happening today? Are you willing to stand up against that same authoritarian, that same kind of statist idol worship in our own time as it was back then? The people who would have stood for righteousness back then are also the ones who are doing righteous things today, righteous things which also happen to be culturally unacceptable in our own time. Who are the heroes today that would have been the heroes back then? Well, they're the people who are doing abortion clinic ministry. They're the people who don't stand up and celebrate sexual sin. That's how you can tell who would have been on the right side back there. And so just like the cowards and the effeminate and the fakers of our own time, the priests and the Pharisees and the scribes and the Sadducees and the hypocrites of Jesus' time said with their mouths that they would have been on the righteous side. But what does their current behavior dictate? What are they actually doing right at the moment when they're saying, back like 500 years ago, for sure we would have been on the right side. Okay, well what are you actually doing right now? That's what Jesus is interested in. And this is within weeks of Jesus's cousin John being sent to a re-education camp to correct his errant thinking about sexual morality. And the way Herod and Herodias taught him, they really made sure that their teaching went to his head, very literally. You remember, his head was brought out on a platter, right? They were gonna get John to think the correct thoughts. And where were these men when that was happening? silent as a mouse. Why? Well, because they also had problems with John. John also indicted them in his preaching out in the wilderness, condemning them for not coming to his baptism. So these men were just quiet. They were cowards in the face of one of God's current prophets being persecuted. They said they would have been on the right side there. It's within living memory, within weeks, that they were on the wrong side of John's execution further. The very last, the very terminal prophet from God sent to them at this time. They are talking with God's terminal last prophet, and what are they doing when they're talking to him? Planning to kill him. Would these men have been on the right side with Jeremiah and Isaiah? Absolutely not. They're the same kind of cowards. They're cut from the same kind of hypocritical, effeminate, cowardly cloth that refuses to stand up to evil. They were complicit in John's execution, and now they themselves are planning to kill Jesus himself. They're cut from the same cloth as their fathers. They're no more righteous, they're no more good, and they're no more noble than their fathers. And Jesus says in verse 31 that they're actually witnessing against themselves with their own assertions. Okay, so even apart from their actions, which prove that they are just going with whatever the flow is, whatever the culture demands of them at that time, Their own words actually indict them. And you sometimes notice this. When people are talking, they accidentally tell the truth. And accidentally, because they're not taking care, the truth comes out of their mouth accidentally. What do they call these guys? Their fathers. So Jesus is saying, oh, oh, so they are your fathers. You continue to identify with them. You continue to bear their guilt. You say, they're fathers. They're happy to identify as the sons of the men who killed God's messengers. And their actions are demonstrating the same thing. Yes, they are cut from the same cloth. Again, these are men without chests who would rather kill the prophets than to repent of their sin. Repenting of their sin seems costly. That seems hard. That seems humiliating. They're not going to do that. What will we do instead? Well, we're just going to kill the guy that's making us feel uncomfortable. The Puritan David Dixon says here that the world loves dead prophets better than the living. For the living reprove their sin more directly than the dead. And isn't that the truth? The dead guys are safe, they can't hurt me anymore. The living guys, they're the threat. They're the ones you have to look out for. And of course, we are not immune from this in the church world today. How many men, even men in church leadership, secretly read Edwards, and they read Whitefield, and they read Kelvin, and they read Spurgeon? But then they refuse to bring that with them into the pulpit or into church leadership because they're scared somebody might find out that they're reading one of these guys. They don't want to get consistent. I recently saw that actually with Charles Spurgeon. Someone sent me a clip where a preacher had used a Charles Spurgeon quote to prove a point that was directly opposite of what Spurgeon himself actually believed. It's like this dissonance that people don't understand. People admire, almost everyone universally loves Charles Spurgeon because of his devotional material. The Prince of Preachers, he had these soaring, these towering theological insights, and then partially because of his own depression, he could gently apply the balm of the gospel to any broken soul. People love Spurgeon. What they hate is the theology that made both of those things possible. They hate the rock-ribbed theology that gives him those towering insights, and they hate the Reformed theology that nurtures and can apply the balm of the gospel to those who are struggling, those who cannot save themselves, those who cannot even choose to save themselves, but who are the object of God's mercy. We continue to put high-sounding names like Kelvin, or Dort, or Lutheran, or Knox, or Westminster, on houses of worship, or seminaries, or colleges, and yet everything that happens inside those institutions are things that those men in those traditions would have absolutely hated. I always, Knox is my favorite one, because Knox was such a firebrand. I drive past churches named Knox in Winnipeg, and I think, boy oh mighty, are you ever glad that John Knox is not here to come clean up the fact that his name is on this abomination. I'm convinced that half the churches, half the seminaries that have the names of their great founders on them, hate everything that those great founders stood for. and those founders would come back and indict them. Could you imagine Kelvin going to Michigan and say, you put my name on this? There's a rainbow group here and my name is on this college? Come on, at least be honest. Take my name off the door. I don't want this. Luther, no different. We continue to do the same thing. We honor great men with our lips and then we refuse to follow them in our actions. And so too, these Pharisees in their own time, they honor Moses, they honor Joshua, they honor Jeremiah, now that these men are all a safe distance away through death. But the prophets, like John and Jesus, who are close enough to hurt them, must be ignored. And worse, they must even be opposed to the point of death. I think Peter Lightheart, in his commentary on Matthew, lays out how this works, the psychology of what these people are doing. He says here that Jesus recognizes the interconnection between persecution and the glorification of the persecuted. The scapegoat who is destroyed for the sake of the people is always honored and glorified, note this, by the same people who put him to death. It is part of the story. It's part of the drama of scapegoating, the last act of the play. Here's how it works. Prophets turn things upside down. Prophets disrupt. Prophets throw tables around the temples, and they silence the religious leaders. If we are going to have peace and quiet, we have got to stop the prophets. We have got to silence them. Prophets get killed always, always for the sake of the people, always for the sake of the peace and harmony of the community. But then, a miracle happens. The community quiets down, harmony is restored, and the prophet who was making everyone uncomfortable is now quietly in his grave and they can get on with their lives. and they realize that killing the scapegoat is what saved the city. The scapegoat turns out to be a savior. The man who was tearing the city down was actually keeping it from falling apart. So in the last act, the very same people who put the scapegoat out and cry out for his blood erect monuments to him. I think that's a good description of how this works. And so the question we need to ask ourselves in our own time, anytime we need to ask this, what do we want? Do we want actual peace or do we just want comfort for the next 20 minutes? What do you want? Do you want lasting peace with God or do you just want your life to stay comfortable and go on the way you are familiar with? What do you want? We need to examine ourselves to see if our convictions are actually the product of scripture, or if we have just internalized the spirit of the age more deeply than we think we have. Where do our convictions come from? Are they shaped by the scripture? Are they shaped by social media? Are they shaped by your unbelieving history teacher? We need to ask ourselves who we are. Jesus goes on, verse 32 to 36, he says, Therefore, I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. Genesis 15, 16, when Yahweh promises the land to Abram, the promise is delayed. And does anyone remember why the promise is delayed? Because the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. These people that you are going to take the land from are so busy sinning against me, but, but, but, but, just wait, Abram. You're gonna have to be patient, because I'm actually gonna give them four more generations to fill up the cup of my fury against them. Once that cup is full, I will act, and then you can come in. So be patient. But the Amorites' wickedness is not yet full. And that's terrifying language, to think that all these people who are currently occupying this space are only storing up more wrath until God is ready to strike. It's a sobering thing to think that God has consigned a rebellious people to the most certain doom that awaits them. They're waiting for the sword to swing. And instead of humbling themselves with repentance, all they do is store up more wrath for themselves. On a very small scale, this verse reminded me of a particular shopping trip to a furniture store up in St. James when I was a little kid. I don't remember what I did, but there was promised wrath when we got home. And that was not a fun wait, okay? And I'm sure I'd stored up more wrath for myself on the way, because that's what rebellious little hearts do. That's what rebellious big hearts do too. This is a terrifying, this is a sobering thing. For Jesus to tell an entire city, an entire class of religious leaders, you're gonna fill up the cup of your fathers. And in fact, all their guilt is gonna drop on your head. That seems weird again to our North American way of thinking, this covenantal bond with previous generations, with future generations, that these people are going to also pay for the sins of their fathers? In a sense, yes. The sin of their fathers, like the sin of the Amorites, is not yet full. God is going to let them fill it up and then the cup will spill over and there will be fury everywhere. Romans 2 verse 4 and 5 gives a similar picture. Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and his forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. Terrifying language. God's wrath is a tsunami that you do not want to face. This is a terrifying thought that God is letting the cup get fuller before he acts. Revelation chapter 17, the city of Jerusalem is pictured as a great prostitute, a great harlot, and she's moving around with this chalice filled up to the brim with the blood of the martyrs. This woman is drunk on the blood of the people that she has killed. And on this Tuesday of Holy Week, In the time of Jesus, this chalice is not quite full, almost, but not quite. But it will be very soon, when the blood of Jesus is added to it, and then we read through the book of Acts when the blood of the apostles and martyrs is added to it. This harlot is going to continue to drink, get drunk, totter, and then be struck down. Because these wicked men are at war against God, Jesus uses languages that demonstrates the warfare nature of this confrontation. He lets them know that they are working on behalf of the serpent. This is that age-old battle that started in the garden between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. And by calling them brood of vipers and serpents, Jesus is saying, I'm here, I'm the seed of the woman. And you are preparing to strike me at the heel because you are the seat of the serpent. You are working as agents of your father, the devil. This is cosmic warfare that you have declared on me. You people are sons of Satan, you religious leaders. Your robes, your temple worship, your incense isn't gonna help you. You are sons of Satan. not soft language. Spurgeon, commenting on this, says that a good surgeon cuts deep, as did Jesus. Our modern preachers would not talk like this, even to scribes and Pharisees who were crucifying Christ afresh and putting him out to an open shame. He is not the most loving who speaks the smoothest words. True love often compels an honest man to say that which pains him far more than it affects his careless hearers. You hear what Charles Spurgeon is saying? It hurts the preachers more to give these hard words than the people are listening to them. But Spurgeon himself was not a smooth man. He was not a soft man, at least not to religious hypocrites he wasn't. He had hard words because he wanted to be a good surgeon, like Jesus Christ himself was. Verse 34, Jesus lets these men know that even after they kill the Christ, more are going to come after him. And they're going to kill these people as well. These are the early church martyrs who are going to fill up the chalice, the last of the way. And you get that picture, you know, when you fill a glass carefully, you get that little meniscus, right? You can actually overfill a glass. That's where we're at in the story when they killed Jesus. That meniscus is formed, it's actually over the glass. But once you add in the blood of Stephen, once you add in the blood of James, once you add in the blood of the early church, now it spills out. And God's fury is everywhere in Jerusalem. God's anger has finally spilled out and the wine of the wrath of his fury is all over the city streets. Jesus lets them know that this is carrying on the long line of martyrs that already started with Abel and ending with Zechariah. In our alphabet, that's a very literal A to Z of the martyrs of the Hebrew Bible. But not only that, we read about Zechariah in 2 Chronicles, which the content of the Hebrew Bible, of course, is the same as our Old Testament, but they ordered it differently. Second Chronicles was the last book of their canon. So this is not only A to Z, this is also Genesis to Revelation in terms of the Hebrew Bible that was existent at that time. Jesus is saying from beginning to end, all these prophets, all these martyrs that you've read about in your Bible, all of that blood is going to be vindicated in this generation. because you people are also guilty of murdering the Son of God himself. From Abel onward, there's innocent blood crying out to Yahweh from the ground, as we read about in Genesis 4.10. And Jesus is following along in the same line of martyrs. He is the greater Abel, the faithful son who's offering a true sacrifice. But more blood will come shortly after him. Jerusalem is going to drink Stephen's blood, and then James, and then hundreds of Christian martyrs, and God bless the cup fill up to the brim, and then when it is full, he strikes Jerusalem, and Jerusalem totters and falls. Like the Amorites, this city's iniquity is now complete. It's over. And in the time of waiting, Jerusalem has been preparing, not repentance, but she has been busy preparing her own destruction, her own judgment. And it lands, by Jesus' own admission in verse 36, on Jerusalem in the time when his original audience is still alive. So if you're hearing Jesus say this when you're an 18-year-old boy, by the time you're Mr. Dirksen or Mr. Thiessen's age, you see it happen. This prophecy happened in your lifetime. You got to see it, that God does not stumble when he makes a prophecy. This happened in that generation. The people who heard the sermon were forced to watch it. That was part of their punishment. It's a terrifying thing to presume on God's patience. And to presume on his long suffering, so that we think, well, because God has been patient in the past, he'll be patient forever, I can just keep going my way. The Bible says that's storing up wrath, and it will land at one point. And so again, we may ask why. Why should this city in this time, why should first century Jerusalem be punished for all the blood of every righteous man that was martyred all through the Old Testament? That's what Jesus says is gonna happen. That probably strikes at our sense of justice in an individualistic society. Why? How is that fair? How is that not unjust of God to avenge Abel's blood on these people who weren't even alive when Abel's blood was shed? was spilt, and we can give several answers. One is that Israel was to be set apart as a priestly nation. This was a whole nation that was in covenant with the Lord, and they were tasked with keeping his house on earth. These were God's housekeepers on earth. They had a special responsibility, but as we discussed in Sunday school this morning, when you get an extra responsibility, if you're a poor steward of that, it's worse rather than better that you were entrusted with so much. as a priestly nation because priests bear the burden of the people that they represent. And so as a priestly nation, Israel bears the burdens of others in a way that the pagan nations would not have. And so this kingdom of priests, if they were acting rightly, they would have acted like Jesus himself, accepted that responsibility and taken it to the Lord with a humble and self-giving heart. but instead they act like Adam, trying to get out from the responsibility. Well, this woman you gave me, you don't understand. In this modern time, in first century Israel, it's really hard to obey. They're making excuses. We wouldn't have done that if we were living back then. Well, they're doing it right now. This was also the only generation that actually killed the Son of God. No other generation has done that. This is a unique time in history. This is a cataclysmic time. in history, and this blood has cried out for long enough, and now God says it will cry out no longer. It will be vindicated. When the Son of God is crucified, things change. We're hitting a hard reset here. Vindication will happen. No other generation, no other city on earth has looked right into the eyes of God himself and then said, you're in league with Satan. What you're doing, Jesus, is evil. You are satanic and we are going to kill you. No one else has been able to do that other than those who were there for Christ's earthly ministry. Now I lost my spot because I got too worked up. So again, in verse 36, Jesus makes it clear that these things are going to pass in this generation, the one whom he is speaking to. That is, the generation to whom Christ is speaking, the generation that's going to kill the Son of Man, is the same generation that is going to see this chalice filled up to the top and then overflow, brimming with the sword of God's wrath. And we've already seen, as we've gone through the Gospel of Matthew and Jesus is preaching, a number of instances in the Gospel that have referenced the significant nature of this generation, that generation that is alive in the time of Jesus Christ. He at one point tells his apostles, you're not going to even finish preaching through Jerusalem until I return. Well, if we understand that to be the second coming in the future, at the end of history, that doesn't make a lot of sense. That he would have told the disciples, you're not even going to get all through Israel before this happens. What we are looking at, I do believe, is a coming of Christ in judgment. Not the bodily second coming, what we've commonly called the second coming at the end of history, where Jesus returns and history is wrapped up. Rather, this is a coming in judgment. This is a temporal judgment on this city that this generation is going to witness. And that means that the fall of Jerusalem is not some minor historical event like the fall of other historical cities. This one marks the end of a world. An entire world system actually comes to an end. when Jerusalem faces her fate. I've given the picture of a mother and daughter. The old covenant gives birth to her daughter. They live together for a generation and then mom goes into the night. or perhaps like a relay race where the next runner starts running and he grabs a baton and he gets up to speed before the old runner drops out. Jesus ratifies the new covenant in his blood and the old system continues to run for a generation and then runs out. And that's why when Jesus goes on to describe this event in more detail in Matthew 24, 21, he calls it a great tribulation such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. It's terrible because we're transitioning from one world into. This has happened many times, even through the Old Testament, where one world passes away, like at the time of Noah, and another world takes its place. It's always cataclysm. It's always serious business. It always comes through pain. It always comes through difficulty. And right as Jesus goes to be crucified, when the mob is calling out in Matthew 27, 25, what do they cry out? They said, His blood be on us and on our children. Sadly for them, Jesus answered that prayer. Yes, correct. It will land on you and on your children. You will be forced to see this catastrophe. So this catastrophe, this destruction, this chalice overflowing in this temporal judgment, is, I do believe, the end of one world and the raising up of a new world. And so in that sense, it's actually more global than the flood. The flood was global. An ascended Christ, if God comes to his creation in the form of a man, and he is murdered, and then resurrected, and then ascends to the right hand of glory, that's more than global. That's cosmic. That is universal. This is bigger, this is more global than the flood. This is catastrophe, this is a world-changing event. And I've mentioned before, but I think we need to see again the significance of this. To this day, the way we count years is based on this truth. We are now in the 2,024th year of our Lord. The entire cosmos changed. We don't live in the same world that John the Baptist did. We don't. This is a different world. We are 2,024 years into this world. Catastrophe marked the falling away of the old one, the old covenant world. And so the agony and the buildup of this is found in Jesus's deep lament. And this is something we're familiar with in verse 37 through 39. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem. the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it. How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing. See, your house is left to you desolate, for I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Because Israel and her history is a type in a shadow, of Jesus Christ, when Jesus says, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, lamenting over God's Son, which is the city, can you not hear King David say, O Absalom, Absalom, why? Why did it have to go this way? Why did you choose this? And now your death is justified. This is correct. You have chosen violence, and now you weep. You will pay for it. But the father weeps over the death of his son. Why did it have to come to this? Absalom, Absalom, Jerusalem, Jerusalem. Why did you keep killing these people? You were supposed to be priests and now you're murderers. And I have to turn the lights off on you. The son in whom so much hope and so much trust was placed has now met the outcome of his violent ways. Jesus is weeping like Jeremiah over this city, rejecting her Savior. Some read in verse 37 a denial of God's electing purposes. That's somehow Matthew 23 verse 37 is a denial of predestination, a denial of election because after all God is trying to gather his children, and they keep overpowering him. So free will does rule in the end. But a careful reading will see that that is not at all the case. Look closely. Jesus says, Jerusalem, as represented by her leaders, Jerusalem, O you scribes and Pharisees, Jerusalem is the one who is not willing. But who does the Son desire to gather? Your children. See, Jerusalem and Jerusalem's children are two different groups. This is not a denial of election. This is saying Jesus is gathering one group and the leaders of that city are against it. The children and the unwilling city are two different groups. And that fits perfectly well with what we've already learned from Jesus in verse 13, that the scribes and Pharisees are shutting the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in." Two different groups. Unwilling religious leaders, and then the lost sheep who are finding their Messiah. The picture actually should give a great comfort in the doctrine of election and of the father, this mother hen gathering her little ones. Again, to pick up the language from Revelation in chapter 8, there's this eagle flying overhead. And what does it say? Whoa, whoa, whoa. You do not want to be around when that bird is flying overhead. And the mother hen sees the storm gathering and she gathers her little ones under her wings. Friends, this is a great comfort in the doctrine of election rather than a denial of it. The hen's little ones are safe under the wings as she gathers them despite very difficult circumstances. And then in verse 38, Jesus walks away. I thought of the George Strait song. Ain't nothing in this house worth fighting over? Just give it away. Give it away. Jesus walks away. He's leaving his dwelling place with man, the temple, and says it's gonna be desolate. There's nothing here for anymore. This is a breakup song. There's nothing here. It's over. Your house is left to you, desolate. And this would have been hard for these people to imagine, because remember, they're standing in front of one of the architectural marvels of all human history. This was the second temple that Ezra rebuilt, and then that Herod made much grander and much more glorious as a favor to the Jewish people. This was a marvel that covered 30 acres. It was beautiful, it was ornate, everything, and it looked indestructible. This is something that could never fall. And Jesus is saying that he's gonna leave it desolate. He's walking away. There's nothing here anymore. This is Shiloh. The glory is departing Israel. God's done. This act is over." And then probably the most terrifying words, he calls it your house. Ouch. Your house. My time here has come. It's over. If you guys don't see what's happening right now, you're not going to see it. And he gives a sharp farewell. And he says, these people are not again going to see the Lord until they are able to say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. And of course, that's from Psalm 118, 26. This is the song that was being sung to Jesus as he entered Jerusalem on Sunday. And in the Greek grammar, this is a emphatic and a conditional statement. I don't usually go into English or into language. I won't too much now either. But in English, if we have a double negative, it cancels itself out, right? Two negatives make it a positive. In Greek, a double negative adds emphasis. And so the word here, until, which is heos an, is an emphatic conditional word in Greek. In other words, you're never, ever going to see this place again until you can say this with me. And in fact, these people are never going to see the Lord again because they never give him that song. They never receive him that way. Some commentators do see a reference here to Romans 11 and to the future salvation of the Jewish people, and I do believe that is what is being taught. I do share that mainstream kind of reformational and Puritan emphasis that the Jewish people will one day be saved in mass as the gospel goes out and converts The nations were clearly nowhere close to that yet. There may be a connection there that these people and their many times great-grandchildren will say this and they will be ushered back in. That is true. But I think the emphasis here is on Jesus walking away, calling at your house, giving his final farewell to these people who are opposing him to his face, to this generation. There's an emphatic negative as he walks away. And so the emphasis here, I do believe, is on the condition and on the departure, even though it's certainly true that this happens in Romans 11. The emphasis here would be something like this, Jesus saying, I'm leaving. And until or unless you people are willing to receive me on my terms, my face will remain turned away from you. And these people, the ones right there, never give him that honor, even if their grandchildren will one day. So this generation is cut off for good, and Matthew Henry commenting on that gives a sobering picture here too, that willful blindness is often punished with judicial blindness. And note this, if they will not see, then they shall not see. That is one of the most terrifying things, is when God says, okay, your will be done. I'm gonna give you more rope to be more like yourselves. Do it your way. That is a devastating punishment from God. And so again, it's important to understand the redemptive history of what's happening here. And yet, in terms of application, in terms of our lives, it's always right to ask ourselves who we are in the story. And if you're like most people, you would prefer to see yourself as one of the good guys in the story. But a more realistic view is to see that in our natural state, we're the bad guy in the story, and that Christ is the hero of all the hero stories in the Bible, whether it's Abel, Noah, Abram, Moses, David, Solomon, Elijah, or Jeremiah. And we are joined to the good guy. We are joined to the hero through faith. And this is why union with Christ and adoption are such powerful and abiding themes in scripture. How do you get to be the good guy in the story? Well, by being joined to him through faith, by being in union with Christ, by being adopted into God's family. That's how you get to be the good guy. Not because of you, but because you are joined. You're in union with the hero of the story. And, even if I do believe a contextual reading is saying that this is the Great Tribulation, this is the catastrophic event in history, does that mean that there's nothing that echoes after the fact? No, not at all. Tribulation echoes all through history, reminders of what has been and also a hint of future glory when Christ does return finally and fully and bodily at his second coming. So the new heavens, the new earth, the new covenant has already been inaugurated, but it has not yet been consummated. So in terms of wedding language, we're somewhere between the wedding ceremony and the honeymoon. That's where we are in church history. We're in an already and a not yet. Already the new heaven and earth is here, and yet not quite all the way. We're in that in-between time as we already taste the new creation, but we're not all the way home. The Puritan Thomas Goodwin talks about this shift. He says, the new heavens and the new earth are the kingdom of Christ, established in righteousness and peace, which now begins in part and shall be perfected in glory. And another Puritan, Stephen Charnock, agreeing with him, the promise of new heavens and a new earth speaks to the renovation of the church, a work begun in Christ and consummated in eternity. So it's here. And yes, it's future. Those are both true. And we see the way Jesus frames us in his own time. This shift in authority, this shift in cosmic governance. And so today's text must force us into an ultimate reverence and submission to God's instructions to his people, lest we as the Christian church be guilty of the very same sin that these rulers of Jerusalem were. The mission of the Christian church is a mission that is guarded by Jesus Christ himself. We don't have authority to go on our own program. We're still under the lordship of Jesus Christ. And for those who do not obey, God is still in the business of removing his lampstand, of turning his face against the proud, of turning his face against the complacent, of removing his presence from lukewarm houses that have his name on the sign but they do not have him inside. And so the echo of Jerusalem teaches us still. As Christians, we must gather and worship and preach and observe the sacraments and bring the gospel to those who so desperately need to hear it until the King returns, until the wedding feast is consummated. And the church cannot force or bring about by our own efforts this future glory, but we can and must act consistently with its aims and with the trajectory of history that Christ has set in motion until we can see visibly that the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. And doesn't that bring us right into Advent? Yeah, this is a Christmas message. Couldn't you tell? Advent reminds us that even as we await the final consummation, we already taste it. We're already living in the new heavens and the new earth in a very real sense. The governance of the cosmos has already catastrophically been disarming the rulers and the authorities and Satan and in the past and given to Jesus. The God-man has come and everything is different on this side of his advent. Isaiah 9, 6 and 7 says, for unto us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. And notice, once this son comes, once this little boy, once the seed of the woman arrives, notice how Isaiah himself sees a change in the trajectory of history, of the increase his government. Of the increase. This isn't some static thing or we're just going from bad to worse. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end. On the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. We also sing another song this time of year that reminds us of the significance of Jesus coming, of establishing the new covenant of his blood and answering and vindicating all the sin, all the corruption that has accumulated. No more let sins and sorrows grow. nor thorns infest the ground. He comes to make his blessings flow as far as the curse is found. The blood of Jesus answers everything that has gone up to that time and everything that happens after that time. There is no other way out. We cannot manage this. It must be the blood of Jesus. It must be the gospel and nothing else that ultimately answers the question of evil. Let's pray. Father God, even as we confront terrible accounts in your word of your anger finally reaching its boiling point and spilling over, yet, Lord, we know that it really is not awful. If you do it, Lord, it is good. And I pray that we would see that no matter what you do, it is good. You are vindicating your holy character. Lord, and as we look this time of year at Advent and the significance of your son coming, and we see the remnants of the old world being vindicated at the end of his ministry in today's passage, Lord, I pray that you would give us eyes to see, eyes to press in to your kingdom. into the promises in the new covenant, into the promises that were ratified and made certain with the blood of Jesus. Lord, and I pray that we would fight sin in our lives, that we would build households, that we would build a church that is consistent with the mission that your son has set out. Lord, forgive us when we want to take over. Forgive us when we want to do things our way. Forgive us when we're proud and self-sufficient. Lord, forgive us when we are like these Pharisees and these hypocrites. Create in all of us a humble heart, a soft heart, a heart that is willing to see that on our own we are no better than anyone else, but we humbly receive your blood. to be cleansed, and then to live according to your wishes, Lord. I pray that for each one here, and I pray that for us as a church, for our families, and as far as we see the curse in our lives, Lord, that we would have understanding that we have a gospel that answers all that sin, all that corruption, and that our sufficiency would be in you. Amen. Please stand. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins. And sinners plunged beneath that blood lose all their hope. And sinner's blood beneath that flood Lose all their guilty stains Dying thief, rejoice to see that fountain in his grave. And there may I, though vile as he, wash all my sins away. Wash all my sins away. Wash all my sins away. And there may I, though vile as he, wash all my sins away. ♪ Dear dying Lamb, thy precious blood ♪ ♪ Shall never lose its power ♪ ♪ Till all the sons of God ♪ ♪ Be saved to sin no more ♪ Be safe to say no more. Be safe to say no more. The ransomed church, oh God, is safe to sin no more. Here sits bathed, thy son, the spring, thy flower. And shall be till I die And shall be till I die And shall be till I die And shall be till I die And shall be till I die Do you want to share in the blood of the prophets? Do you want their blood coursing through your veins and spilling out in self-sacrifice? Every man, woman, and child must somehow partake in this martyr's blood, either as the sons of the prophets or as the sons of their murderers. We will be implicated in the blood of the prophets one way or another. We either join as sons whose fathers shed the blood of the prophets or we become sons of the prophets themselves, but it is blood either way. The one path continues to lead to destruction as it always has. And the other leads to both present and future glory as we enjoy union with the one who has the final word, who filled the fountain with his blood, that all who partake lose all their guilty stains. And I'll leave you with Moses' benediction from Numbers 6. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.